WHEN PURPOSE FINDS YOU

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to my people. When I say “my people,” I mean those from the ghetto, the trenches—those with nowhere to go or stay.

I also dedicate this book to my wonderful family, who are my biggest inspiration; to my love, D; and most especially, to GOD.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I am, first and foremost, very grateful to GOD for His gift of Jesus Christ as my Saviour.

I thank my God in Heaven for this opportunity. I have so many mentors, but first among them is my Dad, Mr. A. E. Umukoro. He taught me how to live like a responsible gangster.

I lost hope in myself when everyone left me. At that point, I almost committed suicide, but GOD intervened. I started reading the Word of God and remembering the teachings of my Heavenly Father. I also remembered the teachings of Mr. A. E. Umukoro, my Dad.

I began to understand everything he had always talked to me about—the advice he gave me, even though, at that time, I thought he wasn’t making any sense.

Special thanks to my hero, my elder brother, who taught me how to love everyone while also being wise at the same time: Obomejero Prince.

I cannot forget my sisters, Princess, Precious, and Priscillia, my guardian angels, and most especially, my fiancée.

PREFACE

It is exciting for me to introduce WHERE I STAND, written by Obomejero Praise Oghenetekevwe, PhrazGOD. In this book, he documents his experiences and convictions following his conversion as a teenage Christian.

The book has a lot to say to every average African child, both male and female.

WHERE I STAND clearly explains what a child should be like and emphasizes the importance of focusing on CHRIST.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Obomejero Praise Oghenetekevwe, PhrazGOD, is a musician, actor, and model—a God-fearing man with a passion for life, faith, and purpose.

He attended Delta State University (DELSU), where he studied Microbiology. He later furthered his education at Delta State Polytechnic, Otefe, where he studied Biochemistry and graduated in 2024.

In 2026, he went on to serve his country, Nigeria, before pursuing further studies in French in Lagos, Nigeria.

CHAPTER ONE

THE BEGINNING

There are moments in life when you look around and quietly ask yourself, “Why am I here?”

Sometimes that question comes when everything seems to be going well. Other times, it comes when life feels like it is moving in a direction you never expected.

There are moments when you sit alone with your thoughts and begin to wonder about your future, your purpose, your dreams, and the reason you were born in the first place.

I have had moments like that.

I have learned that life can be exciting, but you should never allow yourself to become so carried away by the fun of life that you forget that life is also a journey filled with responsibilities, challenges, decisions, and consequences.

Life is not a bed of roses.

You cannot always go with the flow simply because everyone else is doing the same thing. Many people allow their peer groups to determine the direction of their lives. They follow the crowd, copy the decisions of others, and eventually discover that they have been walking a path they never truly chose for themselves.

I learned that you have to become the leader of your own journey.

Do not give someone else the responsibility of deciding where your life should go.

You may not have all the answers.

You may not have the money.

You may not have the connections.

You may not even have people who believe in you.

But there is one thing you can have even when everything else seems to be missing:

Faith in God.

Faith does not mean that you will never struggle. It does not mean that you will never cry, fail, become confused, or question yourself.

Sometimes faith simply means waking up another day and deciding not to give up.

Sometimes faith means looking at a situation that seems impossible and saying, “I don’t know how this will work out, but I still believe God has a plan for me.”

That kind of faith has carried me through moments I never thought I would survive.

My name is PhrazGOD.

That name carries a meaning that goes far beyond a name. It represents a journey—a journey through life, struggles, questions, dreams, disappointments, lessons, mistakes, growth, and faith.

I did not choose this name because I believe I am God.

I chose it because I want my life to constantly point back to God.

Everything I become, everything I achieve, every door that opens, and every mountain I overcome should remind me that there is a God who has been walking with me.

When people hear a name, they may only hear a word.

But behind this name is a story.

There is a story of where I came from.

There is a story of what I have seen.

There is a story of things I have had to overcome.

There is a story of moments when I felt strong and moments when I felt completely weak.

And there is a story of a God who never stopped working, even when I could not see what He was doing.

Life has not always been easy.

There have been moments when I have questioned myself.

There have been moments when the future looked uncertain.

There have been moments when I had to encourage myself because I could not find encouragement anywhere else.

There were times when I looked at my circumstances and wondered whether my dreams were simply too big for the person I was at that time.

But as I grew older, I began to understand something important:

Your present situation is not necessarily a picture of your future.

Where you are today may only be the first chapter of a much bigger story.

Sometimes we judge our entire lives by one difficult season.

We experience failure and conclude that we are failures.

We experience rejection and conclude that nobody will ever believe in us.

We experience poverty and conclude that we will always remain poor.

We make mistakes and conclude that our mistakes have permanently defined us.

But life does not work that way.

