Approval is a small word but carries substantial weight. To be more specific, a parent’s approval carries substantial weight in their child’s life. Are you a parent who constantly criticises or disapproves of your child’s choices or performance? Do you constantly dismiss your child’s opinion? If you have answered yes to any of the questions….click on the link below to read more 👇
How To Show Approval To Your Child – Why Is It Important?
This is not the most fatherless generation in history. Many generations lost millions of men on the battlefield. Fathers went to war and never returned. Some who returned were better off dead; fatally wounded and had a lot of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder to deal with. Some were deaf from the recurring sound of bombs. Others were too weak to recover from taking too many bullets. There have been many fatherless generations.
This generation is the most fatherless generation that didn’t lose its fathers to war. In the USA alone, 19.7 million children – which is about 1 of out every 4 children – live without a father in their home. About one-third of Black Americans grow up without a Dad in their home. It’s a fact even from the experiential level, that there is a “father factor” in nearly all social vices.
With the rise in extreme feminism, many women are gradually leaning toward having no man in their lives. Women are also complaining about double parenting, where there is a father figure in the house but he’s virtually useless and the woman takes double responsibility for running the home. The truth of the matter is, women have an inner craving in them for a male figure in their lives. Someone to protect them, at the very least; someone to direct them; someone to lead them. A girl’s bond with her father greatly affects her relationships with other men.
Though some men may have failed women in a lot of ways, women must realize it’s only a ripple effect from men not having a father figure in their lives. Lecrae Moore said it better in his song, Just Like You;
I got this emptiness inside that got me fighting for approval because I missed out on my daddy saying, “way to go”,
Ain’t get that verbal affirmation or know how to treat a woman, know how to fix an engine,
To keep the car running
So now I’m looking at the media and following what they feed me,
Lecrae Moore – Just Like You
Our relationship with our earthly father also affects our relationship with our Heavenly Father. In 2001, Jennifer Hamer did research that showed that many African-American youths did not know how to approach their father when in his presence. Thus, if your father is more like a boss, you’re more likely to view God as a boss. Likewise, your relationship with God will likely be a very personal one if he’s a close friend.
Even if there’s further research to prove that single parenting is equally as good as having two parents around, single parenting is not something to wish for. Single mothers are one of the poorest populations, many of them vulnerable to homelessness. In the United States, nearly half (45%) of single mothers and their children live below the poverty line. It’s not as easy as rich single mothers may make it look. The struggles that single parents face are greater than those in two-parent households.
Moreover, it’s a generational curse. Men with absent fathers are more likely to become absent fathers themselves. Women with absent fathers are more likely to have children with absent fathers. Further research has shown that growing up without a father can permanently affect your brain. With society on the brink of collapse, the need for a father – not a perfect one, but one who will be there – is more important now than ever. Society will only flourish if matriarchy takes its place by patriarchy, not when the former overthrows the latter. Either of them will fail without the other.
Be grateful to have a father and father figures in your life. They represented the Father and the fatherhood of God in your life. The enemy’s plan to eliminate fathers from society worked in America, and we all saw the dire effects associated with the rise of LGBT, abortion, gender-affirming surgeries and the lack of common sense. We shouldn’t sit down for this to be replicated in our society. We must honour our fathers, cherish them, celebrate them, remember them, and raise many more sons into fathers.
If you’ve never been a parent before, you think it’s easy to be a parent. Kids are the most expensive entities in the world. The most troublesome, stubbornest little cute pieces of burdens, actually. Yet, parenting is the most rewarding work in the world. No salary, no monetary gain (in fact, the most costly financial decision anyone could make), no guarantee and yet it is what makes all the difference in the world. Here are 7 things about parenthood you haven’t really noticed, even as a parent.
There’s nothing in this world that’s going to bring you more joy than bringing someone into this world and watching them grow to become great. This is more than being the one who gave out the money to a brother who won the lottery or the one who supported a friend till they made it to the top. This is pouring out your life and soul and resources into another life. Parenting is the ultimate sacrifice, a different feel of love, and until you’re a parent it will never make sense.
