IN MY WORLD

The world is not as big as you imagine. No. It is not one very big world! It is very many worlds in which everyone has a chance to be king (or queen). In your world, you can be anything you want.
In your world there are people who are the most important.  They may not be VIPs in the common world but in your world they are irreplaceable.
There are people who determine every decision you make because they are constantly in your mind and all your decisions are intertwined with their welfare.
In the same world, there are people who do not exist. They are right there in front of you but they do not exist in your world. You have never taken notice of them. You never think of them as you make your decisions. They could have taken notice of you and you may, indeed, be a VIP in their lives but they do not exist in yours.
There is also someone in whose world you do not exist. Someone you have wished they would notice you but they just don't.  To them, you do not exist.

Isn't this how to some of us God is the very centre of our existence yet to others, He doesn't exist?
He could be at the centre of every decision some people make and yet completely inexistent to others.
In His world; however, you are a VIP. He loved you so much that He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die for you. He noticed you. Each day He longs for you to notice Him.

In my world He is the King of kings and Lord of lords. He is the irreducible minimum and greatest denominator. He is the beginning and the end, the first and the last, the Alpha and Omega.

Where does He rank in your world?

Minister Felix.

WHAT A (WO)MAN ACTUALLY NEEDS.

HOW TO BECOME ATTRACTIVE.

The first thing Adam gave Eve was an identity. A woman comes to a man seeking an identity.  She will even change her name for you. She will be called mother when she finds you. Too bad if she comes to a man who does not know who he is or who she is. She wants you to affirm who she believes she is. She wants you to mould her self esteem not destroy it. She wants you to call her something she has never been called. She hopes that you can look into her soul, find out her worth and call it out. She wants you to find the queen in her and call her out. She wants you to change her name to sweetheart, darling and so on.

A woman wants security from you. She wants to settle especially in heart and mind that she is loved and valued and she will never be uncovered. She comes looking for cover. Her favourite position is when she is locked in the arms of a man who values her and loves her above all else. Can you secure her? Can her dreams find security in your arms? Can you cover her or you are just interested in uncovering her? She longs to know that she has security of tenure: that she will never be kicked out. Can you grant her that while you are eyeing her and two or more others? The greatest protection  you can offer her is to protect her from yourself. If she knows that her pain will never come from you she will crown you king over her. The greatest pain that can be inflicted comes from those who are supposed to protect us. Yet, how will you offer her security if you are insecure yourself?

She moves by hearing and instinct. She is lured by what she hears. She is looking for a person who calls her queen but she is listening to your heart not your mouth. Does your heart cry out for her or it's just your mouth? Her instinct is more powerful than her hearing ability. She can sense betrayal long before it happens but sometimes she loves you so much that she silences her instinct. If you go ahead to betray her after she has silenced her instinct she will hate you for it.

A woman is called so because of her womb. She has the power to take seed and conceive from it, incubate it in her womb and give you the same seed when it is multiplied and perfected. This is not just in the literal sense. Have you seen men who seemed like they could amount to nothing become so prosperous after marriage? They were just seeds or carried in them the seed of prosperity until they found the right incubator. But it is not just the good in you that she can incubate. She will incubate anything you give her and give it back to you when it is multiplied. Don't  give her insults. Don't give her complaints. Don't give her frustration. She will incubate it for months or years and will unleash it on you when it is perfected. Give her hope, esteem, confidence, inspiration. She will perfect it and give it back.

