Christian Blog Ghana – The Christian Blog

Guest Post: How to Make Time for God as a Mother

The journey of motherhood is definitely a crazy one! A friend once asked me, “What makes parenting difficult?”.

My response was, “Raising another human whilst trying to figure out your own life.” Perfectly summarised right?

If, as mothers, we struggle with mommy guilt and making time for ourselves, how do we then ensure we create that time to consistently work on our spiritual and personal relationship with the Father Almighty?

Today, OMT’s Digest and The Christian Blog Ghana will share some tips to help you stay on top of your God game as a mother.

Be open-minded about how you spend time with God.

Sitting in a chair and imagining God seated opposite you can also be prayer. You can talk to Him in the bathroom or whilst cooking in the kitchen. Covid has taught us that even church can be virtual. We revere Him but He also says we should come to Him anytime with no strict rules laid down. Don’t allow society to create false rules for you. It’s a personal relationship and the mode of the relationship lies with the parties involved. Even in thoughts, you can still maintain that personal relationship with God.

Don’t limit yourself!

Check your schedule and find what works for you.

It could be the first 4 minutes before everyone is up, the time you settle in at work before the official work start time of 8am and it could be on the road to work which is even much preferred if you have your own mode of transportation. This is because you can have a morning devotion session in the car with the kids on the way to school drop-offs and you know who can be your best accountability partner? YOUR KIDS!

Once you find that time, proceed to create a routine out of it.

The strength of your prayer is not dependent on the length.

Not everyone is a prayer warrior. Some are gifted to pray in tongues and be deeply engulfed in the spirit for a longer period. Praying for a shorter period doesn’t make you any less of a child of God. Picture it as this, God has many children, and some are introverts and other extroverts. Some would meditate deep in their hearts and others will prefer to speak aloud. Even with our kids they all have their unique personality traits but we accept them as they are and still make time to listen to them.

Use the style that works best for you.

Supplement and develop yourself with spiritual audio teachings and music.

Worship and praise music and teachings can all help to develop your relationship with God. Mensa Otabil, Joyce Meyer, Joel Osteen and Stevn Furtick and others all have podcasts you can subscribe to on a daily or weekly basis for FREE. These teachings can help build you up in your spiritual journey. And on days you are short of words, the music helps fill in the words for you.

One app that I find useful and would recommend to every mother is the YouVersion. This app has different devotionals on whatever topic you can think of – be it on anxiety, worry, fear, taking care of children, pregnancy journey etc. You can select a time to receive reminders to have your quiet time and what even makes it better is the audio option, thus you don’t need to read all the time. One of my favourite parts is the option it gives to users to record their prayers. Tracking your prayers and matching them to their answers, over time, teaches you to trust in God always.

Being a mother and taking care of the home plus managing a career or business could be extremely overwhelming and if care is not taken, God, prayer and quiet times could easily be relegated to the background. It is therefore important to make a conscious effort to spend some quality time with God in a day. As stated above, the duration is not as important and the quality. You could be cooking your meals and praying or doing your laundry and be singing your hymns and spiritual songs. They are all ways of communicating to God.

Hope these tips are useful and don’t pass judgement on yourself before you try out any of these tips. Tell us how this post served you. Is there any tip we missed in the post? We would love to hear from you. Let us know in the comment section.

The Purpose of The Christian Blog Ghana

The Christian Blog Ghana has gone through a number of phases in its development and the platform turned five years in May (2020).

Initially when I was creating this blog, the larger vision was to provide Christians an avenue to add their voices to the blogosphere. I thought of a platform that was going to motivate Christians to share their opinions on subjects concerning them. In other words, we were going to be a community of Christian bloggers but that has not happened yet.

As the days went by, I realised I was not getting as much content from my fellow Christian brothers and sisters as much as I had envisioned, thus, I had to carry my own blog on my shoulders 🤣🤣

Perhaps, I did not market the blog properly or the people I contacted were not prepared to create free posts or they were not real bloggers. A big shoutout to those who heeded to the call and still provide me with guest posts.

The good news, however, is that I possess some level of creative abilities and I’m able write my own content. So currently, I have modified the posts I put up here. Even though, I mostly write from a Christian perspective, I have decided to give my creative voice exposure here as well.

I haven’t given up the hope of creating that community of Christian bloggers, though. Send me a message if you are interested in joining this community.

The lesson: Don’t create a blog with the aim of using other people’s content to grow your audience. You must be ready to take up the challenge of creating your own posts.

***This is 2/22 of the #WinterABC2020. The prompt is to state the main goal of your site.***

Help! I lost my job and I’m in my 40s.

Dear CBG,

I am a bit old. I’m in my 40s and this is not my first job. I’ve done several contract jobs but I knew this job was permanent. I had dreams of retiring from this organisation but just last week, my employers invited me to a meeting and bluntly informed me they were laying me off. I was sad, confused and hurt. I haven’t really saved up so much money because of some projects I’ve been undertaking. Now, look at my age. Who will employ me in their firm? I’m a good Christian and I’m wondering how God can do this to me, especially, at this time. What should I do? I’ll be reading your response.