If you’re going to be a parent, it’s going to take the most and best part of your life. It will take not less than half of your entire life on average. Therefore, if you fail as a parent, you should know that it’s going to be the biggest regret of your life. This is not to scare you but to give you a certain kind of perspective. A big aspect of your purpose in life is directly tied to parenthood.
If you’ve been picturing a “happy ever after” with the love of your life, well, don’t forget the kids. In fact, if anyone asked for my opinion concerning who to marry, I’d say choose someone who’d help you raise a happy home. It will be about the two of you for a few years. The rest of the years is mainly about the kids. Many rich successful people at the end of the road usually say that they wished they had spent more time with their family.
Many say to themselves, “I’m awesome. I came out just fine. I’m going to raise my kids just like how I was raised. Except that I’m not gonna do these 5 mistakes my parents did and then my kids are gonna come out much better than I did”. No, it doesn’t work like that. It’s like saying you’ve been watching videos on heart surgery and you were smart enough to notice about 5 mistakes the surgeon did. Therefore, you can perform heart surgery. It just doesn’t work that way. In fact, parenting is much more complex than heart surgery. There is no fixed way of going about things. That’s the nature of relationships.
Though you’ve been around and have been helping your parents in their parenting, you probably didn’t notice how they really make it work. You may think you can dance when you’re watching a dancing tutorial till it’s actually time to dance. That’s what I want you to understand. It only looks easy because they did over and over, but doing it over and over is the hard part. A lot of trial and error has gone into it. Parenting ain’t easy. If you think life is hard, try being responsible for another life.
So appreciate your parents now that they are alive and be proud of them. Don’t hold that “entitlement attitude”; you’re-my-parent-so-you’re-supposed-to, I-didn’t-ask-you-to-give-birth-to-me bullshit. Parenting is not like running a business or having administrative duties, it’s a lot more complex than that so don’t make it too hard for them. They are doing their very best. Don’t wait till it’s your turn to be a parent to really realize this. Of course, they are not always right. So are you. Not always being right is completely normal. No need to make a big deal out of it and use it against them.
As human beings, we usually replicate what we have been exposed to. Your parents are raising you in many ways like how their parents raised them. Funny enough, you are going to raise your kids surprisingly in many little ways like how you were raised. We don’t know any better. I’m not talking about what we know. I’m talking about what we’ve experienced. So if you want to raise your kids in a much more excellent way, be intentional about it and start now.
It’s a good person that becomes a good parent. It starts by being a good child. So I edge you to break any generational curses and pass on the generational blessings. If you want to be appreciated as a parent, appreciate your parents. Let them know they have done well.
I love you ❤️
Bugyei: But the thing; everyone is so wrapped up in their existence so they can’t see when someone desperately wants them and their company. Statuses also divide us even further; another person’s looks, friends, walk, talk it all differentiates us.
Me: Yeah!
People of class and stature have an overdose of attention. But sometimes they feel very lonely because they feel people care about them because of what they have and what they put up. Loneliness is only cured when we’re accepted for who we are freely.
Bugyei: They also reject those who see them for who they truly are. So can there really be any cure?
Me: The need for love is just like that for sleep or food. Abraham Maslow called it a social need and placed in the middle of the pyramid. It actually needs to be satisfied daily
Bugyei: What about self-love, is that not enough?
Me: It is only self-love that sustains a person who is alone from being Lonely. However, there is a journey towards it. It’s like kids. They must be nurtured until they can nurture on their own. Unfortunately, not everyone reaches maturity but everyone starts off as a child. At the highest maturity and enlightenment, we don’t need Love because we are Love. We are all one with God, the source of Love.
Bugyei: And for those who are not Christian?.
Me: We all go through a similar journey on this one, regardless of our beliefs and labels. The danger, however, is when we slash hard on people so desperate for another’s affection. We are called to love, not to shame people into loving themselves. People eventually learn to love themselves when they’ve received so much love. A child once asked, “can I be a good father if I’ve never been loved?”
Bugyei: And what was the answer?
Me: He wasn’t answered. It brought tears in the eyes of the adults around. His father was a drunkard who always abused his mom. He was taken away from him and sent to a foster home, where he asked this question to a preacher preaching about God’s love.
