I want more: More of what?

I live in a very materialistic and capitalistic country, where money or the lack of it, is a perennial problem for people, including a vast majority of Christians. Unfortunately since it is America, this idea has spread to other countries of the world. After all people from other countries come over here to seek the “American Dream”. 

It’s so easy to buy into its idea that more money and material wealth will bring us happiness. It promotes the elusive fantasy that more things bring happiness, and that just a little more than what one has right now will be enough. Because of this, companies prey on our human psychology by giving us credit cards to spend more money than we actually earn, and we are hooked into it. 

How sad! 

If you tune in to the news lately you will hear of the financial decisions that a major financial institution (Wells Fargo) got itself into, and it is backfiring on its leadership and employees; this is all evidence of this idea of wanting more. We often feel a hunger and emptiness that drive us. We want to fill it with more: more money, more food, and more fleshy love. 

However, trying to fill these desires which is a hole, is futile. Edward, in C. S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, could never be satisfied with enough Turkish taffy. He always wanted more. Likewise, we think more will satisfy us. 

We feel deprived when we don't have it, we ache, and we constantly fret for more. I have encountered some ladies who even become severely depressed, feeling caught in a black hole of emptiness, simply because they want more than they have, including skinny body like mine (sorry, mine is gene from heaven, not the one given by deliberately starving yourself in the quest for external beauty, lol). 

Friend, “enough” never comes, unless we confront the lie itself. The Bible calls this “greediness” in Ephesians 4:19 when it says, 

“Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness”

This longing for more is the earthly symptom of incompleteness and sin that we live in. Hmmm, brothers and sisters, it’s a frame of mind more than a circumstance. The desire for more should be a universal hunger for heaven, a longing for the only One who can truly fill us – God Himself. We can be satisfied, fulfilled, and content with Christ. I wish we can shun this other hunger for only material things and focus on the everlasting.

Don’t get me wrong, genuine financial or physical material problems are difficult, but we must seek them in the right way, without allowing discontentment and greediness. Our discontentment often comes when we make comparisons and when we envy other people even when we clearly see that they are not acquiring such wealth with clean hands. 

Imagine ministers of the gospel comparing and competing with the wealthy people in their congregations. 

Hi ministers: with all due respect to you and your ministry, I thought you are to follow a sacrificial call into the ministry. Sorry, if you are not happy about your call, then take that feeling to God instead of engaging in money making in the church that you are in charge of.

John Stuart Mill said, “I have learned to seek my happiness not by trying to fulfill all my desires but by limiting them.” What a better idea! Friend, you need to train your appetites, not be driven by them. 

Yes so many things we cannot afford surround us, but limiting your expansive desires and interests can lead to peace. Joseph Novello, in his book The Myth of More, says, “I desire to want what I have and not want what I do not have.” Think about that. Together, let's begin to challenge the myth that more makes us happy. 

Practically speaking, there is peace in simplicity. Personally I don’t like going about buying too many fancy purses and wrist watches, as I replied to a friend who once asked me the surprising question as to why I'm always carrying the same purse for so long, then later she found out that one of my only four purses is enough to buy all her 32 purses together with her 102 pairs of shoes. 

At that point, she was humbled and resolved that life is not just about more things, but quality…of course I say this not to brag about the quality of the few material possessions I have, but to point out that a few nice-looking outfits are better than a stuffed closet the world is getting you to get entangled with. 

The bulging closet brings the stress of choosing what to wear, what fits, what matches, and what to wear occasionally to justify buying it in the first place. It may take a little humility, but is pride worth the price?

Jesus said He neither had a home nor bed of His own. He lived a simple life. People mattered to Him, as did doing the will of His Father in heaven. Satan tempted Him in the wilderness with the myth of more. Satan promised, “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me” (Matthew 4:9). 

Ironically, as with all of Satan’s lies, Jesus would not have gained more, He would have lost everything. It is a blessing to have enough money to live without fear. Yet, we need to be wise and discerning about what we need and what we chase after to gain happiness. Jesus spoke to this issue when He challenged us to build up heavenly treasure that will not be destroyed by moth or rust. 

