WHEN YOU JUST HAVE TO CRY

October 18, 2012, 5:52 PM

Ecclesiastes 3:4 says
A time to weep,
And a time to laugh………………………………..................

New Living Translation puts it as “ a time to cry”. And, I cannot agree any less that indeed, there comes a time when you just have to cry because of so many things. If the jungle justice recently meted out to four young students isn’t enough to make you cry, then the floods that are ravaging different parts of the country rendering people homeless and without food is enough to, if missing your sister  wouldn’t draw the tears then the death anniversary of a loved one should( ADIEU, Oyindamola Ariyo!). What of God’s goodness? Sometimes, when you think of the fact that you are saved by God’s grace and that you didn’t work for it, that you just kept on sinning and even after being saved, you still need that exceptional grace of God to keep from sinning, it’s enough to trigger the waterfalls.
But  you know what? I recall hearing someone say one day, that “It is not your tears that moves God”. It is your prayers that move HIM. So right after those tears have dropped, why don’t you say a prayer concerning whatever has made you cry: be it the nation, your loved one or even yourself. Remember 2Thess.5:17?

YOU NEED THAT FALL!

5th of October,2012

  I fell this evening. Big deal! Well, that’s because I can hardly recall the last time or a time when I fell right into the gutter. That’s disgusting, right? Well, if you were me this evening, I don’t think you’ll be so much concerned with a stinking, disgusting gutter; you’d rather be concerned about how to get up fast so you I don’t have to face any more pain. Ah! It was real painful. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The way I fell- it was all so sudden. You can imagine placing one of your legs forward expecting to meet solid ground only for you to realize that that leg is plunging you right into the gutter. ARRGH! Now that I think of it, I don’t even want to think of it.
     You know, after some time, it felt okay to laugh even with the pain. I reasoned that sometimes, these things happen to add flavor to your day especially when you haven’t been so engaged; just to give you something to talk about or think about. On the other hand, I thank God. I thanked God( and I’m still thanking him) because I could have died or I could have lost one of my legs. But God is ever so faithful! Gurl, are you crazy? How can God be faithful when he could have stopped that fall.  Well, this is my answer and I am not crazy, God knows I needed that fall. You see, when things like this happen and you come out of it unscathed and alive and still able to laugh, then it stirs up your sense of appreciation towards God. It makes you appreciate God with your heart and not your lips. When you realize that you were inches away from being either crippled or dead then you’ll appreciate more, the gift of life that God has given you. Some people have met death through a fall like the one I had today and here I am still able to laugh it off and even, write about it. Abeg, make una thank God for me jhoooooor!

GOING BANANAS!

    I love trying out new things.......well, that's me for you but it seems to freak out my mum sometimes. And banana has been featuring in all my new things quite a lot these days! The first thing I tried was banana and milk smoothie last week. It was quite tasty......as tasty as ice cream and then when I heard banana was also good for your face, I tried that one out yesterday too (no be my fault o, no job now!) and I kept checking the mirror this morning to see how it 'changed' my face. What does this have to do with God anyway?  A whole lot!

The Divine One-for-all Smoothie

Banana and milk smoothie tastes good.....quite alright, but this divine smoothie tastes even better. Sometimes, we are afraid, tempted, provoked, irritated and whatever it may be but I tell you, what banana and milk cannot do, this can. I call it divine because it is of God and then 'one-for-all' because it works in every situation with a very major ingredient, of course! Now, this is the recipe for the divine one-for-all smoothie:

The Word               as desired

Faith                       a very  generous amount

Method:

Blend 'The Word' with a very generous amount of faith and there! Enjoy the great taste!

Of course, a banana smoothie isn't a smoothie without bananas. So also is the Word without faith. So can you see now that this has everything to do with God. I feel like encouraging someone out there today.....because I did it this morning and it worked. I didn't even realize that's what I was doing at the time I did. I wanted to cross the road this morning (I'm always afraid of crossing the road because I'm not so experienced) and the road was so busy ; Isiah 41:10 just came to mind and I was like "He God, you said you would help me" and before I knew it, I was on the other side of the road. I don't think it's a small thing and I'm really thankful to God because some minutes after, an 'okada' rider missed me narrowly! Is that not God? Somebody, shout Alleluia!

Mirror,mirror on the wall

We probably know where that phrase comes from. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we know it's Snow White. So after doing that banana and milk  thing last night, something kept occurring to me and it went like ''You would take the trouble to look your best physically but would you do the same spiritually?" Actually, this whole spiritual mirror thing was triggered by a post I read on my friend's blog site(www.ibksuper.blogspot.com) and it's really true! Would we take as much trouble ? All the 'eyeshadow-ing', 'mascara-ing', 'lipgloss-ing', 'pancake-ing' and like me, banana and milk facial we do just to look good for God-knows-who; all that looking in the mirror, are we doing the same in our spiritual lives? And it's so funny how banana and milk just relates to this again. The Word is the milk and banana, since it's a fruit, is like faith. To make the banana-milk facial mask, more milk is required than banana. So also, to take care of our spiritual faces, more of 'The Word' is required to constantly mirror ourselves whether we look the way God wants us to look or not. When I looked in the mirror this morning, those little devils called pimples were still there! Question is, did I really expect them to disappear overnight? That's why it's a matter of continuity. If I make it a beauty routine and I do strict follow-up, I am sure of a good result. Similarly, it's a matter of continuity in the spiritual realm. If we want all those little devils  to disappear from our spiritual faces, things like anger, malice, lying, stealing, fornication, indiscipline then we gotta follow up our own spiritual beauty routine which is reading the Word and exercising faith in it. After all, Paul says in I Peter 2:1-3,

Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking,
as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word that you may grow thereby,
if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.

These verses are a very beautiful sum-up of everything. I just discovered as I was writing this that I tasted the banana and milk smoothie, saw that it was good, and applied it on my face too. Though, it did not give an instant result, I'm positive that if I continue, it will yield a flawless face. Thus, if we have indeed tasted the divine smoothie of God and we have seen how gracious it is, then we must desire to apply it on our spiritual faces so that we would grow to that flawless divine perfection!