Stop the Procession: "It's your time to win"

By Bishop Oneil Williams

In the correct hand, this book is intended to motivate change.

The people that this book is intended to reach are those who have watched their joy turn into sorrow and their happiness turn into unhappiness. These are the people who have lost what they thought to be everything and have no reason to move on. The purpose is to motivate them not to give up or bury it all in depression and hopelessness. Everyone faces difficult days. Everyone faces some ups and down in their lives. How you handle it or how you choose to deal with your bad days will enable you to either rebound or just bury it all in faithlessness and hopelessness. This book is intended for the readers to find different path that they can take to come back from a setback, to get off the road of procession, to recover everything lost, and more. This is all built on giving hope a chance and letting the saying which says "While there is life, there is hope" be more than just a quote but reality. My hope is that, while everything might look dead in your life, it doesn't mean that it is final. There is still what we call resurrection power. That hope can live gain. Your joy can be restored. Your happiness can live again, and hopefully this book will encourage you to live again. With the right source meeting you at your exit, resurrection is possible. I hope, when faced with these challenges, that you do not give up on the possibility that Jesus can meet you in the lowest place of your life and turn it around back to your happy place.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9781636926087

Book preview

STOP THE PROCESSION

It’s Your Time to Win

Bishop Oneil Williams

Copyright © 2021 Bishop Oneil Williams

All rights reserved

First Edition

NEWMAN SPRINGS PUBLISHING

320 Broad Street

Red Bank, NJ 07701

First originally published by Newman Springs Publishing 2021

ISBN 978-1-63692-607-0 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63692-608-7 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

AUTHOR’S NOTE/DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to my mother, Zena Wright, for her love, dedication, and prayer in my life. You did not have the world to give, but you gave me all that you had.

To my son, you have taught me how to not allow negative environment to stop you from achieving your goal. You are strong mentally, and I love you.

To Grace Fellowship Worship Center, you have taught me what being a shepherd should be. Your love, loyalty, and support are worth noting; you have been there for me.

To those who helped in starting this ministry and were instrumental in helping me reversing course on my way to my cemetery, you will always be a part of my life.

To my church family from Vision Worship Center, you trusted me to pastor you as my first pastorate and took me as a son and brother more than just a pastor.

To Bishop Arnold, even thou he is not here with us anymore, and his family for trusting, and believing in me.

To Bishop Clive McBean, for being a mentor to me.

To Bishop Ronald Blair, for sowing into my life and trusting me to carry the word by giving me my first scholarship to Bethel Bible College.

To all my friends whom I grew up with at Waltham Park NTCOG, you were all inspirational in my life one way or another.

Finally, to everyone who touches my life in many different ways, names that if I start to mention would not be able to fit on this page. To all my colleagues in ministry, thank you.

CONTENTS

Preface

Acknowledgement

Introduction

Chapter 1: The Procession

Chapter 2: Will I Ever Get a Break?

Chapter 3: Losing

Chapter 4: Lost

Chapter 5: Hopelessness

Chapter 6: Close to My Exit

Chapter 7: Why Are You Leaving?

Chapter 8: What Are You Leaving Behind?

Chapter 9: When the Odds Are Not in Your Favor but in Your Future

Chapter 10: The Thin Line between Happiness and Unhappiness

Chapter 11: The Rock and a Hard Place

Chapter 12: An Encounter at My Exit

Chapter 13: Compassion

Chapter 14: Stop the Crying

Chapter 15: Activate Your Faith

Chapter 16: Breaking Point

Chapter 17: The Procession Stops Here

Chapter 18: Returning What You Have Lost

Chapter 19: It Is Time for a New Start

Chapter 20: The Journey Back

Chapter 21: Make Changes

Chapter 22: Clear the Room

Conclusion

Bibliography

Topics for Possible Messages

PREFACE

The motivation behind this topic had to do with the fact that I got up one morning with the intention to change the message I had decided to preach because I felt it was not fiery enough—I was not feeling it. I went downstairs with the intention to change the message, but after I sat down, I could hear the voice of God saying, Do not change the message. I not only left the message unchanged, but He started to inspire me to add to the message. I followed the lead of the Holy Spirit and preached the message.

On that same day, I received a message from one of my congregants thanking me for ministering that particular sermon. She went on to say a friend of hers whom she had been ministering to had two miscarriages, and felt she had let down both her husband and family. She decided, on that Sunday morning when her husband would routinely go to the store, she was going to end it with some pills.

My member happened to have sent her my sermon that Sunday morning not knowing what was her intention. While she was listening to the sermon, her husband who had left his cell phone, returned to retrieve it, saw she was watching the video of the sermon, and decided to watch it with her. The end to this story is that she is alive today because both she and her husband got saved. In addition, her neighbors, other family members, and friends whom she shared the video with also got saved, with some of them even getting baptized from listening to that particular sermon. It also revolutionized the faith of some of my members that Sunday, who were facing financial and economic crises. Through this message, their faith was increased. By believing in God for the impossible, their lives were turned around.

I am writing this book because I know what pain and failures look like, and what it feels like to have the bottom fall out from underneath you. I remember getting up on a Monday morning after resigning from my church, feeling hopeless, with no job, no money, no career beyond pastoring which had already failed me, with no one to call on, feeling unwanted. The feeling, as if I will never come back, is a bitter feeling to have; it leaves a nasty taste in your mouth. How do you pull yourself up and come back? Paul the Apostle always uses his experience as a lesson to teach others how not to walk down that same path.

It is, therefore, my intention to motivate and assist the next person whose life seems like it is driving them away from their happy place (Nain) and to help them connect with the right sources that will help them rise again. It is only over when you give up. I remember watching the movie Cool Runnings as those Jamaican athletes who were never even supposed to be in a race of that kind, but were committed to defying all the odds even with all the setbacks with their cart, decided that they are committed to the end. They may not have won the race, but decades later, they were still seen as heroes. They won the heart of many generations and the pride of their country because they refused to quit.

This moment of your life is necessary but not