The greatest thing a man is looking for is the presence of God although in most cases he is not aware of it. There is nothing more attractive to a man than a woman who carries the presence of God. She is attractive and perfect in every way and the man can rarely express what it is about her that is attractive because it is not physical. Such a woman is attractive because she is submitted. She is submitted to God and men like submitted women. She is attractive because she speaks with grace. She has found grace and therefore the man finds grace in her. She is attractive because she knows how to love. She loves her creator and will not find it hard to love people and him. If she loves the King of kings she will love her king. She knows how to crown a King. She is attractive because her skin glows with glory. He is not attracted to the skin or its  physical glow but its spiritual glow. The man can never pinpoint what exactly attracts him about her. She can have numerous physical flaws but the glory of God covers them. You see the woman found the man in the presence of God but they were kicked out of that presence after sinning against God. He longs for God's presence more than the woman. He longs for God more than he cares to admit and definitely more than he knows.
When he finds a  woman who carries that presence and glory he scores twice at the same time. The greatest tragedy for the man is a woman who draws the glory and presence of God from him. Did you see how he flees after fornication because the glory that attracted him has departed? He is not fleeing from you. He is pursuing that glory that he had seen in you. Most often that not, if he fornicates with a woman who doesn't  carry the glory, he rarely flees. If you knew what attracted him to you you would not allow him to take you to bed before he marries you. As soon as it is gone, he will lose interest.
A woman with God is attractive because she has respect. She respects and honours God and authority. She is attractive because she listens. Faith comes by hearing and if she has it then she is a good listener. She is attractive because she is patient. Walking with God takes patience. If she has been walking with God then she has developed patience. She is attractive because she has a clean heart and soul. She has been washed with the blood of Jesus and she has a pure heart and soul.
The man will never know for certain why he is attracted to her but he will always come back to her.

The Candle and The Sun

Another sundown in a small village in a third world country finds the boys running after the football made from plastic bags collected from the village garbage heap. Their aim is to send the ball behind the two rocks mounted to mimic goal posts on either side of the small space their call their football field. If they are lucky, one team will send the ball zooming past the two stones before it becomes completely dark but if they are unlucky, another boy will yet again mistake the stone for the ball and be off this field for weeks.

As they call for ball and run after it, they are oblivious of the fading light from the sun that is now casting a beautiful grotesque of their shadows behind them. There is no referee in this game, it is just some boys enjoying a good game with a set of unsupervised rules. Everybody knows what the rules are and though they occasionally break into a light argument, it is their undying friendship and love for the game that sees them back to this field every evening after school.

Some of them hope to one day become professional soccer players but for others, it is just a way of passing time and passing time they do. Before anyone can kick the rock, their mothers start yelling out their names from the distant grass-thatched houses they call home. This village has no electrical connection of any kind. Some homes run on small portable and rechargeable lights that they take with them to town each morning and charge in their places of work. Those who cannot afford these battery lights use different kerosene lamps but with the community clinician warning them of the dangers these lamps pose on their health, some have been trying alternatives.

One family has no kerosene on this night and as the last embers of the fire they used to prepare their supper die, they reach out for a candlestick to light it on the fireplace in a bid to save at least one matchstick for tomorrow. This has happened thousands of times across the generations and although they dream of one day living in electrified gated communities in self-contained houses, most of these villagers have never seen a toilet seat. This has been their life and anything else is just a dream.

After the evening prayers, it is bedtime for all. Nobody cares to switch off the small stub left from the candlestick they had broken into two pieces to serve two nights. As they each slip into the safety of their dreams or the nightmares  that haunt their sleep, the candle light flickers in the small room that has sheltered the family of nine as if itself saying a prayer.

The flickering of this light in the otherwise dark room seems to be writing a letter to someone in some sort of Morse code. “Dear Sun, it has been just a few hours since you stopped shining for the day in my village. In that short time these people seemed to remember my worth. I feel so worthless living with this family. With you shining out there for hours in the day I am cast away into oblivion only to be remembered when it is darkest. They do not value me for who I am. No, they only use me when they need to and throw me away as soon as you start shining.

I know that I can never measure up to your glory but at least you get to experience different parts of the world. I have always wondered how you do it, shining throughout without exhaustion while I can only shine for a few minutes. Often too, I have asked myself where you go every evening. Have you ever been to America? I don’t think they would have any use for me in a developed country but you… The Americans and Europeans can’t get enough of you. I see them at candlelit dinners in the Savannah and hear them talking of how they came to enjoy the Sun. How painful it is for me to hear them talking in my presence praising you while enjoying my light. None of them seems to care for me as I waste away trying to make their vacation romantic. They only remember you even though they have to wear sunscreen to protect themselves from your glory.

