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...

I was sitting quietly in my seat waiting for the service to begin when three year old David came to sit next to me. He hadn’t done so in the longest time, so it was a sweet surprise. I say hello and he says he’s fine. Then he starts flooding me with all these questions. Where’s your house? Where’s your car? What colour is it? Where’s the other pastor? Where’s his car? (he has an obsession with cars). I felt so caught with that first question? Why would he ask me that? Is it so obvious that I shouldn’t be living at home that a three year old could see it? I finally sheepishly replied that I don’t have my own house, I stay at home with my parents at such and such a place. He moved on to the next question. Before I knew it, the conversation was over, and off he went to ask for sweets from another lady. It is only when I had a conversation with his mother that I realised how I’d misunderstood him. She told me how he refers to his home as his house, she’d tried explaining the diffe...

And so we are back at that place again, where everyone is ‘freshly’ motivated to set new goals and pursue new ventures, all being done in the hopes of making a success out of one’s life. I want to share a secret with you about success. Nope this is not a secret to success, but a key to proper understanding about success, which will ultimately lead you to it. In today’s world, we’ve wrongly defined success by judging it by popularity and the possessions one has. It’s about where you take your vacations, the area you live in, the cars you drive, who you know, who you’re married to, the amount of people who like and follow you and how much you have in your bank account. When you say successful, we automatically relate it to a luxurious life. This judgement is not only unbiblical, but it is also untrue. Think about it. I think we all know (of) someone who has made it to the top by fraud or corruption, by stepping on and over others, by gross injustice and manipulation. We all admit ...

Celebrating birthdays used to be about milestones for me... 16, 21, 30… and of course the crown birthday. But this year has taught me that the celebration should not just be about the number, but about the victories of the year. Others will think of achievements as these victories…finishing school, buying a house or car, finding a job… It is that too. But for me, this year, these victories were about making it out in one piece. It’s on that note that I’ll be celebrating New Year ’s Eve tonight, not because this was the year of completion or all those lovely catch phrases that we attached to it, but simply because I’m still standing…and it’s only because He made a way. This year left me with a scar, literally. Looking back at it, I realized that more than learning this year, I’ve had to do a lot of unlearning, and I’m not close to perfection. I said the other day that one word that best describes my year would have to be ‘trust’. This because in this year, I have had to learn to ...

I was pondering about the use of hair conditioner. As you know by now, I’ve been dedicated to loving and taking care of my natural hair for the past two years now. Conditioner is applied after shampooing your hair and before moisturizing it. Conditioner for hair is similar to what a toner is for your face. It’s an in-between stage which determines the success or effectiveness of the next. Now a conditioner’s purpose is to, well, condition the hair follicle. It strengthens it, preventing hair from breaking and preparing it to be moisturized. I pondered about this because of the season I’m in in my life, this blurry, in-between season. I say blurry because at this point I have the ‘what’ but I really have no clue how and when. My goal is visible, but the details aren’t so clear. I’m hoping this only last for my twenties, so I’ve called this stage the blurry twenties. What makes things blurry is the fact that in between where you are and where you want to be, life happens. And w...