Maybe
the finest lessons in life can only
be learnt before learning them. And life always has so many lessons to teach
you (and us) as compared to what you may teach it. In fact, you may never teach
life a lesson at all. It always is smarter, wiser, unpredictable, flauntier,
name it... But life is not so much of ‘a mystery of a kind’ but rather a revealable
one. It only depends on where you are in the concern of your spirituality and
ability to learn... If you are spiritually alert - and with your reverence in
the right direction – life is never a mystery at all. Life just becomes
commonness ready to be explored. It becomes a kawaida thing. It becomes the business of God and His mandate. It
becomes none of your business somehow, but all of your business anyhow... All
you’d have to do is listen well and follow. It is that simple my friend.
That
is why I am of the view that we only become wiser not through too much experience but through
identifying others’ mistakes and running away from them. Life is that simple –
running away from what you see can cause trouble. Life is as simple as
identifying what weaknesses those who went before you had and picking up your
mart, throwing it away, avoiding the way to their doom and finally embracing a
new path and way. A way of following a leader who only has travelled the path
you are going - following Christ who knows where you should go – because He
already has gone there. Life is that simple... You may be called a coward in
the meantime (because we will call you one even if you “stand your ground” in
all you do anyway), but making that choice is the best thing you can ever do to
your life.
I am told that everything
on earth is just the same. We breathe the same air from year to year. We live
on the same earth - we may change places, but it is still the same earth. We
make friends in almost the same way. We may change our behaviours and friends,
but we are just the same old people – the same
changed people... We have the same same
families even though we may choose to adopt new ones. Even the Bible says there
are no new lessons to learn; just the old
ones reinvented and reintroduced... (Read Ecclesiastes
1:4-10; “The sun rises and the sun sets, and
hurries back to where it rises. The wind blows to the south and turns to the
north; round and round it goes, ever returning
on its course. All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the
place the streams come from, there they return again. All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has
enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing. What has been will be again, what has
been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there
anything of which one can say, “Look! This is something new”? It was here
already, long ago; it was here before our time…)
My
view is that experience may never be a ‘good’ teacher at all, but an avenue by
which a man may pride if given chance… Experience to me is a bad teacher.
Experience makes you a victim to a situation you should have conquered. It
makes you a fool trying to find your way. And many fools who try to find their way almost always end up not finding their way…
I’ll
make this (what I’ll be talking about) the first part of a two part inspection
of the lives of those who lived before us. I’ll begin with the ladies’ part. I
don’t know why but that’s just the way it is...
So
while watching such a movie as “One Night with the King”, it had me trying to figure out how it felt living in Esther’s time. You see (as
painted correctly in the Biblical Book of Esther), Esther was a pretty, beautiful
young woman, orphaned at an early age living with her ‘uncle’ (he was a distant
uncle by the way) and who by all means possible was trying to find her way in a capricious society
full of great viles... Mordecai had adopted her as his own daughter and the young
woman was somehow totally oblivious of the happenings around her. Her name
Esther (a
Persian name) means ‘a star’ while her real Hebrew name Hadassah means myrtle - an evergreen shrub or tree of
the genus Myrtus (WordWeb Dictionary).
You find a woman of great virtue in her. You see an all round queen in her. You
see a lady who knew just when and how to place her feet in things. You see substance and gentleness, and toughness and
discernment. And it is one day that Esther finds herself (not accidentally but
per the plan of God) in the capital of the Persian Empire, Susa, and not as a
slave, but as a queen. Just One Night
with the King (if you have never watched that movie, I’m not talking about
sex, tafadhali) was enough for the
King to realize He needed to search no more for Vashti’s replacement... he had
found what he was looking for...
On
the other side, and before her entrance into the Persian capital as queen,
there is Vashti – a queen who was eager to prove to herself, to the King and to
others that she was queen. Vashti’s name in Persian language sounds like “Beautiful Woman” while in Hebrew it means “When drinking that's what you get!” - whatever that means... Vashti shows
you a woman with stamina to rule over herself regardless of their being her
husband and a king. In her you see pride, and dishonour, and a think exploration of power, and
arrogance, and rudeness... and a man like King Xerxes knew that He couldn’t live
with another man in the same house; pardon, he couldn’t live with another King n
the same kingdom and still be expected to rule over Persia diligently so – he
threw her out!
In
the Book of Esther, you become intrigued by the unravelling of an old story
that always amazes me, but that which although so common with many, uniquely has
the finger of God painting itself across the horizon of lives in it, and time
after time loudly declaring, “Life is
never an accident, life is planned and ordained by God… He knows all that
happens all over the earth, and He vindicates the course of the righteous...”
No wonder the Psalmist writes and says, (Psalm
139:1-3) – O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. You know
when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my
going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways…
Here we see Vashti
in her arrogance and pride, her cunning behaviour and inclination towards greatness… her desire to show her man
(read, husband and King) that she also had a say and was not directly
accountable to him… and Vashti fails badly. She fails so badly that the last
time we hear of her is when the King and his chamber-men are deciding to throw
her out.
Esther unlike
Vashti, was/is a woman who sees opportunity and does not just smile at it but
grasps it and uses it diligently to her good and the good of her people. She
navigates herself into queenship not
by might or greatness (read, status
and class – or what we love calling swag)
but by humility and simplicity. Let me be straight here. I’m not saying that
women should be simple, or that they should be wimps. No. But I’m saying that
women should know when to be simple and when
not to be simple. They should know how to balance both. I’m not saying that
greatness comes only to those with humble backgrounds, but I’m saying that
greatness should be looked at with an eye of God. I’m not saying that life is highly predictable, but I’m saying that
life is not in the hands of men – it is in the Hands of God. I’m saying that
life is a story that only God can tell well. I’m saying that everything in that
life of yours happens with a reason if you look at it with an eye of
understanding and wanting to know what God is up to. I’m saying that you can
become whatever you choose to become if you lay your foundational standards
right. I’m saying that you are the only one who can make you when you believe
in God… I’m saying that lessons from the character(s) of people who lived
before us are just as important as lessons from the people we live with today.
Yesterday is gone, but yesterday had dawn and dusk. Yesterday went away, but
yesterday ate food that will need to be disposed off today, or tomorrow – right
before our eyes...
There
are things that we learn from the story of Esther which are very relevant today:
a)
A man is to be honoured. A man is to be
respected. Period!
b)
A woman is stronger than a man only if she uses her strengths well. A
woman is the most powerful being on earth if she allows wisdom to become her
portion and discernment her security. My mom
taught me that a wise woman knows
when to attack and when to pretend not to have seen nor heard.
c)
A woman’s beauty should be both on the
inside and on the outside – her man needs to see and experience both… and she
can use both to conquer over him…
d)
Beauty makes a woman a queen, but
character, humility and a good personality make her a great and likeable queen
e)
You only live once. Use the once knowing
it is just once.
f)
God is central. Man is peripheral. You are
their meeting place. Neglect nor abandon neither.
g)
You are accountable to someone. The first someone is you. The next someone is us. The other someone is God. Your actions speak for
you better than that mouth of yours.
God
bless.
Morris.
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