Category: Inspirational

Sowing In Tears

Life throws things that seem to buffet us all around. We find ourselves pushed to the the wall. We get frustrated. At ourselves. At people who surround us. At the circumstances. At God.

In instances like this, it seems God isn’t interested in us. So, we cry and cry. And cry some more.

Read this exerpt:

‘They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weeping, bearing precious seeds, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him’
– Psalm 126 vs 5 & 6.

Note that the secret in the joy at the end isn’t a function of the tears shared. No, joy is as a result of sowing. Yes, sowing is painful. It’d never be convinient. You’d even be tempted to eat your seed. But I say to you, when you sow, you’d definitely reap in joy!

Are you going through a hard time now? It wouldn’t last forever. In fact, it’s just an opportunity to invest in your next windfall of blessings. Don’t just cry. Sow. Sow seeds of prayer. Sow seeds of time. Sow seeds of love. Sow seeds of money. Just sow. Remember, if you sow tears, you’d reap tares. Sow something worthwhile. It’s well.

Life In Its Simplicity

To me, I’d say that a life lived in simplicity is one that the Holy Spirit controls from the most basic issues to the most crucial life-defining ones.

God talks to us all. In simple ways like dreams and visions and by nature. Still others get direction from The Word and their consciences. Some even hear an audible voice. The important thing is that God directs His people, regardless of the medium used. And yielding to His direction is The Way to The Simple Life.

A life lived in simplicity is one lived in peace. This is because there is a sense of purpose and direction in such an individual’s life. The person’s life is organized and well-orchestrated by the Holy Spirit. Such a life is never cumbersome because only the necessary and important things are done. Indeed, as a result, even unnecessary good habits are dropped if they are not important. Life becomes so simple that no decision is too trivial for the Spirit to decide. All decisions are met with either a ‘Yes’, a ‘No’ or a ‘Not Yet’.

Friend, we’ve been invited to live our lives in the simplicity of the Spirit. In that way, we can cast our cares and worries and troubles on His broad shoulders because they don’t belong to us anymore.

I leave you with this peculiar translation of a popular verse in the Bible:

‘Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me – watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you’
– Jesus (Matthew 11:28-29 The Message)

I’m Tired Of Being Normal

You’d never find a mad man who would agree with you that he’s mad. Instead, he’d insist that YOU are the mad one! I’m going to say some things that would either make you think I’ve gone gaga. Or make you doubt your sanity. Except you’re in the same frequency with me.

I’m fed up of being normal. I’m sick and tired of flowing with the generally acceptable trend of things. I want to shake things up a bit and start walking in the consciousness of who I am. And if that means that I should become crazy to fulfil that, I really don’t mind. In fact, I want to be crazy! Crazily putting away the tried and tested traditions of the fathers. Crazily embracing the Ultimate One’s Words regarding me.

For starters, I have life. Abundant life at that`. This doesn’t only mean I have a home in heaven when I die. I’m also not meant to manage life on THIS side of eternity. Struggling and merely passing through is disobeying the Words of The Ultimate One.

See, I’ve also been given ALL things that pertain to life“! Not some things. Not most things. But ALL things. Why should I continue cheating myself by living less than what has been appropriated to me? Why should I continue to thrive on what people, circumstances and situations have carved out for me?

Don’t you get it? Let me now blow your mind: The power of the Ultimate One raised up His Son from death. The same power set The Son in heavenly places far above everything that has existed, exists or will exist. The power then put ALL things in The Son’s control. And because I’m a Believer, THAT power is available to me“`!!! There’s no way I’d hear this and still retain my senses.

I wasn’t made to live as a normal person. No sir, I was fashioned to be an anormally supernormal creation! And if the world sees that as craziness, it’s all good with me.

Spend time with the Good Book and The Ultimate One would open the eyes of your heart to know your place in Him.

` John 10:10
“ 2 Peter 1:3
“` Ephesians 1:19

What’s Reality?

Imagine you woke up to find all your entire life as just a dream. Or maybe all your dreams as just a continuation of your life. Many philosophical arguments and their consequent philosophical gyrations have been based on what exactly reality is. I find the topic quite interesting and I just felt like chipping my two cents’ worth.

1. All humans have a yearning within their hearts pertaining to the reason for existence on earth. This yearning is a pointer to the fact that there’s more to life than what our senses can perceive. Otherwise, we’d just go through life without giving a hoot about our purpose for existence, where we came from or where we are going to.

2. The yearning has been put in our hearts by God because we all were created by Him and originated in Him. Man was initially in the dark as regards his origin. He was groping in the dark, looking around for his Source, as well as meaning to life. Religion, however, came into the picture. The diverse religions have had varying successes in providing Man with valid answers.

3. There’s eternity which is the period where time doesn’t exist. Our time on earth is sandwiched between two periods of eternity. We originated from eternity. We are born. We live our lives. We die. We slip back into eternity. We all originated from Heaven but not all would spend the second half of eternity there. Our destination would be a direct consequence of our choices on earth.

