Hey BlogFam,

Trust we are all doing great and following hard after all that the Lord has placed in our hearts.

So in today’s post, I’ll be sharing my top 5  faith-based blogs, these are blogs I have actively read from for a minimum of a year and there are others that have gone past the one-year mark, all in all, you'll find these Blogs highly resourceful.

The list does not contain only bloggers who blog about scriptures alone, but even those who writes stories, shares relationship tips, posts fashion-related advice and even teaches us how to be a great mom.

Permit me ahead because all my favorite faith-based bloggers are female, if I do find a faith-based blogger who I love and who happens to be a male, trust me to update this list.

So without any further ado, let’s jump right into this list.

1.     1.  Eziaha Blog

This Blog is not just a Blog, it is literally a university on its own (for a lack of a better word), I have been reading posts from this Blog for over one year now, and it has been such a wonderful experience. The fact that this woman has been blogging for the past 8 years takes it a notch higher.

Gosh!

This is such a rich blog, and you know I love bringing the knowledge I have to you my Blog family, and that is why I am sharing this Blog with you.

Do check out her Blog. You don’t need to thank me, what are friends for? 😀

EZIAHA.COM

2.    2.  Ife Grace Blog

This is our own Nigerian Francine Rivers.

This lady has a thing with weaving stories that goes beyond just the skill of putting words together which she has obviously mastered, but she definitely has a deep relationship with God which is so evident in her Blog and the stories she publishes there.

On the Blog, there are not only stories, but different articles on the Blog for your development; both spiritual and otherwise.

I have been following this following for over two years and it has been such a beautiful experience.

Do well to head on to that blog, you’ll be glad you did.

IFEGRACE.COM

3.     3.  Stay-At-Home-Mom Blog

This Blog also is run by the first blogger mentioned; Eziaha.

If you are a woman, either a stay at home mom or not, this Blog is filled with so many resources for your growth even as you are a wife to your husband and a mother to your child(ren). She calls these moms Domestic Queens, and aren't they queens indeed. The man is the king and that makes the woman the queen of the kingdom.

Being a wife of over 7 years herself, and a mother to two boys, she generously shares the things she is learning as both a wife and a mother with the hope that her readers will learn a thing or two from her posts, and if you read well enough, you definitely will learn more than a thing or two!

If you are a single lady like me, you can still visit the Blog and keep learning from the wealth of experience, so that when you do get the ring, you can hit the ground running being fully armed with the right knowledge.

She is faith-based, and all the articles published on the Blog are birthed from her love for Jesus and her relationship with Him.

STAYHOMEMOMS.NG

4.      4.   Dupe’s Blog

This is another faith-based Blog run by a blogger named; Modupe.

I also have been following this blog for about two years now, and while I have not been seeing her publish new posts in recent times, she has really been consistent over the years and there are so many resources for you to learn from.

LIFESTYLEBYMO.COM

5.     5.   Amaka Media

I love this Blog, and while I have no personal relationship with the Blogger, I have been tremendously blessed and helped by her Blog. I have followed this Blog for over one year now.

She blogs about faith, fashion, relationship, lifestyle, her marriage, and recently her journey to motherhood.

It was from this Blog I learnt some tips about fashion too as she is a fashionista and it shows through her Blog.

You’ll have a great time on her Blog too.

AMAKAMEDIA.COM

There you have it, my five favorite faith-based Blogs.

I do hope you will have a great time reading from the Blogs.

BONUS POST

If you live in Nigeria like me, then you have what I consider a free day tomorrow. Our country will be celebrating her 61st year since she got her independence.

On your own way to getting your own independence, please ensure that the day doesn’t just go like that.

Please have a list of the things you can tick off after the day is over.

Even if your plan is to stay Netflix and chill, still write Netflix and chill on your plan, and have the title of the movies you intend to watch. Whatever you do, just plan.

This is what my list for tomorrow looks like.

This public holiday has been approved unlike this one that wasn’t approved which I shared the experience here.

