Resonance

Category: Discomfort

  • Edification, Exhortation & Comfort : God’s Architecture of Grace

    We all get tired. Even the strongest believers sometimes feel drained. Some feel stuck. Others begin to gradually lose interest and give up. Many get sick and tired of being tired and sick. Even leaders and pastors who spend their lives strengthening others can often find themselves empty. God, in His wisdom, has built a spiritual system to keep His people from collapsing in the vicissitudes of life. He designed a divine rhythm for the soul; edification, exhortation, and comfort. It is God’s healing system for the whole person (spirit, soul, and body) and the whole Body. It is how He keeps His family standing, growing, and enduring until the end. Next week, we will talk about the Mystery of Encouragement but for now, let’s establish the doctrinal side of it.

    Edification: Increasing Our Capacity

    The word edify comes from the Greek oikodomeō which means to build up. It is the act of strengthening, forming, and maturing until a life becomes stable. Spiritually, edification is God’s way of stretching our capacity to carry His life. When you are edified, something within you expands. Your faith deepens, your understanding widens, and your endurance strengthens. You become more capable of carrying divine weight.

    “And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up.” (Acts 20:32)

    God builds us through teaching, truth, and time. Like a master builder laying one stone after another, He establishes your inner man until you can contain more of His strength, more of His wisdom, and more of His people. We do not grow by accident. We grow because the Spirit keeps laying stone upon stone, truth upon truth, grace upon grace. Edification is how God turns the fragile into giants.

    Exhortation: Increasing Our Expectation

    Once you have been built up, you must be stirred up. Exhortation comes from the Greek paraklēsis which means to call near, to urge, to appeal. It is the voice from Heaven that says, “Do not give up. Lift your eyes again.”Sometimes you know the truth, but you no longer expect it to happen. You are built up but not stirred up. That is when the Spirit exhorts. He calls you near, speaks courage into your heart, and rekindles anticipation for what God will yet do.

    “Let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works… exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.” (Hebrews 10:24–25)


    Exhortation raises your expectation. It awakens the dormant parts of your faith. It moves you from “I know” to “I believe again.” Through a message, a friend, or the quiet whisper of the Holy Spirit, God exhorts His children to rise. The fire may be small, but exhortation breathes upon it until it burns bright again.

    Comfort: Increasing Our Threshold

    Comfort is not about removing pain. It is about raising the threshold to endure it. Comfort comes from paramuthia, meaning to speak closely, to console, to strengthen. It is the tender voice of God in the midst of trial.

    “Blessed be God, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforteth us in all our tribulation.” (2 Corinthians 1:3–4)

    When life feels unbearable, the Comforter sits beside you. He does not scold you for weeping. He stays with you through it. Comfort increases your threshold, your ability to face tomorrow without collapsing today. The comfort of God is not sentimental. It is strengthening. It restores your equilibrium, renews your peace, and brings sanity back to your soul. Comfort does not make life easier. It makes you stronger.

    God’s System for the Prosperity of your Soul

    This threefold process of edification, exhortation, and comfort is God’s divine therapy for the believer. It is how He balances spiritual maturity with emotional wellbeing. It is how He keeps your spirit sharp, your faith alive, and your heart tender. Built up, stirred up, and held up. That is the full rhythm of what I call God’s architecture of Grace.

    God never intended anyone to walk alone. From Eden to the early Church, His answer to human needs has always been another person. He builds through teaching and discipleship. He stirs through encouragement and prophecy. He heals through companionship and compassion.

    > “Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.” (Proverbs 27:17)
    “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:2)

    When you isolate yourself, you disconnect from this system. Isolation dries the soul. Even pastors need edification. Even prophets need exhortation. Even apostles need comfort. God’s love often comes disguised as a friend who refuses to give up on you, a mentor who speaks correction where you don’t see one, or a circle of friends who simply sits with you in silence. His help usually comes with a human face. A true Word from God will always carry this triadic essence. It will build, stir, and heal. When you stay in fellowship, you stay within God’s healing cycle. The Church is not a club of perfect people but a living organism through which grace circulates. Each believer is both a receiver and a dispenser of Grace.

