Freedom From Spiritual, Physical, Emotional Darkness Of Disobedience

Title: Grow Where You Are Planted

Author: Saviour Ekere

Year: 2022

Reviewer: Blessed Mudiaga Adjekpagbon

Saviour Ekere's newest work titled "Grow Where You Are Planted," is an inspirational book which the author says the Holy Spirit inspired him to write for the benefit of mankind in this period of global crisis.

Its foreword is written by Pastor Daniel llori who says: "To connect with purpose, you need to connect with the purpose driven God who is interested in opening you to what matters most in your life. This book opens the mind to the need to get connected and grow purposefully. It gives insight to why you need to be planted where God's purpose for your life can be fulfilled. Once you are connected and stay connected, you will be directed (Psalm 37:23, 32:8)."

Divided into six chapters, the topics in the book are: "Grow Where You Are Planted," "The Garden ls Your Place," "Adversity ln The Garden," "You Are A Fruit Tree," "Everyone Created by God ls Great," and "Just Trust And Obey."

Mr. Saviour Ekere

The cover title, "Grow Where You Are Planted" is very insightful as it tends to advise folks to obey the voice of God by following the direction He asks them to follow to their promised land, instead of just following or copying others blindly in a world where many people prefer to listen to the voice of men instead of God's. Hence, the cover story xrays why some folks fail to prosper in life. lt however, provides remedies to how one can overcome the spirit of disobedience to God's voice, so that one can grow where he/she is ordained to prosper.

"The garden is your place," is a reminder about where God originally created humans to live and enjoy. Aside the beauty of the garden, this topic says the garden nourishes and enriches the body with various herbs and fruits in it. It dwells on how some folks fall out of their garden of enjoyment into the abyss of suffering into a "forest of life" that involves pain and sorrow. What to do to avoid falling from the garden of enjoyment are also pinpointed in the chapter.

"Adversity in the garden," portrays a saying that "Life is full of ups and downs." Here, the author shares his experience about the adversity of life. He refers to a poem about the adversity of life, which is one of his creative works, to boost folks moral in the face of adversity. The poem is titled "Press On." It is a  stylistically woven  sonnet, crafted with heroic or even couplet rhymes of aa, bb, cc, dd, ee and so on and so forth. This shows the creative gift of the author by using poetry in a simplified manner to pass across a message of encouragement to inspire readers to be hopeful by the grace of the Holy Spirit. He delves the reader's mind into different situations that have been overcome by those that positively press on.

"You are a fruit tree," is a periscope of what Psalm 1: 3, says, "He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also does not wither, and whatever he does shall proper." Using this as a bedrock, Ekere talks about the folly of being ignorant and pretentious. He posits that "If you are operating below the benchmark of God's expectation, there is a problem. You need to go back to God who will recreate, rebrand and remake  you." One could sense his play with alliteration in his quoted advice to those that want God's immediate intervention in their life. It is one of the author's hallmarks of writing as a creative scholar with inspirational light.

Moreover, "Everyone created by God is great," is an expository of the author's experience as a teacher in a secondary school. He shares his observation in his interactions with students, teachers and parents on one hand, and the underrating of latent  skills in students by parents / teachers who give too much attention to grades, on the other. ln this regard, he avers that "My concern is this, most of these students we label 'poor' have potentials of creating something apart from being confined to school subjects and grades." What the author is simply saying in this chapter is that "Education should develop the minds and not to confine children to conventional life style." 

He makes reference to Albert EInstein, Robert Kiyosaki, Thomas Edison, Lao Tzu and Psalm 4:7 to buttress the need to also develop skills of students instead of focusing only on the grades they make in subjects.

In "Just trust and obey," the last but not the least chapter, the author presents a microscopic and macroscopic analysis of a popular song known as "Trust and obey." It examines the power of obedience in conjunction with Romans 4: 18 -12 and various biblical verses to encourage folks about how to become successful by growing where they are planted, instead of trying to dictate to God what He should do.

By and large, the messages in the book are very insightful about how we can overcome different challenges in life with reliance on scriptural and positive attitude of obeying the Holy Spirit towards doing things that may not appear significant to our egos, yet ordained by God to take us to great heights of accomplishing our individual destinies in life. A versatile reader will certainly observe that the author carried out commendable sociological, scriptural and scholarly researches that gave birth to the highly inspiring book. With the situation of happenings in the world today, the book could help to save many folks from loosing hope or going astray, and also help those that have already gone astray to retrace their steps, to embrace salvation and success.

Saviour Ekere has written various inspirational books over the years. One of them is titled "Think Outside The Box."  "Grow Where You Are Planted" is available on amazon platform via this link: https://www.amazon.com/GROW-WHERE-YOU-ARE-PLANTED-ebook/dp/B09Y98TYXQ/

Ekere teaches English Language at a private secondary school in Lagos. He is married and living fine with his family.

 

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