Asher's Blog

A birthday reflection — 26 March 2026 Today, I am celebrating the birthday of my pastor and mentor, Pastor Yemi Davids.

One of the gifts of having someone in your life for many years is that their influence eventually becomes difficult to separate from the person you have become. You may remember specific conversations and moments, but there are also values you now practise almost instinctively because you watched someone live them consistently before you understood how important they were.

PYD has he is fondly called, has been my mentor for many years. At the beginning, I could not have known all the decisions I would later make, the businesses I would build or the responsibilities I would carry. However, many of the principles I would eventually need were already being demonstrated in front of me.

Today, I want to share four of those lessons. There are certainly more, but I will keep the rest for another day.

1. Selflessness is Something You Practise

The first lesson I learnt from Pastor Yemi is the value of being selfless and becoming a giver.

He did not only give things to me. I watched him give to many other people. What stayed with me was that people did not always have to ask. He would notice that someone needed something and respond. He paid attention closely enough to recognise needs that had not yet been spoken aloud.

That is a deeper kind of generosity. It is easy to think of giving only as a reaction to a request. Someone explains a problem, we assess whether we can help and then we decide what to do. But a genuinely generous life develops eyes that can see. It notices when someone needs encouragement, access, money, an introduction, an opportunity, a meal or simply the dignity of being remembered.

Watching Pastor Yemi taught me that selflessness is not merely what you feel towards people. It is what you are willing to release for their benefit.

The Bible says in Proverbs 11:24:

“There is one who scatters, yet increases more; and there is one who withholds more than is right, but it leads to poverty.”

That Scripture overturns the ordinary human instinct to believe that the only way to increase is to hold tightly to everything we have. There is a form of withholding that looks prudent but eventually produces poverty—not only financial poverty, but poverty of relationships, impact and joy. There is also a form of scattering that appears to reduce what is in your hand but somehow enlarges your life.

However, generosity must be guided by wisdom. The verse does not teach carelessness, performance or the irresponsible distribution of resources. Giving is not a competition, and it should not become a way to impress people while neglecting obligations. We need the wisdom of God to know what to give, when to give, whom to give to and how to give in a manner that truly helps.

One of the beautiful things I learnt from PYD is not to think only about the present size of my purse when God places an opportunity to give before me. Naturally, we must be responsible with our finances, but our confidence cannot rest entirely in what we can presently count. God is our source.

Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 9:8 that God is able to make all grace abound towards us, so that, having sufficiency, we may abound for every good work. In other words, God’s provision is not only designed to end with us. He supplies us so that we can become part of His provision for other people.

This requires a relationship with the Holy Spirit. We must learn to ask Him how to depend on God, how to create and steward wealth, and how to remain generous without becoming unwise. True generosity is neither fear-driven nor impulsive. It comes from the confidence that while resources may pass through our hands, the One who supplies them has not changed.

Over the years, this is a lesson I have tried to carry with me: do not wait until you consider yourself wealthy before becoming a giver. Generosity is not first a function of abundance. It is a posture of the heart that becomes visible through action.

2. Have the Courage to Pursue What You Believe You Must Do

The second lesson is courage—the courage to pursue a goal or ambition even when people close to you do not completely understand it.

There will be decisions in life that make sense to you before they make sense to everyone around you. People who love you may say no, not because they want you to fail, but because they can see the danger more clearly than they can see what you have imagined. Their questions may be valid. Their caution may even be useful. But ultimately, there are decisions for which you must take responsibility before God.

There were times when even PYD did not completely understand why I wanted to pursue business or did not particularly resonate with a decision I was making. I listened, but I also remained with what I believed I needed to do.

I did not continue because I knew everything would work out exactly as planned. I did not have that certainty. What I had was a willingness to accept responsibility for the decision.

I learnt to ask myself: What is the worst-case outcome? If it happens, can I live with it? Am I prepared to bear the consequences of this choice rather than blame everyone else?

That is an important distinction. Courage is not the belief that nothing can go wrong. Courage is seeing what may go wrong, counting the cost and still choosing to move when conviction tells you that you should.

The people who advise us are not required to carry the full consequence of the lives we refuse to live. We should remain humble enough to listen, especially to those who know and love us, but advice cannot replace personal responsibility. At some point, you must decide, and you must be willing to own the outcome.

This lesson has stayed with me throughout my entrepreneurial journey. Business requires perseverance because many things do not work the first time. Plans change; people disappoint you. Capital becomes scarce; customers respond differently from what your research predicted. If your courage depends on constant approval, you will abandon important work whenever the people around you become uncertain. Wise counsel matters, but conviction must eventually become action.

