Corrective Perspective!

Corrective Perspective.
Just finished writing a letter of attestation for a faithful follower. It's wonderful that for almost a decade it was difficult to find a reason to reprehend him or accuse him of any misdemeanor. That's an experience to me. The question is, was it me who wouldn't see or was it that he has been that careful not to do anything wrong? I'm sure I'm not that non-assuming, I'm sure even if I had to cover multitude of sin with love, I would still have done my duty of correcting and rebuking. I wouldn't have kept quiet. It was easy for me to write that and it gladened my heart. Not just for him but also for me. It is possible to have trumped up some charges against him in the course of his being with me, people have been accused wrongly and it happens all the time. It is possible to see gross misconduct in mere mistakes and regular imperfection of man. It is possible to deliberately set a trap along the path of someone's weaknesses knowing that such would fall which he would have avoided on his normal course of living. I am glad I never had to do that.
I realize that seeing people more from the angle of good brings out the best in them. Yet I won't expect more than what they could give. I won't expect what I can do from others, we are differently wired. I know people aren't made of their weaknesses but their strength though they just can not be divulged from those weaknesses. Those we call perfect are also encumbered with their own weaknesses, none is free.
So when you meet people what do you see? Do you see their imperfections or their capacity to do good? Do you see their mistakes as who they are or as a one off thing? Do you keep record of those silly mistakes? Do you seek their betterment or the impossibility of their development? Do you prefer punishment to correction or use mistakes as opportunities for vendetta or to oppress?
It's really not about them and their mistakes or error, it is about you and I. It's almost unbelievable to know that everyone has a right to make their mistakes in a free society. It's only in slavery that it becomes an abomination. We readily protect that right for those we love, and that's the reason why we should love everyone so that everyone would enjoy the same grace. When we trample on such rights in others we lose our own nobility and honor. Though on the other hand where the right to make mistakes is protected there is also the responsibility to correct. They who enjoy the right to make mistakes must also welcome the rights of others to correct them. When correction is resisted development is stagnated, it takes learning, practice and correction to grow. 
Correction therefore takes the place of condemnation and construction instead of destruction results. Yet that part to me is only a small part of everyone.
But why do I keep correcting some without ending? why do I have to always supervise some without which they seem not to do anything right? If you look closely at yourself, it's easy to see why. Have you been given a task unnatural with you? Have you ever erroneously endorsed yourself for a position you only thought you could occupy which you really didn't fit into? Have you ever tried using you bowler's cap on your buttock? That's where incessant corrections come from. When people's weaknesses are tasked you will have to do the job by yourself. But when you task people along their natural instincts they perform unconsciously with minimal mistakes and supervision.
Do I therefore assume that all men are good and there are no sadists? I shouldn't. I'll be committing same error I am trying to correct. There are men doubtlessly who are yet to conquer their selfishness and they may actually be in the majority. And who can tell what evil lust can do when in pursuit of self satisfaction! Yet selfishness remains inherent in man and others would have to cope with it in those who are yet to conquer it. Those who are slaves to their lusts can hardly succumb to any other control not even the control of their own reasoning talk less of God's.
This is true and one should be so conscious but to relate with people as if they are devils from day one will never bring the best out of any. Trust begets good, doubts brings the worst out of people and so we are, everyone of us. Doubts only attracts the worst in us and draws out weaknesses instead of strength.
So I will be more conscious of my outlook and see more of the imbedded strength and good instead of the weaknesses which we are all partakers of. I wish not to see your weaknesses but your strength and I won't judge you with what you can't do but with what you do best. Yet I shouldn't be disappointed when you commit your errors, it is like that with all of us, if I'm in a position to correct I'll do if I'm sure it isn't in purposeful pursuit of your selfishness for then you have moved away from the page I am and there I can hardly help since my corrections may be resisted working against your erroneous passions. There, to such men, evil is welcome as good and such perceptions are hard to change.
This is why I welcome your correction and sincerely work on it so long it helps me fulfill eternal purpose and not to indulge error. If I must be better I must accept my mistakes and make amends and reduce consistently my mistakes maybe my life can be a better blessing to those I am sent to. Every correction I take takes me further to the place of perfection and excellence. Every positive change is growth and my development can be faster and consistent if I maintain good attitude. If I run away from correction I run away from my perfection.
So if you can, please correct, and someone will be better and don't forget to correct self if possible before others do, it helps to be open to others much more.
Let me close with this thought lingering in my mind, what would be written concerning me by those I work with in the sincerity of their consciences? Good morning! Keep sharing and keep visiting evansademanuel.blogspot.com and ask that question of yourself too, if something is to be written concerning you, what would that be?

The Essence of Good!