    “Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do.” (1 Thessalonians 5:11)

    You are God’s instrument of renewal to someone else. Your word, your prayer, your listening ear may be Heaven’s hand to a weary soul. And in your own day of need, that same grace will return to you through others.

    God’s Architecture of Grace

    Edification increases your capacity to grow. Exhortation raises your expectation to believe. Comfort strengthens your threshold to endure. Together, they form the architecture of grace, the system by which the Spirit constructs, energises, and heals His people. When God builds you, He does not only strengthen your spirit. He heals your mind, renews your emotions, and strengthens your endurance. We are built to last, established to be immovable and in a system that will preserve until you finish your race.

    So when you feel weary, do not withdraw. Do not hide your pain. You may be tired, but you are not alone. The same Spirit that builds, stirs, and comforts is reaching for you still to help you stand until the end.

  • The Mystery of Comfort: Thy Rod & Thy Staff

    Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
    Psalms 23:4 NKJV

    This world is unfair and “unfair” is an understatement. The wicked succeed, the righteous suffer, the rich steal from the poor, and evil still persists. Everything looks chaotic. Your head aches whenever you think in that direction. You don’t even know what to do with your life anymore.

    You are not alone. Almost everyone has reached that stage before. You may even be there right now. In fact, you’ve been there all your life and it’s starting to feel permanent. However, realise the importance of hope. There’s a reason why hope made it to the finals (hope, faith and love in 1 Corinthians 13:13). Whenever there’s invisible burdens and anxieties, it’s simply the absence of hope. If there’s no hope that your hard work will pay off, why the need for hard work, etc?


    As aforementioned, the unrealized prescription to this dilemma is COMFORT. The NLT version of the verse says, “When doubts filled my mind, your comfort gave me renewed hope and cheer.” Let God comfort you. Let Him teach you that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory which shall be revealed in us.

    You really need Comfort so go to God, the source of all comfort as 2 Corinthians 1:3 says.

    And when I was burdened with worries, you comforted me and made me feel secure.

    Psalms 94:19 CEV

    Sometimes, life becomes overwhelming. We begin to worry about life’s decisions. It’s not a lack of information we may even be suffering from. We may know all of God’s promises but we are still worried if we are making the best decisions for our lives. You may think you need more money to solve all your problems but all the problems of another man are as a result of their money. What you may lack is Comfort. I know you are in a very rough storm but there is a man in your boat whose Words the winds and the sea obey.



    David said, “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for Thou art with me. Thy rod and their staff, they COMFORT me”. Have you cared to find out what David ever meant? The rod is, of course, an instrument of authority and correction. The staff, on the other hand, is an instrument of compassion.

    The staff guides the sheep along a dangerous, unfamiliar, difficult path. The shepherd presses the staff against the side of the sheep and guides it, assuring the animal of its proper path because some sheep will never tread an unfamiliar route. The rod protects you from wild prey. The staff is also used to guide a newborn to its mother when they are separated. Be it correction or guidance, these are spiritual instruments of Comfort.

    So it’s Comfort you needed all along. Your comfort zone is the secret place of the Most High. His promises are sure. Trust His Word and you will be calm in the midst of calamity.

  • Why Does Life Have To Be So Hard?

    Why Does Life Have To Be So Hard?

    None of us wants to be in calm waters all our lives. Where there is no challenge, there is boredom. Passion dies whenever there’s nothing new to try.

    There ought to be something that looks bigger than us. Something that alters our mindset at the end of the journey. Something that challenges us, not just to do better, but BE better; to live to our utmost potential. Something experiential that challenges our perspective to something we’ve never seen before but was always there. Something that is worth living for. Something that is worth dying for.

    There’s gotta be something.

    But why does it have to be this hard? It’s like I’m always at my wit’s end. It’s like my bones are crushing, my teeth gnashing. It’s like the only reason why I have no reason to live is the only reason why I am living.

    Left to me alone, I would give up but I just can’t give up now. There’s something that keeps leading me on, telling me there’s gotta be something to all of this. Giving up hurts more, and failure is better than regret. It will definitely be worth the risk. What I become in the process is far greater than what I have as the product.