Friend, you and I need God’s help on a daily basis, but you cannot get His help without a walking relationship with Him. Jesus is standing at the door calling you away from your current state of life, so that you can walk with Him. You cannot say no, and this is not a time to play church or religion games. He wants to save you, so confess your sins today and repent of them completely. 

I advice you to look for a bible based church and fellowship with believers. May God receive you as you come now, so that you can escape the wrath of God that is to come upon those who refuse to yield to His call. Amen. I am also praying for you.

Bible References:

I Timothy 6:10:

“For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”

Proverbs 28:25:

“He that is of a proud heart stirreth up strife: but he that putteth his trust in the LORD shall be made fat.

I Timothy 6:9:

“But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and [into] many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.”

Luke 12:15:

“And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.”

Matthew 6:24:

“No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”

Proverbs 15:27:

“He that is greedy of gain troubleth his own house; but he that hateth gifts shall live.”

*Written by Mrs. Rabi E. 
*Shared by  Koinonite

Photo credit: youtube.com 

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Stop grabing me

Guys dear, these ladies are tired! You don't earn respect by grabbing their arm on the road and saying "baby I'm greeting..." Ehn?! Is replying by force?! Ok what should be the reply? "Bobo, I'm replying"?!

Puh-lease!!! A courteous, "hello", "hi there", "goodevening", "goodmorning", "welcome" and etc wouldn't be asking much. I mean you're the ones in dire need of cognizance, so please earn respect and the much sought cognizance.

You wonna know how we tell the real deal? They respectfully say hello and let it pass. No sense-filled lady would ever NOT reply a respectfull "hello", trust me.

It ain't working! (Not as if it ever worked anyway). "Baby I'm greeting" and arm-grabbing aint working!

How do you expect Bola to smile and return a 'baby-greeting' when your sweaty fingers' jabbing her innocent flesh? Abeg ni, I am tired unbehalf of the sisters!

Calling us bitches won't solve this, it damn won't stop the almost hate-filled-teeth-clenched "take your hands off me!" even if you fine pass Donald Duke!

We need you to respect yourselves! Since it's obvious you lost any for us.

Or allow dem ladies grab your arm and see just how good 'patterned nails' are to the masculine flesh.

Please ni!

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Fleksy + GIF + Emoji keyboard

Ever heard of Fleksy? It's an Android keyboard that was released some years back but has made a come-back with lots of cool features. 

If you are a GIF freak or you love emojis, you should go for this. Go on Play store, search for Flexsy and install.

Once you are done, open the keyboard app in order to activate the keyboard. 

If you are like me who hates keyboard typing sounds or the prediction and suggestions, you can turn it off by opening the settings to change that. 

Choose your theme to give a background to your keyboard. I love the chameleon theme because it changes the background to suit the color of any application am on.

I tried out the emojis and GIF. It's really cool. I couldn't resist the temptation of sharing at least one GIF here. I like this one. #THEBOSSBABY power nap!

Cheers.

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Family Ouse 6

Previously on Family Ouse 5...

...Bayo bobo. That was Nenye’s pet name for our brother. She’ud ask Chizzy intentionally, always off the topic in discuss, “You see Bayo bobo for retreat this week?”...
“So you went to retreat to find missing brothers?”...

...Family Ouse birthday; dress up, be sang for, be ohhed and ahhed about, your nice deeds bared before willing and unwilling ears, etc and more etc. ...Bayo introduced his best friend, all the way from Awka to mark this beautiful day, his dark-complexioned pretty fiancé, Yemitokpe Afolabi.  Click to read full story...

Family Ouse 6 continues...

The ouse had been dull for a while, nothing happening, same routine every day, wake by 4.30am for devotion, brethren speak in tongues while still in dream land, devotion co-ordinators OVERDOSED in the spirit, raps up devotion almost several minutes after the slated 5.30am for end of devotion.