How I have longed to be like you serving all but a master of all, choosing where to shine and where not, traveling the world and changing seasons. I think you must enjoy so much being the most powerful of all creation with a glory that people can’t even stare at. Oh, I hate the staring. I see people, old and young stare right into my soul as if they empathize with my suffering only to let me die. It is such an ugly life to live knowing that people will only use you and dump you. They don’t care about you but only what they can get from you while you shine. It is like…” Before he could finish, the candle dims away never to see another night.

In the morning, someone throws away the remains of the candle outside in the garbage heap. There in the dirt the sun rays finally get to the candle’s remains to give a reply to the emotional letter. “Dear Candle, I have heard you and I can’t quite say I understand your suffering but I have a few words of wisdom. God in His infinite wisdom created all of us for a reason. It is something called destiny. The destiny of each of us is to solve one or more problems in the world. To some I solve the problem of cold and to others the problem of darkness. Some get to benefit from my light but not my heat. That is my destiny to them. I do not consider myself to be a supreme creation. No, my friend. I just shine. Contrary to what you may have come to believe, I do not go anywhere at night. The world comes to me when they need me. I stay where I am and just shine. My destiny is to shine and so I shine. I do not choose where to shine and where not to. I just shine. I do not choose how bright to shine. I just give it my all.

I cannot worry over all the problems in the world, I only focus on those I can solve: the ones I was created to solve. The firstborn will never solve the problems of the last-born. If you are born the only child in your family, it can be said that you were born to solve the problem of having a child. If another had been born before you, you would not have been born because the problem would have already been solved. If you are the only girl among your siblings, you may have been born to solve the problem of having a girl. If another girl had been born before you… Each of us exists to solve certain problems. Therefore, you must never say that you are being used. That is exactly why God created you. God created the problems and then you for you to solve them. You are only important as long as the problem you were created to solve exists or because of the problems you have solved. If there was no darkness neither you nor I would have been created. Our importance is subject to the presence of a problem we can solve.

Do not hate your problems. Love them. They make you important. Without problems we are all useless. It is the problems we face in life that bring out our value. If men would fly, they wouldn’t need vehicles or planes. That is why birds and fish will never invent vehicles and planes. They simply don’t face the same problems as men. Love your problems, again I say. Light is only important where there is darkness. It cannot complain that darkness is using it. Picture this; with all my glory, there are still some light issues I cannot solve. Nobody thinks that sunshine is romantic. No, they only find it romantic when staring at sunset. They find me more attractive when they are about to lose me. Candlelit dinners will never be replaced by sunbathing. Each of them solves a different problem. Do not compete with those who were created to solve different problems. Just shine when it is your time to shine. You can’t marry all women, there is only one whose problems are yours to solve.

The world is full of darkness even though the sun never loses its strength. In the middle of sunshine there is a person whose soul is as black as coal. The world is a dark place. A thousand suns would not give it enough light because its darkness comes from deep within the souls of men. A candle in the heart of every man would light the world in a way that a million suns couldn’t. There are people losing hope everywhere in the light and in darkness because the sun can’t shine everywhere. In the souls of men I can’t shine. What they need there is a small candle of hope. That is your domain my friend. You can shine in people’s hearts. You can give them light when I cannot. It may not be as bright as my light but sometimes what people need is just a faint light to give them hope. You were created to inspire hope in people. Just a small light that can change destinies. You don’t need to be glorious to be great, you only need to be great at what you were created to do.

Bottom line, do not think at all that people are using you. Take it as your golden opportunity to show the world what you are made of. However short-lived your reign is, make the most impact in it and leave a mark in this world. Truth be told, whoever you are in life, nobody needs you without a problem you can solve. We are all being used: to solve the problems we exist to solve. Whenever you get an opportunity to be used, do it gladly and use it to light up as many faces as you can before your time is over.”                  