    Life is just like giving birth. After so much pain we thought we could never bear, what we are expecting finally becomes a reality, but in a way, we certainly did not expect. That is when we realise that the more the sweat, the greater the “sweet”.

    The joy at the end is far more unbearable than the pain we went through. The pain now just becomes a passed memory, but the joy becomes a present reality.

  • Negative Emotions & Realities: How To Deal With Them

    Is it possible to live in a reality that is out of place with our present circumstance? Are we supposed to allow ourselves to go through the incumbent emotions triggered by our brain due to the nature of present circumstances or we are supposed to “fake” a positive reality till we “make it”?

    The brain releases negative emotions a few moments after a negative experience. Any further negative emotion from then on is self-inflicted. Self-inflicted because we continue to dwell on the negative image our senses fed our minds over and over, thereby releasing the negative emotions over and over.

    Emotions are Symptoms

    Pain is a symptom. Anxiety is a symptom. Depression is a symptom. Whatever we feel are symptoms, insignia. It’s not the actual thing. It’s a reaction to the actual thing. The chemical reactions in our system are the same for everyone but how the reaction manifests differ from one person to another. That’s why people cry when they are sad, hurt, angry or even happy. Same reaction, different circumstances. The body will release different tears in these different circumstances but that’s not the point.

    The point is that we can inadvertently control how our body reacts in any given circumstance. Not by manipulating or tricking our brain. No. Our brain is the centre of our intelligence. It picks our reaction from previous scenarios. Any time we react calmly to a given circumstance, it teaches our brain to be calmer in similar circumstances. If you’ve been in a circumstance where you didn’t know how to react it’s because your brain didn’t have any “default settings” based on its archives. You hadn’t been in such a scenario before, therefore you found it hard to react in a certain way. You don’t know if you’re confused, happy, sad or simply indifferent, and that is okay.

    Emotional Maturity or Avoidance Coping?

    The goal is not to stop yourself from feeling any negative emotions ever. That’s insane. In fact, it has been scientifically proven that it’s necessary to feel both positive and negative emotions occasionally instead of feeling either of them all the time. What we can do is to channel that negative emotion into positive action. That’s the real deal. Elizabeth Scott, MS said it this way, “Managing negative emotions is more about embracing the fact that we are feeling them, determining why we are feeling this way, and allowing ourselves to receive the messages that they are sending us before we release them and move forward”.

    positive and negative emotions

    Stopping yourself from feeling hurt, disappointed, grieved or simply down is not emotional intelligence. It is avoidance coping. It can heavily backfire if we don’t tackle it. It’s like hunger. Hunger is a symptom, a sign that you need to feed your body with food. Avoiding the feeling of hunger and doing nothing about it creates more problems. If you kill the symptom, the underlying problem still persists. True emotional maturity is allowing yourself to feel the feels but not letting it change your mindset and stance into a negative reality.

    I love you

  • I Don’t Care: Breaking Free from the Apathy & Indifference

    I Don’t Care: Breaking Free from the Apathy & Indifference

    Ever met or been that person who is always like, “As for me, I don’t care. I don’t feel anything.” And we admired such people because they looked to us like strength. The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart. The Presence of God is known and it is also felt. Knowing God in our minds is boring and repressive. Having mental knowledge of God without ever experiencing Him is basically a religion. Joy, Peace, Love, Gratitude, Responsibility, Humility etc are expressions. Whatever we express is emotionally relevant. This means that anytime we try to act all cool and don’t really care who even died in our family, it’s because we have squirmed into ourselves.

    I have been a victim of “I don’t care”. Whenever I live constantly like that, I feel like I am a wall upon which all emotions around me are being thrown. I don’t feel like a person. I feel like an object in that situation. So I become invisible by becoming silent and I hide in plain sight. I don’t let people in. I am in a state of avoidance; being physically not present. So I go away so there’s nothing to relate to anymore. I hold strong boundaries or walls, keeping my feelings contained or even suppressed. And as long as I took this path of emotionlessness, I barely experienced God for myself. I interpret everything on a logical level. Even prophetic and worship meetings were full of my mind telling me how pretentious what was happening was.