—- A very worried woman

CBG’s Response

Hello Madam,

To start with, it’s important to note that your situation is not an isolated one neither is this the first time it’s ever happened. This should give you some comfort but how you handle this is crucial to the success of the next phase of your life.

You need, also, to note that age is just a number and it has very little to do with how much you can achieve in this world. There were those who were successful at their early age and those who were, much later in their lives. In the Bible, there are several examples of individuals that God used in their old age. When God called Moses, he was old and well-stricken in age. Moses and Noah were not young either but they were used by God. Take a cue from Col. Sanders who started KFC (a worldwide brand) in his 60’s. This is to emphasize the point that age is only a number. All you need to do is to be smart and wise about your decisions.

God is not the author of your current situation and you need to thank Him for the next phase of your life. Don’t be bitter and sore for losing your job but be grateful for what God has placed in your hands (gift and skills). Instead of displaying negative emotions, gather every positive energy because you’re going to need it.

Practically, you need to make adjustments to your lifestyle because your regular source of income has been cut off. Cut out the unnecessary expenditure and keep to your budget. It may be uncomfortable in the initial stages but you’ll gradually adjust to it.

One question God will pose to you is

“what do you have in your hands?”

Like He posed to Moses. In other words, what are your gifts, skills and, channels that God can use to bless you? You shouldn’t look too far. It could be a simple skill as baking, selling or farming. Even in your 40s, it’s not too late to learn a new skill but it’s advisable to focus on the ones you’ve gathered over the years. You can either decide to work for yourself or for another firm that requires your skills. Your age shouldn’t be a barrier. If you had dreams initially, this is the time to put them to use. Don’t lose hope, we’ll be praying with you.

To our readers who are gainfully employed now, the Bible says Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest (Proverbs 6:6-8).

The ant gathers it’s food in anticipation for the drought. There is a thing as “fat season and lean season” (drawn from Joseph’s interpretation of Pharaoh’s dream – Genesis 41). In simple terms be wise like Joseph who instructed Egypt to store up food during the fat season so they could have some during the lean season. Egypt became the hub of trading because of the wisdom of one man. Be wise especially in your “fat season.“

Do you have any piece of advice for this woman? Please share in the comment section. She’ll be reading.

Here are 5 Reasons you should Select Christian Blogging as your Niche

If you are still searching for a blogging niche, let me offer you five reasons to consider creating a Christian-focused blog:

There are Several Content Sources

There is a wide variety of content you can develop when you start Christian blogging as there are several sources of content including the Bible, Churches, Christian music, movies, literature and other Christian personalities. If you broaden the scope of your blog, there is no way you will ever lack content. Never.

As you Inspire, you are Inspired

As you create content for others to consume, you get inspired also. If you are the kind of Christian who goes on ‘break’ when situations do not go as you wish, then Christian Blogging must be your preferred niche. When you have to constantly soul-search to create content which will educate and inspire others, you may want to stay on the ‘right path.’ More like practising what you preach.

You’ll be part of the larger Christian Blogging Community

You’ll be amazed at the number of Christian bloggers there are – both locally and internationally. These bloggers are doing very creative things and are waiting to guide, interact and share ideas with you. Don’t be a hermit when you start blogging (both Christian and non-christian bloggers). Comment on other people’s post, follow their blogs and they will do the same to yours.

Your blog can be a tool for Evangelism

You may never know who will be reading your blog but your words in a post can encourage someone and ultimately win a soul for Christ. That also does not imply using the blog as an excuse to not ‘go out and make disciples.’ A blog is just a single tool for evangelism. You may employ other tools as well.

Christian Blogging Develops your Creative Abilities

If you are willing to take this path, then your creative abilities will be developed immensely. As you are given a message, you will have to find ways of communicating it to your various audiences. How are you going to do that? Will it be through visuals, short stories, videos or audios? In what formats are people more likely to click, read and understand the message? That also does not imply ‘deceiving’ people with catchy headlines which are not be related to the post. That is not encouraged.

So there you have them. These are some of the reasons you may want to consider Christian blogging.

3 Ways to Show Love on Social Media

Deception, pseudonyms, trolling, employing tricks to increase followerships – all of these strategies have gradually seeped into our lifestyles and gained grounds in this era of tech and social media. If you missed the previous post on how social media have complicated our lives and relationships, hence, making it impossible to identify true and genuine love, read this.

Using social media tools to spread the gospel creatively, like what the Christian Blog Ghana has been actively doing in the past seven months, have revealed the competitive nature, indifference of followers and the various tactics or tricks used in this world of social media. These attitudes, sometimes, kill the spirit of a brand and this post aims to suggest some of the ways that we can show love and encouragement to each other on social media:

Let’s focus on the Overall Goal

This suggestion goes to individuals and brands which share similar aims and goals – let’s focus on the overall goal. The Christian Blog Ghana. for example, aims at using creative means to propagate the gospel, therefore, when it finds brands in the same niche, it does not hesitate to share, like and follow them. However, that is not the case with all brands, for instance on Instagram, individuals and brands swarm onto a page when there is some new content. They follow, like your post and page and, astronomically increasing your number of followers within a few minutes and in a matter of seconds, the number of followers reduces drastically.