The Essence of Good!
The perennial thought visited me. It has been a question on many minds and many have wanted it answered, some had tried to answer in many ways. Some feel better ignoring it yet it won't ignore them. What is the essence of being good when those who are not get better? Why should godliness not result in better results than what ungodliness produce? What is the reward of righteousness?
Isn't this the reason many abhor good? If the vile always get away with evil deeds and live a better life growing on the humus of his slains, why go beyond self and out of one's regular way to do good to others? The wicked live long lives and perpetuate their children in their stead. Even when the murderer is caught and punished, his deeds remain undone, lives cut short aren't resurrected except in Christ. It seems as if lots in life aren't about rewards of deeds done in this life. So some who would rather explain this only on the reward premise believe there was a former life and the deeds of today we'll come again to pay for at later a latter life. But that makes my sense ask more questions than the answer proffered. Why should I get punished for a sin I didn't know when I committed? Why should I be here without the consciousness of my former life even if it was what got me the sufferings of today? Pardon my lack of understanding but I can't keep that off my mind. To be fair, I should know what I did wrong in my former life to warrant what I'm going through so that I won't have to repeat same.
I believe what I sow I reap, I believe in consequences but how can I call everything that happens a consequence of some former deed. I'd spoken in consequences and I'm sure this looks like that but hear me out. When 'bad' men live good lives and the oppressors share their loots in mirth its hard for me to call that a reward. If evil men live long lives and enjoy prosperity and great comfort should that be called the reward of their evil labour or a pay for their rapacious lifestyles?
When good men are visited with calamities and pain attends to people of great virtues, we ask why do bad things happen to good people and the question mark refuses to be erased so recalcitrant over the ages.
The wicked laughs and scorns at the good, wondering why he wastes precious time and resources trying to do the impossible. To them evil is ever present with man and no one else will do evil except man.
And that's a good answer. Evil is ever present and the good would have to protect himself by hiding under the wings of God. Each day is full of it's own trouble enough and we can only redeem the lost day from its evil captor.
But what is the essence of doing good when even those who enjoy it still habors the potential of repaying with evil? What would I do with the wicked who won't consider the oppressed and willingly punish the noble yet enjoys the best of this life?
Here is the show of the futility of comparison and judgment. When we judge when we fail to have answers, we judge in ignorance and our weights will be inequal, an abomination to the final arbiter.
I see God as merciful and loving, He can smile on the wicked. Blessed is the man to whom He will not impute iniquity so said David, the king. He smiles and give good as an opportunity to do good. He smiles on the wicked giving him seed to sow and bread to eat till harvest. Every good enjoyed by the wicked is an investment towards his repentance. Isn't it the goodness of God that brings us to repentance that we can't repent of? So the good the wicked enjoys is an extension service from the loving Maker who won't want any to perish but to come to repentance and be saved. So judgment of evil isnt hasty and may look lackadaisical, it is for a reason and those who set their hearts to do evil because of this only risk their own destruction. Every good enjoy is a provision of a good service condition for us to fulfil purpose, it is an investment to help us do good.
So if that answers the question of why good happens to bad men, what is the answer to the suffering of good men? In parturition, we saw how pain and suffering comes with the advent of good things. We can see that the easier it is to survive the harder it is to live. It's one thing to survive, it is another thing to live to the fullest. When surviving requires more strength, the strength developed makes life easier, that's what life needs to develop. So, don't help the butterfly to get out of its cocoon otherwise it won't be able to fly. The pressure it exerts with its head against the hard shell pushes fluid from the head into its placid wings to stretch to both show its beauty and hold high the wings to fly. Hardship makes us strong!
We conquer when we have opposition, we enjoy victory when we win battles, where there are no battles how can there be a chance to win?
When bad things happen and  limitations and constraints sorround, it isn't a time of sighing and despair, it is time to look out for the way of escape. That all things eventually works out for good is a law and the good cannot go without it's rewards though it may be long or else how would God maintain His justice and righteousness? He is not unrighteous to forget your labour of love.
So we must find joy in doing good. The first reward of a good deed done is the good feeling that one was counted worthy to meet a need. The second reward is that the good was ever done. If it wasn't done it is only a shame to those who could do it, who didn't or won't for whatever reason. To see good and not do can't be righteous. No matter how it has become unpopular to go out of one's way to do good, our life's purpose can't be fulfilled without it. You we're born to meet the need you see around you. You are the Samaritan Jesus spoke about and not the priest nor the Pharisee.
Some people's righteous is in their not hurting no one and that's good, love does no harm to his neighbor. But love doesn't stay back playing a defensive game, righteousness isn't complete until we go out there to proactively do what's good to the world and to God. Righteousness isn't about what you didn't do it's more about what you do. And the reward is sure even if the primary beneficiaries repay with evil.
Here is the joy of doing good; that the good is ever done. And if the evil enjoys more than the good, it is to give him the chance to do good. Hope he grabs the opportunity with both hands. Good morning! Share this and keep visiting evansademanuel.blogspot.com and most of all, keep doing good, it pays no matter what!

Parturition!

