Beyond Anger: Reframing Your Relationship with God for Entrepreneurial Growth

Hello and welcome to the show. Apologies before begin because there's going to be some noise in the background and also because my, excuse me, my sore throat is getting worse. So yeah, there's that. So let's get straight into the topic for today. Now today I'm going to make a detour because yesterday and I think the day prior, we have been looking at objections that people give us in business. That's reasons that they give or not wanting to go ahead with the transaction, with the relationship, with whatever agenda that we're trying to push in business or in work.

So we start started the conversation on what objections are, what is rejection, how do we cope with all these things. But I've been seeing some topics floating around in the Podcastosphere, and I figured, let me just make an episode real quick to address one of them. And one of these questions that I've seen some conversations going around in entrepreneurship is this whole thing of is God angry with me? Now it's obvious why some of these questions would be out there on the Internet amongst entrepreneurs because it's, you know what we do.

It's a it's it's a high stress, it's a high stress environment. Whether you're trying to be a wedding photographer or you're trying to sell catfish or you're trying to build your consultancy practice or just trying to start a fintech, it's really high stress. And so because of that, issues of mental health, spiritual health, all these things, they these are questions that, well, everybody tackles these questions. But those of us who are in unique high stress environments,

you know, like people in the military, 'cause that is really high stakes. You know, they see death all the time. You know, they kill folks, they see people die. And you know, what we do is not high stakes like military high stakes. Because I mean, let's face it, as a wedding photographer, if you do your job poorly, nobody dies. But still, as a wedding photographer, you don't. If you don't think you've done a good job, you know, to bring in the bacon, you know to bring in the war, the money, then there's going to be implications at home.

You know, you and your wife being stressed out about money or the other way around. Maybe your husband feel like you're not pulling your weight in the house if he's the one that is, that is gainfully employed, has the 95, and then you know you and the lady are the one who is the entrepreneurial. 1 So there's high stress, people thinking about all kinds of things, and sometimes it's easy to feel as if God is angry with you or the universe is against you.

So these are the reasons why these sorts of questions are topical in entrepreneurial circles. Now, this is not the focus of the podcast. That is why I don't talk about these sorts of things. But I want to talk about it today because some of these questions betray A misunderstanding about God. And I would like us to have the right perspectives of who God is, who he is, so that we do not fall into some of these errors or some of these negative ways of thinking.

If we have the right ideas about God, then the chances are we're not going to fall into errors of thought about who he is and what he is capable of. Now, some of the questions that I want to address, specifically something that I saw in a particular podcast, was the question Is God trying to punish me? Is God trying to make me feel pain? Is God always angry with me? What did I do? What did I do wrong to get this anger?

And is it OK for me to wander every 5 minutes? Is God thinking about me? I want to know what God is thinking about me. Those sorts of questions. So like I said, these questions betray A misunderstanding about God and who he is now. First off, OK, well, I like to define, so let me just continue with that same approach over here. So First off, let's clarify a couple of things. Let's define a couple of things, especially since now we have a there's a what's it called?

Critical Critical Racial Theory. Critical Feminist theory. You know, all kinds of things going on about there that raise really important questions about God, his existence, and his relationship to us. So First off, let's define define a couple of things. When we talk about God as He, the reason why we talk about God as he is because traditionally it means something to be a man and it means something to be a woman. And God has chosen to reveal himself to us using those terms,

not because he is a man, because God is neither man nor woman, He is spirit. So what makes a man is that a man is engendered and God is not gendered. So excuse my French, God does not have a PP. So in the philosophical, most technically precise sense, he's neither male nor female. We just say he because that is how he chose to reveal himself to us. And the reason why he chose to reveal himself to us is because he's trying to express certain things about his nature that the metaphor of man best conveys.

Like some people have pointed out, some classical Christian thinkers have pointed out to be a man is to engender life out of yourself. And that is how God did create the world because he's the metaphysical source of everything that is real and everything that exists. And he did that out of himself. That is the reason why, one of the reasons why people speculate, he chose to reveal himself to us using masculine, gender, masculine pronoun because life was engendered outside of him.

