The Cheat Code To Work-life Balance by Apostle Femi Lazarus: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

Pain as Formation

Yahwa Hansen Quao grew up as the daughter of a Ghanaian politician who fled to California during a military coup in the early 1980s. As an immigrant child in America, she was ridiculed for her African accent, her deep voice, and her culture. She later returned to Ghana as a teenager and found she did not fully belong there either. How did these early wounds shape who she became?

There are things that appear to be disadvantages that God uses as instruments of formation. Being mocked for a deep voice became the very motivation to invest years in voice coaching, Toastmasters, working with an operatic singer to learn how to breathe and project differently. The person being taunted for her accent eventually stood before the United Nations and the World Economic Forum. Formation rarely looks like favour in the moment.

Her father gave one instruction that redirected everything: 'You use your voice at school to say you are present, don't you? So don't let people steal it. Your voice is your power.' Her mother rooted them in prayer — walking through the house speaking in their mother tongue, calling out each child by name, declaring that God would make them great. The practical wisdom of her father and the intercessory life of her mother worked together from the beginning.

The Special Needs Child and What Faith Really Requires

In 2017, her son Derek was born with a rare genetic condition — one occurrence in every 15 million births. He was not projected to survive beyond a week or two. What did that season teach her about faith?

The first three months were a wreck — spiritually, emotionally, psychologically. There was binding and loosing, declaring, calling things that be not as though they were. And fear. And the prayers were not working in the way she expected.

The turning point came in recognising a distinction that changed everything: prayer is not incorrect — it is sometimes incomplete.

God wants people whole — spirit, soul, and body. Many religious communities train people excellently for spirit life but not for practical life. The result is that large numbers of believers live deeply imbalanced lives. They can fast, quote scripture, and attend every prayer meeting — but they have no leisure, no emotional release, no community outside the church, no rest. And that imbalance is what quietly drives people into vices. When the soul is not cared for, something will fill the gap.

Alongside the healing scriptures she placed in her son's room and the teachings she listened to on healing, she began to understand the catharsis — the science of what she was experiencing, what her body needed, what her soul required. These did not contradict faith. They completed it.

Adaptive leadership theory talks about losses — every decision comes with losses, and wise leaders calculate them honestly. She had to calculate trade-offs: her son's care, her career, her marriage, her healthy children, her own sanity. She refused to let the crisis become her entire identity. She did not want to be known only by her issue, as the woman with the issue of blood is known only by her condition. She had more to carry and more to offer.

The Practical Side of Fighting

Wholeness does not happen by accident. It takes investment and intentionality.

She joined Toastmasters. She stood in front of a mirror for hours practising because she was hungry to grow. She attended Protocol School of Washington to learn formal dining, proper handshakes, and how to conduct herself in high-level rooms. When she began making money, she started hiring coaches of excellence — executive coaches, image coaches, voice coaches. She has had coaches in the UK, the US, and Ghana. Thousands of dollars invested in becoming the version of herself she believed God was calling her to be.

You cannot be your best self by yourself. Everyone needs mentors and coaches.

She developed a Muslim mentor in Kenya — a high-ranking leader who has been an invaluable voice for four years. Old theological frameworks would have said, 'What fellowship has light with darkness?' But creation itself speaks. God's wisdom is not confined to Christian voices. You can learn from anyone and become wiser than your teachers. Her prayer in fasting shifted: rather than 'Father, change this person around me,' it became 'God, help me see my blind spots. Introduce me to the voices I need for this season.'

Many believers mistake a spiritual problem for what is actually a skills gap. What does that look like in real terms?

A boss is demanding excellence and the employee is not performing to the standard. Instead of rising to meet the expectation, the employee turns the boss into a prayer point — 'Father, remove this enemy.' But people who demand excellence should not be the target of spiritual warfare. They should be covered in gratitude: 'Father, thank you for this person who is stretching me beyond my current capacity. Thank you for these people calling me out on bad behaviour.'

The same dynamic shows up in business. There are people whose next level requires a front-facing leadership role. Their company keeps finding excuses not to promote them. They attend prayer meetings, they are binding, they are declaring. But it is a skills gap, not a spiritual attack. Fasting and prayer will not close a communication gap. Only learning will.

A lot of us are overindexing on the spiritual to the detriment of the practical?

Absolutely. And she did it herself in the early stages of her career. The boss who did not favour her was a prayer point, when in reality, she was not yet performing to the required standard. People who demand excellence from you are gifts, not enemies.

Burnout and the Reset

In 2022 she burnt out completely. Two months unable to get out of bed. The doctors could not diagnose anything specific. Her health coach named it adrenal fatigue — years of running on adrenaline had caused the body to shut down entirely. A hard reboot.

That season forced a decision: the rest of her life must be the best of her life. She would no longer carry the load alone. She would fight spiritually and practically. She would not let any trial define her identity.

Now she schedules leisure — actually puts it in the calendar. She does adult colouring books before bed as a way to calm down and regulate. She practises a weekly sabbath — devices off, computers off, time to think, pray, read, laugh. She wakes before her family for quiet time. She travels on vacation and actually switches off. She has learned that being present with a spouse and children requires protecting time, not just intending to give it.

Some burdens being placed on marriages belong in a therapist's office. Some pains being offloaded onto friendships need professional intervention. She had panic attacks that prayer alone did not resolve. Therapy helped her understand and regulate what she was experiencing. The religious stigma around therapy comes at a high cost.

You can exist and not be alive. Many high achievers make money and build platforms but are not whole, not present, not enjoying anything they have built.

The Cheat Code

The cheat code is not a shortcut. It is the decision to fight on both fronts — spiritual and practical — simultaneously. It is the prayer that says, 'God, I receive your favour. Now what is the practical thing I must do?' It is not binding and loosing alone. It is believing and building. Praying and planning. Declaring identity and then developing the skills to inhabit it.

The journey to becoming who you are called to be will cost relationships. Some friendships will not survive the growth. Some communities will not understand the investment. That is the price of calling. But on the other side, those same friends who questioned the sacrifice often become the ones being coached — hitting ceilings they could have avoided.

What would you say to someone who feels like their pain disqualifies them from the success they see in others?

No pain is a waste. In the midst of the most painful experiences, there are things being built that comfort cannot produce. Suffering produces character. Character produces hope. And hope does not disappoint. Every version of pain that has been walked through is now the very thing that makes the coaching credible — because the tools were not learned in theory. They were forged in fire.