Parturition!
Just thinking about waning zeal. When enthusiasm gets cold and excitement leaks, performance tumbles and we slow down. Why are you cast down oh my soul? Put your trust in God. That was what David said. When the soul loses strength to remain tall. When confidence sags like the waistlines of the deviant. Strength ebbs away and performance looks impossible. Sorrows compass around and on every side despair. That's when to remember the days of God and his deliverance. The day this lights started shinning without anyone applying for it. Such days men should remember that he who made the eye as an instrument of seeing without being begged for it should be able to see. He who created the need should also have made the supply. Thirst should be a pointer to the existence of water, and hunger to the existence of food. The need is a sign of the reality of the supply. The supply is actually the reality the need is a farce.
That negative position is temporary, the positive position is the default. The ultimate is my peace and joy will take over from sorrow. The needs will be met and all will be well.
The pain will be relieved. The pangs will bring forth the child, the entertainer came to the world crying and those who had made the world better brought great pains at birth. That's the way we were all made. That's the Creator's pathway. Pains don't last forever and I won't remain at my point of despair.
In the need is an invention and discoveries are made searching for what is lost. When life is hard and more difficult than necessary, when you have to copy documents in hundreds of places and all you have is your hand, Xerox is pushing its way out from the womb of your mind not only to help you but to help many others too. When the guitar wont sound loud and the players lived behind the band when they should be the lead, one of their sorts sorted out a way and now they make headlines when the electric guitar was born.
Why should my soul be cast down to slow me down? Why should I mourn for a loss? When it's just a door to a greater room and when I'd outgrown the bigger room I'll again move to yet a greater one. But it takes needs and pains to transit from each womb to another. The new door is always smaller than my size. The room gave me room to grow until I become bigger than the room and the regular size of the exit gate. So I always have a problem at the gate and I have pain passing through with the temptations of slowing down.
But slowing down is dangerous at the point of parturition. Both the mother and the child will be in danger and purpose can be thrown into the bin. My soul need not cast down, I have a bigger room ahead and my sorrow will be turned to joy.
The gate expands, moving forcefully and unusually from the position of everlasting rest to give way for my promotion and that's why it's that painful. The gate is my size but had remain closed to keep me safe and if I'd forced it open as we all are prone to do in haste we abort without legislation.
So pain exist because of the joy ahead. When I focus like Christ on the joy ahead I develop capacity to despise shame and endure pain. Now there may be sorrow, but it soon turns to joy as the joy of birth. Weeping won't endure beyond the night, the light of dawn quickly pushes it away for the joy of the morning. Hope you'll wait till tomorrow and welcome your joy.
When pain persists, it's because it's voice is yet to be heard. It calls out for a new thing, something eyes hasn't seen nor ear heard. Strength is developed through sufferings, just as pressure makes diamond, so dear from carbon so common. So when life says 'push!' Something good is about to be born. When it asks you to push, please push and be delivered of the new one. Bring forth your joy.
So I think differently about pains and pressure. I may need them to bring forth or to invent. Needs may put me on a journey of discovery to search water out to quench my thirst and find what was made to fill my hungry belly. Life abhors vacuum. The space of need would be filled. When the mouth was made to ingest food it's purpose wont be fulfilled if food exists not. So don't stop till you find or create what would fill the vacuum. Don't take a 'No' for an answer. Don't slow down, the answer awaits if you keep going. It exists!
So I take inventory of all that are missing in my life being sure they were made to take their places in my life. I'm sure they are somewhere and I'll keep searching till I find them. None shall fail nor want her mate, they all will find their way into their spaces. No need therefore to worry, even if I'm yet to meet them. Their destinies won't permit their hiding for too long, they too are eager to fulfil purpose and in agreement we'll meet soon, each one at its time.
Those holding them would release them and I won't be deprived of anything good. Life will lead me and good will guide me, love will strengthen me and service will provide for me. Selfishness won't accompany me though it promises to keep things mine even if lack of currency makes the lake stink.
So I'll be a blessing and show how blessed I'm made to be. I'll be an answered prayer, part of nature that supplies the need of others to survive. The path of God is the path of good, when I help another I fulfill my reason for being. My needs are met when I meet another's need. I am an answered prayer and in that I rejoice. I exist to meet a need and those who need what I'm sent with can have it.
So from pain to gain with speed. I'm not slowing down till I get there. I won't let the pain stop me I'll rather suck out the juice within it and get intoxicated to be the best I can be. The pain is not to hurt it is to pay and push me on. It is the pain of birth. It is parturition to the next level. See you at the top. Good morning. Keep sharing, keep visiting evansademanuel.blogspot.com and keep being a blessing even in the pain!

Am I Clear?

