Author: Vanessa Moonkie

Helloooooo. It’s reflection Friday! It’s the end of yet another week and APPARENTLY it’s a big weekend. I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t know what they are doing this weekend but they say it’s big. They are saying red whatever, rose whatever, lovers whatever. I don’t know the full gist yet but that’s their plan. They wan give us headache but there’s grandpa and panado in store so we will be hokay! Today’s one will be short cos some of you can’t even read anything else but love letters right now! Kai! See your liiiiiiiiife?

I want to tell you something you didn’t ask me, my name means butterfly.

Anyways, in the image above we see a caterpillar looking at itself in a mirror. I don’t know if caterpillars actually use mirrors, but let’s believe the photo, LOL. As it looks, it doesn’t see the green, awkward worm that it appears to be. Instead, it sees something beautiful. It sees a bright yellow butterfly, big, healthy, and adorned with the most beautiful patterns.

What the caterpillar is seeing is not its present form on the outside, but its true nature on the inside. That’s what many of us fail to recognize about ourselves. All week, you’ve second-guessed yourself and called yourself the worst names under the guise of “being honest with yourself,” but that kind of honesty, when not guided by wisdom, does more harm than good

“For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭8‬:‭18‬ ‭KJV‬‬

One of the worst things you can do to yourself, apart from rejecting Jesus and making poor decisions, is to program your mind negatively. You begin to see yourself as the ugliest person in the room. You silently compare yourself to others. You hold conversations with yourself that always end in sadness and self-pity. You dwell on thoughts that drain your joy, not realising that this way of thinking has become a habit. If you don’t change how you see yourself, you will never become any better.

I didn’t come to talk too much today. I came to ask you one question, when you look in the mirror, do you see the butterfly or the worm? What do you see? Gideon, what do you see? A mighty man of valour, or the least in your family? And are you planning to occupy in 2026 with that mindset, always needing people to compliment you just to feel alive? What if they don’t? What if nobody ever tells you that you’re beautiful? Do you think butterflies are told they are beautiful? Yet they are.

You must learn to see the beauty in yourself before others do. See the uniqueness. See the sign and the wonder that you are. If you don’t, you will be abused by people who actually see it, by people who know what you carry. The Israelites thought of onions, but Pharaoh saw something different. He saw builders, people who could work while he rested and drank coffee.

Do you think small-mindedness is humility?

Vanessa Moonkie

Do you think negative thinking will attract mercy or pity from people? Do you think looking down on yourself will produce good results? Think again. Think McCain. I love you. See you on Monday AND PLEASE, do not break God’s heart by doing anything useless this weekend outside the confines of scripture. Don’t be like Esau.

If you read my blogs but have never met this  Wonderful Jesus that I’m always writing about,  you’d love to get to know Him, Or you know The Lord but have found yourself drifting far from Him, I would love to talk with you. Please send me an email  on yieldedcwcenter@gmail.com or simply comment, and I will reach out to you. 

Can someone really occupy through kindness? How so? Is it really possible to be kind and then find yourself in a glorious testimony? Well, I say yes, yes you can. Welcome to the Yielded Center, it’s Worship Wednesday, it’s Hallelujah Challenge, and I hope you have been dancing like King David or Brother Chike, whoever you choose between the two! Let’s go!

The world has taught many people things that are contrary to the Word of God, and some of these teachings have not only torn down society but broken homes as well. People no longer know how to be kind because they are told that kindness is weakness, so they stop, they are told kindness makes you a fool, so they stop, yet when you truly sit and think about it, many of these opinions are designed to steal, kill, and destroy, the very mandate of the enemy.

It does not always come with a hand grabbing something and running away, sometimes it comes subtly, stealing your principles and good character through something as simple as one viral video from an influencer titled Ways to Make You More Attractive, where step one is to have an attitude and be rude, quietly reshaping hearts away from godly values while disguising destruction as confidence and strength.

I know I’m not the only one who has seen the many “steps” the world is dishing out which, if we truly applied them, would leave us without families, friends, jobs, marriages, or even life itself. That is why we do not live according to the standards of the world, they have a lot of complicated stuff . If you are a believer who blogs or shares “steps,” please make sure you are giving godly advice, okaaaay, that’s definitely too long for an introduction 😂 so let’s get into it.

