Thoughts and Other Things

I was meditating on the popular Jeremiah 29:11, bringing myself to be peaceful and content, trusting the plan God had for me. While thinking, I remembered there was something peculiar about the context of this piece of Scripture, but I couldn’t remember exactly what it was so I went back to read it.  In Jeremiah chapter 29, God dictates a letter to Jeremiah directed to those in exile.  “ This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease…When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfil my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not ...

I’m back from the dead. Exam death that is. Now time to bury it behind me and pray for the lecturers to mark under the spirit of generosity. But before I do the digging, let me share something I liked while studying for my last paper. The issue at hand was transformation and the point that interested me was that “Transformation needs to focus on relationships because without transforming relationships there’s unlikely to be much transformation at all” Bryant Myers. The subject was dealing with transformation of the poor and their communities, but I found the statement relevant to any change we anticipate to see in our lives. This statement goes back to show how important relationships are to our existence. The blog post ‘Beings-in-fellowship’ further explores this concept. My first thoughts were that if I want to see change in my life I must have the right people in my life.  I must walk away from people who use and abuse me, and keep only the people who build and truly appr...

There comes a time in a Christian’s life where they feel frustrated with their Christian life. The frustration comes as a result of being obedient to God’s Word and doing as He says but only to have no fruit or results to show for it. They then begin to envy the unrighteous and start feeling bitter about their life and despise the principles that govern it. But why is that? Why is it that we sometimes feel burdened by the cross we carry when Jesus said His yoke is easy and His burden light? The truth is, we do it to ourselves (yep, the devil’s not to blame for this one). Every time we want to do things with our own strength and ability, we make heavy and difficult the easy yoke that we’ve been given. In Luke 14:27 Jesus says if we are to be His disciples, we ought to carry our cross and follow Him, and many of us did just that when we began our Christian walk. But somewhere along the road, unwittingly, we stopped following. I know many will argue that they haven’t stopped foll...