Am I Clear?
Among many thoughts this morning is the thought around communication. My mind ruminates regurgitatively on the impressions our communications make on those at the receiving end. How good it is when your students understand and are able to applicably utilise the information and knowledge disseminated. How wonderful when in clarity followers run with the vision communicated! How wonderful when the speaker perceives the light alighting on the hearers from the rain of his words. You leave the podium handing over the mich with a sense of satisfaction that someone was left with substances to ponder upon. What a wonderful feeling.
Then you fell on someone's taken notes. With your name as the speaker of those things noted down and you wonder in utter amazement if you'd ever given such a speech. Somethings else have been heard and taken down, quoted to you of which you'd never uttered. What disappointment and fear. What helplessness as to how to correct the wrong impression.  Even when it was just a statement out of many that was gotten wrong it becomes a sore point that pains the other points gotten correctly.
Yet there's nothing we can do about wrong impressions and misunderstood gestures.
People hear and read what they want to read. When we read, we read through eyeglasses, or call them reading glasses. Not one or two, each representing various experiences, information, attitudes, idiosyncrasies, fears, insecurities, expectations, disappointments and such deep personal concoctions that are deeply seated and hardly perceptible to even the hearer himself. Unfortunately they are the guides who explain what is heard.
Both verbal and none verbal release of information suffer such abuse they all have to go through the labyrinth of all we have ever gone through.
Yet we become so stubborn in letting go impressions burned into our minds and its understandable.  The process of arriving at each impression we have of people or of what we hear even within a very short time can be so complex. And the printing press so heavy that makes marks hard to erase as if engraved in diamond and ingrained in everlasting stones.
So when I say 'Am I clear?' I sincerely hope I am. And when I am to be judged by what I say, I hope it won't be what someone thought I said. I hope what you know of me is exactly what I am even if not too good. I hope you understand me.
This is why we must grow in understanding and not in malice. There is a way a spiritual child processes thoughts and there is a way the spiritually matured handles information. I must graduate and gradually move away from thinking like a child to growing up into adulthood. I must remain a baby in malice to become a man in understanding. I must strive to understand people and their intentions and take them as they are and not as I think they are.
Communication remains non effective so long I am yet to understand what is being transferred. How can I respond to the trumpet that makes no certain sound and when it even makes a very clear sound I need to have learnt how to tell a party tune from a war cry to know what next to do.
I need to understand you beyond the first impression. I know people change. Every organism do. And being spiritual organisms we have the capacity to change and we change notwithstanding how resistant we are to change and personal change for that matter. Things make impressions on us and we change we learn new things and change, we regret past errors and we change. We see others, we learn and we change. We see a better attainable future and we change, we go through trials and tribulations and we change, something influences us and we change, these are basic change agents we can hardly resist. Our character changes, our attitudes change, our relationships change. If we thus change, how can first impression remain a true stardard of weighing further words and deeds without committing errors? If we change how do we expect to always meet people where we left them? Even those we nurture change and the changes may need a separation to be noticed. I am sure you're no more the person I left back in school and I'd changed some too. Whichever way, my desires are different now and my responsibilities have changed, don't judge me as the person you used to know, you need to re-learn me and update the impression of me you use to have. I sincerely hope I'd become better! I hope you have too!
If you had misunderstood me then try to understand me now before you respond to the mystery me. Follow my words and if you can understand them you will know who I am. My words should reveal my values and my values should tell my substance and my substance should tell my integrity and in my integrity I inhabit. There you'll find the real me and the changes that have happened to me.
But I'm sure you need to control and condition the eyeglasses with which you read me or put them aside for once to see as it is. Then you can weigh beyond the live-in prejudices that contaminate data and colorize clarity. Then you can speak with authority what you know which you can assuredly act on.
We err when we fail to know before speaking or acting. How do you recommend someone you can hardly understand, how do you attest to one you misunderstood? Yes, I realise that misunderstanding is an unconscious situation. Every misunderstanding is understanding to the one who misunderstands. If I don't understand, I can seek for understanding but if I misunderstand, I am wrongly assured that I understand and why would I yet seek understanding? Thus I go on in conceit with my misconception and heretic impression and any other persuasion is like taking a walled city or taking a super power.
Don't be too sure, because you may be wrong. Ask twice to be sure of the meaning of what you are hearing or reading. Read again and interprete rightly considering not just your parochial and myopic view but the state of the speaker and the environment of his speech. And until you get a good understanding don't speak on the subject else you'll become a barbarian to your hearers or at best a comedian.
The rule is that if your impression makes someone look bad, give yourself another chance of understanding the person before telling the world a good man is bad and thus make yourself a slanderer and a scorner.
If the discussion makes a person look bad ask questions to be sure of what you are hearing and if it is about what you see, be careful so that your eyes aren't deceiving you through the many eyeglasses accumulated over the years. Ask again and be clear. Let light shine upon your darkness as the morning sun and live on boldly in the shinning light! Good morning! Share this and keep visiting evansademanuel.blogspot.com and let me know you were there! Peace to you and all yours!

Love Don't Lust!