I hope you enjoyed this insightful conversation. Loneliness is as bad for you as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, as dangerous as obesity, and increases the likelihood of an early death by 26%.
Let’s kill loneliness before it kills us. I hope this conversation compels you to love fully and freely; to accept people for who they are; to love with a purpose and without condition. Remember, where there is purpose and acceptance, loneliness suffocates.
I love you ❤️
Me: Turns out there’s an epidemic of loneliness in the 21st century, ironically
Bugyei: But is it common with young adults?
Me: Yhup! Most people can only identify about 6 emotions so the rest go unnoticed. Truth is, there’s not a single moment that we’re not experiencing one emotion or another.
That means people sometimes attribute sadness, grief, apathy, hunger, destitution and many others to loneliness when it isn’t always the case or vice versa.
Bugyei: So what does it mean to be lonely?
Me: It’s a feeling of void, emptiness, isolation. What sets loneliness apart is that it stems from lost or unformed relationships, basically human interaction.
We’re emotional beings who need intimacy, love and attention. When we’re underfed on these, we begin to feel lonely.
Bugyei: So the problem is not with the lonely person (the victim) but the object of his need.
Me: Exactly! That’s the underlying problem of the problem. Little acts of rejection hits us hard in the chest, and sometimes we don’t notice our own selves trying so hard to belong.
That’s why it’s good to show little acts of kindness to people. They NEED it, even if they don’t know that they need it. It’s a necessity good.
Bugyei: Well, a simple hello can help heal the heart.
Me: Sometimes a sincere word of kindness too does it.
I love you ❤️
…to be continued
We all make mistakes. The beauty of being human is in our flaws and frailty revealing the handiwork and masterpiece of our Creator. It is better to make mistakes than to fake perfection. Faking perfection means living for their acceptance. If we live for their acceptance, we’ll die from their rejection. So just be you, and allow others to be their higher self by living your higher self.
Defining how others should cope with you should be a boundary of authenticity rather than a limitation of freedom. Don’t live to please anyone. On the other hand, don’t live to intentionally displease someone. Both are in different directions but still emanates an inauthentic lifestyle lived in reaction to someone else.
Sometimes people try to expose what’s wrong with you, because they can’t appreciate what’s right about you.
Truth is, we can never like everything about someone. There will always be something that someone does or how the person lives life that we would dislike. If we can’t think of anything of that sort concerning someone in particular, then it means we have overlooked their flaws and not that they have no flaws.
Funny enough, we don’t even like everything about our ownselves. We can sometimes meet someone and not like how they live their life, and we don’t even know them lmao. Bottom line: you cannot correct every opinion people have about you. Free yourself from the need to do so. Everyone has the right to think whatever they want about anything. Don’t waste your energy.
If someone isn’t what others want them to be, the others become angry. Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should live their lives, but none about his or her own.
We can’t be going round telling everyone about the things they do that we don’t like and what we don’t like about them. On the other hand, we shouldn’t be Mr Nice or Mrs Nice who is always okay with everything and allows everyone to tread over them. It’s a world of balance, not of perfection. Confront and correct the things something can be done about and accept the things you can’t change.
There is a difference between a personality and an attitude. Laziness is not a personality trait; it’s an attitude. Being lazy cannot therefore be someone’s personality, and most importantly, something can be done about it.
Attitude > Behaviour (based on personality traits) > Character
If we can’t accept someone’s personality trait and we want them to change to fit into our own biased definition of how to live life, then we are stabbing our ownselves in the back. Usually, that means we are projecting ourselves on the person and comparing their flaws to our strengths. Surely, there are some others who hate us for being ourselves but who cares? At the end of the day, it is the opinions of the people who matter the most to us that will matter the most to us.
This is the everlasting truth: if we are truly living our higher, true and authentic self, we would allow others to be themselves also. If we are always wanting others to change and fit into our own little boxes, it’s a sign that we are living inside the box ourselves. How we see others says more about us than about others. Any free man would wish everyone was free so they could experience the kind of freedom he is experiencing. If a free man wishes that everyone else should be made captive and he only free, it’s a sign that his mind is captive.
Be who you are and say how you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.
