Christian Living

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A unique way to express our deepest love, complete obedience and unconditional loyalty to God is by building our sincere faith in Him. Taking a clue from the holy scriptures in Hebrews 11: 1, several men of God have at one time or the other tried to define what faith is all about, but all point to a fact- faith exists and is a necessary criterion for a Christian to consistently walk with God [Hebrews 11: 6]. Little wonder why the great men and women of old continually strove to protect their faith in a bid to please the father. They never took God’s words, no matter how humanly foolish it were, as empty promises.
A man from a family that practiced idolatry extensively, Abraham, heard the call, believed and began the journey to a place he was yet to know. By faith, he received several promises, primary of which was to make him a great nation; and despite the ‘delay’ in the birth of the promised child, he never hesitated to bring the precious Isaac to the Lord when He demanded for him. It was a real test of faith but Abraham didn’t fail.
Amidst the predominantly worldly pleasures or passions the, Noah did not despise God’s instructions. It took faith for him to completely execute God’s instructions, even though he was mocked by a majority. He at the end did not lose out for his faith in God had saved him and his entire family.
Let’s not forget Daniel, a young man though from a royal family but a slave in the land of Babylon. He resolved not to defile himself and made great exploits for God in a foreign land. His faith was strong enough to withstand the tempest of idolatry and even made an unbelieving king to acknowledge the King of kings.
These men and a host of others stood out for God in their generations. Regardless of the prevailing circumstances, they declared their unshaken faith in God. And guess what, they were the most successful, with the greatest impact on their generation. Truly, everyone desires to impact his or her generation, we want our deeds to go down into history for generations unborn to behold. Paradoxically, we are not ready to pay the sacrifices these heroes paid, and unwilling to bear the burden they bore in their time. In other words, we seem unable to set our faith thermostat to the temperature at which theirs boiled for God.
Despite the rapid proliferation of churches and astronomical increase in the number of preachers around, our faith is still far from being close to what the Master expects. Many preachers have used illustrations to make real the element of faith, but the literally abstract noun still seem abstract to a lot of church-goers. To such, faith cannot but sound like a wave from very afar off, and growing to have genuine faith in God is simply a herculean task, or worse still and impossible feat to achieve. Not in this millennium! They often say. But why isn’t this possible? Are we trying to say the old paths are no more? Or the specie of faith then has gone extinct? Something within me tells me No and while trying to fathom why faith has gone this cold, I got the picture of a baobab tree painted in my mind.
Baobab, Adansonia digitata, is a tree found in most savannah areas. Also called monkey bread tree, it is not very tall but has a wide trunk. Because of the habitat this tree finds itself- savannah and deserts, it has evolved various features which all make up its unique structure. In a bid to survive the climatic conditions in its habitat, the baobab tree displays very few leaves. Asides this, its wide trunk enables it to store food and great quantities of water. A mature tree with trunk up to 30 metres wide can contain about 450 litres of water. With all these, the baobab tree sufficiently survives the dry season that lasts for most parts of the year in the region.
The conditions that make feeble plants wither and seeds dormant in the savannah are very analogous to the reasons why most Christians now care less about their faith. The world we live in has naturally embedded in it thorns that can choke up our Christian faith. On a daily basis, Christians are faced with situations that really put their faith at a crossroad. More particularly, as the baobab and every other plants in the savannah and desert region are faced with increasing climatic challenges in recent times, due to desert encroachment, global warming and others, so is our genuine faith in God being faced with a couple of challenging challenges. The primary task the plants in this region have to face in the dry period is the ability of their roots to reach the water table. Those unable to develop tap roots long enough to reach the water level deep in the ground soon withers away. As Christians, the substance of our faith in these last days depends on how far below the ground our roots can grow to reach the water table. The failure of many roots to establish contact with the water has led to the stunted growth or death of Christians’ faith. As children of God, the water our faith needs to be nourished, even during the harsh conditions, is the word of God. Our faith will remain robust as a baobab tree if we learn to draw continually from Jesus- the well of the word of God [John 4: 14].
Just as the dry wind blows strongly across the desert and lifting sand along its course, our faith too will definitely experience some violent opposing forces. Violent because the momentum with which the wind blows the sand is capable of weathering a rock and so capable of eroding our faith to if we are not well established like the baobab. The extent of our deep-rootedness in the word of God determines the degree of temptations and trials our faith can withstand. Remember the baobab tree has its buttress roots firmly attached to the soil and yet deep enough to draw water, Christians too must ensure that their faith grows deep and firm in God’s word.
As earlier stated, the baobab tree has few leaves for a reason. As much water a plant can absorb through the roots, so it can lose through the stomata in the leaves in a transpiration process. Hence the need for a survival conscious plant, like the baobab to minimize water loss. This they do by regularly shedding their leaves because fewer leaves mean little water loss. We as well must evolve strategies that will check water loss in our faith tree. Like transpiration in green plants, the processes that may lead to water loss in our faith tree may be summed up as our words, thoughts and deeds. There is the utmost need to control what we think, do, say, hear, see, and so on.
There is one more striking thing about the baobab. It is the fact that it ensures, though unconsciously, the survival of other living things. Its leaves are usually fed to horses. Even humans that God made to have dominion depend on it for survival. It provides good food and income for man. How? Its fruit can be eaten; its seeds can be roasted and eaten, so also used as necklaces and by potters to smooth pots before they are baked. Its leaves can be made into soup; its bark can be used in making cloth, basket, rope and strings for musical instruments because it produces fibre. In fact, many parts of the tree are used in traditional medicine.
Astonishingly, people of the Kalahari desert in South Western Africa depend on the baobab as a source of water. A hole is drilled in the side of the trunk and a piece of wood is put in, then the water is tapped. In like manner, we Christians must endeavour not to only grow big in faith but also strong enough to support people with creeping faith. It isn’t enough to profess faith just by the words of mouth, our actions too must. Dying faith should be able to lean on ours and live again. Cold faith should be able to touch ours and get hot for God again!
Unlike the plants in the desert that are unable to change their destiny from that set by nature, we have the privilege to do so. We can determine the destiny of our faith in God, whether we just want to be like seeds that remain dormant for months in the desert, or the feeble plants that grow for a certain period only to wither soon, or like the baobab tree- one of the few plants that still stands tall regardless of the pressure being mounted by climatic factors against it. But one thing I’m sure of, our God will not accept the dormant seed faith [John 15: 2], neither will he tolerate the ‘on and off’ feeble plants [Revelation 3: 15-16]. Definitely, faith- the baobab faith is His delight.

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