A LESSON FROM MY PUBLIC HOLIDAY EXPERIENCE

You can tell I am so excited about tomorrow, and I sincerely can’t wait for the day to begin!

Shout out to all the health workers who will still be at work tomorrow as well as those doing professional courses who still have to attend class tomorrow. Our hearts are with you.

See you next week Thursday...

There is so much Light***

Hey Blog Fam,

Trust we are all doing great and following hard after all that God has placed in our hearts.

In our world of today, we are fond of criticizing people we call motivational speakers who are always telling us to perspire and aspire to get the future that we desire, we wonder if they will ever face the reality that not every one of us will ever aspire to be anything.

There are some who think that certain achievements are only for a select few, and for that reason refuse to accept any responsibility and keep talking about what is not going on well thereby shifting the blame to every other person other than themselves.

Read along as I share my thoughts on how you can become at least 1% better every day, and leave those who are what I call chief complainers. 

Ready? Let's go...

1. Forget the past

No matter how lovely or how seemingly bad you feel that your background was, you can still rise higher than that. 

It is more difficult to forget if you have a terrible past because you start to feel that the height that you see other family members or people you grew up with attaining is what you also can attain. No more, no less. 

But this does not have to be true, you can come from a past you are not so proud to be associated with and still yet go ahead and have a beautiful future that is your inheritance in Christ. 

While forgetting the past does not mean you will not have anything to do with your root or that you begin to see everyone from that your place or origin of birth because to you now, they have become no-good people, but it only means you have come in cognizance of what that level of life represents and you now want something better.

2. Go All Out On Personal Development

I studied Microbiology at the university, but I can't remember a causative organism and the sickness/disease it causes even if I was at gunpoint. There is only so much that we were taught in school. 

If you schooled in Nigeria like me, there is so much limit to what you were exposed to, and while the school curriculum was good in itself, permit me to say it didn't really prepare us for life after school. 

I remember coming out of school and trying to get a job, there are so many things that might make it look like employers are not fair in the things they demand, but now few years down the line myself, I am beginning to see that the employers are not totally wrong. 

There are a lot of things that are needed for life and living that don’t get taught in the four walls of a conventional school.

All through my school days, I was never taught;

Budgeting

How to relate with people

How to make, manage or multiply money

How to sustain my relationship with my significant other

Skills to have in the workplace environment

Time management

Self-management

.

.

.

And a host of other relevant knowledge that is needed in the real world.

So, in all you do, embrace personal development.

Read books

Attend seminars

Consume content  (Youtube is a village when it comes to video content and google is a village when it comes to written content). Between these two media, it is almost a criminal offense punishable by law for not knowing some basic things for a start and some complex things even as you go on.

Get better.

3.  Find A Community Where Your Desired Goal Is Their Normal

I first heard this in the book; Atomic Habit By James Clear, which talks about how to break free from a bad habit and build good ones. In one of the laws in the book, the author mentioned that to break a bad habit, you need to find a community where the habit you are trying to build is the acceptable behavior there.

To put this in context;

Let’s say you have been struggling to read one book a month, and then you want to want to start reading one book a month, joining a book club were the members read two books per week is the right way to go. This is because even if you do not respect yourself so much, but the fact remains that by being in a group like that, you sef no go wan fall your hand, you’ll struggle initially, but as the day goes by, reading will become second nature to you.

I read about a lady who was on the third-class grade in the university even up to her second year, she realized what was happening to their C.G.P.A, felt she could do better. She then left her friends who didn’t have the zeal to come out of school with distinction, and then started making friends with people who were at the top of the class, at the end of her university journey, she came out of school with a second class upper grade which was quite an improvement from her third class grade. Talk about the power of community!

So if you want to become better, look for people already living your kind of life, and then join them. It will definitely stretch you, but it surely will bring you out of your comfort zone where nothing worthwhile grows.

