M E D I T A T I O N & I N S I G H T S (Part 1)

5. PROBLEMS, SOLUTIONS, AND PROBLEM-SOLVERS

Problems and challenges abound in the world of the living. And we dare not deceive ourselves by hoping that they will all end some day. The day that one ceases to have issues to contend with is the day he bids the world goodbye. To lend credence to this fact, the Bible records

 in the book of Job 5:7 that man is born to trouble as indubitably as the sparks fly in no other direction but upward. So having established the fact that problems and challenges abound in the world in different forms and sizes, how can they be solved as they arise? Where does one run to for solution when confronted with challenges? There are a number of recourses available for men to explore in solving the various challenges of life, such as one’s learning, past experience in handling a similar situation, parents, friends and loved ones, a consultant/counsellor etc. While any or all of these measures can prove to be very helpful, however, the most effective solutions are those given by God, and the best answers to all our questions are found in the presence of God. I derived this insight from the Holy Bible, the book of Judges

Chapter 21. The Israelites were faced with a major problem; preventing the extinction of one of the 12 tribes that formed the pillars of their nation, the tribe of Benjamin. They had themselves launched a reprisal war on the Benjamites (read Judges Chapters 19 & 20 for details) and killed hundreds of thousands of them in the war, as well as every living thing that were found in their land. Only 600 men of the Benjamites who fled from the battle front and went to hide in the rock remained, every other person had been killed; old and young, men and women. And since the Israelites had vowed before God not to give their daughters as wives to the Benjamites, then the tribe faced the risk of total extinction, as there were only 600 survivors left in the whole tribe, and they were all men! This made the Israelites went to the house of God to seek counsel on what should be done. And there they found the answer to their question. Without speaking through a prophet, God gave them a circumstantial direction on what to do to get wives for the men of Benjamin without having to break their vow.

Things That Provoke God To Anger

COMPLAINT

 Now when the people complained, it displeased the LORD; for the LORD heard it, and His anger was aroused. So the fire of LORD burned among them and consumed some in the outskirts of the camp. Numbers 11:1 Often times when we are embattled with challenges, or do not get what we desire, or what we have been praying for, we tend to resort to complaining in a bid to arm-twist/blackmail God to look at our side and consider our petition. We whine and gripe endlessly bemoaning our lot. But instead of achieving our objective, what we usually do by so doing is to provoke God to anger. Complaint is one thing that is highly detestable to God. It is a sure way of displeasing Him, arousing His wrath, and unwittingly attracting His consuming fire. Fire? Yes, Fire. Even if the LORD does not send a fire, the fact that He is angry is enough to provoke fire to burn! A grateful attitude is what God expects us to have in all situations. Why? Because even when it doesn’t look like it, He is actually working all things out for our good! That may be very difficult to believe. But the truth is that God genuinely loves and cares about every one of His children, both the obedient and the wayward. His love is as constant as the rising of the Sun to its setting, even more so. You can imagine how you would feel if you were planning a surprise package for your loved one only for that person to start acting up by complaining and picking faults in your conducts. How would you feel? Hurt? Disappointed? Frustrated? That is the same way God usually feels whenever we complain about our status quo, which is but a process to Him toward getting to where He is taking us. In the case of the Israelites, God was taking them to the Promised Land. But their constant cries, as they passed through the wilderness on the way to ‘the land flowing with milk and honey,’ was their undoing. They did it to a point that God did not even bother to inform Moses, as He was wont to do, before He dealt with them by pouring down a consuming fire upon them. These days, fire may not come down from heaven to consume, but the feeling of being burned will nonetheless be there, with the same intensity as if one is really under a scathing fire. In order to avoid this kind of divine retribution, let us start to praise more and cry less; thank more and gripe less; sing more and groan less. In other words, let us imbibe the spirit of the passage of the bible that says, “IN EVERYTHING, give thanks. For this is the will of the LORD for you…” God bless you.

BE FREE, MANIFEST AND SUCCEED! (PART 2)

   

Launch out: to the extent that you have gone out and reached out, you also need to launch out with the idea and initiative you have been nursing, or those that occur to you as you become. A popular maxim holds that “people will not celebrate you for your intentions, but your actions.” To succeed, you need to have a sizable action quotient per day. And the key to doing that is making every hour count. Input substance into your hours and you will have a productive day. Never let an hour pass by without a substantial investment of rigorous thinking or effort with short, medium or long-term yield in it. Even the chunk of time you take to rest or spend with your family constitutes a judicious investment of time that will produce positives. So, don’t think it’s all about working alone.

So, dare the odds and discouragements to launch out and start that business, NGO, product/service line, and whatever it is that you have tucked in the recess of your mind for so long. Don’t fall victim of the paralysis that develops from over-analysis. You will never know all there is to know, have all you need to start, nor have a panoramic view of all there is to see about the idea anyway. So start where you are.

I conclude with a saying I heard some years ago, “instead of waiting for a perfect time, make the present time perfect.”

