For me, the next best thing to being physically present at the Lagos edition of UpperRoom on Friday, was being an undistracted and fully immersed virtual attendee. Having sorted out all ‘stakeholders’ at home and resolved all possible interruptions and hitches, I settled in my favourite corner of my bedroom with my laptop and arrived on YouTube, long before the livestream began. The plan was simple, I was going to have an “Upper Room & Chill” kinda morning and just enjoy my life in His presence. I’m thankful to God for the beautiful architecture of this current season of my life that gives me room to accommodate these things that make my Spirit sing for joy and truly cause my soul to prosper.

The worship meeting started and my entire experience from start to finish was an answered prayer; I responded with reckless abandon, caring only for the precious exchange between my maker and I. The atmosphere was electric, fully charged with the finest worship, prayers and spontaneous interjections of exhortations and word expositions; all carefully interwoven and skillfully delivered with the aim of redirecting the gaze of everyone to the Sovereign God.

As the meeting was rounding off, we moved into a session of testimonies; this is the part when people like me typically forget our manners and just lose every form of decorum. Personally, I find that testimonies inspire me with the ability to trust God for any and everything, so I always listen with rapt attention. You will hear testimonies and faith stories like this ehn, your dreadlocks (or wig, as the case may be) will scatter involuntarily. Minister Dunsin doesn’t even help matters with the way he layers each faith report with an apt song of adulation to God. Omo, if you still had your shoes on or Ruby woo lipstick in place all along, this is the point where you will “scatter” as you erupt in shouts of praise or just dance undignified before the maker. 

After listening to diverse testimonies of restoration, deliverance and healings, A lady who was on crutches came to testify about how God had helped and kept her so far, since she survived an accident about 7 months prior to that time. Something about her story just marked my heart in a very different way. She started by saying how she hesitated to give her testimony, because she felt the perfect time to do so would be when she is fully recovered and has dropped her crutches. God corrected her on this and encouraged her to publicly declare His goodness to her since the accident.

I listened to her story intently and was moved as she spoke. I loved her courage, I loved her faith, I loved her joy, I loved her convictions – she certainly knew that she would drop her crutches some day. As she spoke, the empathetic side of me came alive and I got somewhat distracted by thoughts of the possibility of the excruciating pain she was going through as she stood on stage to share her testimony. I thought so much about her ‘discomfort’ that I desperately wanted her to round off so she could get back to her seat and rest her legs. 

Clearly, we were not on the same frequency on this pain-matter because she even got to a point in relaying her testimony when she dropped the crutches and lay on the floor to physically demonstrate a dimension of healing that she had received. When she got off the floor, a part of me unconsciously waited for her to be handed her crutches back, so she could head back to her seat and rest her aching legs. This didn’t happen. Instead, Minister Dunsin Oyekan asked that the congregation stretch forth their hands towards her and pray for her. After prayers,  he looked at her, offered her his hands and said to her ‘Take a walk with me’. Honestly, my heart almost fell out. “Sir, she has been on her feet long enough, please let her go and rest, abeg.” I thought to myself.

They began to walk hand in hand from one end of the stage to the other, singing and praying as they journeyed. With each step they took, my heart skipped a beat. She didn’t fall, she didn’t break down; slowly and surely, with one foot in front of the other, she made her way across the stage. Ordinarily, she would have been tired after taking a few steps, but here she was, pushing beyond her limits and just gliding in strength. I believe that with each step she took without her crutches, she was publicly affirming her faith in God and the endless possibilities that exist in Him.

In that moment, I realised that my empathy for her had pushed me into a framework of survival and magnification of her pain that didn’t make it possible for me to take sides with God to insist on her portion of complete healing and wholeness in Him. Gosh! I felt ‘caught and exposed’. Like, wait a minute, Funmz! You believe that God can make her drop her crutches forever, but you just don’t think it can be NOW? Wow!

What I experienced as a result of listening to and watching the testimony unfold was a mental miracle; God showing me limiting mindsets and postures that I hold unconsciously that are unhealthy. I received an invitation into larger spaces in God where all things are possible and my mind can accommodate God-sized possibilities, so that I don’t stand in my own way.  The line is drawn and I am reclaiming the territories of my mind where unbelief and small-stinky thinking had taken up residence. 

Layering further on that, Minister Dunsin’s invitation to the lady seemed like an echo of God’s desires for us in 2024 and beyond; to “Take a walk with Him”. God is inviting us to release our crutches – whatever systems we have built or relied on to get by – and really just take His hands and walk with Him. He wants us to come with the pain, come with the limp, come with the questions, come with the brokenness, the emptiness, the fatigue, the confusion, the betrayals, the disappointments.

Come with the anger, come with the struggles, come with the little foxes, come with the addictions. Come in whatever shape or colour. Come with the tears, come with the achievements , come with the bleak economic outlook. Come with the health scare, the negative reports, the lumps, the drama. Come as an accomplished professional, a mature single, a discouraged graduate, a ministry gift, a budding entrepreneur, a tired mum, a struggling student, an aspiring change agent. Don’t overthink it, just come on in.

Come with a firm resolve to put your crutches away and never pick them up again once you lock your hands in His. This possibility exists, and can be our reality if we truly believe; to appear before Him and still insist on leaving with the crutches we came with is a direct result of an absolute ignorance of who He is or a gross undermining of the truth we claim to know about Him.

Come, fully persuaded that HE IS, and that He is a Rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. Come into the security of a love story that transcends the foundations of the world and runs into an ageless eternity.

Leave all the excuses and just come on in. May 2024 be the year we say YES to the Lord, on every front. Amen!