Hadithi Za Abunwasi

Now there is this debate that the world is ending on 21^st May 2011. And as I follow tweets, status updates and peeps conversations one thing is evidence; how casual people have become with God. There is no much fear of God in our generation. The word of God has just become hadithi za abunwasi.

The end will surely come; we just don’t know the timings. And that is not even the important thing. The important thing is what is Jesus coming for? That is what we should be focusing on becoming for him. In Acts 3:21 the bible says that Jesus must remain in heaven until the restoration of all things spoken by the holy prophets. This means, believers should focus on accomplishing the spoken word and thus becoming the bride Christ is coming for.

Just imagine on the wedding day, the bride gets prepared thoroughly. In details. And when Jesus says that he is building his church; that is what he is looking at doing, thoroughly preparing his bride (the church) for himself.

And so our focus should be to mature up in Christ, to attain his full measure and to fulfill the spoken word by actualizing it. The enemy’s strategy is to create little fires here and there that catch the attention of every believer and thus losing focus on what we ought to be doing. The enemy also seeks to make the finish (not the end), look like a myth or something impossible. And in so doing, people will forever wander in the wilderness and the powerful word of God will just be hadithi za abunwasi to those who are perishing.

Where is the power of the cross?

Every time I listen to the song My Jesus by Todd Agnew I always get challenged. Here is part of the lyrics

Which Jesus do you follow? Which Jesus do you serve? If Ephesians says to imitate Christ, then why do you look so much like the world?

If you are on social media or generally in the internet, you will see so many jokes about Jesus and God. I hear nowadays Jesus is black. Others will talk about “What Would Jesus Do?” even when in situations that Jesus would not be in the first place. And as much as some of these initiatives are great, sometimes they just demonstrate the mere lack of the fear of God in our generation.

And back to the Jesus I follow, I have been thinking closely about it. And as I was walking to work yesterday I met an old lady who was looking for the primary school in our estate. And I remember telling her to find the school just behind the mosque. Then I remembered when we were doing geography in primary school and we would recognize a Christian community through a church; which was a building marked with a cross.

Do you know how difficult it is to recognize a church nowadays? From some funny names we call church to the dingy buildings in the name of a place of worship, to the lack of the cross and the funny characters that we call shepherds. And as much as we say church is the heart and not the building, what we see leaves a lot to be desired; both from the building and from the people who are the church. Where is the power of the cross?

I have noticed we have become so casual with God, me included.  God, I know sometimes I act like we are just buddies; I mean you are the most understanding. Your mercies are new everyday and when you forgive, you truly forget. You know am human and human is to error, you know I am busy and trying to be modern, so excuse my few jokes on twitter and on email. It’s not that I am ashamed about you when I don’t share the good news with my friends online, am just avoiding spamming them. And when I attend bedside baptism, you know technology allows us much more than we can imagine. I know you understand. And when I don’t tell people about you it’s because when they watch news on Sunday evening, they get to see what your people have been up to and I don’t want to be associated with them. I know you say I should not conform to the standards of this world, and I am not, I am just trying to survive, to fit in and to be people friendly. I mean, we have to give people their space. Just keep understanding. The story can go on and on..

And as I keep on thinking about the kind of Christian I have been, I desire that God may give me a meaty heart; the heart that will walk in the fear of God, shunning evil and hiding his word deep inside so that I may not sin against him. To be transformed by the renewal of my mind. Not to fear persecution when I defend the truth. And demonstrate the power of the cross in my life in every aspect and not to be a religious freak but a real human being.

I pray that I will be willing to pay the cost for following Jesus and to carry the cross daily. Not to fulfill religious obligations, but to be a man of higher standards and a quality lifestyle powered by the Holy Spirit. And when the world looks at me, may they see the power of the Cross!

And when I listen to Todd Agnew I will be confident to declare that I follow Jesus the son of God, and not only will I say, but I will be demonstrating it with my life, and for sure I will not be ashamed that I don't look like the world.

God the mum and God the dad

Now if you grew up in the rural area and raised by a housewife or a peasant farmer as we intelligently refer to them, you can bear me witness that mama was ever there, for almost everything. I can’t remember any day we didn’t have mum at home. There was no day she was ever on leave. And so we kind of got used to having her as a sign of security. On the other hand, dad used to work in the big city and he would come every Saturday and leave on Sunday.

Having gotten used to mum, my younger brother and I would eagerly wait for my dad from noon on Saturdays, because we knew he would arrive anytime from then and we would get a packet of malaika biscuit. Some days he would come early but most times would come so late and we would be so mad, but on sighting him, all the anger would melt and we would run towards him and jump all over him in gladness. There are times because of work commitments he would miss coming on a particular weekend and we would be sad especially if we didn’t know in advance. You can imagine waiting on him all day, preparing your taste buds for malaika biscuits and fried meat for supper just to miss. It was very disappointing.

