Breathe...

Truth be told, I would rather die fighting for what is right, than die fighting against the wrong in the world.

Over the last week, there was a time I felt so choked up, not choked up physically, but choked up emotionally, choked up in the spirit. So choked up the tears won't fall but rather there is a pain so deep that the only thing that would come out is simply "Why me?". Much as I would love to claim that there is a quickfix, a ready solution, there really isn't. At least not one that would work immediately. There are words that I would like to share, words that I do hope would comfort you.

Have you lost someone, something?
Ever been broken or are you hurting?
Lost a friend or a loved one maybe something precious
Tried to live right for long but lost all for briefly wrong?
Have you ever looked back on your life and wondered,
Where did all go wrong?
You cry but the tears don't come,
You are angry but even that feels so wrong,
You want to let go because you feel so numb,
But then the thought of that makes it worse.
You search for comfort, you search for hope,
But then failure to find them every single time,
Leaves you gasping, gasping for air that just won't come.
You smile, but you feel bitter,
At night, you toss and turn, sleep won't come
In the morning, you just want to go back to bed.
You never feel quite ready to face your day.

Memories all around? Of what was and what could have been that isn't. You see people all around who by right should be worse of than you and one dares to wonder at the injustice of the world. And as one wonders, one wanders and starts choking.
You need air? Stop and take a deep breath, stop seeking answers, stop asking questions and just breathe. Breathe in God's presence and let go of all that bothers you. Because truly, time spent questioning God in anger, with a sense of falsely placed injustice, is time spent away from the comfort of His hands. Just breathe. Till you get to that point, a time when what upsets you, isn't the wrong in the world, but the right that isn't.
Let go, leave it all to the One who actually knows and just breathe. Rather than find comfort in places that are not sure, comfort yourself in the Lord. Let Him take care of you.

Breathe.

Two wrongs don't make a right, but then neither does one wrong and no reaction. Only right begets right.

One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple. Psalm 27:4

Prepare yourself...

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened". Matthew 7:7-8

This morning these words hit me two simple words, "Prepare yourself". And Matthew 7:7-8 came to my mind. That is one of the best passages to many people. I mean it literally says ask, seek and knock. What does that translate to? Pray without ceasing? Give without expecting? While a lot would agree, on this morning I beg to differ. Looking at the three different aspects of the passage, this is what I see.

Ask: Ask and it shall be given to you. Now the question is, how do I know what to ask for? Matthew 7:9 talks about asking for bread and receiving stone or asking for fish and receiving a snake. That surely is wickedness and I know for a fact and truth that my Father is not wicked. Now what if, what if I dare ask, we are asking for stones instead of bread? What if we ask for fishes instead of snakes? Do we expect our merciful father to grant our requests? There is a scripture that the Holy Spirit is continuously making intercessions on our behalf, and that what is asked for is what we need.

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will. - Romans 8:26-27

Now what if, what if I dare ask, what we ask for is very different from what the Holy Spirit is pleading for on our behalf? Does "where two or three are gathered in my name" ring a bell? Now if you can't have that within yourself there is a big problem indeed. Prepare yourself!!

Seek: Seek and you shall find? Where do you seek? What do you seek? You can't search for an apple in a cornfield, you definitely won't find an apple tree growing on a sea bed.

"Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces" - Matthew 7:6

In the same way you don't give them sacred things or precious stones, you definitely shouldn't be searching for sacred things among dogs or pigs. Apart from not being able to find any, you will most likely be torn to pieces. Once again I say Prepare yourself!!! Not just about knowing what to search for but it is also about knowing where to search for it.

Knock Given a choice, I am sure we all would want to be like Lot, wanting the choicest of all that we see. I am sure the same principle would apply to doors.

"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it" Matthew 7:13-14

Now I am not implying that all doors should look small and the path behind them should be narrow. I am saying however that sometimes the doors we spend so much time knocking on, may not be the right doors for us. We all want the good things of life, forgetting it is the God things that matter. Forgetting the most important thing, that it is the doors to our hearts and lives that are the most important thing to Him. Opening that door always gives answers to the questions we ask and most importantly, gives us the right questions to ask.


Before we ask, before we seek, before we knock, we should open the doors to our hearts. We should "Prepare ourselves"

Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me - Revelations 3:20

Who am I...? (Mistaken Identities)

I thought to myself, "Look, I have grown and increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge." Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind - Eccl 1:16-17

That is a question that struck me one night before I went to bed. It struck me not because of its simplicity, but because it could be a question most people do not have an answer to, but a question people have asked themselves indirectly in one way or the other. A lot of times no matter where we find ourselves, we sometimes have this feeling of dissatisfaction. We feel there is something missing, there is something more that we perhaps should have but then, that is by the way.

In life we have different roles to play, I choose to call them layers. We are born we have parents, that is a layer, people see us as our parents' kids. There are things expected of us which we do as kids, some people spend practically all their lives as kids never to grow up, till probably the parents pass on. We grow up, we have careers after spending some time in school. We live our lives and we pass on. What happens after we pass on is between us and God. Here are random thoughts from me, thoughts from my depths.

Who am I?