Happily Ever After

Having a dream is one of the greatest motivators that one can ever have. That goal in life that keeps you desiring to wake up the next day to chase it. A dream can cause you to endure the worst of experiences in life and brave the greatest of adversities in its pursuit. People who have a dream are generally focused in life. One would give up many things and some can even give up everything to pursue a dream.

            Sleepless nights of planning and strategizing often precede the realisation of a dream. When you have a dream it occupies all quotas of your life. It is the greatest tenant of the mental faculties and the most important drive of your passion.

            It follows then that when we are young we are encouraged to dream. No dream is too big, we are told. Dream big. So we dream. We dream of being engineers, doctors, lawyers, surgeons, neurosurgeons, pilots. The list can go on and on and on. We dream of owning big and beautiful homes, marrying the best spouse and raising the most disciplined children on the planet. I mean, sometimes we even dream of marrying someone out of this world and raising kids in a different planet away from the corruption of planet earth.

            If you are wondering where I am headed and trying to marry this introduction with the title, let me help you out. I have a question for you that will mark the shift of this discussion. If you may, call it a series of questions. To begin with, what happens when you are living your dream?

            That’s right. We all appreciate the bliss of dreaming big. Doesn’t it sound great when you relate your dream to the anxious ears of friends and family and you see the sparkle in their eyes as they begin to grasp the vast scope of your imagination? Of course it does. However, if you are fortunate enough, you actually get to live your dream.

            Living your dream can wax a conglomeration of emotions. There is the ecstasy of making of, the thrill of success, they joy of arrival, the merry of completion, the pride of the conquest, the disbelief of victory among others. In that moment when you sign the marriage certificate and the crowd cheers you on as you stand facing the most perfect soul alive about to receive your first (public) kiss, the fears and worries of the world seem to fly away.

            As you close your eyes and feel the lips of your lifetime partner so tender and alive, the world around you fades out into oblivion and you enter into your own world with only three words on every street, “happily ever after.” It is the utmost bliss.

            As you stand at the hostel door of your coveted university with your suitcases at your feet and you breath in the air of academic conquest, the sleepless nights of high school are forgotten having all paid off. It was worth it. Those few minutes of absorbing the fact that you made it into your dream university and that your career path is finally aligned can be overwhelming. The euphoria of the moment makes you oblivious of the anxiety of your parents as they hand you over to the world.

            Looking up into the skies filled with graduation caps from your colleagues who toiled the rigours of campus life with you as you finally graduate fills the heart with merry. The caps almost look like fireworks in the sky as the bliss settles into your soul. You made it!

            We have all had a glorious moment of celebrating achievements in our lives however big or small they were. There was that moment when you finally beat your academic rival in primary school, the moment you graduated at any level of school, the moment you learned to ride a bicycle, that day you received your driver’s license, got married, held your firstborn child in your arms, got your first job, got promoted at work, the day he finally proposed, that day she said yes, name it.

            Following the achievement, you definitely expected to live happily ever after, but are you? Well, life is complicated. You dreamt it for years. It was the thing that motivated you to wake up each day for months or years but when you finally achieved it, what happened then?

We all come to that moment when we realise that our dream wasn’t that big after all. Which brings me to yet another question. Is it possible that the joy comes not from actually living the dream but from the hope of realising the dream? Is it possible that what really we need in life is a dream; not its realisation? How come we are fuller of life when dreaming than when living the dream? I mean, now that you have your driver’s license or graduation certificate, are you still as excited as you were the day you went to collect it?

As you watch any romantic movie, soap opera or read a book on the theme of the triumph of love, you always long for that line that reads, “And they lived happily ever after.” Let us take a few minutes here and dissect that “happily ever after.” Is it ever, really happily ever after? If it is, how come it only happens in the movies? Lets’ drive it further. If indeed it even happened in the movies, how come there has never been a release that showed us how they were living happily ever after? Am just asking.