What is this tactic called, if it cannot be equated to a trick? It is even more shocking to find brands in your niche (Christian, in our case) in this activity of ‘following and unfollowing.’ Why is the focus on using this means to make people believe we are following them while we unfollow them surreptitiously or when they are not looking? Why are we competing for numbers? Don’t we share the same goal of spreading the gospel (Matthew 28:19)? Are we not supposed to encourage each other and hold each other’s hand to do that? Will it be about the number of followers we had on our social media pages when Jesus Christ comes for the second time?

Let’s Show some Kindness by Reading and Liking Content

It is quite challenging to promote Christian content on social media. For whatever reason, it is very difficult to get friends, family, and followers to like, comment and share your posts. This is not to say we thrive on your commendation but it shows us we do not have dormant pages. It gives us the ability to interact with you and it helps us understand how the Spirit is influencing you through us. Please interact with us, We would love to know if you are being blessed by our content or not. If there are changes you wish to see on our pages, do share them with us. Love is kind (1 Corinthians 13:4) – remember?

Let’s Support One Another

Let’s help each other to achieve our various goals. There may be individuals and brands who may not necessarily be in our niche but are using their platforms to push worthy causes – let’s give them the little push.

On WordPress, let’s follow other blogs, let’s read, like and comment on each other’s posts. On Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter – let’s support one another by liking, remaining loyal followers and commenting on each others’ posts. Let’s avoid seeing each other as competitors but rather one big community promoting different causes.

Today, we celebrate a huge milestone:

We have 200 followers on Instagram. God knows it’s been tough out there. Instagram is that world, where people follow and unfollow your page constantly, so with 200 followers gained organically within seven months of actively posting, it calls for a celebration. Don’t you think :)?

Praise is the Winner of Our #EarlyChristmasGiveaway Contest

Christmas has come early for Praise Ella-Eyram Sogah. Praise found all 20 words in our Word Search puzzle.

The excitement in her voice, when she received the news that her entry had won the first prize, was infectious.

For her prize, Praise walks away with a bag containing quality wax print from Holland, hand towels and a box of chocolate from 57 chocolate.

This is her second time of winning a prize from the Christian Blog Ghana.

‘Early Christmas’ Giveaway Launched

The Christian Blog Ghana is excited to roll out its first Christmas Giveaway. The ‘Early Christmas’ giveaway is to reward loyal followers of Ghana’s first online Christian magazine and its social media pages while commemorating one of the most important celebrations on the Christian Calender.

The Giveaway which would have followers of the blog and its social media pages find 21 words in a simple crossword puzzle. All words are found in the biblical passage of the birth of Jesus Christ.

The puzzle and the prizes will be posted on the blog and on all our social media channels on December 1, 2017. The lucky winners would be announced on December 20, 2017, and special attention would be given to entries which are turned in early.

“This is an exciting time to follow the blog and our social media channels. Who knows? You might be the lucky winner of those wonderful prizes,” said Delali Sogah, Manager of the Christian Blog Ghana.

Pray ‘Quality’ Prayers

It is quite easy to say we have great prayer lives because ‘to pray’ means ‘to communicate with God.’ It is simple to speak with God and whisper something to Him first thing in the morning before jumping to our duties. When we are almost late for work and need to rush to the roadside, we whisper something to Him which we describe as a form of communication. Some of us even have the special ability to shut out people mentally and start talking to God even in noisy places. We can pray to God at any place and time because the Bible has admonished us to pray without this ceasing (I Thessalonians 5: 17).

The above scenarios form the broad definition of communication or at least speaking with God but how about including ‘quality’ to that prayer time? There is nothing wrong with speaking to Him everywhere but it is even more fulfilling to have a quiet place to yourself, away from every form of distraction and tuning your whole being to the Spirit. Such times allow the Holy Spirit to minister to and with you in ways that your body cannot comprehend. How sweet it is to allow the Holy Ghost to take over your prayer time and direct you on how it should go (Romans 8:26). When you do not pray in your own understanding but with that of the Spirit.

There are so many worries in life – work issues, family, academics etc and they can easily overwhelm us into believing we can achieve success by our own strength and intelligence. Prayer times are hurried because we always have deadlines to meet or traffic to beat.

Quality prayer, steered by the Holy Spirit makes the journey through life enjoyable. Prayer meetings are good but having some personal, quality time with your Father is also very important.

The deadline which is preventing you from praying can easily be met when you spend some good time in God’s presence. As for that traffic, it is so basic. The situation you are trying to change, using your own capabilities, has the answer resting with God and it takes just quality prayer time to unlock it.

Let us stop looking everywhere but to God for answers to our lives’ issues. Quality prayer time steered by the Holy Spirit heals wounds, provides directions and answers and, makes the seemingly impossible situations with God possible.

Just give it a try and when your testimonies start to manifest, send an email to your first online Christian magazine in Ghana (christianblogghana@gmail.com) and we’ll celebrate with you.

You are blessed!