If we're going with the narrative, in Genesis, he spoke and then things came into existence, life was engendered outside of him. So he chooses to review himself as a man and is one of the reasons why. If you notice in traditional Christian circles, when people want to start talking about God as mother, people get apprehensive. The reason why they get apprehensive is because if we look at comparative religions all around the world, you will notice that religions where they speak of God as mother, usually they now fall into pantheism and it's obvious because a woman engenders life inside herself.

So people who start thinking of God as mother fall into that whole thing of everything is God, nature is God, the universe is God, and those are the things that make Christians uncomfortable. So if you have a classical Christian thinker insisting on the metaphor of fatherhood and maleness for God, these are the reasons why. It's not because traditional Christian thinkers hate women. It's just because God chose that metaphor to reveal himself to us and is communicating something,

beginning with the fact that he engendered life out of himself so he didn't engender life in him. So the universe is not God. It's one of the reasons why I take shots at, you know, you universe believers on this podcast. You know, the whole thing of the universe is calling out to me, you're manifesting the universe and blah, blah, blah and all of that. You know, philosophically, it's not sound. The universe is contingent.

The universe didn't have to be. The universe is contingent on other factors. So the universe cannot be self-sustaining. The universe cannot be a God or a deity of some sort. So first thing that I wanted to clarify because there's going to be lots of he talk in this episode when I say God, and I'm speaking to God as if he was a man, I'm not trying to put down woman, I'm just being consistent with the revelation that we have received so far.

But remember, God is neither male nor female. He is spirit. So God does not have APP, God does not have testosterone. God does not talk with baritone. So he's neither male nor female. He is spirit. OK, just wanted to get that out of the way. So some of these misconceptions, some of these questions, is God always angry with me? Is he trying to punish me? It's because we don't properly understand the nature of God. We assume that God is a person like us.

So it's part of the divine revelation that God is a person. Because let's face it, it is only people who create entities that are non personal. Don't create. Your exercise bike is not going to create anything because your exercise bike is a being is an entity, but it's not a personal being. A stoned outside your house is a is an entity, but it's a non personal entity so it's not going to create anything. So personal entities like us, we create stuff.

I'm creating a podcast because I'm a personal entity. So the ultimate entity that we call God that is responsible for everything that exists in the universe. Obviously he's a personal being, but because we speak of him as a person, some people think he's like us. But no, God is not like us. If we think that God is like us, what we end up with is a bigger version of ourselves, a super version of ourselves. What we end up with is Superman or Thor or Thanos or those big creatures that were responsible for creating the universe in in the, what's it called, this Marvel thing?

The Elementals. Yeah, and all that. But that is not what God is. That is not who God is. So a lot of times people are thinking about God, but they're just thinking about a person like me and you, but just a bigger version. A bigger version is just Thanos or Odin or Superman. So traditional classical ideas about God say that even though God is a person, he's not like us. So we should stop trying to think about God the same way that we think about ourselves.

One way that we think about God traditionally. I know this is 10 minutes, but I'm getting somewhere. I'm just trying to lay the foundation. One way that we think about God traditionally in the classical sense is to say that we speak about him having attributes, and one of those attributes is impossibility. And that is one thing that the modern Christian finds hard to deal with, because the idea behind impossibility is to say that God does not experience emotions.

I repeat that impossibility is the idea that God does not experience emotions. At the very least, he is not experiencing emotions the same way that human beings experience emotions. Because remember, God is a person. But that doesn't mean that he is like us, just the bigger version of us. The reason why traditionally we say God is impassible, that he doesn't experience emotions. At least he doesn't experience emotions the way that we do.

It's because emotions require you to have change in you and everybody knows every Nigerian anyway, that right from the days when we've been tiny in primary or nursery school, we are taught that there is no change in God. In Nigeria. There's an expression that we used to say, we used to say God the same yesterday, today, tomorrow, forever. Well, something like that I haven't heard in years. Anyway, now if there is no change in God, then he can't experience emotions the same way we do.