4. Accept Full Responsibility For Your Life

In a place like Nigeria, where for every bad thing that happens, we can always find someone to blame, choose to be different.

I have discovered from experience that every time you complain or shift the blame of what happens in your life to someone else, you block the creative side of your brain which is responsible for birthing solutions. This is how I feel about complaining. I do not like people that complain around me. Even if the worst possible had happened, rather than just complaining, accept it, and then look for a way forward. 

Even if things are not going as you would want them to go, don’t complain. This does not mean that you won’t be true to the situation, you will be true to the situation but you are not allowed to complain.

Take full responsibility.

Don’t shift the blame.

Don’t complain.

For anything that happens, take full responsibility, don't shift the blame to someone else, and don’t complain, sit down, restrategize and move on.

Let's end with the lyrics of Status By VaShawan Mitchell

Our status is changing, there's no more decline
We are on our way to better days.

Cheers to Better Days Ahead. Our Best Days Are Here!

See you next Thursday.

There is so much light***

You Can Also Read;

5 THINGS I DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT ADULTHOOD

5 WAYS TO BECOMING MORE PRODUCTIVE EVERYDAY

 PRACTICAL TIPS TO HELP YOU STOP SLEEPING TOO MUCH

Hey Blog Fam,

Trust we are all doing great and following passionately after all that God has placed in our hands and in our hearts.

So, I’ll be sharing the lesson from one of my public holidays.

For context, in case you don’t know what a public holiday means, be my guest as I tell you its importance, public holidays are days in a year when the government (in my case the Nigerian government) declares a work/school-free day.

If you are a Monday-Friday or Monday-Saturday kinda person, you’ll know the importance of public holidays, especially those public holidays that falls within the week, they usually come in the midst of a very busy schedule when you are almost fainting from work-load, they provide an avenue to just relax and recoup from work stress.

Even if you are still in the university here in Nigeria, you are sha familiar with ASUU strike, those kind of strike that comes during the times when lectures are becoming very hard and you are just writing notes and nothing is really sinking in, what ASUU is to a university student is what public holiday means to someone who is working. 

So back to my public holiday gist, this pubic holiday was one that I have been looking forward to, I have been telling a friend how I was going to rest and just do me on that day, in all sincerity, I was really looking forward to that day, and coupled with the fact that it was a Friday, my joy literally knew no bounds because it means I’ll have Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to rest, having three days against the normal two days’ weekend rest was such a big deal for me.

So a day to my big public holiday, we just suddenly heard that the public holiday was not approved in the company where I work and that we were all expected to report back to the office on the said public holiday. 

I was speechless for some seconds, this has never happened, I have been working with the company for a while and we have always all holidays. We had high hopes that the decision was going to change and I went home that Thursday evening still hoping that I won’t be coming the next day.

Before I retired for the night, I went online to check if there was any latest development, and to my amazement, I saw a memo informing all members of staff that we are to report back to the office the following day.

I just jejely switched off my data, prepared my mind for another work day and did other things I do before sleeping.

The next morning, I woke up, went through my morning routine and off I went to work. I got there in good time, and got started on a pending assignment. 

But as the day was going, I realized that some members of staff were not around, while it was deliberate action for some, they were others who were absent because they didn’t have a phone that had access to the internet and so they were not in the know of the recent development.

I did my job, and went back home, as I was ruminating on my day, I suddenly felt it will be unfair if there was nothing done to those members of staff who didn’t come to the office and still went ahead to fulfil all the plans they had initially had for their public holiday. 

How can they enjoy their day while I was saddled with a day that wasn’t part of my initial plan? Not at all o, there must be some form of discipline.

I just felt there should at least some level of chastising to them, so that those of us who came will at least feel justified for not coming in vain. My heart was screaming for punishment of any kind on them.

As I kept brooding on these thoughts in my mind, the Holy Spirit made me see that I have started behaving like the elder brother of the prodigal son. I once heard a beloved woman of God explain this.