Know who you are; your preferences, your style, your interests, your innate abilities; free from the impurities of this world, free from other people’s assumptions, free from your own misconceptions, free from the deep lies you choose to believe about yourself. For anyone who truly knows himself/herself is not perturbed with what others may misconceive about him/her.
So now the most ideal question is, who am I? Follow this link to understand more about who you are.
I love you ❤
And now I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. John 13:34 GNB
Romans 5:5 says, “This hope does not disappoint us, for God has poured out his love into our hearts by means of the Holy Spirit, who is God’s gift to us.”
Someone may ask now; how will I get this Love of God to love people?
The Love of God is not far-fetched. It has been poured and is continually being poured into our hearts till we love all people with this very love. When someone is giving you a hard time, your prayer shouldn’t be that God should punish them so that they see their offence. Your prayer should be that God should pour more of His Love for them into your heart. The truth is this: brotherly love, romantic love and parental love – they all get tired and wear out eventually. The Love of God is eternal and continually renews within you.
You can only love one another with the Love of God when you have experienced this Love of God for yourself. And no one in the world can say that nobody in this world loves them – though that’s one of the commonest lies the enemy tells us – for we have all tasted of God’s sweet liquid Love. Oh, how sweet! When He pours His liquid Love into my heart; that is the greatest pleasure in the world.
Whenever we love one another with the Love of God, the Love of God in their hearts reignites too. We cannot love without the Love of God. Whatever we genuinely love, even if it’s a career or hobby, aircraft or reading, we love it with the Love of God. That’s why regardless of what happens to us when we’re doing something we genuinely love with the Love of God, we’re not in despair.
So I want you to be conscious of all good things. May your consciousness fill up with only thoughts that put a smile on your face. Learn to worship God in your everyday life. Set your affections towards God. Every other thing wears us out, trust me. Loving is effortless. Whenever you find that you’re struggling with Love, pray to the LORD in you. Learn to go on your knees more. Cultivate that habit. It makes your life more refreshed and purposeful. Now you understand when I always end my message with this;
I love you ❤
Understanding “understanding” is knowing the similarities between two seemingly dissimilar word meanings. The opposite is equally true. There is such an in-depth understanding and enlightenment when we realize the difference between two words with similar meanings. Inasmuch as it’s important to know how honesty and transparency must co-exist in our relationships, in some context these words take sides and it becomes very important to choose one over the other. Let’s dive in.
Transparency is spilling out what someone will need to know about you – because it directly concerns them – without being asked to, so as to let them know what they are getting their heads into.
The closer we are to someone, the more open we are to them. Very close yet very open. That is what transparency is really about. The difficulty that comes with Transparency is knowing what to keep private and for how long it should remain private
Our level of relationship with someone determines what they have earned the right to know. They may never ask because they may have no clue. There are many things we keep to ourselves, where no one deserves to know because it doesn’t affect them directly. But once you’re sharing your life with someone else other than you, those things will eventually be exposed. The more vulnerable we are, the more we expose what we are.
Letting them know beforehand creates a bond of trust right at the start. You are saying I’m worthy of being in your circle because you have exposed something to me that not just anybody can know. Hiding it from them and they later finding out creates a bond of distrust. The longer the relationship has been and the longer you’ve kept it a secret, the stronger the bond of distrust.
Being an introvert myself, I find it really weird when I get to know someone for a short while and they trust me with such vital information about themselves. In my mind, I’m like, “TMI..TMI”. This is the principle; start from the known to the unknown. There are things someone can easily get to know about you by asking a few friends, studying the way you go about things and checking out your profile online. Start from there. Allow the other person to earn the right to know certain not-so-obvious stuff. Don’t be an open book.
When the mutual interest to get to know each other is identified, begin to tell them things only a few would know as time goes by. When it dawns on you that they should probably get to know something about you, tell them right away. Trust your intuition! It tells you what to share when to share it and to the degree it should be shared at a time.
This is where the line between Transparency and Honesty is drawn. Honesty is telling the truth when I’m asked. Transparency is telling the truth because it deserves to be known. Honesty comes with a condition; you have to ask first. Transparency requires no permission. It is necessary to be honest and much more important to be transparent. Once I’m not questioned, there’s no accountability for my honesty or dishonesty.
