APPETITE

“Fasting is an act of homage to the majesty of appetite”     -Laurie lee

She was not referring to fasting in the religious sense of the word, she meant fasting literally. This implies that we can or should sometimes give up some pleasures; food, friends, lovers, and the likes in other to preserve their intensity. Sometimes we value less the most priceless things we have. We tend to value food when we’re starved, a guy once said if you want to know how sweet water is, try not drinking it for a whole day. We tend to value family more when we are far from them or get to see them only once in a while. I have some cousins I haven’t seen in a while now, I miss them but when I was with them for some years I never knew to value their worth. Being starved of their presence have preserved as stated earlier, “the intensity”.

Too much of anything; music, entertainment, happy snacks or time spent with friends, creates a kind of impotence of living, by which one can no longer hear or taste or see or even remember. Life is short and precious, and appetite is one of its guardians. Loss of appetite is a sort of death. So if we are to enjoy this life then we should respect the divinity of appetite and keep it eager.

So in essence you do not wait for fasting to just show up, u make it happen, you consciously make it happen.

NECESSARY EVIL

You know, some times when I think of it I’m led to think that the powers of good are inferior to that of evil. Stay with me now, let’s reason together. You would agree with me if I should label hate as evil and love as good. Love; We are trained to think of it as though there was nothing worth having without it or that there is nothing worth having which it could not bring with it. Now hate which no man is meant to teach comes on its own. Now it is true that when we say “I love you” it may be received with doubt, there are times that it’s just hard to believe but try the opposite, say I hate you and its received and believed instantly, once and for all. Say I love you after that a thousand times and mean it every time; it will still not wipe out the smug left by the previous proclamation of hate.

Love needs to be learned and perfected over time but hate; it needs no learning period, just waiting to be provoked. So then I ask how is it that a drop of wrong can poison a river of good and yet a hundred buckets of good can do little or nothing to a river of wrong. Lately I’ve been doing some reading in the field of psychology and I go to know that for every emotional feeling, there has to be a counter, a balance. There is no one feeling that does not have a counter and in any case where a person is incapable of having a counter, it becomes an issue. So there is that necessary evil; hate, anger, sadness, defeat, sorrow, and lots more. Even nature knows the rule; earthquakes, tsunamis, flood and the likes of them.

As humans we are superior. Superior intellectually, and with this comes the ability to manage and contain these necessary evils.

IF YOU THINK YOU ARE HAPPY, THINK AGAIN.

I’m perfectly aware of the human nature, that is, the part of it that always wants more but that is not what I am talking about here. Knowing a problem is one huge step to solving it. Depression; especially in most parts of Africa (I’m pretty sure about Nigeria) most people have little or no knowledge about depression and I dare say that even the few that know, are sometimes misguided.

When we hear the word depression we get this image of someone with a gloomy and moody face, anti-social and so on. Fact is that all of us at one point in our lives have been depressed and hid it, some people are just better at hiding it. Hiding behind a smile, a pretty face, humour, the list is endless. And after doing it long enough and well enough, you start convincing even yourself that you are happy when the fact still remains that you are just wearing a façade. Still empty on the inside.

Of all the various forms in which this cancer manifests itself one particular one stands out. Generally we call it a “smiling depression”, countless cases of depressed comedians, models, actors, who end up taking their own life. Running down the numbers, every day an approximate 20 Nigerians take their own life and 50percent of these people do so out of depression, that is 10 people dying of depression every day here in my own country. A more reliable data puts that throughout the world approximately 2000 people die every day by suicide, 1200 of them do so as a result of depression. Check yourself; check your loved ones, because it always seems impossible to happen until it actually does.

 And finally, get close to the man that has paid the price for all life troubles; Jesus.

HIGH ON MARY JANE

Okay you obviously know it as pot, joint, crack, weed, marijuana, cannabis, ganja, hemp, but here I’d like to go with maryjane. You know, even in the US there was a time when weed was completely legal. That is until 1937.  There are good things about weed you know, I mean let that depressed guy take one hit and he’ll be the happiest man on earth, at least for the next few minutes and then he is back to the same deplorable state he was in before he got “high”. But common how many people have died of smoking weed? I hear it even makes you think fast and smart and relieves stress. Ask some very intelligent students, ask some blue collar workers, ask some rappers; just get enough taste of it and you will have endless mad flows from your fingers as you write and your mouth as you spit rhymes like you were in another world entirely.

 Like seriously, didn’t God create weed? I mean he made all things, right? So if you smoke weed you are simply making use of what God created, it’s no big deal. So I guess we should apply this concept to everything God created; child molesters should be allowed to roam free, I mean they are simply making use of children for forced intercourse right? It’s no big deal.