I must say we were naughty boys just like every other boy, and mum would beat us almost every day. And I remember sometimes we would get so angry and wish our mum was dead. (You can forgive us we were just foolish and young). At times after a thorough beating, we would tell mum that we will tell on her when dad comes. And she would dare us to. We never would.

Now I remember there were occasions my mum would be late to come back home and we would get so scared and we would not enter the house in fear of darkness. This rarely happened but when it did, we would start crying and praying that our mum may come back. All of a sudden we would imagine what if she left not to come back again? Or if she got an accident and got hurt? Or died? Or a big hyena ate her? And we would cry and start praying. We would tell God that if she comes back alive, we will be good boys. We would not imagine life without our mother. And on sighting her shadow at the gate, we would run so fast, happy to see her again and we would relieve her of her luggage. Of course we never kept our part of the deal with God.

They used to say a parent is a second god. And I relate to that fully, but on thinking about my parents and God I found out something interesting. My mum is the ‘god’ who is with you every day, keen to discipline you, ready to be your friend and help you out every day, and who makes sure your life runs smoothly. But because of the unconditional love and the availability we would so often get used to her, and at times we would despise her on her face. Taking her for granted until the day she gets late to come home and we just can’t imagine life without her.

Dad is the ‘god’ who we interact on weekends. Who we would look forward to because he come with gifts, and since he is never there all week, we can manage to stage a good mannered boy, and even when mum would complain that we have become naughty, dad would not get any evidence of it. We would do everything mum wants and dad would think we are a set of angels. 

And thinking about it I see the same thing at times when am interacting with God, just that he can see everything. During the week I will struggle to keep my relationship with God because I will feel like He is demanding too much out of me, adding on discipline issues and me managing my daily affairs the way He want. I don’t want a God who is meticulous and detailed. It can be tiring.

I want a weekend God, who I can dress for on Sunday and behave like a saint yet I have been a naughty boy. I want a God who comes with gifts, who we can have an intense moment then he will be off on his way to work on Sunday evening and I will have the week to myself. I want that God. 

But who am I lying to? I couldn’t handle a dark house without mum around, the same way I can't handle a dark moment without God, and so I will have to drop my fantasy, which I have played along. And God I am sorry. For I know you want to be God the mum and God the dad to me, to be with me all week and even more during weekends. That I may involve you in all I do, and when you discipline me, I should delight in your corrections, I should long for intense community interactions on Sunday without watering down my daily experience with you. 

God help me….

You are God the mum and God the dad to me.

I Give Myself to You

This song by William McDowell I give myself away has been playing in my head over and over again. And the more I think what it means to give myself to God the more scaring it gets. I know my life is not my own and that I belong to God, but there is the tendency to want to hold on to myself. How do you lose all control and let God rule every aspect of your life? How do you accept that God want you the way you are, to create something beautiful out of you?

If you grew up in the rural area or you reared chicken, maybe you have seen a hen behaving helpless, especially when you have layers and you don’t have a cock. It gets to a time when you chase a hen, it gives itself so easily. And when you are chasing it especially if you want to slaughter it, you get offended when the hen gives an indication of wanting a cock, and you are not one.

And as I was thinking about giving myself to God, that is the picture that comes to mind. That there should be an innate need within me that just loses control and submits to God, getting to the point of being a slave of righteousness. But who wants to be a slave? I mean, having nothing of your own in a capitalistic society means you are nothing! But the encouraging thing is realizing that his burden is easy and his yoke is smooth, so we should delight in giving yourself away all in the name of pleasing the master..

We were discussing with some friends on the seed that fell on the thorny grounds from the parable of the sower. You realized the seed does not bear fruits because it is choked by the thorns. The interpretation of that word is a representation of those people who hear the word of God and the worries of this world choke that word.

And many of us are victims of worry. We worry too much, that even when God says I have good plans for you, worry cuts you off from the reality of that word. One of the things that really amazed me is when I realized worry is not just about tomorrow but about us. We worry because we don’t believe in our capability to become or achieve the things that we desire and the things that God wants accomplished. It’s like when God declares that you are a mighty warrior, and instead of embracing that word and running with it, you look at where you are and assume that word. We despise ourselves and worry that we can never be the mighty warrior as declared. That process in the mind of doubting ourselves mixed with fear and unbelief chokes the word of God bit by bit and over time, we do not achieve that which was intended. We miss our destiny and our inheritance.