Let's look at the emotion in question Today we are talking about anger. Somebody feels, some people feel that maybe God is angry with them and that's the reason why business is not working out. Things are not working in your favor. Things seem to be falling apart left, right and center. Anger requires surprise or lack of knowledge. I have two boys and so because of this, it's something I can speak to very well. When I get angry with my boys is because I expected that both of them should do this, which is the right thing.

But as young boys do, they go and do the opposite. And I'm caught off guard and it makes me angry and it makes me disappointed and then I unleash, I'm not saying you should unleash and, you know, beat your kids. I'm just saying that this is the dynamic about anger. So because I have a lack of foreknowledge, I'm caught by surprise. Because I'm caught by surprise, there's anger and there's disappointment. But let's think about it.

Traditionally, we know that God is the source of all knowledge, and he knows everything past, present and future. For a being who knows everything, how can we say that that being gets surprised when you do something that is wrong? God already knew, even before you were born, that whatever it is that you did wrong or whatever setbacks that you're going through or your successes or whatever, God knows everything, So he knew it even before he was born.

Sometimes I want to mess with my boys, and so I tell them that you know, God knows everything. And I make I I point out that when my great, great, great grandfather was a boy, God knew me. God knew who I was going to be. He knew everything. My joys, my trials, my successes, my everything. Even when there was no remote chance of me being born, I'm talking about my great, great, great, great, great great grandfather. So God cannot be surprised in that sense.

And because of that, he can't fall into anger like we do. When your earthly father falls into anger, it's because your earthly father expected, like I expect of my sons, that you should do this, you should do that. But then you did the wrong thing. And then I get angry and it makes sense because I don't know. Everything but God has is a source of all knowledge. He is all knowledge itself. He has four knowledge of everything.

So he can't be surprised. Because he can't be surprised, he can't be angry. And because he can't be angry, he can't unleash the way that we humans unleash. Now, there are some passages in the Old Testament, but we can get to that later. You know, that's beyond the scope of the podcast for today. And this is meant to be a business podcast. Now, even though God cannot be surprised or angry, it doesn't mean that he doesn't have disapproval of some things.

But just remember that God's disapproval is not the same as us for your earthly father. Your earthly father disapproves of something. He will shout. He will quarrel. He will knock you on the head. He will flog you. Sorry, For those of you who are not Nigerians, I know hearing some of this stuff might be crude or horrific or whatever, but that's just how we run things in this part of the world. By the way, I'm not saying I'm not endorsing child abuse anyway, that's the topic for another day.

But I'm not saying that this is how earthly fathers react, even for those of you in the West. You know you guys go through it. So your father might not shout at you if you're American or if you're from the UK, but you can tell when your healthy earthly father is disappointed because he expected you to be a doctor but now you're doing drop shipping over Amazon. Your earthly father is thinking I pay thousands of pounds for you to go to Oxford, only for you to do this.

You should have just stayed at home and been been drop shipping from day one and save me all that money. So God has disapproval, yes, but not the same way as your earthly father does. Because he doesn't experience disapproval and shame and anger and all these things like we do. He is not going to play games with us and punish us daily. So for an earthly father like me and my son who lied to yesterday, if I told me one big lie a while back I was shocked.

I didn't know that children are capable of such lies, but many. He's a good kid. He just thought that if he told the truth, was going into trouble. So he told one lie to cover another lie and another lie to cover another lie. And my wife told me that, look, this boy is lying. I was like, no, no, no, no, no. My son would not lie to me. And it turns out my wife was right. So another father caught in this kind of loop my punish you daily I get into all these games,

punish you yesterday, wake up today and say I can't believe you told me what you did. You told this lie, blah blah, come here, give you a few strokes and then maybe tomorrow wake up again and say, hey, I can't believe that you did that, that I had faith in you. Something, something. Go and kneel down. So God is not going to play all these games with us and punish us daily. So the answer to the question is God trying to make you feel pain?