Love don't Lust!
I think of love today and the power of lust. I think of the contention between the two. How the world went after their lust masking as love. Lust isn't hard to find, everyone who loves self already has it standing by. Selfishness is the logo of lust, self preservation and gratification are the escort riders. They announce the presence of lust. Self exaltation is the chief of staff and pride, the bride of lust. Lust is the height of the weakness of man. It wars against the souls of men and corrupts the integrity of the heart. When you mention sin, you speak of death for the former is mother and the latter offspring, and it'll be an oversight if the grandma of death is not mentioned, lust gave birth to every sin! Temptation is the beckoning of lust and it's ever so inviting and so accommodating, promising untold pleasure but the end of the romance is death! The invitation is a bait, the accommodation, a trap, piercing into the innermost part of being and so the pleasure is at best temporal only for a season only the death is real!
When lust is deprived the flesh cries foul and you can't tell the extent of retaliation. Lust will smile, speak nice poems, and woo but if the response is even a joking a boo, the niceties turn to something else. Some have killed those they once told they loved and many had suffered untold pain and losses from those who once won't give sleep to their eyelids for desire. They never loved, they had been intoxicated by the weakness of men called lust.
When I love you only for what I can get and getting my desires satisfied becomes reason for my relating with you, you are now the game and I, the hunter. And none will call that love. The poultry chicken won't call the keeper a lover except if it realises that selling it to the slaughterhouses is its destiny. Yet the lust of man is deeper than that which the poultry man has for its chicken.
Lust is worse than hatred though they be born of the same womb. If you are lusting after me, you can't tell me so and so I do not know that you aren't after my good but yours. If you hate me which is bad enough, it's easy to see and I can hide myself but who can hide from a selfish love and the kisses of an enemy?
Lust wants its appetite satisfied and nothing more. He wants sex and that evil emotion seeks for satisfaction anywhere and at all cost. He wants things and possessions, great and small and to kill and deprive others of their belongings is noble enterprise and a worthy job as rated by its warped lustful mentality. He wants to be seen and be rated high in pride, who ever he rides over to get there doesn't matter, the glory must be his and everyone must applaud afterall he alone matters no one else.
Many are married to a bag of lust and when they have been sucked dry, the scumbag walks away leaving them high and dry to deal with paying the alimony.
So watch well young man who is telling you she loves you, she may only be lusting after your things for her life insurance. Beware young woman who is saying I love you now, he may be mistaking sexual attraction for genuine love and after sexually abusing you, the desire for you is lost with the exorcised fluid and he hates you more than the feeling of lust he once had for you. Beware, young woman, I love you may mean let me possess you as a war trophy, and your value as a war loot, let me acquire you as one of my great achievements. And when a better one comes you can take the back seat or no seat at all. So naivity falls victim, the non assuming is led like a lamb to the slaughterhouse of lust and so weeping and gnashing of teeth replace the whisperings of love and to such life can't be more cruel! Escape, young man and hide yourself young woman, open your eyes and differentiate, be not deceived, recognise the mask and don't fall prey.
Can we count how many hearts such have broken and how many homes have been scattered? Lust gives birth to nothing good and it's the janitor to every divorce court.
The man who physically abuses his wife and the wife who abandons her husband for money were never in love. A thinker who'd suffered such summarized his ordeal by saying, 'Agape love hasn't been to a divorce court!' And rightly so! Only lust has been leading people there either to escape an abuse or to punish the innocent.
Agape love is scarce. Love without a condition is seen as an impossibility and an aberration. Who would offer himself a ransom for a partner? Who will consider the other before self? Who will give a thing in absolute humility without ever referring back to it? Who will cover multitude of the errors of the other? Who will put himself or herself lower than the other even when its not convenient? Who will forgive and not keep the record of wrongs? Who will come laying all on the table? Only love does and nothing else!
So I see that lust have more feeling than love but love has more work than lust. We love the feelings of lust more than the works and labor of love. True love is taking up a sacrificial responsibility for the other's wellbeing without a reason or desire for a pay back. But the feeling of lust goes no further than getting personal aggrandizement using the other fellow.
Where is love but in God and in those who share in the divine nature. The God-kind of love recognises an enemy and loves still. The God kind of love shows mercy and forgives. Love makes sacrifices and bear other's burdens and when you fall in such love, it bears you high up and curdles you in the warm embrace of the blanket of kindness and care.
Those who give it don't ask for it, they are lovers in deed. It is never demanding and never overbearing, always with an excuse for the wrong of others just to perpetuate love.
And so when I say I love you this is what I mean.  And where I can't keep it I refrain myself from going. When you tell someone so, I hope this kind is what you mean. Love don't lust. Lust does not sustain, love does. If your love will go beyond today let it be God kind and let your light shine on both the good and the bad. Good morning. Share this but share love more and keep visiting evansademanuel.blogspot.com thanks for reading. Much love! 

Consequences!

