Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Love Like the Wind

Like a gem that is desire,
Like a flame that is the fire,
Like the swooping of an emotional umpire,
Love should be like the wind;

Like a touch that has an invincible effect,
Like a dream in a night – a dream without defect,
Like a presence that is immortally intact,
Love is like the wind;

Like a miracle, like a symphony from afar,
Like a song, like a melody that can never deter,
Like an endless life, like an angel’s avatar,
Love should be like the wind;

Like timelessness,
Like neverthelessness,
Like meekness,
Like fearlessness,
Love is like the wind...

Love should be as sure as the rising sun, and as pure as the wind,
Love should be as fond as the breaking of dawn, and as faithful as God,
Love is like the whisper of wind,
Love is like the power of the wind,
Love is the urge to move thenceforth when nothing else does,
And just like the wind, to overcome the urge of being as everything else does,
Love goes beyond doors, it pushes through the beyonds,
Love conquers, love soars, it rises above the beyonds,
Love imparts, love cares, it matches deeper than the beyonds,
Love rises just above the winds – just like the winds...
Love should caress our souls just like the wind,
Love should be available just like the wind...

Yeah, love like the wind...
Love should be like the wind...

Morris.





Sunday, April 15, 2012

When Character and Ramshackleness become Partners

It is raining outside. Yeah it is really raining. I don't like it when it rains and it falls on me. I don't like it when the rain(s) leave me wet and yearning for some good coffee. That forces me to eat popcorn with coffee... smart but really stupid and boring! It makes me feel bad. It makes me feel really bad. It makes me feel bad because it is normal to feel bad about things like rain all over you and people who are like that rain when they deal with others...
There are times and moments I am tempted to say, “Go to hell!” or “Go throw yourself into the sea!” or worse still, “Go buy yourself a ditch and throw yourself into it!” Those are just vented emotions. They are just a mixture of the rain and the wind or of the sun and blueness. They are just moments of not knowing what to do with pink emotions (read fake emotions) so as with an excuse I end up manufacturing words which I carefully spin in my mind but never make a home for them... It may be because I am a worse being if you have to start a fight with me... or against my thoughts... But everyone hates something about someone or something, I guess. I guess everyone feels the same at some point in their life. Like you wanna pluck out someone’s nose or ears, because such guys ‘just never get it!’
But I have a better excuse: though I may I hate not loving some things about some people, I guess it is normal... I guess it is normal because men are like thus – they can never fully satisfy your expectations...!! People have a way of letting you down. I’m not talking about relationships. Nah. I’m talking about people who think the world was created only for them and that it’s only them who should occupy it... Gheee! I’ve never felt this bad...!
There is one thing about life that I should talk about on this blog – you are not the main determinant of your destiny. Your destiny is a mixture of so many things (including God and fellow men). Your life is like a puppet that is manoeuvred by God, you and other people. (I stand to be corrected on this one.) You may be the main player in the game that is life, but that is not the end of it. That is not to mean that all that you decide and do is what is gonna be the ULTIMATE CAUSE for your destiny. You may play your cards well, yeah; but others may play those cards the other way round and you may also be playing them against God... and you may end up in a really deep ditch...
There is a proverb out there that says, “What goes round, comes round...” I want to show you what that means in many words;
1. Live your life knowing that other people around you also matter a lot.
2. Live your life in moderation > God + others are watching you;
a) You were born elsewhere and they were born somewhere else – your standards and observations on/in life will be somehow different. Always remember that!
b) You are educated. That is good. But don’t spill it all over our faces. How much education you have is none of our business; so deal with people just the way you find them... Anyway, education is just chasing away non-existing paranoia...
c) You have your style and swag and love it. Good! But don’t think we all like it, mun! Tukionekana washamba, just swallow it and move on...
3. Live life with others. My own saying on this one is, “Those desert people will bury you in the best sands if at all you happen to die where they dwell...” These humble people in society breathe and live just as you do. Your importance is unto yourself – don’t sell it to them because they have no chum to buy it. Remember that not all people you will meet will be beggars or ’quacks’ like those you have seen/met; there will always be a place where you will be the major quack and you will be treated just as you treat these ones...
4. Live life with God. “God will bury you, when no man is present...or make you live when no one is seeing..."
And that proverb up there makes sense to everyone. It should make sense to me and to you. It should make sense to the highest ranking servant or officer up to the least. It should make sense to the greatest and to the smallest. The law of good humanity depicts that you should be your brother's keeper and not his piece of ditchy beef! You should understand that character (the essence of being counted worthy by all according to your actions towards/directed to them) may not be built in one day. Character may not be built in one day but you can start form somewhere. Allow God to deal with it – allow Him to shape your character. Even if you were born within an environment where people despised/despise others, and count yourself as one who naturally looks down upon other people, life gives you a chance to change. Life gives you a chance to look deep into yourself and say, “I want to start valuing other people just as I value myself” ~~I guess that is what the Bible teaches as the law of LOVE ~~ It is then that you turn around and say, “I want to value the way these people/person do/does things without criticizing them.” Yeah, it is then that you tell yourself to shut up when the urge to call them stupid comes. It is then that you tell yourself that they are just men/human and you are just like them – with a difference of figuring out life differently...

