HomilyfromthePew

Adákéjá

The One Who Does Not Struggle, Because the Outcome Is Already Sealed

Life is not a mystery to be unravelled. It is a bouquet and every flower in that bouquet is an action, and every action arrives already clutching its consequence. Not waiting for one. Not hoping for one. Carrying one. This is the architecture of the world as it was made, and it is the subject of this homily.

In my LegacyNow Leadership Project, where I open my own life as a teaching instrument on family, parenting, child safeguarding, and the practice of family law, I return again and again to what I call the Adákẹ́já Principle. Adákẹ́já: the one who does not struggle, who does not panic, who does not make noise because it is absolutely certain of where this ends.

Life is Adákẹ́já. Truth is Adákẹ́já. They do not chase you. They do not plead with you. They simply wait, and while they wait, the consequence you have already triggered is already in motion.

Consider the seed. When God made the world, He placed the consequence of every action inside the action itself , the way He placed the tree inside the seed. He did not say He would decide the end later. He finished the world, all of it and He called it very good (Genesis 1:31). That means nothing is unaccounted for. Nothing is pending. When you plant an action or an omission, you have already planted its harvest. You declared the end the moment you chose the beginning.

“I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come.” Isaiah 46:10

This is why we do not need to curse anyone. We need not open our mouths and call ruin down on those who have wronged us, because the curse we would pronounce is redundant and a redundant curse is a powerless one. And even a deserved curse? The one already invited by that person’s own action? It has already come to rest. It is already in the seed. When Balaam opened his mouth over Israel, God shut the curse before it could land, because the action that invites a curse must first exist and where it exists, the consequence already exists with it (Numbers 23:8). We do not need to beg God to punish anyone. God is not slow, forgetful, or waiting on our instruction.

“Like a fluttering sparrow or a darting swallow, an undeserved curse does not come to rest.” Proverbs 26:2

And here is the thing about judgment that the Lord’s own words illuminate, if we read them carefully: I have come to understand the command not to judge not merely as a call to restraint, but as a description of a legal redundancy. The action taken , knowingly or unknowingly is itself a pronouncement of judgment. To judge someone who has already been judged by their own action is to risk double jeopardy: you insert yourself into a case that is already settled, and in doing so, you create a new case of your own. In the same way you judge others, you will be judged because the mechanism is already running.

“Do not judge, so that you will not be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged.” Matthew 7:1–2

Even the law of the land the work of men has understood this principle well enough to build it into its own architecture. In civil matters, the law of contract already envisages the consequence of every action taken between parties. In criminal matters, the legislature does not wait to decide punishment at the time of the offense it has already spoken: if you do this act, this is the consequence. The offense and its consequence are written together, promulgated together, and they stand together.

And there is a reason for this. If there is no consequence attached to an offense, the offense cannot be punished because the judge has no guideline. And if there is no consequence attached to a good deed, the good deed cannot be rewarded because again, the court has no guideline. Remove consequence from the law, and you have removed law itself.

Human jurisprudence, at its most coherent, is simply humanity attempting to mirror the order that God already built into creation the inbuilt verdict, written into the action at the moment of commission.

“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:23

When institutions depart from this principle, the cracks show immediately. I have worked with schools that write rules like no electronic devices on school premises’ and write nothing else. No stated consequence. The rule floats. And so when a child brings the device, there is no guideline for discipline, no ground for sanction, no authority to stand on. The rule exists, but it is toothless because it was written without its other half.

Life, by contrast, has never written a toothless rule. Every provision in the order of creation carries its consequence fully formed. That is not cruelty. That is completeness.

That is the Adákẹ́já principle. Life does not make noise. Truth does not struggle. They are potent in themselves sufficient to defend themselves, fight for themselves, and reward everyone according to what they have sown.

I have no fear none of those who go about deceiving people. They are only deceiving people. The only person I would fear is someone who could successfully deceive God and get away with it. If you find that person, bring them to me and we will have a remarkable conversation. Until then, the man who deceives his neighbour and thinks himself clever is running a cheap con scheme, much noise, much movement, much nothing. He is not getting away with anything. He is simply in the middle of a harvest he has not yet seen.

And if this is true of the man who cheats his neighbour, it is truer still immeasurably truer of those who think they own Nigeria and have seen it all; those who cannot secure the lives of the people they swore to protect; those who do not bat an eyelid when schools become a killing field, when children are kidnapped and killed, when teachers are beheaded in broad daylight. To those, this homily speaks its plainest word: Adákẹ́já is in force.

The silence you mistake for absence is not absence. The patience you mistake for weakness is not weakness. The harvest you have been planting seed by seed, oath by broken oath, child by unprotected child is already in the ground, and it is allaady growing.

“Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.” Galatians 6:7

Adákẹ́já does not struggle.

Adákẹ́já does not announce.

Adákẹ́já simply is as certain and as silent as seed in the ground, waiting.

Do have an INSPIRED week ahead with the families.