Permissive Will: Dangerous Prayer

By Tim Oluminu

As Christians when we are faced with challenges of life, we have two options or approaches to discuss the issue with God in prayer.

First, we can pray that The Will of God be done on the issue. What we are saying by this is that we accept Gods decision on the issue whether it favour us or not. However, friends this is not an easy prayer to pray because most often deeply within we are afraid Gods will may be totally different from ours or that His will may not be what we would like.

To pray that Gods Will be done over an issue requires a strong faith in the Lord and trust that God has our interest at heart and that He will never do anything inimical to our interest.

For example, a couple waiting on God for the fruit of the womb might find it difficult to pray this kind of prayer of absolute surrender to divine will. This is may be because, deep within them, they would want children and they may be afraid that, should they ask God to do His will in the matter, they will not want Him to declare to them that His will is that they should not have children in life.

After all, Psalm 127: 3 says that, Sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from him, hence, the person that is giving out the reward [God] has the prerogative of deciding who He will like to give the reward to. Moreover, the couple may find it difficult to entrust God with this decision because they do not know:

1. the criteria He uses to determine those he will give children to
2. whether they are qualified for the reward or not
3. if He will decide to reward them with another gift that is different from what they desire.

I remember that my wife and I had to face this struggle too when we wanted to pray the prayer of surrender over a major challenge in our marital life.

We had been married for about 14 years and were still waiting for Gods gift of the fruit of the womb. Because my wife and I were nearing the age of 50, we were advised to use donor materials in one of our medical consultations.

In as much as we did not have anything against couples who prefer this option to solve their barrenness, however, it became a struggle for us. The reason being that as deliverance minister, over the years, God had used me to build the faith of and counsel many couples who were having challenges in the area of child-bearing.

They had patiently waited and God had answered them. Hence, if we took the medical option, who then would we say gave us the children when we are sharing the testimony?

Would we say it is God or science? If we explain to these people that the donated sperm of another man was used to fertilize the egg from my wife or that my sperm was used to fertilize the egg from another woman after which the fertilize egg was transplanted into my wifes womb, would that not send a wrong signal?

In addition to the above, we remembered the various promises and messages of God to us through many of His servants [You can read our testimony on this in our book Faithful Waiters] that He will give us our own biological children that will carry on our name as many as we wanted.

We also remembered that when father Abraham tried to help God to fulfill His promise by listening to the counsel of his wife Sarah to go unto their slave girl, Hagar [see Gen. 16], the whole arrangement backfired [Gen. 21] and God even did not allow His promise to Abraham to be fulfilled through the son Ishmael that was born to him by Hagar[Gen. 21: 12].

In fact, the Bible refers to Ishmael as a product of the flesh [Rom. 9: 8, Gal. 4: 22 - 25]. Consequently, we were faced with the choice of either having to wait for the physical manifestation of Gods promised to us at a time we did not know, or used the donor materials.

We eventually decided to wait for God and accepted His will for us. Friends, it took every inch of faith in us to do this especially when it came to the point when we were the only ones within

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: May 17, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469198811

Tim Oluminu

Pastor Tim Oluminu is the Pastor of Ambassador Baptist Church [a member of Union Baptistas of Mozambique], Maputo, Mozambique. He holds MBA Degree in Marketing from Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomosho, Oyo state Nigeria. He was called into the deliverance ministry through the ministry of Rev. (Dr.) & Rev Mrs. G. F. Oyor of God-Will-Do It Ministries Inc., Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. Prior to his call, Tim worked in the banking industry for 13 years before retiring as a manager in 2005 and then went into private business. He established a Table Water producing company in Abuja, the Federal Capital of Nigeria, and a marketing/sales outlet dealing in office/household electronics  and appliances in Nigeria. Pastor Oluminu is currently studying for Masters Degree in Divinity [M.Div.] at The Baptist Theological Seminary, Kaduna, Nigeria.  Some of Tim’s other publications are “Permissive Will: Dangerous Prayer” and “Not A Child By Any Means – The Secret Pains of Infertility.” He is married to his lovely wife, Taiwo Oluminu.