Chizzy complaining often about “all these unnecessary OVER ZEAL that’s not even genuine, ehn, NOT EVEN sincere, just to impress!”

Ada muttering, “so somebody cannot be in the Spirit in morning devotion?!” deliberately not directing her unsolicited response at Chizzy, knowing the former’s anger is justified where ouse meetings, esp. morning devotions, are concerned.

See, Brethren cannot come and be in the Spirit alone every time and be dragging meetings 40, 56, 65, 73, and etc minutes later than scheduled time for such meetings. Anybody who has a thing for SPIRIT DWELLING should use his/her personal quiet time to build ESTATES in the spirit and fill such with ROOMSis so they can DWELL FOREVER. It was now an unwelcome, VERY UNWELCOME hallmark of the ouse meetings, one could never be done from meetings on time, it’s always, “…we sincerely apologize for taking our time, it’s not in our hands or our desire to stay this long….”

“Biko who’s desire is it?!” Chizzy always eyeballed none-in-particular at that, why do brethren take advantage of themselves? Eh?!

So nothing spectacular had happened for a while now, just brethren being brethren and the new bro Abana being or trying to be a brethren. Speaking of which, bro Abana had come to the house recently from one of the local governments for a course in the state capital and being a Jesus’ Corper, he naturally stayed in the ouse.

The brother’s ‘problem’ was the PLENRY IGBO in his mouth, the accent was heavy! Not that twas an ish or t’would have been any body’s ish o, but the brother ENJOYED talking, mmn mmn, he LUHVES (lil bro’s word for excess love) contributing; bible study o, prayer meetings o, bible study unit meetings o, just gather the brethren and start talking and the brother’s hand automatically goes UP! Indicating that DESIRE to talk, English-in-Igbo kwa.

Two bible studies ago, he and bro Uboho had set the meeting ablaze, or rather, the trio ablaze, at least the trio had been genuine enough to laugh that loud or maybe rather their inability to keep so much body racking laughter to themselves had earned them Papa’s stern look.
The topic had been, “Modeling Christ as Jesus Corpers” and somehow, as expected, the issue of dressing lingered, courtesy of bros Abana and Uboho.

“…Add diz to dah former one I tohk eh-lia, sisters here donh lyke to we-eh shord shord sked, no, not ifen the smo sisters, na women in dese world dah lyke to we-eh shord shord sked! And brodas dey suffah all diz tin o, eh? You dohn tish the wrong person the right somtin, you carry tish the right person the right tin, so I dohn like it wen broDA Ubana (Abana) tohk dad sisters like shord shord sked, awa sisters here haf try had to wear long sked, so donh come and tok dy dat, pls, eh, mbok. Ifen bible haf tohk dad we shud be en-ko-reshing one anoda, no be so?! See, Wen I was in uni-veh-ity….”

Chizzy’s insides were erupting, bro Uboho and his off point contributions plus his Calabar-English eh, to imagine all he’d been trying to do was rebuke bro Abana for saying sisters loved wearing short skirts, Abana abi Ubana, should rather know that the wearers of the forbidden skirt length were worldly women and brothers in church suffered the immoral dress sense more and that even the bible said brethren should encourage one another, so ouse sisters should rather be commended and blabla…

Abana stood up! Stood and told the brethren to pleasi helpu him andi explainu to bloda Uboko (Uboho) that sinu was firstu completed in the hat of manu before it is fruitilizedu and thati a sister isu wear longi sketu dosu notu mean thati she is notu going about nakedu in ha hat. Thati, they mustu stopi disi kind of blin-ded-nessu in chlisty-ten-dom, maka na Jesus abiaro onwu ewu na okuku (literally: because Jesus did not come to die the death of goats and fowls), onwu ya diri ya penfulu (His death was painful for Him)...

Even Tc busted then, Papa didn’t see her though because she had been directly behind Chizzy who was clapsing her mouth and yet failing to stifle the throaty guffaw that threatened to STOPU bro Abana’s contributionu!