    There are so many cover-up emotions today. This is where we can’t tolerate one emotion so we cover it up by feeling something else, usually something more acceptable. We can’t feel rage, so we feel frustration. I can’t tolerate intense betrayal, so I feel hurt instead. We can’t allow ourselves to feel unquenchable grief, so we feel sadness instead. I can’t even express or identify what we are feeling, so I stay silent. Because we do not know how to define what we are feeling or expressing, we would defend, hide, avoid, or escape it. But underneath these “defences” are often feelings of vulnerability. We too often identify a vulnerability with weakness, shame or being too emotional, in an attempt to cover a raw aspect of ourselves.

    No one was born a stoic. All creations are emotional creatures, birds and dogs alike. Because emotions do not come from our bodies though they do have a direct link with them; emotions are what makes us persons connected to the orchestrations of the universe as a whole.

    The truth is, once you close your heart to hurt, you also close yourself to love. Also, closing your heart will never stop you from feeling the negative emotions that come with life. It will rather stop you from fully expressing and benefitting from good emotions. There is hope in the shadows, there is peace in the storm, there is patience in the pain, and there is joy in the sorrow. Open up your heart. The Holy Spirit wants you to enjoy His fruits regardless of the circumstances.


    If you know for yourself that you’re in this “I don’t care anymore” state or you’re heading towards that in any important area of your life, I want you to put your hand on your heart and pray this prayer;
    Heart, you have permission to be wide open towards the LORD, to be fully present, to fully feel, to be fully affected. Heart, you have permission to know that He is emotional about you. You have permission to know that you don’t need to shut down. You don’t need to lock up. Lord, any place where I have stopped feeling because of pain, because of vows that I’ve made, I give you permission to open my heart back to you. I want to have a heart that is fully after yours. In Jesus’ Name, I pray, Amen.

    I love you ♥

  • What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger

    What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger

    What you are will be tested.

    Circumstances serve a very useful purpose. It comes to test what you are and what you’re made of.

    Proverbs 24:10 says, “If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small”.

    Circumstances come to test your strength not your weakness. Whether you become stronger or weaker depends on what you made of the circumstance.

    Both the gold and the wood got burnt; the wood was drained but the gold was refined. The same boiling water that hardens the egg softens the yam.

    Don’t wish it was easier, wish you were better.

    I love you ❤️

  • You Are Not What You Go Through

    You Are Not What You Go Through

    Some circumstances we go through in life are inevitable. No matter your religion, race, color, gender, association or expectations, our story is not unique. Someone may be going through worse, but hei..there’s never a point in our lives where we aren’t going through something of a sort.

    Circumstances don’t obey the law of sowing and reaping.

    You do not have to be worthy of what you go through in life. What you go through does not care about you. It does not care what you care. So when you are going through something that seems unfair to what you are, it is nothing new.

    Circumstances do not define you.

    What you go through is not what you are. It’s always important to be able to differentiate between the two. The fact that you go through ups and downs does not mean even your emotions should follow suite.

    James said “count it all joy when trials come your way” (James 1:2). Why should you be so anxious when you go through a difficult situation? We have the power to live above our situation, not the other way round. What you are should never change or fluctuate because of circumstances.

    Our dog’s ability to be always happy to see us regardless is extremely underrated.

    You actually have the power to define your circumstance. How? By your reactions toward it. 1 Thess 5:18 says “Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s Will for you in Christ Jesus.”

    It said, “in all things give thanks”, not “for all things give thanks”. God didn’t say thank Him for that accident. He said have the heart and lifestyle of thanksgiving, even if you have an accident.

  • Keeping Your Shit Together

    Keeping Your Shit Together

    If you live in the past too long, you will be depressed. If you live in the future too long, you will be anxious. The only place you are designed to live is in the present, with your back towards your past and your face looking towards the future. Hope is imagining your future with God in it. Hope is one of the things – hope, faith and love – that will last forever, amazingly. That means God is so awesome that He expects us to look forward to His wondrous glory even in the times of the New Heaven and New Earth. He never ceases to amaze us.