Consequences!
The world runs on the mode of causes and effects. We live with processes where the final products we see start their journey from raw materials. In our world seeds produce fruits when planted, though we are yet to know which comes first between the hen and the egg. We have rested so much on consequences and we love to make things happen. It's not done until someone does it. It can't end until someone starts it. So if I can't do it, I can't claim it. The most skillful is then expected to produce more and the stronger ones the results. You can't give what you don't have yet life expects from you more than you have. And sometimes those who have can hardly give what is demanded and it continues to be true that those who have not are the suppliers to those who have according to the words of Christ.
We live daily with the reality of consequences, I am here serving the penalties of what I did in the past or what someone else did. Many will love to put question marks after my last statement and wonder what a little child did to deserve the pains of a terminal disease. Who sinned? Is the eternal question consequences ask. Is the child or the parents? Same question was asked Jesus Christ and the answer must have jolted  the consequential mentality. He had answered, 'None of the above', rather such had happened to show forth the glory of God. How do we explain the events initiated waiting for correction that will give God glory? So not every thing should make me look back searching for where it came from. Many should make me look forward to the glory that shall be revealed out of the trouble.
We were made to make things happen. Our morphology came of a design, purposefully thought of to make us productive. We cause things. And that makes us conceited. We believe we cause everything. And we claim both the glory and the guilt. Some would drop the glory and pick up the guilt and some will drop the guilt and pick up the glory. Yet some would still not take any. It has never been their fault, it must have been someone else's fault. Most times to them, it's God's fault. To what end, they always can't tell.
The most exonerated may also be the biggest culprit. The entity no one cares about in this present generation and that is Satan. He is the thief who came to steal, kill and destroy. You can always see his signature on every imperfection of life and on every pain of man. But we can't give him the omnipotent status which be doesn't have even in doing evil, he needs permissions to operated and that's what he normally seeks for with his proding trident of temptations, trials and troubles that pushes man to commit himself into his hands.
And so we must see and come to terms with this that we are not always the cause of many effects we see. We do not even have the capacity to cause most effects we enjoy or even suffer. Yes, we suffer many of what we caused and our imperfections and their consequences are ever with us. But why do I enjoy the gifts of life and of nature, when I have no capacity to cause them?  I should ask what the consequences of extreme wickedness are waiting for not slaying the wicked causes?
I see that there is God. The ultimate cause and prime mover of all things. I see God who gave the power to man to cause effects.  I see God who reserves the powers to overrule our causes and consequences. I see God who delays consequences. I see God who causes us to cause things. I sowed and reaped and I'm tempted to claim the glory before I remembered that something or someone had caused the sowing and reaping principle upon which I'd only ridden to multiplication as consequences. The principles of life are consequences of divine action to the benefits of those whose acts and causes ordinarily don't deserve it.
So I think of God's nature. His love that gives bith to the twins of grace and mercy. Whereby grace makes the weak produce as if strong and mercy overrules evil deserts of the repentant wicked. Grace gets us to cause what we have no capacity to cause and mercy protects us from the consequences of the imperfections in our capacity.
My causes and effects are subject to the ultimate Cause of all things. He can cause me to make what He wants happen even when I am not aware of it. The effects of my causes also subject to His effects. What happens if every mistake calls for an evil happening? I'm sure I would have died by now and you won't be reading this because you too would have long gone besides the fact that there won't be anything to read because no one will be around to write or make you know there's something to be read. If there isn't the Ultimate Cause, who overrules consequences and interferes with causes, the effects of our causes would have wiped us all out.
So we see that blames aren't that easy to apportion. It's as complex as the topic. You may not be where you are only because of what you caused and you may have been at a worse place if left to all you have made happen. Wisdom therefore won't let me compare one with another, those who compare themselves with themselves aren't wise. I see that the race may not always be to the swift and the weak can obtain favor and life may not always be fair. Yet it takes nothing from doing good and expecting good but if there was a sincere mistake let the Ultimate Cause pardon and sink it into the ocean of forgetfulness. If good has been done I'm sure He sees and would pay back no matter what. Same goes for evil done. But ultimately He has the final say because He makes our causes effective and consequential, not to trap us but to make the world go round and be what's meant to be.
I'm sure something good is going to happen to you today but might no be as a result of some good you have done but in spite of the wrongs you do daily overruling your imperfections to make you deliver what you were made to birth on the earth by God the Ultimate Cause who controls the ultimate consequences to make sure that at the end no injustice goes without it's due consequences. Be grateful! 
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Correct Confrontation!

Correct Confrontation
I was just thinking and my thoughts drifted to the issue of confrontation. And I wonder how easy it is for many to confront others on almost every issue. It has never been the easy thing to do for me. I respect relationships and how I wish I can keep every relationship I have had with friends and relatives alike. I love people and hurting them isn't what I'll ever cherish. Why should I put myself in a position I'll later regret. Frivolous confrontation isn't a thing of pride aand it'll never be. With a heart of love multitude of sins are covered and when the souls notices every hurt and offence, it should be noted that love threshold has fallen. And how could there be love when at every step on the toe, a confrontation ensues.
I don't also want to lose credibility. If I have to ask at every issue and no issue is overlooked, soon my queries would become worthless and the next one will draw disdain rather than the quality attention required.
I would be like an uncontrolled madman if every time something happens or even when nothing happens I bark like a dog and snap like an ant. If everyone who passes must be careful not to wake up my angst and growl and every one around becomes sensitive to my sensitivity then I create a lonely institution for my self, a solitary world and only depression would keep company.
Rebellion normally needs a mouthpiece and when it grows in the heart it doesn't bear fruit until the mouth speaks it out to the destruction of the ringleaders. Yet there is no uprising against a king.
But that stand isn't always the correct stand. When I see excesses and 'over do' I love to check. Wherever there is excess, there must be a check. When humility is despised, there should be a caution. When the man takes advantage of the woman and kids and ride roughshod on the gentle and the innocent, I see excesses that must be confronted. Why should the elder women be at the arena and the back-mounted baby would be out of position at the back of the young mother?
Whem the woman won't take care of her precious home and follow the frivolities of societal enjoyment and pleasure to the deprivation of children of their mother and the man of his wife, the wise should call such to order, it is correct confrontation.
When hypocrisy is noted with the noble and the elders would shift the old landmarks of the ancient to suit some temporal cravings and enthrone the unjustified, nothing is wrong if the wise raises a point of order to expose and correct the error.
When the little leaks of oppression start growing to an open tap, its good the oppressor be spoken to, before the fire such is playing with explodes in his hands to the demise of many and of himself.
I have seen kids too manipulate thier parents and the fear of confrontation kept such going till the maggots make precious children a home due to rotteness. A gentle confrontation can wake the mind up and save a soul from death.
I am sure so many death would have been avoided if the wife would lovingly ask certain questions from the husband to check excesses. Many of them won't be in prisons either of life or that of the authorities if they had listened to the nudgings of the spouses. I am sure my wife was given me to help me and if confronting me on issues of my excesses is a way of putting me on the right tracks, she must be respected and permitted to do her job.
Yet the motives must be clear. Either confronting a boss, a subordinate, a child or a colleague. Love must be the motive and not fear. It must be to arrive at the destination of change and not necessarily at the port of conflicts. Confrontations don't have to degenerate to conflicts and fights but to development and betterment.  And that goal as motive would control the presentation to steer the vehicle to that expected end. Love has a way of confronting issues, that was what made Esther, the queen a saviour. And many servants had saved nations from their raging kings who if not for the gentle confrontation won't know the war was an error.
Frivolous confrontation weakens the effect. And unwise presentations destroys credibility of cautions. When love isn't the motive the result may not always be right, when anger and pride are triggered by confrontation its good to handle things with care and humility afterall when the repercussions of excesses begin to show they come with regrets that make confrontation to be remembered.
And why I need to be confronted please don't spare me. I've had to be confronted and had loved it when done in love out of a good heart. But those who will act it and not talk won't be friends forever. Open rebuke is better than secret love. Open love where confrontation is needed isn't anything but hypocrisy and those who do are more dangerous than serpents.
Who said it's easy to be confronted? The pains are obvious but matured people know that growth comes by correction and corrections don't walk alone all the time, confrontation comes along to drive them home.
I'll isolate the issues around me to see areas where I'd shown neglect and design best ways to curb excesses; and if that requires some confrontation then I'll do it in love for the betterment of all. And if I am the one who needs the confrontation then I'll gently correct myself and drive myself away from the path of confrontation.
Confrontation requires a level of responsibility capable of creating positive effects otherwise seeds of discord may be sown that may blossom to wars. Bitter confrontation to kill or maim isn't what I speak of but such which would bring people back to themselves and enlighten on the path of development and not degeneration. If you have to say it, you just have to say it and say so within correct timing but responsibly and in love. Even if you have to stop your spouse to confront him with the eternal phrase 'I Love You!' And that you must do today! Good morning!
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Snap out Frustration!