First of all, every believer must be kind, it is not optional. Kindness is the first fruit and proof of love according to Scripture, for love is what? Kind (1 Corinthians 13:4). This means unkind people are unloving. No maths, no equations, simple business. If kindness is absent, love is absent. When the servant of Abraham was searching for a wife for Isaac, his prayer was strikingly simple, the one who would show kindness and go the extra mile by offering water not only to him but also to his camels, that is the one!!! (Genesis 24:12–21) But some of us here, the man came and, anyways let’s continue. It was through that genuine kindness that Rebekah occupied her place in destiny and her marriage.

What about Ruth? Even Boaz said to her, “the whole city knows” how you showed kindness to your mother-in-law (Ruth 3:11), because people always know who is kind and who is not. You can smile a whole hour if you like, people can tell what is fake and what is true. “Call me when you’re in trouble,” trust me, they want to call, they just won’t, because if for 20–24 hours of the day you are unkind, your words carry no safety.

True kindness is shown even in the smallest things, helping someone carry groceries, assisting with a task without expecting payment because when you are genuinely kind, you instinctively know what to do in a situation. It becomes your first response, not a performance, and yes, I have met very unkind people, some even in church. Ehhh nc!

Rudeness, an attitude, a whole bag of coldness then at 3am they cry to God, “Lord, send my destiny helper!” yet what if that helper came and you couldn’t even greet. What if they didn’t arrive in shiny shoes and a suit? What if the sister you ignored in church is the one who knows exactly who could help you.

You see, many people are only kind to those who look like they deserve it. They have people they smile at and compliment, then show bad attitude to others. If you are like that, you are not a kind person because kindness is not selective, and if it were, it is a fruit of love, then Jesus would have saved only the Jews, so understand this, kindness limited to your friends will cost you big doors. We will continue on Friday, go and be kind. Drop that terrible attitude, TODAY.

If you read my blogs but have never met this  Wonderful Jesus that I’m always writing about,  you’d love to get to know Him, Or you know The Lord but have found yourself drifting far from Him, I would love to talk with you. Please send me an email  on yieldedcwcenter@gmail.com or simply comment, and I will reach out to you. 

Many believers struggle to truly occupy through prayer because prayer has become a view once photo for them. Laziness and slumber. Some pray only once in a while, treating prayer like an emergency tool , while others pray one long prayer on a Friday to compensate for silence from Monday to Thursday. Some cannot remember the last prayer they prayed beyond “God bless our food, Amen.” Others only pray within prayer groups and have no personal fellowship with God, using corporate prayer as a crutch to support an un-injured leg.

There are those who pray but their hearts are disconnected, so prayer becomes a religious routine. Others pray like the Pharisees, to be seen and heard by people for their deep groanings amd big words. Some pray without faith or expectation, speaking words they do not believe will produce results, and others pray amiss, driven by wrong motives and unyielded desires. Many have never truly prayed to God at all, they only pray against the enemy, turning prayer into constant warfare without intimacy. They wake up straight to “l binnnnnd!”

Some rely on their grandmother’s or mother’s prayers, believing they can be “bluetooothed” into a relationship with God, while others say one or two lines before sleep or cannot remember the last time they deliberately gave God time yet all of this reveals a generation that wants the fruit of prayer without the discipline, relationship, and devotion that prayer demands. My people, if you want to occupy through prayer, you must pray. There’s literally no other way. To be a lawyer you must study law right? Copy and paste.

I said I’d want us to look at the life of a man who occupied through prayer. I do not make men idols but they can be a great example to others , for us to see that a human being like each of us has truly occupied through prayer. Most of you know this man of God.

This is Pastor Jerry Eze, the convener of Nsppd prayers and the General Overseer of Streams of Joy international. What do you know him for? I bet your answer would be, prayer. What else? Answered and effective prayer. Like I said before, I don’t make any man or woman an idol or a better example than Jesus but we cannot deny the results that this man of God has occupied through prayer. It’s right before our eyes every morning, everyday. We cannot look away from the fact that, what many people think is impossible, “to pray daily” , others are doing it! Is it not Elijah that scripture tells us about?