    Sinach’s single epitomizes God’s assurance of everlasting Hope (1 Cor 13:13)

    That’s why I love Sinach’s song “He Did It Again”. There’s a line that goes, “and when I thought that He had done too much, Jesus did it again.” I have realised that the relevance of Hope is sadly missing. Over-ambition is not hope. Hope is confidence in patience. You can have faith and lack hope. In other words, you can totally believe in what God can do and still see hopelessness in your situation. You are not doubting God. You are just imagining a future without God in it. If a “makeup world” you have imagined is causing you distress, why don’t you just simply make up something good?

    It is so easy to wallow in hopelessness. We just lie down and think of all the problems we have in the world just because we are starving and do not have enough money. One small mistake we make, make us think about all the stupid decisions we have ever made and how bad we are when it comes to such situations.

    The more we wallow in hopelessness, the more we feel like the most miserable person in the world.

    When we remember out of nowhere how someone misunderstood us; then we link to when we were misunderstood by another guy sometime back; then another link to a very similar experience 2 years ago; then we link it to 6 more examples at once; then we are like, “I’m the most misunderstood person in the world
    😩😩”.

    All this happens under 5 minutes. It all started from one small not-even-a-big-deal problem. Then one seemingly harmless thought. Before you realise, you’ve had a bad day. This happens way too often. And today, we are leaving this attitude with all its accompanying emotions of hopelessness behind us. If my mind brings up a problem and another problem tries to connect to it, say “no! Not today.” We are learning to tackle one issue at a time, one step at a time.

    If doctors were told how many patients they will attend to in even a day, hopelessness may set in. But they attend to all these patients one at a time wonderfully. If teachers made a big fuss about the number of papers they had to mark, no one would like to be a lecturer of a huge class.

    You can never tackle all your problems at once so don’t think of all of them at once

    Some moments are just not the right time to think about important issues. When you wake up at the wrong side of your bed, don’t think about the reason why you were born. It may seem like a good thing to do but it will filter towards you and leave you with negative emotions and hopelessness. Someone may then ask, when is the right time to think about your problems? When you have properly dealt with your anxiety about the problems.

    Going over and over allll your problems will not help you, it will not heal you, it will not even get anything fixed. It is just a pity-party.

    If you want to talk about your problems, make sure the person listening is a person with hope; someone who will make up for your hopelessness. Don’t also think you always need someone to talk to. Once you get attached to that thinking and no one is ready to listen, it will add insult to your injury. Know when to deal with your personal issues personally. Know when to invite a 3rd party. Either ways, God is willing to talk about it with you. Yes He already knows but He wants to hear you pour your heart out to Him. He is closer to the brokenhearted. Just like David the psalmist, we are looking within ourselves on this day and telling our soul, “Hope in God”. Remain hopeful and praise God, for He is your God and your Help. Amen

    Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise Him, My Help and My God.
    Psalm 42:11

    I love you ❤

  • Distractions: Social Media, Abstinence & the Secret of Addiction

    Who doesn’t know what to do to achieve good results? Who doesn’t know that salad is healthier than chocolate candy? In the Information Age, there’s barely any excuse for not knowing. Everything is basically one Google search away. What is common is learnt ignorance, where we choose to not know because we don’t what to know. Perhaps, the truth is a bitter pill to swallow. Many are afraid of checking their health status. Others are afraid of checking their school marks while others are afraid of checking their bank account balance.

    It does start from the little things where we are afraid of checking the remainder of our data bundle. This is one of the biggest fuels of inconsistency, deviation and wastage; not checking on your own progress though you feel that urge that you’ve deviated from your initial agenda. Also, not verifying though you are unsure and choosing to do the bare minimum with the pretense that you didn’t know the requirements.

    We are all know what is right. It doesn’t guarantee that we will do what is right. What we lack is the ability to follow through till we achieve the desired results. In other words, we are lacking the ability to avoid distractions. Life is not just about doing the right things. It’s also about not doing the wrong things. Have you ever been fully motivated to sit down and work hard till you achieve a certain goal, only for you to be stuck on your phone 45 minutes later, scrolling through social media. You come back to your task and all that energy is gone. What is left is just boredom, demotivation and reluctance.