A bad chapter does not mean the entire book is bad.

And sometimes, the chapter that hurts the most is the chapter that teaches you the lessons you will need for the chapters ahead.

Through every season, one truth remained:

God is still God.

When people change, God is still God.

When opportunities disappear, God is still God.

When plans fail, God is still God.

When you feel alone, God is still God.

When you do not understand what is happening, God is still God.

That truth became one of the foundations of my life.

This book is not a story about someone who has everything figured out.

It is the story of someone still becoming.

Someone still learning.

Someone still fighting.

Someone still believing.

Someone who has made mistakes but has also learned from them.

Someone who has experienced disappointment but refused to allow disappointment to become the final definition of his life.

Someone who has discovered that sometimes your greatest motivation comes from knowing that God has not finished with you.

WHERE I COME FROM

I was raised in a small town, somewhere most people would not wish they came from.

It was not the kind of place people would immediately look at and imagine that great things could come from there.

But life has taught me that greatness does not always announce itself at the beginning.

Sometimes God allows you to begin in a place that looks ordinary because He knows the destination will be extraordinary.

Where you come from does not have the final authority over where you are going.

Your background may explain some parts of your story, but it does not have to determine the ending.

I believe there is something powerful about a person who starts with very little but refuses to allow that little to destroy his vision.

When you have nothing, you learn to appreciate something.

When you struggle, you learn to value progress.

When you have to fight for opportunities, you learn not to take them for granted.

And when you grow up seeing difficulties, you can either allow those difficulties to break you or allow them to build you.

I began to understand that my environment was not my identity.

There are people who will look at your past and decide what they think you can become.

Some people will measure you according to your environment.

Others will measure you according to your mistakes.

Some will look at the clothes you wear, the house you live in, the people you know, the money in your account, or the place you come from and make a judgment about your future.

But God does not see you the way people see you.

People see what you are.God sees what you can become.

That difference changed the way I began looking at my life.

I learned that being from somewhere small does not mean your dreams have to be small.

Having little does not mean you have to think little.

Starting slowly does not mean you will finish slowly.

Being unknown does not mean you will remain unknown.

And having no connections does not mean God cannot create opportunities for you.

Sometimes the person nobody notices today becomes the person everybody talks about tomorrow.

Sometimes the person everyone ignores becomes the person who inspires thousands.

Sometimes God starts His greatest work in places nobody is watching.

The seed does not need an audience to grow.

It only needs the right soil.

A seed can remain hidden beneath the ground for a long time, and someone looking at the soil may think nothing is happening.

But underneath the surface, something is taking place.

Roots are developing.

Strength is forming.

Life is beginning.

I believe people can be like that too.

There are seasons when nothing seems to be happening in your life.

You pray, but you do not immediately see the answer.

You work, but the results seem small.

You dream, but the opportunity has not yet arrived.

You try again and again, but doors continue to close.

It can make you wonder whether God has forgotten you.

But sometimes silence does not mean absence.

Sometimes the greatest things are developing where nobody can see them.

And sometimes, the difficult environment you are complaining about is the very environment God is using to develop your roots.

A tree with deep roots can survive storms that a weak tree cannot withstand.

Perhaps some of the struggles we face are teaching us how to stand.

Perhaps some of the disappointments are teaching us patience.

Perhaps some of the rejection is teaching us not to depend completely on the approval of people.

Perhaps some of the lonely seasons are teaching us how to discover ourselves.

And perhaps some of the things we call setbacks are actually preparation for what comes next.

I do not claim to have all the answers.

I am still on the journey.

There are still things I am learning about myself.

There are still dreams I am chasing.

There are still battles I am fighting.

There are still prayers I am waiting to see answered.

But I have learned not to despise the beginning.

Every great journey has a beginning.

Every great building begins with a foundation.

Every tree begins as a seed.

And every story begins with a first page.

This is my first page.

This is where the journey begins.

Not from a place of perfection.

Not from a place of having everything.

But from a place of faith.

From a place of hope.

From a place of determination.

And most importantly, from a place of knowing that God is not finished with me yet.

If you are reading this and you feel like your own life has started from the wrong place, I want you to remember something:

Your beginning does not have to look like your ending.

Do not allow your environment to kill your vision.

Do not allow your mistakes to kill your purpose.

Do not allow people’s opinions to become the voice that controls your future.

And do not become so distracted by the temporary pleasures of life that you forget to build the life you were created to live.

Walk your own journey.

Learn from your mistakes.

Respect the people who genuinely want to see you grow.

Choose your friends wisely.

Keep God at the centre.

And when the road becomes difficult, remember why you started.

Because sometimes, the person you are becoming is worth fighting for.

And sometimes, the life you are praying for is waiting on the other side of the season you are struggling through.

This is only the beginning.