Book preview

PERMISSIVE WILL:

Dangerous Prayer

Tim Oluminu

Copyright © 2012 by Tim Oluminu.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The views that were expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Unless otherwise indicated, all quoted scriptures are from the New International Version [NIV] and King James Version [KJV] of the Bible.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

0-800-644-6988

www.Xlibrispublishing.co.uk

[e-mail]

303695

CONTENTS

DEDICATION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

BACKGROUND

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

REFERENCES

SUGGESTED BOOKS FOR

FURTHER READING

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

For the Lord your God is

a merciful God;

He will not abandon or

destroy you

or forget the covenant

with your forefathers,

which He confirmed

to them by oath.

–Deuteronomy 4:31

DEDICATION

This book, Permissive Will: Dangerous Prayer,

is dedicated to my lovely wife,

Taiwo Folasade OLUMINU

I appreciate your support, faith and perseverance in our resolute to accept the Will of God in our union. Be assured that though weeping may tarry for the night BUT joy cometh in the morning.

And to all who prefer to accept the Will Of God in their situation rather than going the way of the world to find solutions to their challenges.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I give all the glory to God Almighty for calling me into the ministry and for giving the inspiration to put the thoughts expressed in this book together. Daddy I thank you for being my strength and the fortress of my salvation.

My appreciation also goes to my editor, Pastor Philip Oluwole Ukanah and his team for the editorial and graphic works that make this book what it is today. May God continue to bless and prosper your ministry.

BACKGROUND

Every human being in the world has one form of challenge or the other, even newly born babies. They usually begin to cry as soon as they are born. Apart from medical reasons for this, another reason for their cry may be that when they come into the world, they use to notice that the new environment is totally different from their mothers’ bellies in which they had been for about nine months. Hence, as soon as they are born they begin to cry, an indication that they are craving to go back to the environment they are used to. However, this change in their environmental circumstances marks the beginning of various other challenges of life that they will face while they are living on this planet earth.

Do you know that dead bodies too have challenges? If not, why do they begin to stink after some days? Their hearts and other body organs not only stop performing their various functions but begin to decay and give off a foul odour.

The summary of all we are saying here is that we cannot avoid challenges. The only thing we can do is to react positively and meaningfully to these challenges. However, the way individuals relate and react to challenges differs, depending on their peculiar circumstances and the level of their faith. For example, if you are disappointed or betrayed by a trusted friend, you can take it with philosophical calmness. Hence, you hold no grudges against the person even though you are hurt. However, another person might not take the same issue lightly as you have done. He might revenge or retaliate.

While counseling people over the years, I have had reasons to advise them on the right attitudes to their challenges, be it failure, barrenness, joblessness, disappointment, delayed marriage, etc.

A careful survey of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation will reveal to you how different people have related to their challenges. While people like Apostle Paul accepted God’s will for their lives, King Hezekiah, on the other hand, contested his with God.

However, one thing that was common to them was that the way they handled their challenges had effects, either negatively or positively on them later in life. For some, their reactions backfired and yielded something negative; while for others it ended positively.

In this book, we will examine how some people in the Bible reacted to their challenges and what eventually happened to them later in life. This kind of analysis will serve as a guide to us whenever we are facing the challenges of life.

OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN,

HALLOWED BE YOUR NAME,

YOUR KINGDOM COME,

YOUR WILL BE DONE

ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN.

–MATTHEW 6:9-10

CHAPTER ONE

Introduction

As Christians, when we are faced with the challenges of life, we have two options or approaches to discuss the issue with God in prayer.

First, we can pray that The Will of God Be Done on the issue. What we are saying by this is that we accept God’s decision on the issue, whether it favors us or not. However, friends, this is not an easy prayer to pray because, most often, deeply within we are afraid that God’s will