    From one perspective, we live in a world full of distractions. Every product, lifestyle, fashion, accessory, software, tool, mechanism is designed to catch your attention. Everything you see, hear, feel, taste and smell takes a portion of your attention and craves for more of it till you crave for more of that thing. Technology is no different. It was designed to be persuasive and pervasive. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have synced into our way of life that fast. Every new invention and every virtual software is backed by research in human psycnology and is scientifically designed to “distract” you. That means it is easier today than it was yesterday to get distracted.

    Does that mean technology is bad? Is technology hijacking our brains? Is it getting everyone synced in a virutal reality that is so addictive and unhealthy? I am no conspiracy theorist. It is scientifically untrue that technology is a distraction because everything is potentially distracting and addictive. In fact, anything that solves pain is potentially addictive. Yes, some people do become addicted to technology as a defensive mechanism against their own lack of self-esteem, self-confidence and self-image.

    After all, it is easier to tweet your ideas to a million people than to stand in front of a million people to convey the same idea. So is technology; video games, social media etc. ruining our children? The idea of thinking technology is a distraction for our generation is in itself a distraction. It is distracting us from the potential prowess of exploration and creativity that comes with technology. You are using social media to convey the idea of social media ruining this generation. Think about it!

    So how do we stop getting distracted? One thing people do a lot but it never really works is strict abstinence. They say to themselves, “I’m never going to do that ever again”. They say it with all sincerity but fail over and over again. This is because strict abstinence is like pulling out a rubber band. It’s only a matter of time until all that tension is released and it ricochets even further than where it started. In order words, people who opt for strict abstinence end up doing worse. If you keep telling yourself not to do something, you build up a lot of pressure to actually do it. Why? Because that sensation of relieving the discomfort of telling yourself not to, is itself pleasurable. I just told you the secret of addiction.

    This is why people smoke. This is why people masturbate though they hate themselves for doing it. This is why people swear they will never drink again but still do though the drink is actually very bitter. It is not the only reason why they richochetted to the old behaviour but it is the commonest. Once you keep telling yourself, “don’t do it! don’t do it! don’t do it!”, doing it relieves you of the discomfort. Neurologically speaking, we all do things to avoid discomfort, remember? Strict abstinence will always backfire. This is because we are wiring our neurocircuitry to expect a pleasurable sensation whenever we relieve ourselves of the discomfort we impose on ourselves. Thus, it becomes a cycle.

    Bottom line: the biggest cause of all distraction is the instinctive nature within to avoid discomfort at all cost. It takes zero effort to live in your comfort zone. Wishes are free so everyone wishes for all the good things in life. However, nothing essential comes on a silver platter. The conquest belongs to the doers. To be consistent, to be revolutionary, to be relentless, to be determined, takes a lot of guts; Not just to want to do something special, achieve something extraordinary, or become someone great. No! It goes beyond that. In order to conquer the world, you need to conquer yourself. The biggest part of conquering yourself is denying yourself of the pleasure of distractions and the need to avoid discomfort. I love you ❤️

  • How To Comfort A Friend

    How To Comfort A Friend

    “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.”
    2 Corinthians 1:3-4

    Our brain has the capacity to store whatever information we receive, whether it is needful or not. But as time goes on, the brain empties its short-term memory. Also, if what’s stored in the long-term memory – be it your birthday 4 years ago or what you ate for breakfast 21 days ago – is not revised with time, the memory decays.

    Why? Because of emotional overload.

    Every thought, word, taste, smell, scene, touch etc has an emotion attached to it. For eg. You feel sad whenever you think about the death of a loved one. However, some events happen in our lives that are so traumatic that we hit an emotional overload for a long period of time. For eg. losing someone really close to you or seeing someone get shot. These events are traumatic that it’s been scientifically proven to cause neuroplasticity. Did you get it? The victim is so overloaded that it literally changes the structure of his/her brain.

