Rev’d Simeon Afolabi~NO DIRECT FLIGHT TO DESTINY

Rev’d Simeon Afolabi, Senior Pastor of Firstlove Assembly, Port Harcourt, delivered this inspiring message during the 2025 Annual Convention
of Great Faith Church, Uyo, led by Archbishop Udeme Simon, themed; “From Strength To Strength.”

A couple of years ago I did an article titled, Lessons for the Road. As parents, when your children are embarking on a journey, you put something like snacks in their bag, saying; “This one is for the road.”One of the points I noted in that article is what I want to use to establish why we need to go from strength to
strength in our journey of faith, and what’s that point? “There Is No Direct Flight to Destiny.”

If you want to go to any of the northern states from Uyo here, it’s not likely you’re going to get a direct flight. You take flight to Abuja. In some cases, flight operators might change planes or the airline. So you have to disembark and then board the next available plane to Yola or Maiduguri, because there’s no direct flight to those areas. That is the same picture in destiny, we don’t have a direct flight to destiny. 26 years ago when I visited this church, it was a rented place. This church didn’t get to this place by direct fiight. We got here by taking off, landing, taking off landing, taking off landing.

That is how life is, that is how destiny is attained. And because there’s no direct flight to destiny, we now need strength to be able to take off from one place to another. You need strength to take off again, land somewhere else. You need strength to take off at every stop, because there is no direct flight to destiny, we need strength to keep flying.

Show me anyone who has achieved anything major in life, he will tell you he didn’t get there by the first attempt. Sometimes you find yourselves in the valley, sometimes you find yourselves on the mountain. You don’t achieve it by direct flight. Numbers 33:1-12 illustrates what I have just said. Here, there are some journeys; one journey doesn’t take you to destiny. ‘These are the journeys of the children of Israel, which went forth out of the land of Egypt with their armies under Moses and Aaron. And Moses wrote their goings out according to their journeys by the commandment of the Lord.’

God commanded Moses to write this for future generations to let them know that the journey from Egypt to Canaan wasn’t a direct one, it had punctuation and in case somebody’s life journey is being punctuated at this moment, don’t you worry, don’t you be afraid, don’t you be sad, and don’t you be depressed; it’s just a comma, it’s not yet a full stop. Remember Marah is the place of the bitter water, even in our journey to destiny, sometimes our paths may cross Marah. Because of such places, we need strength to move from there.

Verse 9 says: And they removed from Marah, and came unto Elim: and in Elim were twelve fountains of water, and threescore and ten palm trees; and they pitched there. Can you see how life is? How things are? One place was bitter, another place was sweet. But do you know the interesting thing? Even in the sweet place, God still asked them to move because that was not the end of the journey. They removed from Marah and came unto Elim. And in Elim were twelve fountains of water and three score and ten palm trees and they pitched there.

And I could almost imagine all of the leaders of Israel say, ‘Hey, we just left the place that was bitter; now let’s stay here.’ But before they knew it, the clouds shifted again; they moved from Elim and encamped by the Red Sea and from the Red Sea to the wilderness of Sin. There are about thirty-three stations or more where they had to stop before they got to the Promised Land. We don’t get to the Promised
Land with a direct flight.

Let me tell you how you can easily know a deceitful biography; it will paint a picture of how smooth he moved smoothly from elementary level to higher level without any hiccups. When you see that kind of biography, it’s a dishonest one. Life is not structured that way, life evolves one phase to another. The problem we have is that we don’t have many sincere leaders. When Jesus Christ rose from the grave and showed himself to his disciples, Thomas was not there at that moment and had some doubts but one week later, Jesus Christ showed up again, and said to Thomas, “Hey, come out here, see the scar.” A true leader, a sincere leader does not hide away from sharing his scars.

If somebody keeps giving sweet, smooth talk about his or her success in life and ministry; there are some scars he or she is not showing us. How we can tap into strength? And because of that, we need strength to keep going on, particularly if you’ve had an occasion to come at any time at Marah (the place of bitter
water). The bitter experience where your most trusted individual pierces you with a sword, you need strength to keep going on. That’s one reason we need strength to keep going on. We need strength to keep flying from one place to another until the full counsel of God, for our lives is manifested.

What God wants from us is to keep moving, – whether the last counsel was painful or pleasant God still wants you to keep going. That’s where strength is needed. I like to say to us, if you see anyone who seems to arrive at their promised land, whether promised land in marriage, promised land in business, promised land in ministry or whatever, never assume that they got there by a cockroach flight -that as soon as they took off, they got there – it’s rare to have that happens in real life.