For those of you who are going through all these feelings, stuff is not working out. Business is not moving. Marriage. You're quarrelling with your wife. You're quarrelling with your husband. Let's see what else. At home in the village, things are not things are not aligning properly. You know, it's God trying to make you feel pain. The answer is no. The reason why you're feeling pain sometimes it's just part of fallen nature issues in the village.

They can arise because of all kinds of things. Maybe your father was not cool with some people. Some people were angry with your father. Even though your father is now dead. Some of that anger and misfortune has now carried on to you. Sometimes it's that simple, you know, It's not God. It's just part of fallen nature. It's also part of fallen nature that you do your best. You put all your best into your business. You try to be ethical and above board, but then you run into an idiot and the idiot is trying to cheat you.

It's just part of fallen nature. It's not God trying to make you feel pain. Well, there's some free will that's involved and it's a consequences of mistakes. There are times that I have done things that by time my eye cleared, I wondered what was I doing there in the first place. You now start suffering consequences as a result. It's not God that's trying to make you feel pain. You have free will. You now chose to wacker where you're not supposed to put your leg and then you now go and hang.

And it has nothing to do with God has free will, it's consequences of mistakes. And then sometimes you're feeling pain because you don't understand God's consequent will. The fact that God allows bad things to happen, He allows everything to happen. That is not something that we're going to understand on this side of the veil. When we die and we face final judgement or universal judgement, we will now understand. It will now become clear.

And on this I can speak particularly to some of you, especially those of us in Nigeria. We know, we know the issues that we face. Sorry those of you who are foreign listeners because over half of you that listen are American. So some of these I say my shock, some of you, but let me just say it anyway. And my father died because he was shot in the, you know, trying to remember these things. But like, he was shot in the shoulder.

I think a bullet got into the neck. Was it the ear? But as in was was bloody, sure, was real bloody. And at the time, I was very angry. Luckily for me, before my father passed, when I was a young boy, my father had told me something. I don't know why. It's a conversation I had remembered. My father told me, you know, it's good to live a good life, live clean the whole thing. Because if you live with a clean mind, you will have no enemies.

But if you have no enemies, nothing, nothing bad will happen to you. And my father told me, look, I've tried to live a good life and I know I have no enemies, Nobody means me bad. But then he added something. He said even if somebody means me bad, nobody can do me anything that will harm me except if God permits. So anybody who thinks that he's trying to harm me is wasting his time, because if God doesn't permit it, it will not happen.

And if God permits it, then, Oh, well, for some reason that conversation struck him, stayed in my mind. And so when my father passed the way that he did, that whole thing of doubting God and getting angry at him and all of that, I guess he didn't come up for me because we had had that conversation while he was alive and when I was a small boy. So why God allows these things to happen? I have no idea. You know what I preferred when my father would have lived to an ripe old age and passed, you know, the same way that, you know, most dad passed, you know,

old age. I don't know if I don't know it's any way of dying that is good. So what I'm just trying to say is God's consequent will allowing things to happen. We have no idea at the universal judgment. I will now understand why one or two things happened. But summary Is God always angry with you? The answer is no. If God was angry with you, let's face it, you'll be dead. Because when I'm angry with my boys, they quake. They tremble.

Now just imagine that if God truly was like one of us. Imagine if God was Superman or Thanos. If Superman was angry with you. If Thanos was angry with you, would you be alive? I mean, in The Avengers movie, what the Thanos do? Thanos snapped his finger. And then half of all life in all, the cosmos disappeared. So God is not angry with you. If it was not angry with you, you'd be dead. You wouldn't be able to sustain that kind of anger.

Imagine if I was angry with an aunt or a cockroach. A cockroach. The aunt would be dead. Apart from that, God sustains all things. That is the classical idea of God. And God is love. If you're being sustained right now, if you're alive right now, then God loves you. No, but he's not angry with you. Does God disapprove of sin? The answer is yes. Does he desire reconciliation with us? That is the whole point of his revelation and the Bible and Jesus Christ coming and dying for us.