    Do you know one thing? We are all headed for such an experience. Life does not even prepare us enough for it. No matter how much you are prepared for it, it is going to shake the very foundations of your will to survive. Keep this in mind when you see it happen to someone close to you. There’s an Akan proverb that says, “when you see a vulture on someone’s head, say get away from us, not get away from the person. For if the vulture leaves the person, it is coming to you.” The vulture is pain, grief, sorrow, trauma, hurt.

    If pain in this life is inevitable, why do we pretend to be okay? Why then do we act like nothing is wrong? Why? Hmm. Maybe, here’s why. Usually, people don’t know when the other person needs advice, encouragement, upliftment or comfort. It’s frustrating when you simply need comfort and someone is trying to advise you; when you’re pouring out your heart and the other keeps interrupting you with unsolicited advice. In such a situation, it’s difficult to say the right thing, but one thing will always be the right thing to do; listen.

    Listen before you speak. Sometimes the other doesn’t need you to say anything. Don’t make it about you. No one needs to hear what happened to you 5 years ago right now. Listen to the person, not to reply but to be empathic. Also, there’s this culture of belittling people’s experiences just because they are young and “inexperienced”. If a 3-year old is pouring out to you about how frustrating school is, what are you going to do? I guessed it. Downplay it. As if to say the child’s reaction to those experiences are invalid.

    If someone says they’ve lost their mother, it’s stupid to compare it to your experience of losing your dog. It’s insensitive to think that the person should get over it because it’s bound to happen. It’s absurd to think they are young and what they are going through now is “little” as compared to what you’ve been through. Everyone’s capacity is different; everyone’s reaction to the emotional load is different. Don’t belittle someone’s traumatic experiences. You are not the one to validate someone’s pain.

    You’ve probably written a lot of exam in your life and failed some. How are you going to react to a 13-year old failing exam for the first time? Alright. Okay, how about someone who brought hurt and guilt upon themselves because of their actions? Let’s talk about that category for a second.

    Having been called to comfort those who mourn, we have learnt to weep with those who weep and be happy with those who are happy. But how do we comfort other people without denying their reality to sell false hope, and also to avoid our own emotional overload? If you are that friend who always listens to other people pour their hearts out (and we all are that friend in one situation or another), how do you comfort without siding with the person’s mistakes he/she is not willing to admit with uncompromising Compassion?

    Jesus is the character in the Bible who is said to have compassion the most. He had compassion over the two blind men in Matt 20:34, the large crowd in Matt 14:14, the four thousand men in Matt 15:32, the five thousand men in Mark 6:34 and many many more. What I found is that Jesus didn’t tell them that there is hope, Jesus was their Hope. Any time Jesus had compassion on the sick, lame, blind, broken, crushed, sad, wretched, Jesus became a channel of healing for them.

    Don’t let them dump their burdens on you; help them lay down their burdens before the Father. Don’t promise them comfort, comfort them with the comfort God comforted you. Don’t just let them know that you’ll listen – so that the two of you will be wretched? NO! – let them know that when they come to you, they are not leaving with the burden they came with.

    Don’t be a helper in carrying burdens. Be a lifter of one’s head. Learn to comfort the broken without being broken. Don’t absorb their reality, impact yours.

    I love you ❤

  • Fear: A Good Servant or A Bad Master?

    Fear: A Good Servant or A Bad Master?

    “For God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind”
    2 Timothy 1:7

    One thing that has a force equal to passion and yet as sublime as insecurities is fear. No matter how intelligent you are; no matter how popular you are; no matter how religious you are; if you don’t know how to deal with your fear, your fear will know how to deal with you. Fear is as personal as our interests. My fears are unique and so are yours. In fact, my fears are so unique that defines where my interests lies, shapes what my beliefs are and influences how I see myself.

    Yes. Fear can be self-imposed, inherited or even adopted, but there’s a fear within us that is a tangible part of us. As humans, it is proven that we are born with two types of phobias; fear of loud noises – that explains why children cover their ears so hard when they anticipate a loud noise – and the fear of falling, and that all other phobias are learnt. Yet there’s a fear within us that is a tangible part of us.

