Thoughts and Other Things

Twenty3 almost spoke me out of my destiny. She revealed flaws long concealed by effort and growth; She unearthed the decomposed corpse of who I am, who I was; She hurt anew hurts that had scared, she made them cry blood afresh. She nearly killed me. She tried to convince me that I was the wrong I'd given into, Tried to make me believe my identity was redefined, altered, flawed by my frailties. She threatened to tell the world my downfall, said it'd be better if I walked away. She nearly had me. But then He reminded me of His mercies, made new every morning; His unending, unfinishable love, for which I am not consumed. He told me my identity and destiny could not be divorced, that they were eternal, that the call was irrevocable. He revived me, gave me direction and awoke my hope. She said I had lost, 'why bother?'; He said He repays the years the locusts have eaten. She said I was too weak; He said His strength is made perfect in weakness. She said I was beyond re...

So I received my first traffic fine in two years of driving this month. I didn't jump a red light, or halt at a stop sign, nor did I exceed the speed limit, or forget my license,  and there was no fault in my car when examined (thank God). I got a five hundred rand fine for driving without an emergency triangle in my car. Five hundred rand for a shape! I had so many thoughts parading through my mind, but I kept them to myself and concluded I'd head to court with dad after this. You see, thing is, I always get picked on by these traffic people. I don't know if it's the car, or just me; I'm starting to think it's both. The car because  Bruno celebrated his 20th birthday this year (a living testimony that what doesn't break you makes you stronger, haha). I'll be following BMW's and Audi's with Merc's and Chev's behind me and miraculously get picked out of the lot. Me because even though I'm growing older soon, my appearance (especially...

I had the privilege of ministering to high school students yesterday morning. I'm no evangelist, nor am I a preacher, in fact my gift doesn't seem fitting for outreaches, but boy do I get a kick out of them. I don't know what God did there, I'm just glad he did it because there's nothing that fulfills me more than sharing the gospel of Jesus with the world, especially the 'youngins'. The message God laid in my heart was about time. Of course I went to Ecclesiastes 3, but I only went as far as verse 1 and had a handful to understand. " There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven ;" Ecc. 3:1 What had me here is the fact that there's a time for EVERYTHING, which means one needs to have the ability to tell what time it is and what activity is suitable for such a time. The ability to tell time is an acquired skill. Just like how we were taught to read time off clocks in primary school, one needs to be taught how t...

Being a young pastor has its challenges. One of them is the way people receive you. Being young, you haven't gone through half the things your audience or congregation has been through and at times it's a struggle for them to have confidence in the things you say, especially if it concerns things like marriage and child-rearing. It's hard for them to trust your guidance and counsel when they consider your  façade and very short list of experience. Sometimes I can't blame them, people made the same mistake with Jesus. "So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now!" 2 Corinthians 5:16 (NLT) I was getting ready to minister at a funeral and my mind was busy telling me the difficulty I'd have because I couldn't relate to the situation. I have both parents and all my siblings are alive and well; all I've lost are grandparents, a few a...

Not to long ago my pastor preached an insanely amazing sermon addressing why blood was needed where sin was committed. In one of his points, he explained why it is difficult for us to forgive. He said that because we are like God, it is difficult for us to forgive where no restitution has been made (see Leviticus 24:17-21). He went on to say 'but there is a problem because man does not have the ability to produce a restitution valuable enough, equivalent to the pain they've caused, hence God calls us to forgive on the basis of the restitution made by His Son's blood, to forgive because we're forgiven.' Like every sermon, it sounded great hearing it, but the crappy part was actually doing it, and this week was just about that. We had our annual kids  camp this week and having organized it for the 5th time this year, I was confident about all my plans and arrangements. So when we arrived at this year's campsite I expected everything to be as arranged no stress. ...

We're all familiar with the parable of the talents (currency not gifts) in Matthew 25. I was reading through it seeking a certain portion of it and when I found it, I was pleased it said what I had thought it said and off I went. Two days later, we opened up the same text during service and bam! I saw something in that verse I hadn't seen two days before or ever before because, like I said earlier, we're all familiar with that parable. Verse 29 is that verse that jumped out at me. "For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him." That last sentence is the one that struck me. How can you take something from someone who doesn't have anything? Read that verse again. The thing is, this person does have, that's why there's something to take, but he considers what he has to be nothing. I immediately thought of the widow that needed help with her debts. When asked what s...