Experience 2

 

Do you need experience?

I have been wanting to say this but I was withheld like I said last time when we began talking about financial health. It’s been quite of a thing that has a part that I really was roaming around asking, God what do you say about this. “Experience”, we talked about this last year in September where we were saying some things need experience for you to understand them, and we said that’s both true and not. Now, it’s back again. Last month I happened that we were having a conversation with one of my family on relationships yeah. And I was asked a question: You have never been in marriage, what can you tell me about marriage? What experience do you concerning these things that I should listen to you?, etc etc. I was told I should rather listen coz they have experience which I don’t have. Beautiful. It’s a question of experience that brings me here. As am writing this, be live with me. I don’t know what exactly is gonna be shared here but trust me it’s gonna be amazing and interesting. And I pray you grace of understanding. Okay God, we are ready.

Alright let’s start: to answer this question of experience, I might want to ask one question as an answer and probably close this talk. But I won’t do that yet, I love learning, I love foundations that can keep me building. Before I go further, I want to say that indeed there are some doors in this world that you won’t open unless you have something. I know of this; some people won’t listen to me, unless am married. Some people won’t listen to me, unless am in a relationship; some people won’t listen to me, unless am educated; some people won’t listen to me, unless am rich; some people won’t listen to me, unless I have understanding. And frankly, some people won’t listen to me, unless I don’t just have all these but have them healthy and good. So, what do I do? Get excellent. If you understand the doors that God wants to open with what you have, you would give it your best. There are things that the world respects and bows down to. The things we do are spiritual matters and only if we could understand how better God wants us to get at them to have the world at our feet. No, some of the matters of this world don’t need prayer and fasting, they need someone with what they can respect and listen to. Some of these respect and listen to people with “experience”. 

I will say this again, experience is amazing. We need it and let me remind us the 3 things I shared last year: 1. Not every experience experienced is an experience. 2. The rightly experienced experience results in an experience. 3. It’s not every experience you need to experience to gain experience. I thought we might need these things again as we go. Now my question today is, what is experience?

Well, we cannot talk of experience without talking of knowledge. The wise store knowledge. Without knowledge, you lack insight; you lack protection, you are unhealthy: for knowledge increases your strength. You lose a lot without knowledge. Go after knowledge, love it; for the lips that speak knowledge are a rare jewel than gold and rubies. Knowledge is the capacity of what you are. You are a product of what you know. Knowledge goes together with understanding. Have an under standing on the knowledge that you have. Be able to firmly stand on that knowledge. How: have roots of understanding right from under the base of that knowledge. With all thy getting, get understanding. You are wise because of knowledge and understanding you feed on.

Experience can be said to be more of practiced knowledge. Experience is a path you undergo to increase your capacity of learning. Experience develops your know-how skill. Knowledge is the bottom line of experience. Every experience has an effect on the knowledge you have: either reduction or an increase. Experience is not standalone, it is a factor of knowledge make up. Knowledge is obtained in different ways: the 5 senses (sight, hearing, taste, smell, feel). It’s under hearing that Proverbs says a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels. You want wisdom? Good, hear from people who have gone ahead of you. In a small time, they will deposit wisdom, knowledge and understanding in you that could have taken you years to learn. When the 5 senses are at work, what happens here is experience. In other words, another name of experience called knowledge happens. The level of your knowing adds up. So what are we saying? Experience is you increasing knowledge by the work of all the 5 senses. Let me say that again, you can get knowledge by either sight, hearing, taste, smell and feel.  Experience gets you on the ground where you say I was only hearing about this, now I have seen it, I have tasted, smelled and felt it. By the end of the day, your knowledge shifts. People perish because of lack of knowledge, not experience. Knowledge is what is counting. What knowledge have you got from the experience?

 

This brings me to the point: Experience without knowledge neutralizes knowledge. The order is knowledge then experience. When the order is reversed, there are higher chances that you will miss the experience itself. I repeat, come on, many people have experienced relationships without knowledge and got the picture of relationships wrong. I said if your experience is wrong, then you don’t have experience. You missed it. How many experienced people do we have out there, and yet they are still getting it wrong? What’s the matter? Don’t they have experience? You see, the issue is that many have a reversed order: we first get the wrong experience and we use that wrong experience to define the right real experience.

I will give you an example; many people experienced Jesus, they saw Him, heard Him, felt Him, smelled Him and even tasted Him. But because their experience was without knowledge, they missed Him. John the Baptist knew of Jesus and when it was time to experience Him, he was like ahaaaa that’s the lamb of God, that’s the One I’ve been talking about. Many of us have experienced God and missed Him because we didn’t know, thinking we know. When you experience God with knowledge, come on, God experiences you and there’s a shift in that knowledge and understanding of God. It gets deeper. Experience is amazing, just experience it good.

 

Let’s continue like this: experience is the best teacher. I would say no, but rather the best experience is the best teacher. The best experience unlocks yet a higher level of knowledge. And I will say it again, what makes this experience the best is the quality of the knowledge you have. To get established knowledge, go on and experience the knowledge. Practise your knowledge and you will continue to add up to your knowledge. Am saying, we should experience. The matter is: are you experiencing the right experience? The matter is: if you either lack knowledge or you have the wrong knowledge, it’s by grace that somehow you will experience the right experience.