“Elijah was a man with human frailties, just like all of us, but he prayed and received supernatural answers. He actually shut the heavens over the land so there would be no rain for three and a half years! Then he prayed again and the skies opened up over the land so that the rain came again and produced the harvest.”

‭‭James (Jacob)‬ ‭5‬:‭17‬-‭18‬ ‭TPT‬‬

Elijah was not an angel, he was not a creature from another world, he was fully human. If he had the same nature as us, it means he felt sleepy, he got tired, he experienced weakness, and there were moments he probably didn’t feel like praying. He had flesh and blood just like you and me, yet this man prayed. In spite of his humanity, he chose prayer, and through prayer he occupied territory even the weather responded.

Elijah occupied weather seffff. What are you sayiiiiiing?! One man stood before God and altered the climate of a nation, seasons were suspended because a man prayed. There was no autumn, no rain, no cycle as usual because prayer gave one human being authority to shift national patterns. That is the power of prayer when an ordinary person decides to take God seriously. Take your prayer life seriously this year. I have another photo

These are people who came out to pray because a man occupied through prayer. A man took prayer seriously, look at how he has occupied nations. You may not be called to be a pastor , or start a church BUT this is to open your eyes to the endless possibilities if we prayed. Put your phone away and pray. The movie is not running away! Netflix company , I’m sooo sure has a plan to be there even next year. Koreans won’t disappear from the face of the earth. Reels will be there even after an hour. TikTok will not suddenly become inaccessible. Trust me all these companies have a plan to be here for loooong, you can catch up. This year if what will stop you from occupying is the number of hours you spend on your phone, you are an unserious person.

I wrote this on my threads yesterday, a prayer warrior is not a special title. It’s a name we call someone who decided to commit to their prayer life. We make it seem like it’s not achievable by just anyone. It’s not some throne. It is someone who just decided to be serious about prayer. If God opened our eyes to see just what we could’ve achieved if we prayed, some of us would throw a fit. The many “God why’s” are actually supposed to be answered by us. Why have you not prayed? Is your life fine the way it is?

People of God, we must pray. The territories are filled with spirits, they won’t listen to “in the name of Jesus whom Paul preaches!” They will listen to men and women who have build capacity. Those are the ones known in the spirit . That demon was not having it! It beat 7 men! 7! The number of perfection 😂! 1 against 7! Even John Cena has never. Maybe Jackie Chan in kungfu. 😂 let me be serious.

Commit to a prayer life exactly the way you commit to bathing your body (we all bath here right? Cos I don’t want to hear any stories) . The same way you shake when you haven’t eaten , shake when you haven’t prayed and go pray. The same way you want to look presentable in the flesh, look presentable in the spirit. There are spaces you will never occupy by just having a good CV. You won’t occupy by just having a degree, you can have twenty if you like! Wear that big hat to the meeting and put all the Fenty make up in the world. They won’t give you a second thought.

People out there pray to their gods and have occupied through dark means so nobody will shift for you because you speak good English and bought a new shoe for the interview. Please! Get up and pray. Let it be part of your daily life. Let it be part of you! Remember, it’s not impossible. We just have to be serious! Let’s continue tomorrow, I love you but get praying or you will lose where you are supposed to win.

If you read my blogs but have never met this  Wonderful Jesus that I’m always writing about,  you’d love to get to know Him, Or you know The Lord but have found yourself drifting far from Him, I would love to talk with you. Please send me an email  on yieldedcwcenter@gmail.com or simply comment, and I will reach out to you. 

This is one of my favourite topics listed for the YC this year, Occupying Through Prayer. Perhaps it’s because I lead a prayer group, or because of the real transformation prayer has brought into my life, but I truly love the topic of prayer. Happy new week, my people, let’s go!

By God’s grace, I was once on radio during the 21 days of prayer and fasting, and I remember saying to the people that while I was glad to be there, I hoped we were not only excited about prayer and fasting in January, only to lose our fire through compromise by Valentine’s Day. Then we pick it up again, and by August we are pleading the blood, only to jumpstart once more, and by December 30 we are excited about a new year so we can carry some fire again during another 21 days of prayer and fasting.

Honestly, this is the cycle for many believers, prayer and fasting becoming a January activity. No yielded person should ever live that way. If I KATCHHH  you?!!! No be small thing I will do to you o.

