Author: ohsonicolle

NEW WEBSITE! YAY!!!!!!!!!! 

Posted on by ohsonicolle

Good morning beautiful people! but I’m really excited to tell you what’s going on! Hehe! I sent this email last night but I’m sending again this morning so that yall can see again! 

I am SO happy to announce that a WHOLE NEW website has been created for The Manna Incentive! It has been completely changed and I would LOVE if you all would go and check it out! 

Unfortunately, I’ve had a few issues with trying to redirect all of the subscribers so I would need you to subscribe to the new website (sorry Lool). The WordPress blog will still be active and will act as an archive website where you can all view any previous posts that I have done but as from now on all new posts will be coming through the new site which is 

TheMannaIncentive.co.uk

Please sign up as soon as you can so you can receive the new posts! I have also started a YouTube channel and a Facebook page that you can gain access to! Under the same name (TheMannaIncentive) so subscribe and like 😀
Please bare with me as I continue to make changes as I go along the way with the site and all the additional social media sites and also get use to the new look and feel! 

Please please don’t forget that you can access all my other posts on the former site, they have not been deleted and never will be! 

Thank you so much for a of your support, it’s because of all you beautiful readers that I have been blessed enough to upgrade my blog to higher levels! I am so happy and I would love to hear your feedback. 

May God bless you all, Loads of love! 

Nicolle x

Leaving & Cleaving

Posted on by ohsonicolle

Good morning beautiful people! 
Over the weekend, I was BLESSED enough to attend the love limitless Brains and Beauty conference for women. I had never attended before and I actually decided to pay for a ticket and go after I saw it on Twitter and can I just say, it was the best decision I have ever made. I have never been so in awe of what God can do. The way God has picked and chosen the love limitless team to minister and empower women is absolutely beautiful. 
Love limitless was designed and thought of by the AMAZING Ify Alexis aiming to teach and guide women about Cultivating Beauty, Strengthening Virtue and Building character and trust me when I say, all of the women on the love limitless team let this shine through each and every one of them.
At my time at the Brains and Beauty tour, Ify spoke about leaving and cleaving. I believe this was such a powerful word and today I want to share it with you. I pray this encourages and blesses you. 

There are some things that need to be left. In our lives we go through a lot of trials and tribulations which can’t be helped, but there are some things that we go through where God teaches us that we just have to let go. Now, the process of letting go is never easy. Speaking from experience, I’ve had to let go of many things which really hurt. The process of letting go left me exhausted, emotionally and physically but once that was through, I looked back and realised that it was one of the best decisions in my life. 

I believe that the process of leaving stuff behind can sometimes be misunderstood and from what I heard Ify speaking about at the brains and beauty tour it was confirmation for me. Sometimes when we leave things behind we think that just because we have left it, it is well and truly gone, but this isn’t always the case. At times these things have the opportunity to creep back up into our lives and we don’t even know it! Ify explained that when you leave things behind, you have to learn to then cleave on to something else. I’ve learnt that cleaving on to what is good, positive and firm always helped me and in my life, the most good, positive and firm thing in my life to cleave on to is Jesus. 

It takes trust, faith and strength to leave things and cleave on to Jesus but I want to encourage you like Ify encouraged me that cleaving on to Jesus is the best thing that you can do. This is because He won’t ever let you down. I don’t know what it is that you are going through and I don’t know what it is that you need to let go of, but take some time out to sit and think and write down what it is you need to let go of.

The bible says in Deuteronomy‬ ‭31:8:

 “The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”

When you are pressing forward in Jesus there is NO looking back. Whatever you leave for God you have to have confidence that He is in control.
‬I personally know that I need to let go of the lack of confidence I have in myself at times. The bible always talks about being bold and I feel that sometimes this is what I lack in! So, what I have done is written down this among with a few other things of what I need to let go of and have decided to put it before God. I also encourage you to do the same and let us all allow God to take those things and comfort us and give us peace. 

“We need to constantly make effort to leaving some things and cleaving to God” Ify A Ossai 

May God bless you. I love you all x

Do you wait and believe? Or do you Wait and blame? 

Posted on by ohsonicolle

Good morning beautiful people! I hope all is well!
I apologise for not posting, I am currently in hospital so keep me in your prayers! Now that I have overcome the worst-praise be to the most high- I have enough strength to write today! 
Today I just want to write about the beauty there is in faith. As I was reading my morning devotion, Rick Warren spoke about ‘Believing before Seeing’ and that’s what I want to speak about today also. 

A lot of people always say ‘I have to see it to believe it’ and even though this may be true in their case, it’s completely the opposite when living the kingdom led life. 