Prologue
With the seeker is the zeal to find; with the source is the ability to supply,
A foolish man is he who thinks he can do both – be sought after and supply,
A wise man seeks and supplies, he honestly seeks and diligently supplies,
Such men are people of character – they understand that only God is by himself but for us all...


Sincerely,
Morris.

Sunday, April 8, 2012

The Scam that is Sin

Easter is already here.
One thing Easter does to many of us is to remind us of our faults. It reminds us of our unimagined wretchedness. Of our incomplete nature in the eyes of God’s infinite Holy stature. It haunts us with thoughts of our tattered righteousness – as bad as filthy rags (Isaiah et al). The queer moment of seeing an innocent man being crucified for ‘no reason at all’ is just overwhelming, you know. Have you ever taken an inside-the-mind picture of Christ’s final moments on this earth? The weird fact is that we all at some point of this life have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory (Romans 3:23).
I don’t glory in my own self. I have no time for that. I am always absent when they make a roll call of perfect people. I ain’t perfect, mun! I am not perfect. I have never been perfect. I don’t think I have... I always tell my friends (those guys know themselves) that not until Christ appears will I be made perfect. I don’t think you are perfect either. Whether it is in the view of what sin is or is the context of what righteousness sounds like, dude/dudette, you ain’t perfect! Period... So, you don’t have to look for perfect people – they don’t exist! I repeat, perfect people are a lie – THEY DON’T EXIST! My suggestion to you who thinks they DO exist is that you should try to look for those people who seek perfection without denying their imperfections, because those to me are normal people. Yes, they are very spiritual too!
The reason I’m saying this is because I somehow I’m more inspired when sin is mentioned or is crouching around because it makes me ask questions. Sin makes me ask stupid questions and most of the time I’m just the tag in between. This is in contrast with when I feel, ‘All is well.’ Because then I don’t really feel intimidated or inquisitive: why should a man worry when nothing is out of order and perfection reigns like my neighbour’s dog, huh? I have to say that sin, (and I don’t care if you like me mentioning it or not) is a paradox of some kind. Sin plays games no one really understands until they are face to face with the Grace of Christ. Sin is as awful before God as it is mysterious to us... But again sin makes us realize that without Christ, we ain’t nothing. Yeah, it makes me know that ‘from the ground did I come, and I am useless, unless I walk with the one who makes the miry clay beautiful...’
You see, a man (or woman – for those who think gender is a god of some kind) rarely understands just why he/she keeps making the same mistakes (that is a name we have recently baptized sin with in order to make it light and easy to go by) over and over again and always with ultimately record-breaking negative results when they struggle to get away from the cycle (what we call, “The Struggle to Break the Punitive Cycle”) ... And to add on to the bad mix, o how sin always seems to be so irresistibly sweet! Sin is irresistible. Very irresistible. The apostle Paul writes about it in Romans 7:15-19 by saying, "For I don’t understand what I am doing. For I do not do what I want – instead, I do what I hate. But if I do what I don’t want, I agree that the law is good. But now it is no longer me doing it, but sin that lives in me. For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For I want to do the good, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but I do the very evil I do not want! Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer me doing it but sin that lives in me.
It is in the context of the above passage that we will now address human weakness and the ‘scam that is sin’.
Truly speaking, no one loves to sin. Yeah I think so. I think that no one loves indulging in fornication, or being a serial drunkard, or being a chain smoker... No one loves being looked at as the ‘the bad guy/chic’. No one loves being tagged a prostitute of homosexual or lesbian or husband-snatcher or gold-digger or something like that... No one loves being called immoral and corrupt, or greedy and unorganized. No on loves being sinful, unless they are demon possessed. Unless their consciences are dead (1 Timothy 4:2). Unless they have their own moral law – which in itself is a fad because there are no separate moral laws but just one that governs all humanity... So back to our thing with sin; we realize that somehow, sin just happens. Yeah, it just happens, huh? No, it doesn’t. It is just that it is very deceitful - it stealithly creeps in and you nver can overcome it on your own. I will give you an example - my own experience... and my struggle to overcome it on my own never really succeeded until I turned my life over...
I used to hate people who masturbated. I hated them and tagged them as guys without self control. Yeah, so I thought. They had/have no self control, right? I thought that they were extremely impossible. Intolerable, even. “How could someone do that to himself/herself?” I would ask myself. It was easy to question their indulgences because I had never climbed that boat to experience the agony they experienced when sin stared them in the face and they had no guts to tell it off. I thought I was this ‘cool’ guy who loved the Lord and as far as sin was concerned, unreachable or even, untouchable. This was until it came on me like a thud, voila! It swept me off my ‘steady’ conscience. Unimaginable. Very unimaginable. Those are the words I can use to describe what I felt then. “What is wrong with me?”, I would ask myself. Sin was crouching in slowly and I never realized until I was justifying it and the Lord’s Spirit was now on me telling me, “Come ooooout!” It was very loud. Very loud indeed. To make it all short, what happened was simple: I did not watch my limits as far as what I should or should not have done was concerned. I had allowed my mind to wander aimlessly when I missed someone I really cared for, I had resolved to call it ‘normal’. I had climbed the hill of ‘I am justified by Grace’ and that ‘I am eternally forgiven’ and had allowed myself to use my body wrongly. I just thought that somehow, God had created me that way and that I was ‘helpless’ as far as masturbation was concerned. I WAS WRONG. Very wrong. It was my weakness and the moment I realized it, I hated myself... I hated doing it... regret followed... pain engulfed me... unworthiness... futility... name them... Christ was far away. And I was here nailing him again! Tormenting Him again. That is what awakened me... Thank you Holy Spirit... He awakened me... He told me that that all was not lost so long as I choose not ot live in sin anymore... and to be clear on this, it had started tasting normal and sounding good. I was justifying it. I was not ready to repent. My prayer had turned away from, “Lord forgive me”, to “Lord you know my weakness, what can I do, please help me live with this, spare me the guilt”. Dead prayers! Sin had fooled me and I was held in its trap.
How did I come out? You may ask. Christ did it for me. Jesus loves me, you know. He turned me around when I started guarding my heart, my mind, my lips, my eyes... and here I am telling you that you may know what a scam sin really is...