    Isn’t it amazing that a child can play with a sharp knife or can crawl straight into an exposed fire? Perhaps, it’s amazing but it’s definitely stupid. That’s why fear exists. Fear is a natural instinct meant to protect us from harm. When there’s an unidentified danger, everyone in the right frame of mind would first of all run in the opposite direction. Fear is the guard of your life. The easiest way to foolishly die is to be fearless.

    Take a minute to think about the many times the fear within you saved your life. It kept you from passing that dark alley. It stopped you from picking that taxi. It made you stay instead of being in a hurry to leave. It made you leave hurriedly instead of staying. We ought to be grateful to our innate fear. It cautioned us without reason or explanation. This is certainly not what you thought I’d say about fear. Contrary to popular belief, fearlessness is more dangerous and stupider than innate fear.

    So did God actually give us a spirit of fear? Good question. Imagine you standing by your mom, all smiley and all. Now imagine you being kidnapped right in front of your mom. Does she look afraid? Of course. What’s the point? Fear is a good servant but a bad master. Love should be the master and let fear serve you. When fear is made the master, it distorts your reality, darkens your perspective, shatters your dreams, downgrades your abilities, lowers your self-esteem and weakens your confidence.

    In other words, it basically plays it safe. Safe Mode. Fear being the master is overprotective. It will keep you from trying out new things, stepping into new territories and having new experiences. Fear as a master makes you a slave, keeps reminding you of your failures so that you don’t dare to try again. Fear usually makes us think we have no choice. Fear wants to control everything. Fear is more interested in you surviving than living.

    “What if you take risk and it puts your life at risk? You can’t do it so don’t even try. What if you fail? What if you succeed and you cannot keep up with the pressure?”.
    A life ruled by fear is a life filled with unnecessary precautions and no actions.

    NB: When your fear poses questions of life that needs solid answers to you, then your fear is your servant. When your fear does not allow you to even think of questioning the status quo even when you know something must be wrong, then fear has been made a master. Innate fear does not put in bondage; it protects you from unknown bondage. When fear is put in charge, you become a slave of yourself, a slave to a reality that does not even exist. It’s all in your head.

    So then, what do I do with my fear? Use it. Pay attention to what your fear is paying attention to. Fear is an insignia. Once you have tackled why you fear, what you fear loses its relevance. The more you ignore your fears, the more persistent it becomes in drawing your attention to the problem. Fear is the stop sign in our lives. It is always disapproving, preventing and avoiding. So never think there will be no fear. Fear will faithfully serve you as long as you live. Just make sure you don’t make fear your master.

    When Love leads, there is no timidity. Love deposits the power of choice right within you. Love makes us responsible for our choices. Love is freedom. Love gives us a sense of peace and clarity. Love makes us accept what we can’t control and govern what we can control. Love does not control fear. Love governs fear.

    I love you ❤

  • Ineffable

    Those who mind don’t matter

    Those who matter don’t mind

    Who said so?

    I mind, remind my mind

    The mind is matter

    So tell me the matter

    What’s on your mind?

    It’s ineffable!

    Actions speak louder than words

    but actions are hard to interpret

    Your words are your words

    They hurt more with each resounding memory

    Why did you say what you said?

    It’s ineffable!

    I say I really don’t know, I wind

    but you say what do you mean? Define

    There’s a reason behind everything

    but can we explain everything we do?

    My mistakes don’t define me.

    My mistakes, don’t remind me.

    I’m not here to prove myself. That’s how I am? Reputation doesn’t matter.

    What matters is you.

    It’s ineffable!

    Gravity holds back my fears

    Brevity holds up my tears

    We stained our flower

    I dimmed the charm

    but wait…there’s still a sparkle

    though your heart sometimes bleeds

    the love still remains

    It’s ineffable!

    we’ll never be the same again

    It’s so hard to forget pain, but it’s even harder to remember sweetness.

    We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace.

    But now we can’t underestimate our peace.

    Come, hold my hands.

    The healing rain is about to begin.

    I hope you’re not afraid

    I love you ❤️