If you have a medical condition, it’s important that your new friend gets to know at the early stages. If you’re single-divorced, your new catch might wanna know. And if you skipped to read only the last paragraph, I might wanna know lol.
I love you ❤️
If there is one thing that is forever relevant in the world system, it is finances. Throughout human history, legal tender has changed. The complexity of the legal tender always reflected the monetary system put in place for financial transactions to be possible. However, the need and relevance has barely changed; only evolving with time.
Gone is the generation where the woman only stays home to take care of the house while the man goes out to work for sustenance. In our world today, for the family to fluorish financially both parents step out the door for work. This has brought about new challenges on coping with finances.
In this life, realize that sitting to think about a situation before venturing into it is the best way to tackle that situation. Thus, this write-up is really necessary for singles and young couples. Trust me, if you don’t plan beforehand what you’ll say when – for instance – you go for an interview, what you’ll do when you are broke etc, you can end up embarrassing yourself or making an avoidable wrong decision. Even thieves plan what they’ll do when they are about to get caught. You hope for the best, yes: but do plan for the worst.
Here are 3 outlined things I have come to understand about this issue;
As a couple, the idea of doing everything together sounds romantic. Actually, it’s not always realistic. You are not two halves making a whole. You are individuals coming together as a couple. So you need to have a life of your own, complemented by the life you share with your partner. In simple English when it comes to finances, have your own money. Don’t put all your money together.
If you put your money together, if you’re broke you’re broke together. Yet, if you had your own money separate from the one you had together, one can be broke for a season and be supported by the other. In this way, you fulfill the reason for being a couple.
Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble.
Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 NLT
Complement each other. Divide major expenditure brackets among yourselves. As a man, I will take care of the car. As a woman, you take care of the rent. So once payday is due, everyone knows what they are taking care of. It could even be in percentages. As a man, I will take care of 40% of the school fees while the lady takes care of the 60%. There is no formula to this. It does not need to be rigid or fixed because circumstances change often. It really depends on the level of understanding between the two of you.
Compromise, don’t compete. Usually, men feel inferior when their partner makes more money than they do. It feels like the woman would get to make more vital decisions in the relationship because of how important finances are. That notwithstanding, your partner is your helper and not your competition. You are not trying to beat them. You both are coming together to face life. So you need everything you can get, including extra cash from a richer spouse.
Depending on how we were brought up and the coping skills we picked along the way, we tackle finances differently. We can however group everyone under two main umbrellas. “Saving-oriented” and “Spending-oriented”. Proverbs 13:7 says “some who are poor pretend to be rich; others who are rich pretend to be poor.”
It’s human nature to “waste” resources once there’s that feeling that there’s more than enough resources available. This is because human wants are insatiable. Immediately you get enough money, you tend to feel more comfortable and begin to spend on your insatiable wants. That is natural.
Nonetheless, there are people who develop a saving-oriented attitude towards money. They are slow to spend, critical of the amount they have at the moment and barely buy out of impulse. The Spending-oriented easily releases money, doesn’t count until it’s almost finished and usually don’t know how their money run low so fast.
A couple who are both Spending-oriented is a disasterclass. They will end up spending three-month salary in advance. When both are saving-oriented, it’s bad in a different way. Ask them rich kids who look rich but aren’t allowed to spend rich. They are so rich yet live so poor. Proverbs 13:7 is so true.
Thus, identify your financial personality as a couple. Who likes spending? Who has cultivated a unique habit of saving? Who doesn’t count the cost until the money is finished? Who has so much money but still lives within their initial budget? Understanding who is what creates the balance both of you need. After all, coming together as a couple ought to strengthen your strengths and weaken your weaknesses. Where one falls short, the other is a suitable helper.
I hope you’ve learnt so much from this. Please leave a comment. I would like to hear from you. Speaking of finances, this website is monetized so please do well to like and share to any platform you know would help. I love you ❤
Many start well and end terribly. It is better if they never started in the first place. That makes one begin to ask, “what even happened along the way?” How on earth did Solomon mess it all up at the last minute? Was Samson always that stupid? How did Saul keep messing up in the end like that? What at all was Adam thinking?