 There are two faces to every high, it is either extremely evil or wonderfully good, and what is good can seem evil and what is evil is excellent at looking good. Which side you want to believe is for you to choose. maryjane lovers may not die of lung disease but they all suffocate on deception.

NOT “HOLY” ENOUGH?

Our doubts about God may take several forms. Firstly we may feel unsure about our relationship with him. We feel unworthy to be called his own, we feel our sins are too much, that although we have asked to be his own he has refused to accept us fully, that our Christianity is just a show off or a rebound after a bad event, and that we are not “holy” enough.

Do you feel like that? If you have suffered some sadness, it is quite possible that you may experience a sense of abandonment, a feeling that he is too far away. Although this may be a rational thought or feeling, you should know today that it is not true.

Secondly we may also doubt that what we believe is true. Suddenly we start to try to logically rationalize our belief in God, doubting the validity of the gospel and its relevance in our world. These thoughts and feelings often clash with long standing belief and understanding about God, his goodness and promises.

We bravely try to keep up our devotional habits as Christians but the secrete doubts and hurts eats us away. These things can happen to any Christian, I know it has happened to me before and here is my recommendation ; first, treat your foundation, clear all religious routines and replace with spiritual devotions and worship that come from your heart, in essence what I mean is, get a personal relationship with God. And finally get enough dose of his word cos that is the bedrock of our faith. Talking about the word of God, here’s one that pulled me out of a bad place once. “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the past nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our lord.” Romans 8:38-39

Happy Sunday y’all.

A BETTER YOU

We live in a fast paced world where new technology, inventions and innovations spring up virtually every week. It has therefore become increasingly important not only to improve on existing skills, but also to learn new ones. People who don’t consciously add value to themselves will soon be unable to contribute meaningfully and compete in today’s world.

There are two sides to adding value to your self. The first is to learn new skills in addition to what you already have. Don’t be comfortable being an expert at just one thing; read, study, research and pay the price of learning new things. The second side is improving on what you already know and are skilful at.

You must constantly improve your mind to think thoughts that produce excellence and stands you out from the crowd. Proverbs 10:14 “lazy hands make a man poor but diligent hands bring wealth.” Finally a little word of my own

Life is never stagnant; you’re either going up or coming down. If you notice that you are not improving then you should know you’re degrading as well.

THE PROMISES OF GOD

In the bible there are 3573 promises to every true Christian. In numbers 23;9 it says that God is not a man that he should lie. He’s always true to his promises. Now remember that these promises are for “true Christians” and I may just add here that standing in a garage doesn’t make you a car and neither does going to church make you a Christian. Being the child of a general in the army doesn’t make you a soldier and neither does being born into a Christian family make you a Christian.

His promises are true we just need to walk right to get them.

SOMEONE THAT MAKES YOU SMILE

Okay, so although I wasn’t going to post anything that is not original but errrm  this is not a piece I wrote myself, someone put this together  for me and I just thought that this blog needed a little errr how should I say it? Well I’ll call these kind of things cheesy....  anyway enough blabbing let’s just get to it.

It hurts to love someone and not be loved in return, but what is more painful is to love someone and never find the courage to let that person know how you feel. Maybe God wants us to meet a few wrong people before we meet the right one, so that when we finally meet the right one, we will know how to be grateful for that gift. Love is when you take away the feeling, the passion and the romance in a relationship and still find you still care for that person.

A sad thing in life is to meet someone that means a lot to you and find out that it was never meant to be, and you just have to let go. When the door of happiness closes another one opens but often times we look too long at the closed door that we don’t see the one that has been opened for us. The best kind of friend is the kind that you can just be with, never say a word and then walk away feeling like it’s the best conversation you’ve ever had.

It is true that we don’t know what we have until we lose it but it is also true that we don’t know what we are missing until it arrives. Giving someone all your love isn’t a guarantee that they will love you back. Don’t expect love in return; just wait for it to grow in their heart. But if it doesn’t just be content that it did in yours. There are things you’d love to hear that you will never hear from who you want to hear them from, but don’t be so deaf as not to hear it from someone who says it from their heart.

Never say goodbye if you still want to try, never give up if you can still go on. Never say you don’t love a person anymore if you can’t let go. Love comes to those who still hope although they’ve been disappointed, to those who still believe although they’ve been betrayed, to those who still feel the need to love although they’ve been hurt before, and to those who have the courage and faith to build trust again. It takes only a minute to have a crush to have a crush on someone, an hour to like someone, and a day to love someone but it takes a lifetime to forget someone.

 Don’t go for looks, they can deceive; don’t go for wealth, even that fades away. Go for someone who makes you smile because it takes only a smile to make a dark day seem bright. Hope you find that someone that makes you smile.