3. After Making a Decision, Stay With God

Perhaps the most important lesson I learnt from PYD is how to stay with God after making a decision.

Many people seek God only until they receive what they interpret as an answer. Once the decision has been made, they move into execution as though God’s role has ended. But making the decision is often only the beginning of our need for guidance.

The journey will rarely unfold exactly as we imagined. Some things will not go correctly. Doors we expected to open may remain closed. People we thought would travel with us may leave. Opportunities may arrive in forms we do not recognise. At such moments, the real question is not merely whether the original decision was right. The question is whether we have remained close enough to God to receive direction for the next step.

Pastor Yemi taught me a practical faith. Stay in God’s presence. Talk to Him continually. Read. Meditate. Listen. Remain humble enough to learn and to change when God gives you greater light.

Your relationship with God cannot be outsourced to a pastor, prophet or spiritual mentor. God gives us pastors and teachers, and their ministry is precious, but their words are not a substitute for knowing God personally. A healthy spiritual leader should help you become more dependent on God, not more dependent on the leader.

This is one of the things I deeply value about what I learnt from Pastor Yemi: seek God for yourself.

Proverbs 3:5–6 tells us to trust in the Lord with all our heart, not to lean entirely on our own understanding, and to acknowledge Him in all our ways. The promise that He will direct our paths is connected to an ongoing acknowledgement of Him—not a single conversation held before the journey began.

Staying with God also keeps courage from becoming pride. It reminds us that determination is not infallibility. We can pursue a conviction strongly while remaining teachable. We can act boldly and still return to God to ask, Am I seeing this correctly? Is there something I need to change? What are You teaching me here?

Dallas Willard famously wrote, “Grace is not opposed to effort; it is opposed to earning.” We still have to think, learn, work, make decisions and persevere. Depending on God is not passivity. It is doing the work without pretending that our wisdom, effort or competence is the ultimate source of the result.

For me, staying with God means refusing to let activity become louder than His voice. It means returning to His presence when success makes me confident and when failure makes me afraid. It means understanding that guidance is not only about choosing the right road once; it is about walking with God along the road every day.

4. Think About the First People Your Decisions Will Affect

The fourth lesson is the value of family. Ambition can make us think first about achievement: the company we can build, the influence we can have, the goal we can reach or the recognition that may come with it. But every major decision creates consequences beyond the person who made it.

For most of us, the first people who experience those consequences are our families.

Our families experience the time we give to a goal, the risks we accept, the money we invest, the pressure we carry home and the person we become while pursuing success. They may enjoy the fruit of a good decision, but they may also pay part of the price long before the fruit appears.

Pastor Yemi taught me to think about that impact. This does not mean that every difficult decision should be avoided because it may temporarily inconvenience the family. Sometimes building something meaningful requires sacrifice. But sacrifice should be conscious, discussed and guided by a clear understanding of what we are building for. The people closest to us should not repeatedly become accidental casualties of an ambition we call noble.

I have also learnt to think beyond immediate comfort and towards generational prosperity. What will this decision mean for my children? What habits, values, opportunities and burdens will it pass to them? What will it mean for their children?

The Bible’s picture of prosperity is larger than personal consumption. Proverbs 13:22 says that a good person leaves an inheritance to his children’s children. That inheritance may include financial resources, but it also includes faith, wisdom, a good name, healthy relationships, education, access and an example worth following.

There are things we can build that make the next generation’s journey easier. There are also successes that look impressive publicly while leaving disorder privately. A wise person must learn to recognise the difference.

Family gives ambition a longer horizon. It forces us to ask not only, Can I achieve this? but also, What kind of future will this achievement create for the people entrusted to me?

The Gift of a Life You Can Learn From

When I look back, I am grateful that I encountered these lessons before I fully understood how much I would need them.

I learnt generosity by watching someone notice and meet needs. I learnt courage by being encouraged to take responsibility for my convictions, even when not everyone understood them. I learnt that after making a decision, I must remain with God rather than attempting to complete the journey through my own strength. And I learnt that the true impact of ambition must be measured first in the lives of those closest to us and then across the generations that follow.

These lessons have shaped my faith, my relationships, my family and the way I approach business. I have not practised every one of them perfectly, but they have given me a standard to return to.

On your birthday, Pastor Yemi, I honour you not only for the messages you have preached, but for the life from which I have been able to learn. Thank you for your generosity, your guidance, your example and the room you gave me to become the person God was calling me to be.

Happy birthday, sir. There are many more lessons, but I will keep the rest for another day.

Scriptural References

• Proverbs 11:24–25
• 2 Corinthians 9:6–11
• Proverbs 3:5–6
• Proverbs 13:22