To think we are above their errors is a joke. You can mess it all up even before you know it. Some of us may have even started messing it up, but pride keeps us from acknowledging it to ourselves. If this post touches your heart, then you must re-dedicate your life to Christ while it is still day. The night will soon come.
For all those who fall along the way, some few things run through. Secret sin; having knowledge of God and a form of godliness but lacking the power thereof; living in unforeseen pride; and trying to work our way back when all we need to do is surrender EVERYTHING and come as we are, just like the prodigal son. Your zeal for God is slowly dying out. Wake up, precious one.
I will give you a new heart and a new mind. I will take away your stubborn heart of stone and give you an obedient heart.
Ezekiel 36:26 GNB
Before I got to know that this was an actual verse in the Bible, I had had a vision long long ago where Jesus did an operation on me. He removed a piece of stone where my heart was supposed to be and put an actual heart there. Then, with His fingertips, He wrote on my heart. I could feel it. James calls it the engrafted Word of God. It is written on our hearts.
This is how God tackles the root of the problem. The symptom is not the sickness. You have high fever because the body raised its normal temperature in order to kill the parasite. The high fever isn’t the problem. The parasite in your bloodstream is. You see, pride is the quicksand that makes sure you keep sinking in your sin.
Instead of taking a prescription to reduce our temperature, God gave us the medication to cure our sickness of sin; a new heart. Out of the heart comes the issues of life. That is where who we truly are is really hidden. Desire a good heart. Once you have a good heart, you can have a good life. Forget about the philosophies of the world and their misconceptions. Desire a good heart. If you have a stubborn heart, there’s no hope that you will finish your race.
“…speak evil of no one, be peaceable, gentle, showing all humility to all men. For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another.”
Titus 3:2-3 NKJV
When Kojo was young and full of Nigerian-movie scenarios, he couldn’t possibly fathom why married couples divorce. “I mean, if the two of you love each other”, he explained away, “I don’t see the reason why you should divorce”. He exclaimed, “just go on a vacation or something. The guy should buy her flowers and the girl should prepare him his favorite meal”.
A lot of us talk like that, especially concerning situations we’ve never been in ourselves. Truth is, it is easy to criticise a mistake you’re not part of. On other hand, it is easy to give excuses for a flaw you find yourself in. So we find ourselves in a dilemma; being hard on others for not being perfect, yet explaining how it’s not really our fault when we are the ones who fall short.
Remember, Jesus said it is those who are merciful that shall receive mercy. It is the same standards you use to judge others that you’ll be judged by. It’s unnecessary to blame Adam for your demise after all what the second Adam did. Remember this: what you’re heavily judging others for, you’re going to meet a similar test in future. You may have forgotten what you said about the situation, but Jesus said He will judge us for every idle word we said.
No form of temptation is above you. Have some compassion on the fallen. Show mercy to the cripples. Be an extension of God’s grace in someone’s life. Rebuke in private. The tables will soon turn, and pride may keep you from acknowledging your wrongs because you have a “public image” to protect, o thou holier than thou. The merciful shall be shown mercy. This is true wisdom.
“I am the Lord, who made all things,
who alone stretched out the heavens,
who spread out the earth by myself,
who frustrates the signs of liars
and makes fools of diviners,
who turns wise men back
and makes their knowledge foolish.”
Isaiah 44:24-25
We human beings go through lengthy stretches of our lives with an “I’ve got this” posture. We convince ourselves we know what’s best in any particular situation or what’s right for any particular problem. We convince ourselves that we “get it.” We maintain this belief . . . until we can’t anymore . . . until we find we don’t actually know all that we think we know. We maintain it until we finally face the reality that God is God and we are not.
Trust me, God has destroyed my very foundations of truth TWICE. Don’t pass there. You may even end up being an atheist if you’re not careful. Stop trying to build up knowledge of God. It sounds like a bad advice but hear me out. God will ALWAYS bring confusion to the Tower of Babel. Because of who He is, because of who we are, there’ll always be a tremendous amount of mystery in the relationship. We must be willing to accept and embrace it—and not let it become an impediment.