The subject of prayer is often spoken about, yet many times people are talking without actually doing. Prayer is not for discussion, it is for action. You don’t wish it, and you don’t say “I’m praying for you” without actually praying. The way to learn how to pray is to pray, the way to overcome laziness in prayer is to pray, the way to grow in prayer is to pray and pray some more, and the way to be consistent in prayer is to pray consistently. There is nothing mathematical or scientific about it, no formula of “do ABC,” will work if there’s no action married to it. Nobody can even lay hands on you and say, “Receive a prayer life,” because even if you “receive” it, without actually praying, nothing changes.

Many believers do not pray, they postpone it until the enemy strikes with trouble. Many pray only as a reaction to the devil, not a response to God or His word. Praying only when things become difficult, so their prayers are not even faith-filled but panic prayers. Many believers also dish out their prayer points to “intercessors” and I say that intentionally while they sleep and slumber in their homes, watching Netflix, eating caramel popcorn (my favourite), and laughing away, while an intercessor is carrying our prayer burden. If we truly understood the power of prayer, we would never want to stop.

“Commune with God at all times.”

‭‭Romans‬ ‭12‬:‭12b ‭TPT‬‬

We have been given a strategy to occupy, a strategy to grow , a free strategy that no one will charge you for. You have it, so use it, use it and occupy. Tomorrow I want to give an example of someone who occupied through prayer, just to open our eyes to the endless possibilities. When people say, “I can’t pray, I’m always sleepy during prayer,” the solution is simple, fight the sleepiness. I wish there were a formula many are searching for Greek and Hebrew explanations but it does not exist. Pray yourself out of laziness to pray, it sounds paradoxical, but it is true. 

Jesus prayed, He would take all-nighters in prayer, then during the day He cast out devils, healed, and delivered as if it were nothing, until the disciples noticed the pattern and said, “Sir, teach us how to pray.” They could not ignore the results, they saw Him withdraw to isolated places to pray and realised that although they knew about prayer, His kind was different. They had seen John teach his disciples and said, “We also want to learn.” Do you think the disciples had never prayed before?

These disciples were Jews who already went to the temple, so they knew about prayer and had prayed before, but they did not have the results of Jesus’ prayer, prayer that makes you occupy, prayer that builds capacity, prayer that shifts things, prayer that can turn your 2026 into a testimony-after-testimony kind of year, prayer that can subdue kingdoms, the fervent prayer of a righteous man and the heartfelt prayer of a woman. “I don’t feel like praying” is itself an attack or lack of zeal for God because many people always feel like eating, feel like sleeping, or feel like doing all sorts of things so why is it that a spiritual activity that is most beneficial to your destiny is the one you never feel like doing? 

If we lived by feelings, do you know how wrecked our world would be? A president would feel like spending a nation’s money, a policeman would feel like shooting someone, and you would feel like quitting a job you actually need. We don’t live by feelings; we live by the Word. The Word says pray, the Word says keep praying, the Word says turn your life into a prayer. I’ve always said nobody is a prayer machine , what we call a “prayer warrior” is simply a normal person who decided to take prayer seriously. Why does it have to be someone else and not you? Twenty-four hours and you didn’t find time to speak to God , how then will you occupy?

Are you that person who will pray this year? Will you use this weapon to fight? Will you communicate with your God and find out how to occupy through prayer? What will you do?

As for me? I will pray.

If you read my blogs but have never met this  Wonderful Jesus that I’m always writing about,  you’d love to get to know Him, Or you know The Lord but have found yourself drifting far from Him, I would love to talk with you. Please send me an email  on yieldedcwcenter@gmail.com or simply comment, and I will reach out to you. 

It’s Reflection Friday my people!🎈

Another weekend, another month moving so fast. It’s like these Valentines people are rushing us this month. We just started February yesterday and now we are a week in? They want to show us their roses and long paragraphs of sweet talk. But don’t worry, next year is your turn. Make sure you make sure. Make sure the 1st of February becomes the 14th or make sure everyday of February is valentines. Make up for all valentines you have missed out on. Show us all the Pepe you have been storing 😂 make it redder than the colour RED!