Remember: An in-depth knowledge of God’s word changes everything, EVERYTHING. The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life. The entrance of His word bringeth life and understanding to the simple heart! Dwell in His word, DWELL…!

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My class speech 2002

I just recalled a speech my class rendered during one of our morning assembly back in Primary 5. That was year 2002. That I still recall this is amazing.

Topic: Everything we do, comes back to us:

The universe goes to unlimited trouble to provide us with experiences needed to understand the world. Our task in this life is to discover the source of truth. The world is a gigantic school and we are its students.

Delusion is ignorance. Ignorance means lack of knowledge. The school of life corrects that ignorance. The simpler lessons teaches us on walking, running, playing games. There are subtler lessons. The thought we have in mind runs, our lives. 

Everything we do, comes back to us. 

If we understand the world, we will enjoy living. To attain such understanding, we must go on to watch our attitude in this life with others.

Thanks.

Do you recall anything of sort from your Primary school days?

Photo credit: viewsfromthewhiteboard.edublogs.org

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The small dare not be humble

If you have been following this devotional, "Everyday with Jesus" you will know that we've been discussing about the fruits of the Holy Spirit. We are currently on the fruit "Gentleness" which can also be called Humility or Meekness.

Today we read John 13:1-15, Numbers 12:1-11 and Exodus 18:13-16.

John 13:3,5 says: 

Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power... he poured water... and began to wash his disciples' feet.

Commentary from Everyday with Jesus:

This passage of Scriptures have long been one of my favorite sections of the New testament. It was the consciousness of His standing in the Father that enabled His humility. The small dare not be humble. Let me explain what I mean by "standing". Jesus's standing was rooted in God. 

Being in God made Him great and humble. Great because he is humble-humble because He is great. A Hindu remarked to a missionary, 

"I used to believe in idols but now I don't believe in them at all. I'm coming round to the belief that I myself am a god." 

He gave up the idols and made one of himself!

When we lose sight of God, we loose sight of humility. It is as simple as that: no true vision of God, no true vision of humility. Humility is not a cringing, servile attitude, although, sadly many Christians seem to view it in this way. 

Phillips Brooks, a nineteenth-century American preacher, once said, 

"The true way to be humble is not to stoop until you are smaller than yourself, but to stand at your real height against some higher nature that will show you what the real smallness of your greatness is. Stand at your highest and then look at Christ, then go away and forever be humble." 

The truly humble are conscious of His greatness before they are conscious of their own humility.

Questions: 

1. Contrast Miriam and Aaron's attitudes with that of Moses.

2. How could Moses be humble yet lead and judge a nation?

My contribution:

I would liken Jesus' standing with God and that of our relationships here on earth. When you are fully aware that your earthly father is wealthy, you do not come out openly to declare it. You are completely satisfied and contented with yourself cause you are confident in your father's status. You would simply walk into a room and be calm even when no one recognizes your presence. 

On the other hand, people who really have nothing with no esteem, make the loudest noise wanting you to know they have it all, whereas they are suffering. They are constantly afraid of being exposed and therefore try to dominate others in public.

Jesus knew His standing and wasn't afraid that he will be looked down on by His disciples when he stooped to wash their feet. He had nothing to loose and everything to gain. He taught us how to treat each other; considering each other better than ourselves.

Mirian spoke against Moses because of his Cushite wife. She probably started having issues with the woman and she resorted to speaking against her brother. She must have thought to herself that Moses was the younger one and didn't have the right to hear from God alone. She had developed pride with time, in the context that Moses owed her his life. Even to the point that when the Lord's presence departed and she became leprous, she still could not bring herself to cry out for mercy. Aaron was the one who cried out and called to Moses.

We are called to recognize God's greatness and that He is our Father. It is in this knowledge that humility/gentleness flows from us without physical effort to make ourselves look humble. 

May the Lord help us.

Prayer: Lord God, in my effort to understand humility, please, help me always to remember that it springs from a consciousness of greatness. And may my sense of greatness be rooted in You, in Jesus' name. Amen.

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