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On this occasion, I was in a taxi commuting from a neighbouring town back to base. This was at a time when I was still in the first year of senior secondary school.
But there was an injustice that was rampant in my area at the time. It was Police oppression. Because it is a rural area and most people were illiterates, Policemen were like kings. When they board a taxi, they won’t pay for the fare. The taxi man will only be grumbling under his nose after the Policeman must have alighted and moved a safe distance.
When they stop a bike on the road, even before finding out whether he has his particulars, the first thing they do is remove his ignition key. Then they’ll go and sit under their shed. The poor fellow will then be forced to do whatever was their bidding even if his papers were complete.
Everyone in town seemed to fear them. But I disliked them with passion because of the injustice they perpetrated. Anytime I witnessed such injustice, there was always a special anger rising up inside of me about it. I would wish I could come down and fight for that fellow and if possible for the ground to open up and swallow those corrupt officers. But what can a fifteen year old boy do to assist anyone?
So on this occasion, a Policeman had extorted the driver of my taxi. As we drove away, I was so indignant and I spoke out against the extortion. Unknown to me, the man sitting right beside me in the taxi was a Police Officer himself who also leads a team of extortioners.
He was so irritated by my vituperations that he landed on my cheek a very harsh slap and threatened to hand me over to the team I was abusing so they can “teach me a lesson.”
But of course that couldn’t deter me. Before he alighted from the taxi, in defiance to his earlier assaut, I spoke against public service corruption one more time. This time, he just gave me a stern look and looked the other way.
The issue of hatred against injustice couldn’t have been uprooted in me just by an assault from a Policeman. Even the risk of expulsion throughout my university education and at the Law School could not uproot it. It is my HOLY DISSATISFACTION.
It had nothing to do with my background. My Parents were never activists. They were Pastors who believed in not looking for trouble. And I wasn’t influenced in that direction by a teacher or any mentor at a young age. So how did I develop just attribute? It was God who put it there so that I can easily recognise an important aspect of my purpose.
Your holy dissatisfaction is that problem; that group of people in some kind of injustice or bondage; that social issue; that whenever you come in contact with it, there is a special anger inside of you against that problem; a special compassion for that group of people; and a desire if possible to be able to solve that problem or help that group of people immediately.
What you notice is that other people see that same problem – they may even be your close friends – but they are never worried about it like you are. And you’re often surprised why they are not bordered so much. It is because it is not their own calling to solve the problem but yours.
It is only someone who is worried enough about a problem that can tarry enough to hold God’s hands in prayer and positive actions until the problem is solved.
I believe Nehemiah was not the first person to hear about the destitution of Jerusalem. Others may have heard it and just said, “eeyah, God will help us in this our country at His own time.” After saying that, they simply continued eating their Semovita and Okro soup. But someone else heard about the same problem and could no longer eat or sleep until He did something about it.
The difference is that inside Nehemiah was always a holy dissatisfaction for the oppression and destitution of Israel. That seed had always been in him. That’s the reason his response was different. It was His calling.
After the voice of the Holy Spirit, your holy dissatisfaction is one of the other very reliable signals about your life’s calling. God is always the one who puts those seed of dissatisfaction there. This is because (as I will show you from the Bible next week) such holy dissatisfaction produces a deep compassion inside of you for the victims of the problem you hate.
And compassion is an indispensable ingredient for any ministry God will give any man. Whenever God wants to give anyone a ministry (assignment) to solve a problem, He must first give you a deep heart of compassion for the victims of that problem. It’s a spiritual law and I’ll show you next week.
For now, all I want you to begin to check is, “what is my holy dissatisfaction? What problem have I been called to solve?” Do a deep soul search. What problem in society, in the church or my community affects me so deeply that I am always unable to look the other way?
Sometimes such a holy dissatisfaction comes as product of your own personal experience of pain. You came out of a broken home and then knowing what you had to go through, you developed a special anger for abusive relationships and a special compassion to rescue children who will be raised in broken homes if you don’t begin a ministry to prevent those homes from ever starting!!!
This is what we mean when we say your pain can be an ingredient for your purpose. Sometimes, only someone who came from a broken home can speak the language a broken home will understand!!!
As you do this soul search, and trust the Lord prayerfully to speak to you about your holy dissatisfaction; when you discover it, you would have come closer to a full understanding of what God sent you to do here.
May your hearts be flooded with light in this season of discovery in Jesus name.
Your brother,
Peniela Eniayo, Akintujoye.
©Peniela Eniayo, Akintujoye
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