So did I take my time to write this just to burst the bubble of those who dream of a happily ever after? Not at all. I merely wrote to propose one thing. You cannot have one dream in life because the moment you realise your dream, your life loses its purpose. Human beings were created, among other reasons, to dream. Without a dream life has no meaning and that includes the period after realising your dream. Once you achieve what you have always dreamt of, you no longer have a dream and without a dream, you have no purpose. Not in this world.

If you always dreamt of getting married, contrary to what you may have come to believe, your life loses meaning on your wedding day. If you only dreamt of having kids, the day your lastborn comes to this earth will be the last of your meaningful days. Each person needs a dream bigger than what they can realise in their lifetime. You need to dream again after realising your dream. One of the most sombre things I ever heard in the university was this statement, “I studied to come to the university: I did not come to the university to study.” When you hear such a statement you don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

There are however many unspoken variants of that statement in various spheres of life. One would say, “He used to be romantic before the wedding.” Well, he was romantic to get a wife: he did not get a wife to be romantic! Interpolate if you are a man.

Are you living with someone who has lost that sparkle that attracted you to them? Maybe they just lost their dream (either by realising it or coming to the conclusion that they can’t.) The only thing you can do to enjoy life with such a person again is to help them dream again. Inspire a dream in them that is bigger than their lifespan.

Are you that person who used to talk big as you pursued your dream and now you find yourself sulking as if life has no meaning? Probably you are wondering what happened. It is not always calamity that causes people with big dreams to sulk.

THE LAST SAFE HOUSE.

THE LAST SAFE HOUSE.

When the Israelites came to the Red Sea, they looked behind and saw the hosts of Pharaoh pursuing them. In that moment of fear and anxiety, they forgot where they had come from. In that face of abject annihilation they forgot all the pain they had endured in Egypt. At the face of extinction, they forgot the glories of their deliverance from Egypt. When they opened their mouths, this is what they said.

Exodus 14

11"Because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you so dealt with us, to bring us up out of Egypt?

 12 "Is this not the word that we told you in Egypt, saying, 'Let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians?' For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness."

They had completely forgotten how they had cried to God at the lash of their taskmasters’ whip. They had forgotten how difficult their days of slavery had been in those days when they cried out to God. For four hundred and thirty years they had been enslaved by the Egyptians to serve in their fields and brick making. At some point Pharaoh ordered the execution of their infants. However, as they stood there faced by the Red Sea before them, the wilderness on the right and the left and Pharaohs ruthless army, the cry of their children as they fell to the sword of their taskmasters seemed to be drowned by the immediate threat.

They saw Moses as threatening their very existence by taking them from their slavery. At that moment, when they were faced by certain death, their errantly reasoned that it would have been better to serve their masters than to die in the wilderness. As the waves of the Red Sea beat upon the coast it brought to their minds ripples of fear and destruction. The gaze to the wilderness around them burned through their minds so that they lost all memory of the pain they had gone through in Egypt.

How could they forget their scourged backs? How could they forget the whip of the lash in the scorching sun of Egypt as they toiled day in for four hundred and thirty years? How could they forget the scars that they bore on their backs? How could they not just look at their hands and see the disfiguration from the toils of brick and mortar? How could they ever long for the place they buried their innocent children whose only crime had been being born? How could they say it would have been better to never taste freedom?

Nonetheless, as they reasoned then; how was it any better to be rescued from their slavery only to die in the wilderness? As they stood there stranded, they forgot the victories God had given them in Egypt just before they left. The plagues that God had struck Egypt with on their account evaporated from their minds. All they could picture was their end. They seemed to forget how God had brought darkness on all Egypt for three days yet giving them light in their households throughout. They seemed to forget how God had made distinction between His people and the Egyptians during the ten plagues. Who could blame them? None of those victories and deliverances could make sense to a dying man.