The art of believing before seeing is Faith and I can say from personal experience that having faith can be one of the hardest things to do during times of hardship. The bible says in Hebrews 11:1 NLT:

“Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.”

‭‭I chose the NLT because I like how it describes faith. With God, we have to believe that He will do it before we see it. There are so much things in life that we have to believe before we see it and I just want to encourage you today and say that even though we have to conjure up the strength to believe before we see at times, it is so totally worth it. 
God will not just give us what we want as soon as we ask for it, He is not a magic genie. God will give you what you NEED exactly when you need it the most. You have to have the confidence in God, things may take time and they may not come as soon as you want them to, but look at it as an exercise class. Your faith is being exercised so that it can be stronger and grow more and more.

“It is faith that causes an architect to design a building because, first, he believes it can be done. It is faith that causes an Olympic athlete to practice and go to the Olympic trials because she believes she can achieve.” Rick Warren
The truth is, Someone has to believe it before they see it. It is a universal principle of life. I want you to understand that God isn’t ignoring you, He is not just sitting there and watching you suffer. Sometimes God waits patiently to see how we will act during the waiting! Have you ever thought that?  While you are waiting for your breakthrough think about your actions. ‘What am I doing?‘, ‘how am I acting‘ are you waiting and believing? Or are you waiting and blaming? My best friend just messaged me now funnily enough and said ‘remember, God is always testing and the devil is always attacking.‘ Guys, It is your faith that protects you from the plan of the enemy. Have faith in the plan of your God! 
Heavenly Father, I pray that you help us to understand that our faith needs to be exercised sometimes. Help us to realise that you haven’t created us to hurt us, but like all parents who know what’s best for their children, you do exactly what’s best for us. Help us as we continue to grow in your word. Love us father and never leave us. Sometimes we get tired of having to always have faith Lord, because we feel like you can’t hear us. But father forgive us for doubting you, help us to know O God that you will never leave us. In the mighty name of Jesus we pray! Amen
I love you all x 

Is God a Liar? 

Posted on by ohsonicolle

Good morning beautiful people! 

Yes I know, I know it’s been a while and I am sorry! I decided to go on yet another personal discovery with God because I felt like I really needed to. Whenever I go on these personal retreats with God I never post because – this may sound weird – I feel like I’m cheating those of you who read. There are times where (I’m going to be real) I can be in a battle with God and even sometimes myself! And it can be hard to encourage others sometimes and be telling everyone to have faith when I am going through a phase where I’m finding it hard to even have faith myself! 
Anyways! 😀 I thank God that I am back on track now and in line with my Heavenly Father. Sometimes we are allowed to withdraw from God and I feel that sometimes this is because we need it! We need to see at times that we can’t do it all alone! We have to feel that empty void so that we can return to God with an open heart and an open mind.
Through my recent journey to rediscovery and what I like to call ‘tuning back in’ with God I really took the time to try to realise what life is like when you are living by the rules of the kingdom and applying Gods word to your life. I realised how crucial it is to firstly obey His word and secondly trust in it too and this caused me to really analyse my life and ask myself a few questions.
Obeying His Word- Am I listening? 
It’s amazing when we feel in control, when we are on top of everything and can manage, but Is that how God wants you to live? I realised that I had the constant urge to always be in control, I thought I could be my own boss and in turn this caused me to neglect God’s word and the importance of applying it to my life. I had to take time to sit and think; in each area of my life, do I really listen? 

“If you love me, you will do what I command. I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper to be with you forever. The Helper is the Spirit of truth. The people of the world cannot accept him, because they don’t see him or know him. But you know him. He lives with you, and he will be in you.” – John‬ ‭14:15-17‬ ‭ERV‬‬

 I’ve learnt that through a lot of times in my life I didn’t listen to God. I thought that I knew it all and that it was so much better to pick and choose what I obeyed, but the truth is, who am I to be luke-warm with God? Our generation these days complain so much about the dislike of lukewarm, ‘iffy’ people but the same thing they do to us, we do to God- we just don’t realise it. God doesn’t like lukewarm. Why be in the middle? Or on the fence? Why not take that step with God and live a life filled with love and Gods word!?
 It can be so hard sometimes; the constant battle with the flesh, the mental battle with dealing with the desires of this world but the word of God is so encouraging guys! John 14:17 says it all- ‘The Helper is the Spirit of truth… You know him‘- we have help! And a familiar one at that for those of you that have experienced The Holy Spirit. And even for those of you that haven’t yet, We are not alone! And I praise God that I come to the realisation that through all the difficulty in my life and the constant battles that can sometimes come, God is always there to guide us. It’s through our trials that our strength grows and it’s through these trials that God is able to really show up and show off! 
Trusting in His Word- Is God a liar? 