The reason why I'm Speaking of all these things from a Christian context is because the person who raised these questions is a Christian. So if I was talking to a Muslim who raised all these questions, the conversation philosophically will be the same. The details will be slightly different, but you get where I'm coming from. So God disapproves of sin, yes, but he desires reconciliation. And now the final question. What does God think of me?

Rather, what does God think of you, especially if you're one of these people who is going through all these feelings right now? You don't have to think that hard. You don't have to wake up every day and every 5 minutes praying and asking God, God, what do you think of me? He has made His revelation abundantly clear in the Scripture and in the Church. That's the source of His revelation. And He has revealed that He loves us.

He has revealed that he wants to be reconciled with us, that all men might be drawn to him. And by the way, in this case, when we say all men are speaking about, we're using the word man in the universal sense. OK, let me rephrase. Just so I don't get into trouble, he desires that all of creation be reconciled to himself, and there's a universal call to holiness. So as a businessman, I am called to holiness. As a father, I am called to holiness.

As a mother, as a sister, whoever you are listening to this podcast right now, you are called to holiness according to your station in life. If you're listening to. This podcast. Maybe you're on 18 because their few 18 year olds are listening to the podcast. According to the Starts, you're thinking of being involved in business. Soon you're not in business yet. You're trying to enter uni. You are called to holiness according to your state in life.

So according to your state in life right now, an 18 year old girl who is writing jump getting ready to enter into UNILAG, you have a call to holiness. It is different for me who is a few decades older and who is a father trying to build a business, But we are still called to holiness all the same. Now the way forward, if you are experienced experiencing any of these things because we all go through it, that's also another thing.

Don't feel like you're alone in this thing. You're not alone. It's just that we wake up every day and we package ourselves and we continue going forward. But The thing is you you don't know what everybody is suffering that sometimes that some people talk, I hear their own and I'm like, wow, like I hope my own issues were bad. I'm like, I know this guy. This guy deserves some prayer. We should be praying for him. I hear some people stories.

I'm like, man, my own is a walk in the park. Like my own is easy. So everybody is going through stuff. Everybody is going through. Some stuff. So don't feel like. It's you. You're not alone the way forward. There's a whole bunch of stuff that you need to discern. For Catholics. We have the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Go. And talk to the priest. For those of you who. Have Pentecostals. You don't have the sacrament of reconciliation.

There's a whole bunch of stuff that you should be descending with your pastor, or with your Deacon, or with your deaconesses. There are plenty of. Conversations that we need to have here. So all these questions are valid questions, but these are not questions that we just push out into the Internet and then keep talking and talking and talking and we end up wallowing in misery and then make ourselves even more upset. Because when we start asking all these questions on the Internet,

and we're pushing that on the Internet, we're creating a certain kind of echo chamber That doesn't help, that doesn't help us. Let's go to the. Place where we know that we can see we can get some answers and we can engage critically with all the issues. So it's the process of discernment in the church. Talk to your family members too. If you're in good standing with Mumsy or Popsy, talk, call Popsy and say, hey Popsy, what's up?

Are you at home? OK, no problem. I'm going to be passing through in 5 minutes. I just want to holler at you small and then you go and sit down and then you guys have a conversation. So talk to your. Loved ones, Talk to your pastors. And I've been saying this a lot on the podcast, This whole thing about mental health. Luckily in. Niger, we're beginning to catch up. In Abuja. In a General Hospital in area 8, 'cause I ran into trouble with Rd. safety one time, so they seized my car.

And don't mind those idiots, any small thing, just looking for money. So they seized my car. The order that I should go for psychiatric evaluation Can't imagine. Unfortunately for me that day, yeah, I just dropped my kids in school so I was dressed like a you don't know, as in the the clothes I had worn the day before I was on camps. My plan was to come back home and I have a bath. So as I was going for this like this psych evaluation, I was even thinking that the the doctor, the shrink would look at me and say this guy is truly a madman.