Snap out Frustration!

Waking up with thoughts of frustration on my mind. I realise that the world is reeling in depression and many are only held back from suicide out of fear and cultural non acceptability. Yet some still brazenly dare, leaving pains behind for those who will pack the remains. 
I ask why? And I see what frustration can do. I see aggression and wonder why? Frustration answers back for personal recognition. When the cause and the course of a man are set, equipped with vision and great potentials, he sees only success having mentally dealt with envisaged setbacks. But setting out, the engine coughed or a drunk crossed the path and there the journey stops. Well, we'll resolve this in no time. But then, minutes become hours and hours turn to days and days to months. The journey of forty days os fast becoming one of forty years. And every effort to move forward a step, moves one two steps backwards. So the man of God cried under his juniper tree 'kill me! For I'm not better than my forefathers'
Well, he could cry. Many couldn't. No one would hear because they too are calling out for help. Many just live with it and bottle it in. Depression and mental breakdowns evolve from the activities within the bottle.
More frustrations come when advice comes. When out of concern we proffer solutions to a problem we have no firsthand experience of, we multiply frustrations and depress the subject the more. When we try to do what everyone says because we believe we have exhausted our own ideas without results to show for it, we are inviting more frustrations. What worked for one may not be pill for another and the easy way out may not even be a way at all.
But I have discovered that everyone gets there but only those who stop there fail. Frustrations aren't invincible they have dotted the path of every success. It may have taken years to break but they aren't ever eternal. They always end. Only those who insist win.
The tactics are always hidden, they wouldn't have been so frustrating if they are ever obvious. Frustration may result from lack of technical knowledge of project, an oversight or carelesss may birth stoppages. Recalcitrant and perennial setbacks may have accompanied certain sincere habits and stubbornness has a way of calling out stubborn problems.
Insistence never meant doing the same thing over and over with same outcome. It is only frustration that results from looking for five among two and two no matter how and how long the count was done.
Insistence is only in the goal, the direction may have to change to arrrive at the ultimate vision.
I must do what I have to do to get going. I'm sure if the vision is real there then must be a way. I may not know the way yet maybe that's my frustration but I'll find out instead of dying and I'll find if I seek. Everyone who seeks finds!
But when I wouldn't seek, then I find something else. Aggression comes in and others suffer. And when I dare not make others suffer I do in depression. Heavy will the heart be and dark the days. The hands grow weak and won't stretch for another chore. Fear sets in, who knows if the new project will work, after all, the feasibility study for the failed one was better done. And so weakness hits. Not just the weakness of hands but also of mind.
There is also the frustration that says 'I've seen it all, and I've been there, what else is there to see again?'  I have had successes and then it's all gone and dreaming again isn't possible since I'd long lost sleep. Maybe a loved one is lost and replacement become difficult, who can be as the lost one? It's frustrating to start all over or where will now be the new starting point?
Then he may start drinking and hanging out with those who won't bother him to dream again. They also are battling frustration and cooling off on substances. It's a comfort zone cosy for the sort and welcoming to the frustrated of every tribe. There stories are told both fictions and non fictions over a calabash of palmwine and harder ones. At such points nothing matters anymore, its all over, death had set in.
Frustration is killing, it's good to snap out of it before it snuffs out life. Is it marital matters or issues of your career? There will always be a way out. But don't play dead nor bury your head in the dust rather come to reality with the source of the demon and set yourself to frustrate the frustrator and cast it out.
I have seen that every  disappointment is a blessing with a mask. What sets me back only sets me up for a blessing. Delay isn't denial as it has been said and correctly so. If ot pushes me down when I'd wanted to go up it's to keep my head down from the slayer's sword. If it holds me down isn't it so that I won't go with the wrong bus? If I have to wait against my wish then I'm waiting for my opportunities. If I'd lost something, it must be so that I may not lose everything and it should be an avenue of getting the best. To him who knows that all things work to his advantage no matter what there is nothimg as frustration. If I'd done it in a way and didn't get it, then I've learn one more way it won't work.
So my attitude is the harbor for my frustrations, my perspective the host of my disappointments. The plan of God is intact and it takes one stronger than he to frustrate the plan. I am his project and that's more than my strengths or weaknesses. When He made me, He knew about my weaknesses and knows that won't stop me from getting were I'm destined to be. In fact my weaknesses were made so to achieve what I'm made to be. Had I been strong all through then I would have been frustrated trying to know the exact thing I was sent to do.
I will inculcate that into my perspective and embedd it into my attitude and force frustration out so that I can live and not die. Frustrated beings don't make any good thing. Can't be a good friend or companion, one might eventually be a victim of transferred aggression and end up destroying relationships.
Snap out of your frustrations today, let joy fill your heart...live and not die. Good morning!
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Mastering Weakness