I realised that there are many many times without knowing that I freely called God a liar. Crazy? I know right. I say this because sometimes the word can be read over and over again and temporarily satisfaction and peace is felt. I use the word temporarily because I realised that as soon as situations came up and I got caught up in the moment, I forgot about that beautiful feeling of satisfaction and peace that I felt when I read the word when things were going ok and smooth in my life! 

It’s through the situations that people can sometimes find it hard to stand on Gods promises. I know I certainly found it hard, but you know what? I felt like God spoke to me and said; well I would just say stuff for nothing? So why would you not believe me when you read my word and my promises? 

This actually resonated with me. Since then, I’ve always tried to maintain an attitude of gratitude and adjust my mindset to always remember WHO my God is, what He CAN do, what He HAS done and what He IS about to do! And this is what I want to encourage you with today. Trust in Gods word because it never lies, it’s always there and it is filled with promises that can change your life. 

“God’s word is alive and working. It is sharper than the sharpest sword and cuts all the way into us. It cuts deep to the place where the soul and the spirit are joined. God’s word cuts to the center of our joints and our bones. It judges the thoughts and feelings in our hearts.” ‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭4:12‬ ‭ERV‬‬

A final word for you to take with you today; Don’t give up. Sometimes we have to be taken down to the deep dark places alone to fight some demons but remember, you are not alone. God is that shining light, that beautiful glimmer of hope that will guide you through the dark storm and won’t ever leave you. Trust in Him, obey His word and let His spirit work within you.

I love you all x

God loves your company!

Posted on by ohsonicolle

Did you know that you are not the only ones who gets blessed from spending time with God? Sometimes we tend to think that it is only us that get the blessings when we spend time with God but in fact God does too.

It’s an absolute blessing to God that you chose to sacrifice your time in such an action-addicted world to just have that personal time with Him. The bible says: 

“Surely you have granted him unending blessings and made him glad with the joy of your presence.” ‭‭Psalm‬ ‭21:6‬ ‭NIV‬‬

How beautiful is that? I just want this to encourage you tonight and let you know that God delights in your presence and the time we spend with Him. Its amazing because out of all the things God has done, it’s so nice to think that this is something else to add to what can be done to please God. 

Spending that quality time with God will uplift, shape and strengthen you. Be it worshipping, bible study or just simply being quiet in His presence. As well as blessing you, it blesses God deeply. It’s a sign that you care about Him enough to put all that you are doing to one side to just spend time with Him.

This used to be something I used to really struggle with. It took me so long to stop saying a quick prayer in the morning and not paying attention to God and just praying to Him when I needed something. I realised that it’s so important to spend time and I just really want to encourage you to keep going and keep trying to build that bond with Christ. Even if it’s by just starting small, speak to God bit by bit throughout your day, -that’s how I started- gradually you will realise that your relationship with Christ will strengthen. 

My blog is only filled with honesty, so let’s be real. There’s sometimes where you don’t feel like spending time with God due to being down or being angry but let me tell you my friends, those are the best times to be in Gods presence. He understands the language of your heart and he hears your cries. Don’t give up on God, keep your faith and see how he shows up and shows off in your life!

My beautiful sister in Christ Tav gave a gift to me which is now the book that I am currently reading and it says that God being blessed by you spending time with Him a deep mystery, but do not try to fathom it! Instead beautiful people Glorify God by delighting in Him, enjoy Him now and forever! 

“Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” ‭‭John‬ ‭7:38‬ ‭NIV‬‬

My prayer for you tonight is that You never forget how much God loves your company and that through your bond growing stronger blessings overflow and God gets all the glory that He deserves. 
Be encouraged in Jesus name,

I love you all x

Don’t hide your weakness

Posted on by ohsonicolle

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“Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.” ‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭12:9‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Never ever think that you can hide your weaknesses from God. Firstly, He knows they are there already anyways And secondly God wants you to show your weakness and talk to Him about it. This is so that He can use that weakness and work on you!!

Look at how many people God used in the bible that had so many weaknesses. Take Moses for example, look at how God used him! God gave Moses a job and straight away he felt like he couldn’t do it, one of Moses’ weakness was that he always doubted himself, from what I grasped, I get the feeling that he felt incredibly inadequate at first when it came to carrying out what God has called him to do. And that’s how we feel sometimes when God puts something in our hearts that we have to do.