But I didn't know that we had psychiatrist in our general hospitals We do at the time. I don't know how much now. Registering at era eight was only 8000 naira. I don't know how much it is now, you know, with the price of stuff going up and all that, but I registered for AK. The consultation was open for two weeks. I spoke to the shrink. We spoke about, you know, all kinds of things. Luckily the guy didn't declare that I was a madman, so I was able to pay my fine and collect my car without having my license suspended or anything like that.

But we got to. Talk generally, and from what he made me understand, they're here in Nigeria. They exist then your General Hospital. They might not be in every single hospital in your village or something like that, but at least I can. I know for sure. If you're in Abuja and you get to Area 8 General Hospital, the one that is close to the Catholic Cathedral and close to UTC, if you go there, they're there. They're on staff. 8K.

Get registered. The consultation is open for two weeks, so you can go and talk to the guy now. If you guys talk. Plenty. You don't finish, you can still go and come back tomorrow. Like I said, the consultation is going to be open for two weeks so that AK means you can come Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and next week Monday, Tuesday. You know, so you pay AK. You can go and talk to him for 10 times. So go and talk about all your issues, mental health.

So seriously, we have professionals available now. They're not many. But they're available. So let's take our mental health, import important Pay attention to our mental health, pay attention to our spiritual health. But just know you're going through all these issues. You're not alone. And I just want you guys to know God is not angry with you. The reason why you might think God is angry with you is because you think that God is a bigger version of your earthly father.

We earthly fathers, we are not perfect. In fact, it's my prayer that God is and his Holy Spirit on all fathers and mothers so that we can stop creating hang ups in our children. So you may have gone through issues with your with your with your earthly father. Your earthly father is not like me. Your earthly father is sorry. Your your, your heavenly Father is not like me, and he's not like your dad. So God is not angry with you.

He disapproves when we are straying from the path, and He desires for us to be reconciled. And that's the. Reason why we have the church and the Bible. So I said my bid. The rest is up to you. Go see your pastor. Talk to your family members. Talk to your wife. Let your wife know that this how I'm feeling. Talk to your husband. Let your husband know that this how I'm feeling that you know, my dear, I've been trying to run this thing.

Sometimes business is up, sometimes business is down. But when you look at me sometimes and you say this, I'm feeling like maybe because the business is not working, you're feeling like I'm a dream. I'm a burden on the household or something. That's how you're feeling. Tell your husband. You guys have the. Conversation. Anyway, 30 minutes, so let me bring it to a close. So connect with me the usual channels. WhatsApp.

The number is 08064662140. The country code is +234. Is there any connecting me with me? Let's stay on topic, alright? I know I've spoken up plenty about God and spiritual stuff today, but I'm not a pastor. I'm a business growth. Consultant. I'm a business development consultant and that's what I do. So yeah, we talk about personal stuff, no problem. But let's just stay on topic if this is your first time listening to the podcast.

This is not a religious podcast. It's not a philosophical podcast. So don't be surprised when you come tomorrow, you play another episode and then while talking money, money, money. I'm a greedy man. I want to make money. So that's the focus on the podcast. Then also connect with me on LinkedIn. My name is Tavishima Ayede. I'm the host of the show. You can confirm the spelling of my name from the link. We're currently listening to this episode, so thank you very much for your time and attention.

Tomorrow we're going to be back on topic, talking about objections, the reasons that people give for not wanting to do business with us when people reject us in business and. How to go? Beyond that, So tomorrow we'll be back on topic. But for now, just know that when it's when you're dealing with God, there is no objection, There is no rejection. He's just waiting. He's waiting for your head to kick into gear. So you can start.

Making the right decisions and he provides the grace and everything is going to be well at the end of the day. So I'll catch you guys tomorrow. And this is your fake Pastor Tavish, a man signing out?