BE FREE, MANIFEST AND SUCCEED! (PART 1)

I got this insight after watching a movie entitled “Bubble Boy.”

Humans, when caged by self, dogma or fellow humans cannot be free, neither can they manifest their full potential nor succeed in their endeavours. The very thought of freedom, manifestation, and success suggests an image of outward flow of activities rather than an inward blossom.

However, freedom, manifestation and success do not happen without some degrees of internal and external struggles. These restrictions usually come in form of limitations imposed by the self, others or the environment; and it is to the extent that you overcome them that you will be free, become and succeed.

Therefore, to be free, to manifest or to succeed, here are three keys you may find very helpful:

1.    Go out: you cannot reach your full potential unless you go out of your comfort zone. Have you seen a tortoise moving before? No matter how big or small it is, it cannot move anywhere until it juts its head out of the shell. Humans are no different; there is no progress unless you go out of your shell. You cannot succeed unless you discard the limiting beliefs and self-doubts that have held you down for whatever length of time. To grow, you need to proceed from one level of reasoning or operation to the next. To succeed, you have to go out of the miry of nonchalance and average performance.

2.    Reach out: as you go out of your comfort zone or bland level to pursue your dreams and ideals, you also need to reach out to people and resources that will help you to achieve your objectives along the way. Fortune most often does not favour the taciturn. You need to identify the persons or association that can enhance you as a person as well as enable you to accomplish your aim, and then reach out to them. This is not limited to humans alone; as you are “going out” you will also encounter books, events and other resources that will be helpful to you. Reach out to them, subscribe to them, engage them and assimilate them.

The Spirit, The Soul, And The Body: My Submission

CULTIVATION & ENHANCEMENT

 Cultivating the Spirit Because the spirit is from God, it takes the things of God to cultivate and enhance it to optimal performance. The first way to cultivate the spirit of man is by the infusion of the Holy Spirit with the spirit of man. And this can only be made possible if one accepts Jesus Christ into one’s life. There is no other way to having the fellowship of the Holy Spirit with one’s spirit than by aligning oneself with Jesus. This is because the essence of the Holy Spirit is to confirm the Messiahship of Jesus, as well as to enlighten man further about His ways. Toward the end of His ministry on earth, Jesus began to prepare His disciples for His departure by telling them some profound things about what would happen afterward, but all these they found difficult to understand then because the Person (the Holy Spirit) that would ‘guide them into all truth’ had not yet come. Let us consider some of them that pertain to the Holy Spirit below: But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me: John 15:26 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. John 16:13 And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. Rev 19:10 These are indications to the utmost importance of the Holy Spirit in the scheme of things as well as in the cultivation of the spirit of man. He is the very Spirit of God Himself, and He can only align with the spirit of a man if that man is ‘reconciled’ with God through Jesus Christ, the final Mediator between God and man, and ‘the way, the truth, and the life’, without Whom NO ONE can come to God. So a man who wants his spirit to function at a supernatural level has but to get it into partnership with the Spirit of God. and the Spirit of God can only come into one who has accepted Jesus as Lord and Master. Another important way the spirit can be cultivated is by feeding it on the word of God. In fact, the word of God is the food of the spirit. A man’s spirit is as mature and alert to the extent that it is fed with and exercised on the word of God. A person who does not read the Holy Bible, the codification of the Word of God, will have a malnourished spirit. A spirit that is not regularly fed will not be active, though the person in whom it is may be a bundle of activities physically, his spiritual content – which is really his life capacity – will be very low. It is such people that usually give up or give in easily when the vicissitudes of life come calling. Cultivating the Soul As the spirit feeds on the word of God, so does the soul feeds on knowledge. In other words, the food of the soul is information or knowledge. The activeness, enrichment and vibrancy of the soul are determined by the level of qualitative knowledge which the owner of that soul has availed himself, be it in learning or in life experiences. And this in turn, to a large extent, influences the colouration of his beliefs, his ideals, his ideology, as well as his actions and reactions. Meanwhile, as the saying goes, ‘garbage in, garbage out’, a man who chooses to feed his mind with junks will have his soul smudged with same. And let not that man blame anybody for his woes when the abundance of his rotten inputs start to overflow in his action and the results he gets back from life. Therefore, to nourish and enrich the soul, you need to feed it with good and quality information. This will not only make the person to come out healthy, but will also help him to adjust very well in his own world and the outer environment. And the better adjusted a person is within and without, the better his performance shall be. Cultivating the Body The body needs a balanced diet to be healthy and functional. It also requires regular physical exercises to be active. The better it is fed with the right food at the right time, the more healthy and radiant it will come out. In addition, the more it is exercised, the livelier and more attractive it will be in form; and the better it will adjust to garments and other forms of physical adornment. Information also plays a vital role in the nourishment of the body, as one needs to know what to eat at what time, and what not to eat in order to keep the body in a sound state. The same applies to physical exercises as well, knowing the appropriate exercise to do to attune certain parts of the body and going ahead to do them will prove beneficial to the person who takes the pain. THEIR FINAL DESTINATION AT DEATH To be continued…