This is going to be a long one today. Brace yourself for it and do stay with me for this ride, ok? This is a topic I had talked about last year on my radio show 'WURD UP' but after a recent conversation with a colleague of mine, I felt it was important to share it here.
Where you are matters. Your physical location matters. It plays a vital role in your growth, evolution & fulfilment. You can’t grow bananas in Alaska but you can definitely grow them in Jamaica. What’s the point? Simply this: sometimes you need to change your location in order to succeed in what God has called you to do. Some people will ‘never’ make it in life simply because of where they are and their refusal to move...simple!
Stay with me ‘cos I am getting somewhere.
Look at the life of Elijah. “The Word of the Lord came to him saying, ‘Get away from here and turn eastwards, and hide by the Brook Cherith, which flows into the Jordan. And it will be that you shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there” (1 Kings 17:2-4) Ravens normally don’t deliver food, they eat it. But when you do what God tells you and go where he sends you, you immediately move from the natural realm to the supernatural one. God not only has a ‘plan’ for your life, He has a ‘place’ for it. Now I am not trying to go all spiritual on you here but it is a fact. God has a PLACE for you where the PLAN will take effect and come into existence. Let’s get real for a minute. If Elijah has stayed where he was, he would have either been killed or starved to death. The Birds would not have come to him in a populated place.
Some people have to change their location, address, city, state or even country before that change can come to them. Some people experience a fraction of what God has in store for them and they start feeling like big boys in the hood and refuse the instruction from God to leave that location. Such people end up back at square one because the energy around them drains what God is doing in their lives. You need to be in that ‘place appointed’ for some serious things to happen to you! You need to leave that comfort zone and go to a different place where God has prepared amazing things for you. He may not show you the whole picture but when you truly love and seek God, He will tell you when to move. Don’t for a minute think that you will always hear a voice talking to you. Nah!! It doesn’t always happen that way. God can speak to you through a random bill board on the street, a simple conversation with a friend, a news paper article, a blog post, even from seeing a movie and the words somebody says will resonate in your heart and trigger thoughts that you know could never be yours! Don’t fight it. Pray and see what God will do.
Are you still with me? Great!
Right now, some of you are thinking that I'm asking you to start looking for visas to run out of Africa to Europe or America. If that is not God’s plan for you, your frustrations will continue or increase wherever you go. Some people need to leave the bright lights of New York City and move to the heat of Burundi to find the purpose, joy, success and fulfillment that God has planned for them. If you have the tools to turn sand into water, will you market that to the people in Miami? No, you will head straight to the Sahara Desert. You may have to leave your comfort zone of the air-conditioned house in Cape-Town to the scorching heat in Maiduguri for your fulfillment to come.
A while back, I was criticized for leaving Lagos and moving to Abuja. People made up different reasons in the media why I left Lagos for Abuja. Reading some of the articles and comments made me laugh but I knew it was a divine move. Within one year of living in Abuja, I achieved more than I had in the 10 years prior to my relocation. This was a move I had prayed for in my heart over the years but never did it, but God allowed everything around me to fall apart so I could do what He wanted me to do. Sometimes when I think of the thousands of people I influenced in Abuja with the work we did there, my heart leaps for joy because it could never have happened if I had stayed in my comfort zone in Lagos. One of such people is my brother Moses Akoh who, through the grace of God, was nurtured by the work we were doing musically. He also got to the point where his location had to change for God's glory to be made manifest. He had to move to the Philippines for a season. It seemed like a crazy idea but that was where God manifested His Glory in Moses' life. He went and conquered that territory for Jesus with his music. You should listen to his song ESE BABA here then you can fully understand.
That action and a series of events that followed because my location changed, have led me to where I am today and words alone cannot express the monumental things God has helped me achieve across five continents in the last five years. I’ve had friends visit me in the United States with dropped jaws at what God is doing. If you’re not in the ‘place- appointed’, things may never happen how you expect it to. Hold on. Don’t think for a minute that it was as smooth as a hot knife through butter. No way! I had my moments of doubt, false victories and crossroads of compromise. But God made people available in those places and moments of doubt. People who picked me up, encouraged me, strengthened me and even rescued me emotionally and financially at some point. Yes. You think I’ve always had a million dollars stashed in one account somewhere waiting for a rainy day? Think again.
Do you feel a tug in your heart that you have stayed where you are for too long and need to move to a place appointed? It could be your house, city, job, state, country, even the places you hang out and the friends you roll with. Seek God’s face and don’t hesitate. Yes you must have the right strategy, but you must also be in the right spot. “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go” (Isaiah 48:17). If your heart’s desire is to honor God in all things, he will show you the best location to succeed in. Indeed, He will go ahead of you and rearrange circumstances to your advantage. He did it for Abraham. “By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going” (Hebrew 11:8). Ask God and He will show you where to go.