July, 2026 - Oludare Akinbo

Waiting Rooms Are Sacred Ground

Abram was seventy-five when God promised to make him a great nation (Genesis 12:4). Isaac, the son that promise depended on, was born when Abraham was a hundred (Genesis 21:5). He waited twenty-five years.

Boundaries Are Biblical Too

“Everyone is looking for You.” That was what Simon and the others said when they finally found Jesus praying alone before dawn, after a day in which the whole town had gathered at His door. Most of us, hearing those words, would have hurried straight back to the crowd.

When God Uses the Reluctant

When God told Jonah to go and preach to Nineveh, Jonah went down to the port, found a ship heading the opposite way and paid his fare.

Why God Doesn’t Always Explain Himself

“Oh, that I knew where I might find Him, that I might come to His seat! I would present my case before Him, and fill my mouth with arguments” (Job 23:3-4, NKJV). Job had lost his children, his wealth and his health, and he wanted a hearing with God to ask why.

The Danger of Answered Prayer

In the wilderness, Israel ate bread from heaven every morning. Before long, they grew tired of it.

Named Before You Were Formed

At a naming ceremony in many Nigerian homes, the elders gather with honey, salt, kola nut, alligator pepper and sugar cane, sometimes with palm oil and water, and touch each one briefly to the baby’s lips while speaking a prayer over the child. May your life be as sweet as this honey. May you add flavour wherever you go, like this salt. May you endure bitterness without losing your character, like this pepper.

The Village Raises the Child — So Who’s Raising the Village?

We have all heard the proverb so often that it has nearly lost its weight: it takes a village to raise a child. Many African children grew up inside that truth without anyone needing to explain it. An uncle corrected you in the market, a neighbour fed you before your mother came home from work, and an elder disciplined you as freely as your own parents would.

The Danger of a Comfortable Faith

You may know the feeling. Church has become routine. The songs are familiar, the seat is yours, the sermon rarely surprises you, and at some point believing in God stopped costing you anything.

Wounded Healers: Ministering Out of Your Own Scars

Someone sits across from you, falling apart in the very place you once fell apart: the same grief, the same betrayal or the same diagnosis. As you listen, you find you are not comforting them from a textbook. You know this road because you walked it yourself, limping, and came out on the other side still holding on to God.

The Cost of Staying Soft-Hearted

Someone hurts you, not by accident, or close enough to deliberate that the difference hardly matters, and a voice inside you suggests a trade. Harden a little, it says, and you will never be caught off guard like this again. Keep people at arm’s length and protect the tender places. In that moment it sounds like wisdom, even like growing up.