I want to say something we might overlook when it comes to experience. There are some places that demand experience for you to step into them. You have read work adverts saying the qualification is 2,3 years experience in a certain field of work. Good, and there are some places that don’t demand experience but rather they are the experience themselves. But what they will demand is knowledge. A relationship will not demand experience, else everyone would have broken up with someone before just to get experience. But one thing a relationship will require of you is knowledge. A relationship is an experience that says if you wanna have the best of me, then know me before experiencing me. A relationship is an experience that continues to add to your knowledge of it. Get knowledge buddy. Now here is one thing to learn; my experience will never be yours nor yours be mine. We all have different lives to live and never expect to experience the same things as other people, no. Perhaps, yes at the end of the day, those variety of experiences will lead to a common knowledge and understanding. But never will you have the same experiences.

This brings me to the point: we have different unique places of experience. I don’t have a say because I have stood in the place of experience that suits you. Just because I didn’t go through your way it doesn’t mean I don’t know nor understand it. This is how God is interesting when it comes to the life of a man. He’s just given men different paths leading to the same destination. I would like to lend you the lens through which I’ve been allowed to see some things. 

We are all familiar with David, the Goliath slayer, yeah? And I hope we all know what happened to the point that Goliath got killed. Now, Goliath was a fierce soldier, that the Israelite soldiers trembled. This was a battlefield (a place of experience) with experienced soldiers who understood battle. Israelite soldiers with all their experience, they knew killing but didn’t execute it on Goliath until when this young man, David came into the scene and did the killing. David “killed” a soldier, did he know killing? Yes he did, he used to kill animals. Did he know killing the same way the soldiers did? No, the soldiers were killing fellow soldiers and people. Did David use a weapon to kill Goliath? Yes he did, he used a sling, not a sword or armour as did the soldiers. This was happening in a battlefield (a place of experience), had David ever been in a battle field? Yes, his battlefield was the place he was tending his father’s sheep, this place was nothing like the battlefield for soldiers.

Summarising, David had never been in the same place of experience like the soldiers, nor was he exposed to the fighting tactics, the armour and everything like a soldier. And yet on this day, he stood like an experienced soldier. He stepped forward to fight and him too was mocked for not being experienced. It is not like David was not experienced in battle issues. He was but not the same way like the soldiers. At the end of the day, he did the exact expectation that would have come from a soldier, “kill Goliath”. What am drawing you at is: both David and the soldiers had been in a battlefield before and experienced battles, yet different places. Just because David didn’t go through the soldier’s way of experience, it didn’t mean He didn’t know nor understand war. 

 

This far, probably is my last on this talk. We have shared to say we all have different unique places of experience. The young King David gave us an illustration of that. He happened to have operated the same way like a soldier, yet he’s never been seen training like one. Let's have one scripture and we good to go: Now when they saw the boldness and unfettered eloquence of Peter and John and perceived that they were unlearned and untrained in the schools [common men with no educational advantages], they marveled; and they recognized that they had been with Jesus (Acts 4:13, amp).

Here, we see two guys who were not experienced through the way the people expected them to be. They were not educated nor trained in this field that they were operating in. But they spoke like educated and trained men, which they got to be indeed. Where did they get this eloquence? They had been with Jesus. While some were going to school that the world recognized, these men went to their own school: Jesus. What am I trying to tell us? I repeat, just because somebody has not been in the same place that you qualify, it doesn’t mean they cannot whilst in their places get qualified to what you respect. By human wisdom, what am saying doesn’t make sense. But trust me, this world was not found by human wisdom, that’s how we miss it.

Back to the question: You have never been in marriage, what can you tell us about marriage? What experience do you concerning these things that we should listen to you?, etc etc. Well, am not married, but am a product of marriage and I live in a place of marriage¹. ² I might not be in that place that you respect to listen from, but if allowed from this place of mine I can speak respect from that place you respect. What am saying is: God has given every man places of utterance. What can I possibly tell you about marriage and family? Am not married yes, but am a product of marriage and I live in a place of marriage. And for me, that’s the secret place God uses to teach me marriage and family. Sometimes I go like, God what’s up with my folk’s marriage, what’s up with this family? And God goes like hey look at me, you see this and that, it’s supposed to be this and that, you do this and that. Relationships? God has given me friends in all those circles and all these are my secret places of experience. That’s where God goes hey Vinnie nop you weren’t supposed to do that, this is the way to go, treat that person like this. Am up to do something, God goes no no no no, not that but this.

All am trying is to give us a picture of the places like David that God uses to provide experience unto people. They may not be the exact places like those, but check around you. What places has God put you in? Those are your secret places for your development. All we need is what these men were perceived of: be with Jesus. People will wonder how is this person able to do this yet we haven’t seen him or her in this; and they will say ooh they had been with Jesus. You might not necessarily need to be in the place same as that person for you to understand and add to your knowledge. Your secret place matters, that’s where matters of your placement are hidden for you.

So should you listen to me? A thousand times no, that would be so unwise of you. Here is a trustworthy saying, don’t listen to me but you can listen to the man God has called in me. This man is not there yet, God is continuously working on him. So is He with you. Thus, I don’t listen to you coz of the place you at now. No, I listen to you coz of how deep you have gone in that place God has put you in. This is for you, me and us; acknowledge the secret place, learn experience, matters of life from there and we good to go. You got real experience waiting on your table, go get it!!!