4. Eternity is a realm that doesn’t have time and space delineations. The eternal is also the spiritual since it can’t be picked or sensed by our senses. However, there are interactions between the eternal and the physical.

5. Man is a Spiritual being with a Soul and a Body. As a result, Man, in himself, is the link between the eternal and the physical worlds.

6. The Eternal controls the Physical. The physical world deals with all that can be seen, felt, smelt, tasted or heard through the senses. The physical world also originated from superiorly perfect versions in the Spiritual realm. Thus, Man has two realities: An eternal one he senses with his spirit and the physical one he senses with his sense organs. Man CAN influence his two realities by his choices and actions.

From my highly simplistic approach, it’s evident that man can have the best of the two realities. Nothing in the physical happens arbitrarily without an influence from the spiritual. So many are just concerned with living here and now. Stop cheating yourself. It’s God’s will for man to have the best of the two realities, even on this side of eternity!!!

N.B: Tapping into the Spiritual reality without God’s covering is writing an invitation letter to the forces of evil. These can manipulate your perception of the spiritual reality. You have to believe in God to experience the benefits of the spiritual reality. Here on earth and also in Heaven.

The Narrow Way

When I was much younger, I used to have a uniquely funny imagination of heaven. I had just read the words, ‘Strait is the gate and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it’. I was scared! At that point, I made up my mind that when I died (at the ripe old age of 120), I would ensure that my soul remained stable on the ‘straight’ road to heaven, so I won’t slip off and fall into the eternal flames of hell. I also told myself that I would try as much as possible to squeeze myself through the narrow singular gate to heaven, peradventure, with patience, I would find a way through. And you thought I was smart!

As I grew more matured with age, I discovered some basic truths about this whole Heaven and Hell business:

1. God did not make Hell for human inhabitation. It was meant as a centre of punishment for the devil and his cohorts. However, God loved, and still loves man so much that He gave man the freedom of choice. Thus, where man would spend eternity is a by-product of his choices while he was alive on earth. And by that, a man can partake of the punishment meant for the devil and his demons.

2. If you have time to read through the Book of Revelations in the Bible, you’d discover that Heaven is soooooo big. So big that if every individual from the time when man was created till the end of time itself were to have a mightily large mansion each, there would still be ample space left. Why then would God make Heaven this big, if He only planned to allow a few people to trickle in? Arbitrariness and disorganization are not part of God’s characteristics. Reading carefully through the book of Revelations, we find that at the end of time, the population of Heaven would be so much more than that of Hell. People from all tongues, tribes, nations and colour are going to be in Heaven. Hell is a crammed up place. It is a place of population explosion, so to speak, because the ‘resources’ of Hell were only meant to ‘cater’ for satan and his demons, not man!

3. Also, from the book of Revelations, you’d discover that Heaven has 12 extremely large gates that are ALWAYS open. What’s more, it’s God’s earnest desire for all to make Heaven. His Spirit continually cries out to us, non-stop, ‘Come, come, come’.

Phew! Now that is settled, why did Jesus say, ‘Strait is the gate and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it’???

The world is under a great bondage that majority are unaware of. The Bondage is UNGUIDED FREEDOM. A guy and a girl that like each other start living together as husband and wife without bothering to get married. When the going gets rough, they simply walk out of each other’s lives and move on. Nowadays, the rate of divorces are so much such that a marriage now seems to be the prerequisite for a divorce. In the name of freedom, an individual that finds himself in an exalted position decides that the next item on his agenda is to siphon his organization’s funds to some personal foreign back account. People now indulge their apetites and massage their egos at the expense of their souls.

What Jesus had in mind by the ‘straight’ gate and ‘narrow’ way can be summarized into one word: DISCIPLINE. In order to get the very best out of life, we have to subject our natural instictive desires and apetites to that which is right. When one’s highly disciplined, he is bordered all around by the right principles and guidelines. In that way, he’s prevented from staggering through life without a due sense of responsibility. The narrow way is not the popular way (Check my write up on ‘The Novel Way’ www.promisetewogbola.wordpress.com/2013/08/06/63/) and this is why Jesus said only a few find it. Only a few are willing to subject themselves to a disciplined lifestyle.

The narrow way is tough. People would snicker at you. They would taunt you and scoff at you. But at the end there’s an abundance of life in its superfluity. Choose the Narrow Way. It’s worth it.

The Aftermath

A sickness to my marrows, a sorrow to my soul,
Initially sweetness in my mouth, now bitterness in my bellies.
It’s a struggle and I’m not alone in it, but
the company I keep, I’m better off without.
‘I must get out of this rigmarole’, I cry, challenging myself with my self-induced pep talk

I try climbing out, ever slowly, never surely, clinging desperately
to the slippery borders of the Valley of Despair I find myself in.
By sheer exertion and willpower, I fool myself into believing
that I’m making net progress, no matter how little, but
I soon lose my footing, for the umpteenth time and I come
crashing down, hitting rock bottom, again.

