I Won

I don’t have a digital camera so i can’t give you an exact picture, but this is an exact representation. I got an award from my office for being “Web Programmer of the Year 2007” in my sub-department. That is an exciting feeling for me, and makes me think that maybe this path God has put me on isn’t so bad after all…lol.

Christmas day, 8.13PM. i am in the office alone. i didn’t get to travel home to my mom for the holidays but i will doing that next month. i had to sort out some issues back here, primarily my new accommodation. i pray i can get the cash to make the payments for my new house before the end of the month.

DECEMBER 29…UPDATE
we started a three day fasting and prayer program yesterday, and Pastor Chris has been exhorting us as we gather in the evenings for conclusive prayers for the day. He taught about the kinds of prayers necessary for such as time as this – prayers of worship, intercession and prophetic prayers, where the latter refers to speaking out words of scriptures as stirred up in our spirits. He also intimated us with the reason for this 3 days of fasting and prayers…a time to be rightly positioned and conditioned in the spirit so as to align us with God’s will, purpose and direction in the new year.

While praying and thinking of the outgoing here, and all the experiences i had, it struck me that in my opinion i considered myself to have done badly. for one, my intimacy with God suffered like never before. i reached an all time spiritual low and and i kicked and screamed my way through God’s will the entire year. if i were to score myself, i would give myself a big F. but thinking about my award in the office, i began to think it goes beyond the physical. i mean, i am being so hard on myself thinking i could have done better because am comparin myself with others. but how does God see me? he doesnt see me in comparison with another, no, rather he sees me in comparison with my past. and looking at where i have been and where i am right now, i can say i have come a long way, even if i had to be dragged half the way.

TD Jakes once said, you can never appreciate my success until you have understood my struggles. God sees where i have been, and where i am,and i think he is proud of me. i think this award is his way of saying, i did good, even if still have a long way to go. you know, i found out later that some new categories had to be created just so some people down the hierarchy in the office here could be awarded too. i have only been here two years, and my department is really just about a year old and i already have an award for “web programmer of the year”. i think it says a lot…of what God has in store for me and thinks about me. and i am encouraged.

indeed, he leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name sake…

Love Me Less

Some blogger who has taken up the task of talking against what other people believe about God, and the scriptures, did a post on the movie Evan Almighty. I once put a link to a post he did and apparently it got one of my very good blogger friend to walk a tightrope between what she believes and what she doubts, so I don’t intend to promote his blog anymore. However, I do visit his blog and read especially his posts on Christianity because in spite of the fact that I don’t we don’t subscribe to each other’s beliefs, his opposing standpoint helps me ascertain what I believe. And God once told me that you have not truly believed until you question what you believe.
Anyway, this post is about the movie Evan Almighty, and in blogging about this post he took the stand point of it being part of a deliberate or otherwise attempt to trivialize the messages of scripture. His arguments are quite valid and I do agree with his postulations, yet I believe there is a missing link which I have observed in every one of his posts on the subject of God and Christianity.

Scripture has it written that to the pure, all things are pure. And I believe that God deals with every one individually, and there are some things that may applicable to one person, and yet totally inapplicable to the other person.
I just finished the movie, and yes it did get a good laugh from me, it also brought tears to my eyes, and the only reason I didn’t let it all out is because I was in the office. See, what I saw in Evan Almighty s true to his arguments – slight twisting of the original story, subtle suggestions and insinuations on moral virtues more than scripture’s message. Yet, I also saw an opportunity for people who may never have given a thought to the story of Noah to have an idea of what it was all about. No matter what the intent was, to entertain at the expense of the scripture or not, the message of the ark was passed across.

And for someone like me, in between the laughs, I saw in the congressman the conflict of putting aside personal dreams to do what God wants; I saw the conflict of walking a road that causes even your own family to call you crazy; I saw the conflict of doing something that looked naturally stupid with only need-to-know information. I watched Evan Almighty and I laughed. But I also cried because I saw scenes of myself in that movie. And a quote that caught my attention was when “God” said to the congressman, Everything I do, I do becuase I love you”. And yet he got suspended from office, got ridiculed on national TV, and got his family walking out on him. Somewhere in the middle of it all, he said “ok God, love me less”. I knoe how many times I have wanted to say that.

But at the end of the story, we see that all things did work out for his good.
“When you pray for courage, does God give you courage? No, he gives you opportunities to be courageous”.

So what ministers evil to one person could minister good to another. Let every man be persuaded in his own heart, for whatever is not of faith, that is sin.

PS: Merry Christmas y’all.

5 Years After

I called my mom today, just to hear her voice, and let her hear my voice. She reminded me to give thanks to God. I asked, anything in particular. She said, did you forget? Today is December 11…it’s been 5 years.

In deed, it is 5 years today since daddy passed on. We both thought life had stopped for us. But God has been faithful. In more ways that i can count, but i’ll try…

1. i was somewhere in my second year in the university. Today am a working professional.
2. mom was the owner of her own house. today she owns one more house she has leased out.
3. daddy could only afford to buy me a fairy used laptop. today, am using my second brand new laptop in the space of a few months.
4. i was a spoilt, pampered kid. today am a boy becoming a man.

i do miss daddy, i have learned to move on without him, but i know he was my springboard. he took me in when my biological dad rejected me. he gave mom and i another lease at life – a better life. he lived for us. he gave his best for us. he gave his all for us. he didnt stay to see all his efforts pay off. but i owe him so much. and so help me God, i wont quit on him.

iWeirdo

Jaycee tagged me for this.I dont know what is wierd about me but i will give this a shot.