We are born as kids, we live our lives as we are expected to.
Most times we do, sometimes we don't. That is a layer.
We go to school, we take up careers we think we best fit to do.
We play the part, act as students, yet another layer.
Sometime within this period, questions arise;
Purpose, reasons for being, who am I, how do I live,
We search for answers, answers to live a life that is nice.
We pick a purpose, attach a reason, pick a lifestyle and we live.
But lack satisfaction because with all that, we lack an identity.
So we attach religion, hoping God we give us the answers we seek.
Most times however, we ask the wrong questions,
We ask praying earnestly for the right answer.
And when that answer don't come we ask even more questions.

I am a doctor, an engineer, a consultant, a pilot.
I am a chef, a priest, a teacher, a professor.
I heal people so they call me doctor, but who am I to myself?
I am an engineer, I build and fix things, but who am I to myself?
I have children, so many children, I raise them, feed them, wipe their tears,
I give them all they need, but who do I see when I look in a mirror?
Who do I see when I toss and turn at night?
A chef, priest, teacher, doctor. Underneath it all, who are we?
We have teachers that steal, we have thieves that teach.
Criminals make wonderful fathers, yet we have outstanding men,
Good men in the society that have no idea what it means to be a father.
There are people, touts, ragga-muffins, street urchins, who will die for you,
Just because of the loaf of bread or the good deed, done for them by you.
But you devote your life to a loved one for years and they still walk away.
Funny how we trust pilots, doctors, taxi and bus drivers,
We trust them even though that may be the only encounter we have with them,
But we find it hard to trust the people we see daily in our lives.
Funny how we go to church every Sunday and never speak to the person next to us,
But we have no qualms about hitting up the guy or girl sitting next to us in the pub/club.
We find ourselves more comfortable with strangers, than with the people we know,
Not because the people we know are wrong or bad, but because most times,
We shield that knowledge about who we are, the center and the core of our being.
We hide because we really cannot face the truth about what/who we are.


Successful people commit suicide regularly, they have money, they have wealth, they have fame, but they are unhappy. We have friends that change and we wonder why, what happened? There have also been times when we have denied who we really are, either due to circumstances or due to the environment, because we were ashamed or shy of what people would think or say (I am guilty of this). I wonder what is the point then? If you can't stand out on a rooftop and identify with yourself then really, how does one live? There are a number of people who stood out for who they were in the bible, I pick just two; Joseph and Daniel. Simple men who because they did not bend or compromise for any reason where taken far above their peers. Who you are should cut across all the areas of your life, whether you be a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher or a parent. Whether you are in church or in a pub, people should be able to say this is who this man is... And most importantly, it should tie in with the image you see of yourself when you look in a mirror... Even more important is this, it should tie in with the image God has of you.
David put it so well in the passage Psalm 27:4

One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.

For him even, there were times he fell... But that passage was the driving force behind him for his entire life and it was consistent in all areas. What is yours?



God is no respecter of persons. He loves us equally though.

Warning signs...

Sometimes we want to believe in a thing so much, we fail to see the warning signs before our eyes

At a point in our lives, we make that big mistake, the one so big we not only believe the ground should open up and make room for us but we also believe that we can never make the same mistake ever again. We say once bitten twice shy, most times we do get bitten again on that very same spot. Oh yes, I have been there, bitten not once, but over and over again.

Imagine you were a little child once again, imagine you were running down a path. In a hurry so focused that you fail to see the signs warning you of the danger ahead. Maybe you do see one or two, but then you are a little child, you have no fear of the unknown and yes there is that deadly mixture of excitement and curiosity that has caught so many of us when young. An excitement and curiosity that lasts just long enough for you to fall into the traps. A child learns, learns quickly by events like that, learns not to go into such situations again. That is how we learn not to play with fire, put our hands in sockets or bad electrical appliances (that is for me). As kids, we learn to generally stay well clear of the things that hurt us. That is one side of the story.

As christians, especially young ones using me as a case study, there are times we mess up, mess up so badly that we ourselves feel God should roll us in his mouth and spit us out. We have our good days and we have our exceptionally bad ones. Having God's love, having Jesus as our mediator, we get back from the bad days. But then there is a difference between a physically young child and a young christian. Where a kid would not dare to tread after a fall on the last time out, where a young child would realize his limits, a young christian who has fallen along the same lines, would come back the next day believing that with more prayers, a little more fasting, a little more of right living and he WILL overcome. And we run the same path, over and over again, not realizing that the problem is not with the prayers, not with the fasting but it is with the very path I run. Reminds me of the passage

Proverbs 14:12

There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.

I would change that verse and add this to it. It leads to death every single time, regardless of the amount of prayers, the amount of fasting or the number of hands that are joined with you to rebuke all the warning signs and traps set along the way.

1 Cor 10:12-13 says

12 So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall! 13 No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

The warning signs are there for a reason not to be rebuked, not to be prayed about but to provide a way out for you. I don't know where you are at the moment, I don't know if you have had warning signs along the way, signs that rather than take heed of, you decide to pray about. Does it feel like dejavu? Then perhaps you should get off that path now.

Beware of thinking that intercession means bringing our own personal sympathies and concerns into the presence of God, and then demanding that He do whatever we ask - Oswald Chambers