The mind of the prodigal son’s elder brother is the mind that will see a robber coming back to the Father, and instead of being genuinely happy that someone who was lost has now being found, I start feeling annoyed because I feel he deserves to be punished for what he did.

It is the kind of heart that sees a lady who was a confirm runs girl, committed a whole lot of abortions and still end up getting married to a godly man and now has children, and I start feeling it isn’t fair, at least let her be punished for killing innocent babies na.

We all feel like this at times, and it is only natural, but we must continually renew our mind….

That others have done wrong at different point in time, and have now repented does not mean that they will have to suffer for the things they have earlier done. 

While there are some circumstances that are natural, like a lady who sleeps with a man, and then comes to apologize to God, if she gets pregnant from having sexual relations with a man, her getting pregnant cannot be said to be a form of punishment from God. Not at all, it is only a natural repercussion for what she has earlier done.

Those who have had a rough past, gone on their own way before coming to the Lord, they won’t all be punished for what they have done. 

If we were punished for all the times we did wrong, what will become of us at the moment?

Things does not have to go bad for people who have come to their Lord, they might have had a not-soo-great past, but the future the Lord has for them is glorious, that I can tell.

He is the God who leaves the ninety-nine and runs after one!

If you had done things you should not do, the deed has been done already, come back home, there is a Father who has his arms spread waiting for you. And to the ones already at home, let’s stop judging and just show those who are coming back home love.

See you next Thursday…

There is so much light***

P.S: Remember those members of staff who did not come on that public holiday, there was no measure of discipline meted at them at all…

Hey Blog Fam, 

Trust we are all doing good and following hard after all that the Lord has placed in our hearts.

Our financial life is a big part of our lives, and either we choose to accept this fact or not, it is just what it is.

I sincerely think that a whole lot of energy and time should be put into developing ourselves financially.

Our finances is one aspect of our life that was not covered in our school curriculum, and even if you have a degree in accounting, no one taught you the practical ways of saving, budgeting, or investing. What they just teach is the theoretical part of it, without you knowing how to apply these things in the real world. I know these things; my sister is an accountant.

We all graduated out of school only to begin to learn how money works through reading of books, attending financial webinars, and a whole lot of other ways.

So, permit me to be your financial sister today as we dive into those three things you should not do if you want to get closer to your money goals;

1.       1. Don't Spend All You Earn

As simple as this rule is, it’s a pity it’s being flouted.

Even before I read the Richest Man In Babylon by George S. Clason, I have learnt by experience never to spend all that I make.

No matter how much hits your account every pay-day, it still wouldn’t lead you to financial freedom if you do not set aside a part of that for the future.

Add thy purse to fattening.

Related: PERSONAL FINANCE; DO I NEED TO EARN MORE TO SAVE MORE?

There is a lot of reasons why you should not spend all you earn; from the fact that you won’t be able to tackle legitimate emergencies when they come to you, to not being able to even meet the need of others, you will even deprive yourself of the wonderful feeling that comes with stacking up cash somewhere. I don’t know about you, but there is this good feeling I get knowing that my account is breathing.

I know the rave of the moment is investing because everybody seem to be investing, but truth be told, if you have no savings stored up somewhere, you would not even be able to invest when the opportunity comes.

2.       2. Don't Invest In What You Don’t Understand

After saving your money consistently for over a period of time, there now comes a point in time when you’ll be expected to put your money to work, or in the way we say it in this generation; let your money work for you. The returns gotten from a good investment is always bigger than what is obtainable by just saving your money. 

With savings, what you get is just the actual money saved or a little interest if you save in some banks, but with investments, you can get an attractive percentage on your funds while your principal amount is still safe. Talk about money giving birth to more money.

The beautiful (EVIL) thing is that some people have sat down in the corner of their rooms and have so come up with business structures or ventures that do not exist and then start asking people to invest in it.

There are some people who had told others to come invest in agriculture or even landed properties, promising them a certain percentage on their money after a period of time, it's a pity that at the end of the day it is then realized that there was no farm anywhere neither was there any property anywhere. So both principal and interest of the individual is gone.