Regardless of anything, whether Moses liked it or not God called him to lead! Do you know how much of a huge responsibility that is to have? No wonder why Moses doubted himself. To have so many people’s lives in your hands and still try to remain calm and lead them to where God wanted everyone to be. That must of been hard to comprehend at times.

Obviously we all know the story about Moses so I won’t go over it again, but do you know what’s so beautiful about the story? How God stuck with Moses throughout. Through Moses’ transition period where God took him out of his previous life to the life He had destined for him, God kept on guiding him, shaping him and moulding him through the process. Even when Moses thought he couldn’t do it, most importantly, God saw the potential through all his weaknesses.

I’m not sure whatever weaknesses you have or whatever you are going through, but I want you to remember that God sees through your weaknesses and your troubles. He knows every single thing about them- even a lot more than you do- which is why it’s better to open up to God, He knows what you are talking about.

Exodus‬ ‭3:7‬ ‭NLT‬‬ Says:
“Then the LORD told him, “I have certainly seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their cries of distress because of their harsh slave drivers. Yes, I am aware of their suffering.”

Gods knowledge has no limits. I underlined those specific bits in that verse because it shows that God knew what was going on, every single thing, every single pain of all of His people Egypt and we should take great joy that. Take that scripture as a promise. A promise that if God knew back then, He definitely knows now, with whatever situation you are facing.

Through your weaknesses God can see potential. I want you to know that there’s joy in knowing that God is near. Indulge in that joy and in the promises of God. Remember that He is there to listen, when you feel like nobody understands, take your time to talk to Him.

May God bless you all x
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He is in control

Posted on by ohsonicolle

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I absolutely love this verse, it’s a firm reminder that we aren’t in control, the Almighty Father is.

Sometimes we think we know it all, our arrogance allows us think that we are the ones who are in control of our lives and how we live it because in our minds we know what’s right. When really, if you were to consider yourself a person of the kingdom, then you have to realise that you won’t get anywhere if you have your mind set on the fact that you know what’s best for you.

We have to accept that God is in control. All belongs to Him and He needs to be put first. We have to give our ALL to Him. In a book that I am currently reading by Francis and Lisa Chan, it draws on a particularly important point, it reads:

“It’s His work— not ours— that determines our eternal fate. The Bible could not be more clear that good works do not earn us a spot in the Kingdom; living and active faith in Jesus does.”

We have to stay away from the ‘half-hearted Christians’ category. We are representing God along with our other kingdom brothers and sisters, we can’t be speaking the word one minute and then the next minute our social media is showing how much our life contradicts the point we were just trying to put across a few minutes ago. We can’t be attending church every week and not meditating on the word or not trying to put our faith into action. It’s all well and said when things are going right in life, God always gets all the praise but once things go downhill we forget how great our God is. Never never forget how amazing God is and all what He has done for you.

The victory Satan enjoys in watching people call themselves “Christian” while living idly, living for themselves is something that he does not deserve!

Nobody said that the walk with Christ was going to be easy, there are so many trials and tribulations, hurt and pain, tough choices and lessons learned but It’s a pain that makes us stronger, holier and more in love with God. Any suffering for His sake is a constant reminder of our future where all the pain will be exchanged for glory.

May God bless you all x

God rewards Hard Work

Posted on by ohsonicolle

Hey Readers!

Yes.. I know its been a very long time. I do apologise but i’ll explain.For some reason the title that I have for this blog has been something just in my head for a few days. Not sure why. I believe that will probably unravel as a few more posts follows this one.

As you all know I have been very quiet. I decided to step away from blogging due to having some personal battles of my own. I went through a very long period of feeling ver disconnected from God and in fact the people around me and if I am honest, I couldn’t even tell you why because I don’t really know myself. Whilst going through all that, I didn’t really reach out to anyone, it was just hard to get things off my chest and out of my mind. I just found it hard to talk and instead I found comfort in just keeping it all to myself. I believe that seen as I am writing to you now, I must be out of it, I’m not sure how, I can only just think that it can only be God.

It wasn’t until the Sunday before last that the penny dropped (after so long) and it took a teaching from my Pastor (Pastor Michael White) to really make me think. Currently he is teaching a series called ‘Elev8’, this is based on changing your levels of thinking and accessing a higher level of thinking so to speak. He’s been teaching this for a while and I believe that it really did bring me out of my state of mind. The foundation scripture for this series was Philippians 4:8.