You can never get to your destiny without pursuing it. You have to become by doing something that propels you forward. As the body of Christ, our destiny is to be transformed until we acquire the full nature of Christ. So, we must keep pursuing that. When we look at ourselves, we often cut ourselves off from some of the things that God declare not believing that indeed we are supposed to be the partakers. We are the ones.

We should allow the word of God to define us and to transform us until we become that which God declares in His word. We should mature up into knowing God and His nature and His power. When God created the earth and everything in it, He only took six days and when he looked at his creation he said it was good.

Now, God has taken more than six days to create us, I mean we are am still work in progress. This shows us how patient God is with us, and better still if in six days he made everything good, how much more glorious is He turning us to be having taken all this time?

Let us partner with God in what he is doing, let us pursue his word and his declarations. For we are all but just Work In Progress, and when He is done with us, it will be something beautiful, something heavenly, and something glorious. Give yourself to Him so that He can use you.

Type of Rare People

The hand baggers: 
They burden their shoulders with a pouch of unnecessary accessories.

I know you should carry your own cross.
But never die alone. You are in a community.

The hump bearers: 
Forever carrying burdens in a back pack even to a picnic or a wedding

Even Jesus didn’t heal everyone at the pool of Siloam.

Pretend to be well once once.

The note bookers:  
They jot everything in church and never read those notes.

Don’t statue the living words into a death sentence
Read your notes, you will meet someone we call secondary illumination

The face bookers:  
They read people faces and they sentence on spot

 Even with such proximity you are never interest to share your life

 Why be judgmental? Stop thinking of yourself higher than you ought to.

The Motivators:     
They update very inspiring status on facebook and have a sweet tongue.

Meet them and they are hollow and complaining about everything

Kindly try and be consistent. We can tell the anomalies

The Addicts:         
They don’t drink, hangout, or smoke, they got it figured

They just can’t stop pointing fingers and pitying others

 Self righteousness is like filthy rags before God.

The wankers:      
I call them nonprofit organisms, good for nothing.

They are after everything for self gratification

We are called to serve, outdo mosquitoes and be helpful

The huggers:      
They have perfected the art of embrace and a calculated smile

Once in need, they flee like a flea. Got this and that to do
Give yourself to others. You are the greatest gift to those in need

The chatters:      

They know every dirty laundry about everyone
Now that she did or didn’t do, what’s with you?        
Shut up! Before you spread rumors, receive love.

The suitors:       
They overdress their lives with imaginary fantasies, very spooky
We know and believe we have a great place there someday

Now we are living on earth, dress for the occasion

Ajwaa …… as usual

In the recent past, I have heard numerous people complaining about our education system. Some say we should do away with what we already have while others don’t really care about a thing. I don’t know where I stand on this matter but one thing I am sure of instead of de-schooling our society, we would rather DECHURCH it.

The other day I was talking to a bunch of teenagers and I liked the discussion because we got to agree on this. This is unlike teenagers who most of the time, think they know everything and don’t want to be told a thing. And as the discussion went on, I was reminded of a joke my friend Gideon shares about his mothers’ church.

Just being hypothetical and playing around with your imagination, which day do you think is God’s most boring? Gideon says he would rather miss a Sunday service than attend one at the mum’s church. He says, ‘they should be going, and after the opening prayer they tell God…. as usual”. I kinda agree with him. Why go to church to do the same thing over and over and expecting something different?

I once took worship leading classes and the instructor said; our prayers don’t get to God as voices. Instead, all the petitions, requests, praises and adorations are picked up into a bowl and they are burnt before God. He said, the burning ‘stuff’ is supposed to get to God as a fragrance of Christ and that’s the only acceptable sacrifice before God. But with the kind of humans we are and the churches we are seeing, God’s housekeepers must have a tough time cleaning the odour.

I kinda feel sorry for God every Sunday, that stench! The way He gets ready with anticipation that his people are up for some worship and time with him, just to prepare the outside without a thought for the inside. The drama He has to withstand and the pain he has to bear when He sees people who have nothing to do with him doing so many unnecessary things in His name. Wa, Sunday is such a day for Him.

On the other hand am reminded of people like Abraham who interacted with God in their daily lives. They didn’t have a set day for Him, they truly portrayed the thought that says… we are the temple of God. God’s dwelling had a place in such peoples’ daily lives through the ups and downs of it. And that is what I desire. a place where i can confidently stand and say; In him I live, in him I move and in him I have my being.

So next Sunday, give God’s house helps a smoother time. When you get there just say AJWAA…meaning as usual and you will minimize the amount of stuff in the bowl or else lets’ just up our game and give God what He deserves. Or have we so easily forgotten that as much as His mercies are new every morning, He is a consuming fire.

Thoughts by Josef Munuhe