Suddenly, it dawns on me, the sun’s countenance smiles on me.
With a flash of discretion, I discover that it is not in me to deliver myself.

I’m now tired- with the situation, and with myself
I’m tired, bleeding all over, but even in my full strength,
on a good day, I’d still be found wanting

I am down to my knees in my ultimately lowest point, and
I shout- Your Name

There is silence.
I consider throwing in the towel,
thinking, at least, it was worth the try, then
Thunders come crashing like cymbals hit by a drummer in a frenzy,
Lightnings come striking in a beautiful wonder,
The earth is quaking and out of the skies, The Ladder descends to me.

The choice is mine: with my last ounce of strength, I touch
the first rung of The Ladder.
Nothing happens.
Then I blink and everything happens
I see myself translate from Darkness into unfathomable Light,
I wallowed in self-pity in the company of strugglers,
Now, I’m in a wide, spacious open place, where
the grasses are carefully manicured, the evergreen trees evenly spaced,
A picturesque backdrop of mountain and hills mingling with
the graceful showering of dew, Gentle rivers meander through
their course like a ballet dancer, before cascading down the
magnificient waterfalls.
With hot tears streaming down my face, I mutter, ‘I’m free!’

Evil’s Open Secret

Just take a good look around you. What do you see in the health sector? What do you see in the educational sector? What do you see in World politics as at now? The international policy makers and top government officials are all confused because nothing seems to work. As it were, they are just moving around in circles, giving Band-Aid to the deeply ingrained cancerous problems the world is facing now. They hope that these problems would just go away by a placebo effect or something.

The whole world is waiting. Anxiously waiting. Waiting earnestly for the manifestation of the Children of The Light who would serve as problem solvers for this generation, for posterity and for the world at large.

But what do we have instead? We have Religion shifting its focus away from its old foe- Science, and engaging in a mortal combat with Spirituality. I’m not saying that it is bad to go to church or it’s bad to fellowship with other believers. But it is the Spirit that gives life, sheer muscle and willpower do not profit anything: if you spend a million years in a church building and you are not filled with the Spirit of God, you are only wasting your time, religiously. Religion is NOT Spirituality!

The problem now is that despite the fact that we have numerous individuals who are filled with the Spirit of God and Wisdom, they prefer not to go out of their comfort zones. The world is like a battle field and the Church is more or less like the Barracks where the Children of The Light should be inspired and motivated to shine their lights into the darkness in the world. Instead, the Children of The Light prefer to stay in the Barracks and shine their Lights to each other when there’s thick darkness out there.

It is at this point that EVIL’S OPEN SECRET is being made manifest. The products of Evil are NOT kept in the warehouses. No, they are pushed into the various walks of life. They are made to infiltrate the entertainment industry, the health sector, the legislative, judiciary and executive arms of government. They are even made to infiltrate the so-called Barracks of the Children of The Light. So today, we have pointless and distasteful bills are are being passed into laws at the houses of parliament all over the world. Why? Because the Children of The Light would not go out of their comfort zones to shine in the darkness. Today, we speak of the evil music industry with more and more being led into the captivity of darkness. Why? Because Lights are busy shining and smiling to each other religiously in the Church while darkness is being enthroned in the world out there.

I’d conclude with this: Daniel was a very spiritual man of God in the Bible. He did not have a church, he didn’t heal the sick and he probably heard God audibly speak more times than we would ever hear in our entire lives. Yet, if he had lived in today’s world, he would have been a politician holding a high public office.

I’m being given a platform. I’m being given a voice. And no matter how shrill that voice may sound, I WILL TALK! Enough with the arguments about doctrine and let’s move out en masse and restore normalcy to the dark, upside down world that we’ve been comfortably living in. Let’s Shine!

Escapist Mentality

When I was in junior secondary school, my English teacher read a poem to my class.
I can’t remember the exact wordings of that poem but I know that the poet was describing the various ills that are faced on a daily basis in the typical Nigerian society.
However, what struck me most was the ending when the poem suddenly changed in tone and the poet started professing his undying love to one Maria- his mistress…

In the end, we are all humans. No matter how tolerant we might be to whatever is going on around us, we would still eventually get fed up with things we don’t like.

When situations and circumstances go adverse to you, where does your mind escape to? When you feel you can take it no more, what comes to you as a means of escape? What’s your escapist mentality?

Found!

The emptiness is all gone,
taking a French leave like Darkness at the scent of light,
which shines so brightly, such that
Purpose cannot cover her nakedness no more

Let Nothing weigh me down, ’cause I’m buoyant now
Upwards in the sky, I float, my head above the waters
Gloating over all my fears that are no more, flushed
away in the Sewers of Nought.
I can touch the skies, I can touch the earth
Like the hands of the clock when it’s on the hour of six

Moving hills, moving mountains,
Moving stars, moving galaxies
It’s in me, I’m just waiting,
waiting to bring it all out.