Some points to note:
1. As far as sin is concerned, no one is untouchable and everyone is vulnerable; no one is invincible, but anyone can be trapped
2. Sin seeks to separate you from God and form people you fellowship with (because Satan knows that you won’t get someone to help you pray over your weaknesses and seeks to make you even weaker). Unless you deal with sin by repenting and being remorseful (like David in Psalm 51), dude/dudette, you are doomed!
3. Don’t boast of your perfectionism. You can fall and become the damnest thing we have ever met or known!
4. Be careful on how you use your eyes (what you see), your ears (what you listen to), your nose (what you smell into, hehe!), your lips (what you say), your body (what you indulge into), your mind (what you think at every moment of time) and your heart (what you desire); because these are the main avenues that will breed sin without you knowing – and sad enough it may take your life with it...
5. Learn to use self control – that is why Christ left us with the Holy Spirit as our enabler (our Helper)

Sincerely,
Morris.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Casting Crowns - The Well (from Come to the Well album, 2011) – Lyrics & a Review

(Leave it all behind, leave it all behind) ×2

I have what you need but you keep on searchin'
I've done all the work but you keep on workin'
When you're runnin' on empty and you can't find the remedy
Just come to the well...
You can spend your whole life chasin' what's missin'
But that empty inside, it just ain't gonna listen
When nothin' can satisfy and the world leaves you high and dry
Just come to the well...

Chorus:
And all who thirst will thirst no more
And all who search will find what their souls long for
The world will try but it can never fill
So leave it all behind and come to the well...


So bring me your heart, no matter how broken
Just come as you are, when your last prayer is spoken
Just rest in my arms a while, you'll feel the change, my child
When you come to the well...

Repeat Chorus

Yeah, leave it all behind...
The world will try, but it can never fill, leave it all behind...

And now that you're full, of love beyond measure
Your joy's gonna flow, like a stream in the desert
Soon all the world will see that livin' water is found in me
'Cause you came to the well...

Repeat Chorus

(Leave it all behind, leave it all behind) ×2

The question in this season (Easter) is: Have you left it all behind? Have you come to drink from The Well? Have you drunk from the waters that never dry? Have you left behind all the trash, all the guilt, all the hatred, all the agony, all the unforgiveness? Have you left behind all the greed, all the lust, all the evil desires and the fears of the past behind you? Are they still haunting you or have you left them all behind?
It is only when we leave it all behind that we can be satisfied by the Well. Some choose to drink, yet they have not left it all behind. You only find what you were longing for when you learn to leave it all behind. Paul the apostle in Philippians 3:8 says, More than that, I now regard all things as liabilities compared to the far greater value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things – indeed, I regard them as dung! – that I may gain Christ, and in Philippians 3:13, Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have attained this. Instead I am single-minded: Forgetting the things that are behind and reaching out for the things that are ahead... Forget all that hurt you, all that brought/brings you down. Forget all the animosity... leave it all behind...

Come to the Well; come to drink, not to flaunter,
Come to the Well; come to be quenched, for your heart to grow fonder,
Come to the Well; come to be healed, to be redeemed,
Come to the Well; where Jesus overflows endlessly,
Just come to the Well...
Come to the Well; come at the feet of Jesus,
Come to the Well; come behold the Power in the cross,
Come to the Well; to behold Calvary all your days,
Come to the Well; just come to the Well...
Let those who drink give also to the thirsty,
That they too may find satisfaction at the Well,
As the rivers of living water overflow,
Let the Well quench us all...


Have great Easter festivities people of God,
May He make you drink more from the Well that you may be satisfied beyond measure.
God bless y'all,

Morris.