Philippians-4-8

After taking a lot of time out to think about myself and my position and connection with God, I realised that through all the things I recently went through- all the spiritual battles along with battles with my thoughts and emotions, I wasn’t elevating my mind in any way shape or form and that was why I felt like I was stuck. The bible says ‘Fix your mind on the things above‘ (Colossians 3:2). I absolutely love what it says in the NLT version says, It reads:

‘Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. 3 For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 And when Christ, who is your[a] life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory.‘

After reading that, how can one not feel peace? I just want to let you know that there is a way out, God always makes a way, even when you think there is no way out. God never leaves in tough times, we sometimes leave Him. But I’ve learnt that it takes an elevated mind to shape the way you think, training the mind to constantly set itself on what truly matters is what will get your through. It took me such a long time to realise that even when we disconnect ourselves from God, He still remains faithful and He is always waiting for us to come back!

God’s aim is to love us, thats all He wants to do. So when you think of it that way, how can you not trust someone that loves you so much? someone that just wants the best for you? even when the times are tough!. Thats the kind of thinking that I’ve learnt that will pull you through anything.

I know this post is quite long tonight, but I did feel like I needed to share in the hopes that I can at least encourage one person out there. Its all about focusing your mind on the things above and filling you mind with the word of God. Once God is in the centre, He will pick up all the broken pieces and replacing it with peace. Its not easy (trust me I know) it’s a lot of hard work and it takes perseverance, but let me tell you this, from my experience, God rewards hard work. There’s no way God will see you working hard in the natural and not be doing the same in the spiritual. Trust in Him as He loves and trusts in you- remember God created you for a purpose, he knows your potential regardless of the obstacles you may face.

Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:7 NLT)

May God bless you, I love you all

Focus your Mind

Posted on by ohsonicolle

Good morning beautiful people!! 😀 over the weekend I was thinking a lot about the mind and how important it is and I think that I will be posting a lot more about it as I do believe that if light was shed on mind management we could all potentially benefit! Therefore, to kick things off I decided to repost a short blog I wrote last year! (I actually can’t believe that i have been writing this blog for just over a year already! God is good!) 

This post is called Focus your Mind.

Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. (Colossians 3:2 NIV)

Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. (John 17:24 NIV)


To focus one’s mind in a way that God is in the centre of our everyday thoughts is one of the keys to a successful way of managing- not solving – but managing our everyday stresses. I used the word managing here as unfortunately-and part of life- Stress will undoubtedly always be there. When stress comes, it will try to pull us away from our goals. Due to this, we are often tempted to make unhealthy choices out of convenience or as a temporary fix for handling stress.

However, if we acquire the skill, like the bible says to set our minds on the things above we will be able to become mentally stronger. In the days we currently live in it is very hard for us to be strong at times, even me, speaking from a personal perspective; I feel the strains and the mental tugs from stress daily! But I have come to realise (through some thought and with the help of reading one of my daily devotionals) that stress indeed is a choice. Let me explain; I don’t stress about things that I am not focused on.

Our problem today is that we get stressed out when we choose to focus on our own limited resources instead of focusing on the unlimited resources available through our heavenly Father.

I just want to encourage you all today to Focus on the fact that God is big enough to get you through any challenges you face, So when stress comes, instead of paying it attention focus your attention on God and he will certainly see you through!

I love you all x

Troubled?

Posted on by ohsonicolle

Trouble is a part of life. You will have difficulties! You can’t go through life thinking troubles won’t come. You have to always be ready.

Even the bible says In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33b NIV)

So why is it that every time trouble comes we forget about who our Father is? It makes me wonder sometimes.. We tend to preach the good news about God and about His kingdom but when something comes across our path that disrupts our thoughts and/or feelings slightly we want to spend the majority of our day being stressed about it. Instead of using that same time to remind ourselves of be promises of God. 

Sometimes we are selfish, it makes me sad sometimes and somewhat angry because we love God when He’s allowing the good things to happen but when it’s the bad times or when we are ‘stressed’ it’s like our minds turn a blind eye to whom He is. The trouble with situations is that they occur and rob us of our happiness, joy and mental freedom and instead put fear, worry and a mental prison where all we are face with is ‘stress’ in place instead. 

Sometimes when we go through difficulties the first thing we tend to do is want to blame others. But it doesn’t matter where your problem came from — God still has a purpose for it in your life. Even when you do stupid things, God can use it. Even when other people hurt you intentionally, he can use it. God can use ANYTHING!! Rick Warren says “Even when the devil plans bad things for your life, God can bring good out of it.”

God’s purpose is greater than your problems and your pain. God has a plan! You need to look past the temporary pain and look instead at the long-term benefit in your life.

Romans 5:3-4 says, “We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that … they help us learn to be patient. And patience develops strength of character in us and helps us trust God more each time we use it until finally our hope and faith are strong and steady” (TLB).