We are in the era where everywhere you look, there is a new investment scheme around the corner.

It is almost getting harder spotting the genuine ones from the fake ones (Ponzi schemes), because the Ponzi schemes are beginning to have structures like the genuine ones.

But one way you can sure guard against this is to NEVER invest in something that can’t be written on pen and paper or you don’t understand.

A decision to never invest in a business model that cannot be explained in simple and clear terms might be the wisest decision you’ll ever make.

Even as you learn about investment by reading about them and doing your findings, try as much as possible to stay away from investments you do not understand the modus operandi, many of them are just Ponzi scheme and they don’t last long, and at the end of the day, they cause one to lose the money that have taken years to stack up.

The fact Ponzi schemes are on the rise doesn’t mean that there are no legitimate ones, but make sure you do your research WELL before parting with you Grace-earned money.

3.       3. Don’t Be Afraid of Making Mistakes

I love this one!

This point almost looks like it is in contrast with the above point, but it’s quite different.

Some individuals in their advance years haven’t tried investing in anything before, they feel that they have to look critically at every investment well, and even when they have done all that needs to be done and it is then time for action, they still find themselves not being able to do what must be done.

I am very aware that there are so many Ponzi schemes in today’s world, but after you have dotted all i’s and  crossed all your t’s, then it might be time to really commit to it.

As a young person myself, and I believe anyone who is reading and still loves to learn is a young person, so as young people, we shouldn’t be afraid of making mistakes or failing.

And to think of it, you don’t fail, you only learn how not to do things, I know learning from the experiences of others is the better one, but if you have to go through those experiences yourself, learn as quickly as you can, pick yourself up and keep going ahead.

As a word of caution, if you are trying out an unfamiliar terrain as it concerns investments, you might want to start small.

If you have One Million Naira to invest, investing all at once into a venture you are trying out might not be the best decision, so you might want to start small. Maybe with 10% at first, then increase the percent as you get comfortable with what you’re investing in.

In achieving your money goals, there will be times when you will make some not-so-wise decisions, it is because most people do not want to get to this level of making mistakes that they just choose to stay with the familiar things they know and the traditional ways of doing things since 1805, but we are currently in 2021, the times are changing, and we can’t afford to keep doing things as we have always done them before.

These traditional ways of doing things include having money lie fallow in bank.

If you live in a place like Nigeria; where I currently live in, you are not just not gaining any significant return on your money, but with the rise in inflation you are also losing money too. What One Hundred Thousand Naira can do for you in 2018 as recent as that seems isn’t same with what it can do for you in 2021.

The scriptures tell us that some people do not go out because there is a lion outside. This should not be you, please.

The lazy person claims, “There’s a lion out there! If I go outside, I might be killed' Proverbs 22:13

There are indeed lions outside, but if you don’t go outside, hunger might kill you inside, and if you do decide to go outside, you might find out that the lion is even dead or that it is not close to your environment as you thought it was.

And as you test the waters; trying to practice the things you have learnt, you might make a few mistakes (the ways you should not do things), but this shouldn’t keep you away from trying again. It’s best you learn how not to do things now with one million naira than learning the same lesson with one hundred million naira years down the line.

So, if fear has been keeping you back or holding you back all this while, now might be a great time to kick fear out so that you can begin to do the things you have to do.

Remember, God hasn’t given us the Spirit of fear, but of love, power and a sound mind.

To recap all we have discussed, never spend all you earn not to talk of spending more than you earn, don’t invest in things you don’t have sufficient knowledge about and don’t allow the fear of making mistake hold you back from making decisions.

This is my prayer for you.

You prosper, you keep prospering until you become very prosperous.

Trust that this prayer will become your reality.

There is so much light***

Related: HOW YOU CAN SAVE MORE MONEY IN 2020

               3 TIPS FOR THE SPENDTHRIFT