Today is Reflection Friday, and I want us to pause and reflect on the romantic relationships we have found ourselves in at one point or another, and how they have affected us whether positively or negatively in our journey to occupy through marriage. First of all, I want to say this clearly: if you desire to marry, you desire a good thing, and if you desire to remain single, you also desire a good thing.

There are two types of people who enter marriage: those who have never been in a relationship prior to that particular one, and those who have had one or several before. The latter is usually the more common. By the time people marry, they have often tried with sister A or brother B. For most people, their first relationship does not lead to marriage, in a few cases it does, but more often it does not. This explains why that person you once liked and thought you would marry did not end up being the one. In many ways, this is because we discover ourselves over time; we must first come to know who we are soberly and honestly so that we can marry from a place of identity and purpose. Whether you fall into category A or B, you still qualify for marriage. No one is more qualified than the other. If God wills it, you will have it.

Growing up, I often heard statements like, “By 25 a woman must be married,” or “By 30 a man must have settled down.” The age was always a bit higher for men, and while I understand some of the thinking behind that, I want to say this: the marriageable age is when God presents your spouse. It is God who decides the timing; you simply align when He brings that person. Even at 49, you can still marry, my dear. With that in mind, I want us to soberly consider how we have handled romantic relationships was it all their fault, was it your fault or were there areas where responsibility was shared?

Being honest with yourself in this is the first step toward fixing whatever needs to be fixed. Were you too wishful in your thinking? Did you run ahead of God? Had God truly confirmed them to you, or was your heart so glued to them that the only voice that made sense was your own? Was the relationship an escape plan from a family house, pressure, or circumstances? Did anyone push you into it? Did you overlook the red flags God revealed after you prayed that dangerous prayer? Did you tolerate actions you knew were unacceptable simply because you wanted the relationship so badly? Did you give your body and exchange your birthright?

Knowing who you are now and what you know now, would you still have wanted to marry that person? We must remember that we are better off marrying from a place of identity and purpose.

Vanessa Moonkie

Reflect on these things. Take yourself on a self-mirror journey where you stop blaming everyone else even that person and honestly examine your own part. What was your role? It may not have been as bad as what they did to you (or perhaps you were the doer of all bad things), but maybe your part was staying when you should have left, being silent when you should have spoken up, continuing to respond when you should have cut off, blocked, and deleted, or listening to repeated “I’m sorry” with no change,  when you could have enjoyed singleness and waited on God.

I have often thought that we have gone through things we shouldn’t have simply because we didn’t ask from the very beginning. Was God part of it? Is God part of your decision making process in relationships, or is He only invited to bless a relationship He never ordained?

Vanessa Moonkie

If we truly want to occupy through marriage, should we not learn about marriage? Have you read any book on marriage, or do you plan to copy and paste what you did before? Are you relying on social media tips to teach you how to stay married? Have you listened to a marriage sermon? What does God actually say about marriage, and what are the roles of a husband and a wife? You would never assume the position of a doctor without medical knowledge so why assume the position of a spouse without understanding, when either you or the other person will suffer for lack of knowledge ?

For you to finally do things right, you must have the right knowledge, but it all begins with the person in the mirror, forgive yourself for past mistakes and commit to working on yourself to become the version of you that God wants married. Work on character, deal with all those random  moods you have, deal with that temper and get up and work on your life. I have a scripture for you as we head into the weekend, may your own find you, may you find your own before Valentine’s 😂 or before the end of the month, in Jesus’ name!

“It’s better to have a partner than go it alone. Share the work, share the wealth. And if one falls down, the other helps, But if there’s no one to help, tough!”
‭‭Ecclesiastes‬ ‭4‬:‭9‬-‭10‬ ‭MSG‬‬

BUT

“Promise me, O women of Jerusalem, by the gazelles and wild deer, not to awaken love until the time is right.”
‭‭Song of Songs‬ ‭3‬:‭5‬ ‭NLT‬‬

I LOVE YOU👇🏾 See you on Monday🫰🏾

If you read my blogs but have never met this  Wonderful Jesus that I’m always writing about,  you’d love to get to know Him, Or you know The Lord but have found yourself drifting far from Him, I would love to talk with you. Please send me an email  on yieldedcwcenter@gmail.com or simply comment, and I will reach out to you.