10 Things I Learnt From My Spiritual Father Apostle Pride Sibiya with Pastor Tatenda Mupini

We sometimes face trials that are beyond our imagination – and we never know how to quench or share with.

But if you have a servant of God who has been through a lot, you are assured of wise advice that will take you places.

1. God is your source: Feeling dejected and hopeless after I had been told at work that there was no vacancy for me after a two-year graduate leadership, my eyes were blurred with tears.

Written By Pastor Tatenda Mupini

I fumbled with my phone to make a call to my father, Apostle Pride Sibiya. After venting my frustration, he said these words which have become the foundation and premise of my faith: “That company is not your source, God is your source.”

2. A father gives you a name, you don't name yourself: One day full of zeal and fasting for power and anointing we made our way to the mountains past 13 Choto where my father resided. We were determined to come down the mountain with one of the titles from the esteemed fivefold ministries.

As we prayed, one amongst us said God has spoken that we must go back to 13 Choto – and we will get answers of what we were praying for. At home, our father was not even fasting yet God had furnished him with the identities we were fasting for.

Being a father he just gave us our God-given identities. Then I learnt identity comes from God but through a father. God has given fathers the grace to release His preset destiny for their children.

If you shun your father, you may die a vagabond, moving about but never realizing your God-given purpose. Fathers are just like midwives – the baby might be yours but they are responsible for the delivery.

3. A father can release announce a season in one's life: In 2011, we were walking at our church stand, with no structure there was just an open space, casually my father then just said to me with a pat in the back, it's time you got to work in your mining field and bring back amounts of money to build.

A few weeks later was called to work and we were building a wall around the church stand. In 2015 after having had over a year's break from work, in a service at the church stand in the middle of a message, he paused and pointed to me and said Tatenda, the door is closed but you are getting through without any open doors. A few weeks later, I was recalled back to my work with no interview and no job advert (No open door, yet got in!)

4. Prayer is not a religion but a relationship: I had always felt intimidated when it came to prayer not naturally endowed with a hoarse voice or not that poetic and without many big words like omniscient, omnipresent etc in prayer. However, after watching my father pray, I learnt that prayer is a relationship, not a religion.

There is a simplicity to how he prays birthed from a deep relationship with God through the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. He would teach, talk to God as you would to your father. Prayer is not big words nor a hoarse voice but being vulnerable before Him to the extent that nothing is too petty to mention before Him. He is your papa.

5. Be diligent to develop and use your gift: As we sat to watch the late Dr Oliver Mtukudzi being interviewed in America, after the interview before Apostle and mama prayed for me and my wife he taught me. Oliver Mtukudzi was not educated but he was gifted.

He diligently worked on his gift till it brought him before great people. He was given an honorary doctorate in music yet he never had a degree. You are both gifted and degreed, don't be lazy to develop your gift: teach and write.

6. Fatherhood is nurturing not disciplining: Like the older brother of the Prodigal Son full of indignation, we watched our father over the years with love and open arms, taking back our fellow brothers and sisters who had turned prodigal.

‘It's a mistake he is making’, we would be thinking, feeling vindictive and retributive. ‘They should be punished and never allowed back into the fold’. One day I understood when he taught.

“Never kill or abandon what God has put in your children, if they err, receive them back and nurture that God-given treasure in those earthen vessels. Most gifted children can be troublesome but never ignore what God has put in them.”

7. On love: After a service at the City Centre Assembly, father quickly took a detour to Bakers Inn, and bought a doughnut and then taught me. “Son when you get married, whenever you go somewhere without your wife, always make it a point to bring her back something to show that whilst you were out there, she was on your mind ...”

8. A leader must die first to bear fruit: Father teaches that no leader can expect fruit over things that they have not first died for. You can never expect the church to give sacrificially if you haven't died first in giving. He has demonstrated this so many times by being the first to give sacrificially before we have seen so many practising sacrificial giving for the advancement of the vision.

9. On vision: “A vision is like a baby, in its early stages you need to nurture it and protect it and nourish it, after a while, it will grow and take care of you...,” he once taught us.

10. Before you are a servant of God, you are a child of God: Being called a servant of God doesn't exonerate you from what is expected of you as a child of God. If you sin you still need to confess if you don't give and tithe you will die poor regardless of your calling.

You still need to exercise forgiveness and also are required to have faith.