1. i like to play good cop, bad cop with myself in my head. i also psychoanalyze myself.
2. i can’t without my laptop.
3. i always daydream of being a superhero saving a damsel in distress.
4. i wear two pairs of socks always.
5. i dont have a single suit.
6. i fall in love easily.
7. i have never had a girlfriend.
8. i hate football.

whew…that was hard work. i tag any 8 bloggers who want to be tagged.

Walking with the Father

I have a bunch of titles in my head for this post; titles like “daddy long legs”, “the silence of God”, ‘the litmus test”, “the true test of love”, “walking on the water” etc. but I will settle for this one, even though every one of the other titles could very well epitomize the days of my life.

Jaycee did a beautiful letter from God to us on his pride in us for having stayed with the program all the way from January till December. I believe that letter shows the father’s heart towards us, and I was richly blessed by it. But if I were to write God a letter about my life in 2007, I wouldn’t have as much pride in myself as he has in me.

Without doubt, this year for me has been one of “walking with the father”. I would like to say that taking a walk with God is a wonderful experience, because it is, but I cannot truthfully and willingly say that for this year. Because father has long legs and took long strides, and I was trying to catch up every step of the way, and more than a dozen times I wanted to just stop walking. But father wasn’t being cruel; he just didn’t want me to miss the train. He wanted to make sure I was right on time for the train, but as far as I was concerned the train was too far away, the distance was too long, and the view here was good anyway. If the options were left to me, I would not hesitate to rewrite the script of my life in 2007. I cringe at typing that because it implies that I feel like I am smarter than God, but more correctly, it indicates how unwilling to leave my comfort zone I have become.

I believe Jaycee’s letter that God is proud of me. In spite of myself. I know I have a long way still to go, but I also have come a long way already.

Avalon did a song about Gods dreams for us being bigger than the dreams we have for ourselves. All I ever dreamed of was being a great world renowned computer programmer with the best conveniences of life and be able to take care of my mother for all that she had done for me. That was good and big enough for me. Only all of that changed when I learnt how to listen to God. Little did I know that the intimacy and relationship I was building with him was setting me up for responsibility – the responsibility of being a soldier, in the good fight of faith.

I don’t like being a soldier. I don’t want to be a soldier. And every day I wish I could defect. But where do you run to get away from God? Boot camp is bad enough; the frontlines is not something I even want to think about, and yet daily he trains my hands for war and teaches my fingers to fight.

When I started writing down the stuff God said to me, I thought it was pretty cool and was proud of me. Now those words, I realize, were prophecies directing the path of my life. Now I understand what scripture means that the lord orders the steps of the righteous. The last place I had in mind to work was in church. Even though I am doing the very thing I love to do, I never thought I would be doing it as a church staff. The first few months were novel, and then came the dawn of reality. And I knew that this was no demilitarized zone.

I wonder why God picked me. I am learning that I do not really love God as much as I thought and wished I did. I am learning that loving God is costly. I want to be able to love God from a distance; you know, the whole romance thing, but like ashe.selah’s test of love, I realize that there’s much more to love than romance.
More than a dozen times I told God he made the wrong choice. I mean, I had so much to lose. Why me? And if he wanted me so bad why didn’t he give my mother other kids so that while am far away from home working in church, she would have the comfort of her other kids? Why didn’t he make her so wealthy that even though I make less than minimum wage of my career’s worth and hardly get to help her financially, she would be able to live a decent comfortable life? I mean if I had to go against common sense and all of my friends and family advise, why couldn’t the little details be taken care of? Why does God have to take the only thing first?

But I guess then it wouldn’t be a sacrifice, would it? Only no one told me choosing God would mean denying me. I never realized that living is a result of first dying. I am uncomfortable with the plans God has for me. I feel inadequate and unqualified for it. I feel uninterested and unbothered to pursue it. I don’t want to catch the train. I just want to sit here in the sand and play. I don’t want to grow up, because growing up stretches and hurts. Being a baby is bliss; growing up is gruesome. But I guess I do not have that luxury. What makes it so hard also is the fact that am not the only one in the equation – my mom is in too, and I love her too much to see her continue to stay just above water. I think this and immediately a counter thought shoots at my mind: how much did God love Jacob to leave him mourn and grieve 13years over Joseph without even a whisper of comfort, until the very day Joseph sends for him?

This year has been a year of shedding for me. I have shed flesh in sensitive places. I have been exposed to cruel elements that have eaten mercilessly at my raw skin. I feel like every nerve in me is exposed and bleeding. I totally understand what scripture meant when it described Jesus as sweating blood. I know Gethsemane. And I want out.

Yet the father doesn’t let go. He holds on tightly to my hands. He pulls me along. He drags me sometimes. He carries me to. But he lets me walk most of the way because he knows my legs must be made strong. He knows I would have to stand on water soon, and I must have the firmness of feet to not sink. I must know the principles of walking on water. I must know how to hear in the silence. I must recognize the colors of love.

I feel myself evolving. I look in the mirror and I do not recognize who I have become. I feel the scars all over me. I look and see a firmness that was not there before. Yet at the same time I see the child that must become a man. It is like a split personality – the one struggling against the other.
Walking with the father takes you from a place of familiarity to a place of faith; a place of certainty to a place of trust; a place of security to a place of vulnerability; a place of romance to a place of real love; a place of passion to a place of purpose; a place of beginnings to a place of finishing’s – and the only way to keep walking is to keep holding on.