Get Salted! Becoming a Big FAT Zero

First of all, if you are a woman and you do not have a subscription for Effectual magazine, I really really feel for you. After accepting Christ as your Lord and Saviour, I count this decision up there with the top five vital decisions of your life. No joke.I like many women’s magazines but I love this one. I love it because though I have only read two, I can tell you now for free or maybe for a small fee that each article and I mean each one has blessed me. Tremendously. For instance it was something I read in my latest edition that triggered this blog – A Big Fat Zero. That has become my life’s ambition. My goal, my life’s objective – to become a big fat zero. Yes, I know it goes against what the world dictates with its ‘zero to hero’ magana but I just want to decrease more and more every day until I become a big fat zero so that Jesus Christ can become number 1 in me. Get it now?

 At the beginning of 2012 I made a decision to retreat into a quieter space. So much, good and not so good, was going on around me. The noise was choking me. From then till now, I have heard many, many things from God and I have wept many, many tears as it dawned on me how far I was from where I ought to be. And without boring you with the details, let me share with you in three simple words what he has been telling me –

Die some more.

The world is enticing you to ”become”. Trust me, it only wants you to ”become” so it can destroy you. God is asking us to stay with him, to play the background and let him take the lead so that when you become, you will become by his hand. Not the world’s. And when you become by God’s hand, you endure. So please, don’t strive to be number 1 in anything until you have become a big fat zero spiritually.

At the beginning of 2012 I made a decision to retreat into a quieter space. So much, good and not so good, was going on around me. The noise was choking me. From then till now, I have heard many, many things from God and I have wept many, many tears as it dawned on me how far I was from where I ought to be. And without boring you with the details, let me share with you in three simple words what he has been telling me – Die some more. The world is enticing you to ”become”. Trust me, it only wants you to ”become” so it can destroy you. God is asking us to stay with him, to play the background and let him take the lead so that when you become, you will become by his hand. Not the world’s. And when you become by God’s hand, you endure. So please, don’t strive to be number 1 in anything until you have become a big fat zero spiritually.

Simply put, God means, I believe, that we should stop trying to be anything by the world’s standards. We, at least, I need to concentrate on decreasing so that Christ can increase in me. I need to focus more on staying crucified so that the life that I live is really just Christ living in and through me. I need to move closer and closer to the zero marker in my daily life and as I do that, the closer I get, I am confident that God will ensure that I fulfill my destiny just like Christ did his. The less of us there is, the surer we are, filled with God’s spirit, of making it to that number 1 position we so desire. But to get to the top, we have to release our lives to God and become big fat zeroes first.

Thank you Bidemi Mark-Mordi .Thank you Audrey Joe-Ezigbo. Thank you Effectual Magazine for putting a theme to the season I have been in since early 2012. A season of becoming a big fat zero. A season that I believe I shall be in for the rest of my life.

A season I invite you, dear reader, to enter into as I honestly believe it will usher you into your new thing. Remember what they say about wise and foolish people. The foolish person learns from his own mistakes while the wise learns from the mistakes of others. Learn from me. Be wise.

Bola Essien-Nelson (aka Salt) is a blogger/author based in Lagos, Nigeria. You can connect with her via her blog – The Salt Chronicles on Blogger where she is ‘seasoning’ the world around her one salt blog at a time.