STANDING IN THE GAP

STANDING IN THE GAP


I once asked my grandfather what standing in the gap meant.

He said to me, child, no one can explain standing in the gap to you in a way you will understand, he chanted.

You will have to experience it to understand that someone is standing in the gap. My grandfather quipped.



Three weeks ago, I was rushing off to the airport and was 30 minutes close to missing my flight.

A complete stranger parks his car and offered to take me to the airport.

As we got to the airport terminal, I offered to pay him for his time and services and he refused to collect the money.

He even muttered a prayer for me saying: “I hope you meet my flight”

Thank you was all I could mutter as I pulled out my bags and ran into the airport’s departure wing. I made it to the checking counter 10 minutes before the gate closed.

As the aircraft took off, I started to rethink everything that happened.

The only thing that came to my mind is that this gentleman who refused to neither tell me his name, nor give his card stood in the gap for me.

In a flash, I remembered what my grandfather told me about standing in the gap. He said: You will have to experience it to understand that someone is standing in the gap.

I write this piece this morning asking some rhetorical questions?

1.    Have you stood in the gap for someone or for an organization?

2.    Have you ever done something for someone that the person was never able to pay you back?
3.    Have you helped someone to make a decision to buy something and ensured that the person received the full benefits accrued to that person?

If you do, then you have stood in the gap for someone.

God and the World are looking for men/women to stand in the gap.

The world is in need of men/women of integrity to stand in the gap.

The goal of this piece is to bring you all to a realization, that if you stand in the gap for others, people will stand in the gap for you.

Look around you and you will see that the world revolves around a system that stands in the gap for others.

God created the world and left the world for man to stand in the gap to manage it.

Even when men failed, he sent his son and various messengers to stand in the gap for the world.

Every invention that exists today is a function of somebody standing in the gap.

Even government and our political systems were designed to stand in the gap for people.

What do we need as a people to enable us stand in the gap?

We need to embrace a good value system.

Our focus in life shouldn’t be to become successful career men/women, but to be men/women of value.

Values enable us to live a life of integrity, which in turn leads to a better quality of life.


So as you move out today, endeavor to stand in the gap for someone in your office, at home and everywhere you go and in no time, you would have made a better place.

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