Two young men decided to go visit a “Baba” in their quest to make money. They were both in their middle ages and they were dead sick of being poor. Both of them had struggled on various vocations, they have faced shame in family meetings, and pressures from their wives. The last straw that broke the camel’s back in their frustrated desire to get wealthy was the sudden realization that they were old enough to die. Their third person in their triad unannouncedly passed away, and it struck them, that life is short.
They decided to brave the option of making money by consulting a traditionalist, and decided to seek the counsel and craft of “Baba”. When they got to Baba, baba gave them a string of cowries to utter their desires to. The environment was filled with all sorts of artifacts that are typical of Ifa priests. They uttered their desires silently and returned the cowries to Baba. Baba then went ahead to consult the oracles on their plight. He takes his “Opele” (Opele is a string of split big seeds with a face and a back, this represent a binary code with about 65536 verses) in his hands, chants the prayer to Ifa that helps him to see meaning and interpretation from his craft. He chants while moving the Opele back and forth and throws it in front of him. As soon as he throws, he moves touches the seed, looking for the leader seed, trying to see where the binary code starts. He does a quick binary conversion and identifies the verse, he sighs – “Ifa mo roye, ela loro” – Ifa, I understand, it is clear!
Baba recites what he sees, and tells them why they have come. “You have come because of shame, you have come because of pressures, you have come, because you are tired of being poor.” – Baba tells them, as they both nod involuntarily. If Baba can decipher their quest, then he should have a solution. Baba tells them that he is interested in helping them, but first, asks if they are really ready to get wealth. They say they are ready, but he asks again. He asks them if they are willing to do anything to get wealth, at this point, one still retains his motivation, while the other becomes a part of the background to the discussions, nodding sluggishly. Baba then goes ahead to tell them what they would need to do. They would need to capture and have sex with two notorious mad women in their town! One decided to go with it, and the other backed down.
Have you ever heard about these kind of thing? Have you ever watched any movie that had this type of twist? Have you ever wondered why the Baba’s usually require something a bit difficult from their clients to prove their desire? Have you ever wondered why the Baba’s themselves live in mud houses, yet show people a part to wealth? Well it’s simple, if any man desires wealth enough to sleep with Mad women, he doesn’t need a Baba to get wealthy, he just needs a Baba to get enslaved. The reason the Baba only shows the way, is because he’s not desirous of wealth enough. He is not willing to do half of what he recommends. Whatever a man (this means man and woman) truly desires, he’ll have. We can have and do anything in this life that we want, if we desire is strongly enough. I have a question I want to ask you today, and it’s like the question of that Baba – Are you really ready for what you claim you are ready for, can you do anything?
Maybe you have a bad habit that you want to stop, do you really desire to stop? Maybe you have an idea you want to pursue, are you really ready to pursue it? Maybe there is something you want to do that requires a bold step, are you really ready to make that move? Are you willing to do anything ethical to get it done? If your answer is yes, then I have a solution for you, that works for me and has worked for everyone I know practices it. It’s a solution that is capable of multiplying your resolve and turbo charging your motivation. I call it, an oath of confirmation!
I once listened to a man I respect, Bishop David Oyedepo preach a message I can’t remember the title of. I was 19 then, and had resolved to live a righteous life. In this particular message he talked about what he considered the number 1 vice that destroyed men – Illicit Sex! He spoke passionately about how he believed the same thing had potentials of stopping him, and he shared his secret. He quoted a passage of the bible then – Hebrews 6:16,17 – “For men verily swear by the greater: and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife. wherein god, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath: That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us:…” There is a lot in this passage, but let me highlight the key elements relating to this issue. When men swear to an oath, it’s a way to settle an argument or a struggle. Only a mad man will swear an oath and go ahead to break it. Even God swore an oath to Abraham to strengthen Abraham’s consolation. We make vows, or oaths, when we are serious about what we want! His secret was he had made an oath to God, that on the day he as much as touches a woman that is not his wife, that may he become leprous. I’m certain he swore to a lot more than he made public, but bottom line was that his fear of God in staying off adultery was bolstered with an oath! That same day, I decided to tie my life with an oath, and have only renewed it since then.
How do I bolster my fear of God or motivation to achieve with an oath? Let me share some ideas with you. Can you imagine yourself offering a prayer like this to God? “Father, I come before you today, and consecrate my life to you, I know you are my God, my king and father. Today, I decide to be chaste, I promise that by your grace, I will never have sex or share sexual intimacy with any woman that is not legally my wife. On the day I engage in such, may my prayers cease to be heard by you. May I cry for help in vain, may your favour that is so evident on my life be taken away, and may I watch my children die, and may I die an embarrassing death. In exchange for my consecration to you, I ask that as long as I stay bound by this oath, may doors open to me, may heaven pay attention to my every call, may God’s favor and grace be visible upon my life.” If you have a vow like that on your life – You will never commit fornication or adultery. If you do, it will because you clearly don’t give a damn about your life!
I did a little survey and asked some young men how many of them will go ahead to sleep with a lady that owns up to them just after foreplay that she has HIV/AIDS? So far, none has agreed to go ahead, even when they could protect themselves. It’s the same thing that happens when there is an oath hanging over your head, before you break it, a lot of things will have to happen. Many will profess to fear God, but you will know experientially what the fear of God means. A friend of mine once shared his story with me, of a time when he was lured by a female friend into a process that was meant to end as sex. He was visibly cooperating already, and his body wanted to go further. All of a sudden, he grabs the lady’s hands and shouts… “Do you want me to run mad?”, “Please let me go!” He had made a vow to God that on the day he has sex with a lady he is not married to, may he run mad! He ran, and knew it was a close shave with madness. Desperate situations require desperate measures! Anything that can ruin a man’s life that he engages in, must be subjected to desperate solutions. I know a few people who also have this vow, I am yet to hear of any of them fall into the temptation that is really common to man!
In case you are wondering is this applicable to only sex? NO! It’s applicable to any value, character, moral or virtue that you know you ought to keep. It can even be used in business. It’s called burning your ships. Putting yourself in a frame in which failure is not an option. It’s yanking out your reverse gear and heading forward ever. It’s not just for guys… ladies too. It’s still noble to be a virgin! It’s still right to be chaste! Not sleeping around is not being novice or inexperienced, it’s being wise and righteous. Society is standing on it’s head, yet we wonder why things are not going right. Chose to live by right values and burn your ships. Go and check out successful people, they move forward mostly because the back gears have been burnt. If you are struggling with any area, it’s because you are not ready to stop struggling. It’s because you don’t want to stop badly enough. I started making progress in business when I made up my mind and told God, that I was willing to succeed or to die trying (legitimately though). What the oath of confirmation does to you, is end your struggle. When a matter becomes life and death, you are likely to chose life! You might want to start small and grow it as you grow, but it’s a sure recipe for super motivation. The reverse have been used to instigate negative peer pressure – young guys telling each other, “if you don’t sleep with that girl in 7 days, your parents will die” – what do you expect the boy will do? We can use vows and oaths to ensure adherence to what we know is important. Looking at it properly, whether the oaths are there or not, disobeying God’s commandments come with curses, offering an oath is just sounding it loud enough for oneself to hear it.
This is strictly for the mature and the serious. If you want to keep deceiving yourself, let this fly. For me it’s been 12years. in 6 of which I was in a relationship and 5 of which I’ve been married and it’s working. Not only in my sexuality, in all aspects of my life where I am dead serious!