Mastering Weakness
Some say, they are always too long and should be cut short. Some others want more and can't get enough. I want none, nothing, probably to hang my pen and just drone and drool.
But my mind continues to function at the hyper level and won't give me the break I'd rather indulge in. Things happen around me and my mind sucks them in and ponder uncontrollably. I ruminate and reminisce on news both recent and new.
I see the weaker side of man which she would rather hide. I see the weakness of pride and conceit. I see the weakness of desire for affection. I see the weakness of greed and all sorts of lusts. I see the weakness of self exaltation and justification. I see the weakness embedded in his inborn appetites; his appetite for love, food, things, enjoyments, sex and significance.
It is this combination that overcomes the man and brings him into bondage. Unfortunately man sees strength in his passion to outwit others in getting his appetites satisfied. He pushes and pursues, driven by his weakness. Some would kill, others would tear in response to the passion to satisfy appetites. When he finds it, he can't but display it, in the weakness he calls strength. When Paul said 'I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me' he didn't mean he could satisfy his appetites he meant he was empowered to withstand adversity and enjoy deprivation and pain.
I have seen that it takes a bait to be trapped. And the fowler's bait is nothing but something my appetite craves. Esau's profanity sold birthright for a morsel. I must be careful what I crave for. The fowler will set a table full of your cravings and say eat but his heart is far from you and if you are one given to appetite you are better dead, so said Solomon.
Can you withstand hunger and lack? Can you say no to significance? Can you stop short of showing forth advantages and those things that make you look better? Can you wait until someone praises you or you prefer to do it yourself? You may also want to ask for it if the wait is getting longer. Can you condescend to a lower degree or you'd rather play at the bigger leagues? What you call strength might actually be weakness. And when others seem having the advantage and moving ahead, how do you feel and how do you handle the feelings? The negative feeling is a smell of death and destruction and when you allow yourself to be therewith influenced shame answers back.
Can I endure a wrong suffered or would I rather take a pound of flesh? These are the weaknesses I see and in them man revels.
I see also the weakness of fear. His phobia for non existent dangers. The fear that moves him to unbelief and violence. He is weak and he doesn't know. His fear for judgment and justice. His fear of shame that makes him go any length to cover up sometimes even with murder and suicide. His fear of let down that makes him dangerous like a threatened beast. Personal insecurities and the self preservation that believe attacking first is the best defence. The Weaknesses of selfishness, the winner who takes all should be me and no one should even come near.
The human weakness is changing the social face, weaknesses have become strength and the weak is counted strong. Pride is respected,loyalty is disdained and hypocrisy reign as king. Contentment is pushed backwards to give way to the competition of the greedy. The talkative is listened to shifting attention from the thoughtful to the rage of comedians. Seeking peace now means timidity, the number of the slain is trophy for the warmongers. The bossom of fools are emptied and wrath overflows to make way for the furious; in our world today anger makes the ruler. Fear him, it is the norm now.
Being strong is lifting the weak. Being high means bending low to the downtrodden. He that's down is the one who can't descend any further, the high bows.
I'll check out my own weaknesses, none is excusable no one is free. One by one in the quietness of my closet and the recesses of my  innermost being I'll sort myself and knock them out. I'll live above my appetites and master them and not serve them. I'll put my flesh under and live up to be qualified. I'll boost my strength and discourage my weaknesses. If these weaknesses are instinctive then I'll go for a new nature and I'll be good.
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