Only that they were not dying. No, at least not on that day. Unknown to them, God was preparing for them their greatest victory over Egypt yet. That would be last day they would lay eyes on their taskmasters. The armies of Pharaoh were not pursuing the extinction of the Israelites but their own. What they did not know in that time of their misplaced longing was that the greatest trials yield the greatest triumph and the greatest pain, the greatest gain. God saw their unbelief and how quick they were to lose hope and trust in Him and decided to do something that has not been replicated to date, that they may know He is Lord. He parted the seas and provided dry passage for them. They would understand later that what threatens man does not even move God. God made a way for them right in the middle of what was threatening them.

As I ponder on the events that took place that day by the Red Sea, I can only compare it to our lives today. I would not be so quick to condemn the cowering of the Egyptians and their longing for bondage because I have also been there.

You see, when we are going through so much pain or experiencing too much uncertainty, we forget all the past pains and long for the last safe house. What do I mean? The last safe house does not necessarily mean that you were safer there. Not at all. It only means that it is the last place or time you experienced certainty. For instance, Israel wasn’t safer or happier in Egypt but they had some certainty there. While they were yet in Egypt they had food, they knew where the wells of water were, and they knew what to do to avoid dying. However, in the wilderness they were not sure what would kill them first; whether the thirst, the hunger, the sea, the heat or pharaoh’s army.

The human mind longs for and finds safety in certainty. You feel safer if you are in control. For example, you may not be screaming for fear when you drive yourself at a hundred and sixty kilometres per hour. If someone else is stepping on the accelerator and the speedometer starts nearing the same speed, you start panicking. You forget that when you were driving you were faced by the same dangers. When the mind starts registering chances of death or the uncertainty of life, past pains, traumas and victories alike are forgotten. It is then that we begin casting a longing eye on the last safe house.

We may not always be in control and most definitely there will come times that we are uncertain of the future. A failed relationship or marriage is a time of uncertainty. It is no wonder that in those times some people will begin wandering in their minds to their last safe house. The mind begins straying to the last relationship where you were certain. You may find yourself longing for a previous lover, completely oblivious of the pains that made you quit the relationship. You start forgetting how abusive the person was and start longing for that time that you at least had someone to come home to. When painful moments crop up in a relationship, the mind starts to wander to the past, finding safety in the sweet memories of previous relationship while obscuring the horrors of the same. It is like the Egyptians longing for the Melons of Egypt (their land of bondage). Yes indeed, there were melons and garlics and cucumbers in Egypt but it was also a place of intolerable horrors.

Have you ever found yourself there? In that place where at the face of uncertainty you start looking for safety in the past? Are you there right now? In that place where the only safe place you know is the past? I am writing to call your memory to attention. Your last safe house wasn’t safe at all. When you yet lived in it you wished out. You dreaded another day there and that was why you left in the first place. There are, of course, those who feel that their last safe house was indeed safe. The last relationship, job, and so on was not infested with horrors and that it was just misunderstandings that caused them to leave. The truth is that if you go back you will find that the place has changed a lot. Do not cast a longing eye at the last man who treated you right. He may be married already and your last safe house under new management. It was safe then but right now it will only cause you pain. Listen to me. Your bed in the last safe house has been occupied by another person. It is no longer safe.

Do not look for safety in the past. Even if it was safe then, you cannot live in the past. The last safe house is state of confusion in loneliness where the soul is living in the past, the body in the present and the mind in the future. Such a state will only disintegrate you. It will ruin, not heal you. As it was on that day when Israel stood at the shores of the Red sea oblivious of what God was doing in the background, so it is for you. You may be seeing only the certain failure and uncertainty ahead of you, the threats behind you and the hopelessness around you but I guarantee you that God is preparing for your best miracle yet. In due time God will lay out a red carpet for you right in the middle of what is threatening you. Fear not for you are not alone. Have you made the Lord your redeemer and saviour? He will save you and rescue you from the perceived extinction.

Don’t camp in the past. Hope in God.... (Watch out for Part II)