Even if we had access to know all the answers, we won’t have the capacity to understand it all. Such knowledge may even destroy us. You may “need” to know why something is the way it is or why something happened the way it did, but most times we simply cannot—and still we must believe, and still we must obey. To be in right relationship with God we must instead adopt a posture of “I don’t know . . . and I’ll do what He asks nonetheless.” Trust in God because none other than the fact that He is God and you are not.
Have a personal relationship with God. Not for ministry, not like God is a system, not as a ritual. God is a person. Chat with Him like a friend. Walk with Him daily. It is the only remedy. Start from there, and forget about all the super-spiritual showoff of knowledge. Seek God with all your heart. All that passion within you, pour into seeking God. That journey is life-changing. It will automatically break the cycle of sin and penance.
Dear Lord, I humble myself before you and confess my sin. I want to thank you for hearing my prayer and helping me return to you. Lately, I’ve been wanting things to go my own way. As you know, this hasn’t been working out. I see where I’ve been going the wrong way—my own way. I’ve been placing my faith and trust in everyone and everything but you.
Dear Father, I return now to You, the Bible, and your Word. I pray for guidance as I listen for Your voice. Let me return to what is most important—You. Help my attitude to change so that instead of focusing on others and events to meet my needs, I can turn to You and find the love, purpose, and direction I seek. Help me to seek you first. Let my relationship with You be the most important thing in my life.
I give You back control of my life. You are the only one who gives freely, with love to anyone who asks. The simplicity of it all still astounds me. Thank you, Jesus, for helping me, loving me, and showing me the way. Thank You for new mercies, for forgiving me. I rededicate myself to You wholly. I surrender my will to Your will. In the Name of Jesus, I pray.
Amen.
“If God didn’t want us to have sex before marriage, He would have given us our sexual organs on our wedding days”, says the fool who refuses to think deep. No boss will pay you a salary on the first day of employment. No tree will bear fruit on the first day of planting. Besides, people in ancient times used to be given in marriage soon after their puberty was discovered. The point is, no one is stopping you from enjoying sexual pleasure. God is rather preventing you from tremendous destruction.
With great freedom comes less safety. Thus, the need to keep sexual pleasure within the safety of a commitment. If you’ve been involved in sexual immorality of any form before, you’d realize it has a really high addictive power. You can get addicted to porn for the majority of your life, fornicate every weekend, masturbate when the opportunity presents itself and lust continuously after someone almost every day. In fact, it is the highest sin one can commit (because it is a sin against your own body: 1 Cor 6:18) and the one that can permanently destroy your life the most.
Yet, let’s not give it all the credit. It is not the most powerful force in the world. It is not the strongest drive. It’s not even the most addictive. Evil always looks like the winner when compared to good. That’s why I like what 1 Peter 1:14 says. Some versions use the word “ignorant”. We were ignorant. That’s why we kept going back. We thought the edge is too strong. That’s why we give in to it all the time. We didn’t know any better.
So how do we live above that? It’s simple, not easy. We need to live as God’s obedient children. God will never lead us into temptation. If we find ourselves in one, His Voice will be loud and clear on what we must do. See it this way; it is more difficult to hear God’s Voice and still disobey. For His Voice will keep ringing in our minds and hearts to flee, to stop, to not venture, to expose the darkness, to unhide the secret sinful life. For no sexual sin can exist in Light.
If you have never indulged in one form of sexual immorality like say, fornication, don’t fancy those who do. Don’t judge them either. In a few years to come, you can find yourself in a similar situation as theirs, if not even worse. If you have made up your mind to keep yourself until marriage, keep that mindset intact. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise. Don’t let anyone belittle your virginity to you. Even rags have value, how much more wedding dresses.
If you have dirtied yourself before and you feel devalued, get up from the mud and keep going. It’s not the end of the journey. This may not sound encouraging but there are far worse temptations awaiting you. There are bigger mountains to climb. Don’t let this hill look like it’s the end of the road. If you don’t even care anymore because you’ve gone too far and you’ve been in too deep, I’m here to tell you that it’s not too late. The prodigal son was competing with pigs to eat but the day He returned, His Father gave him the best robe, put a ring on his finger and got sandals on his feet. These three things represent his royalty, authority and dignity. In just one day, he was completely restored and he never went back.
This post is for you. It is exactly what you need to hear right now. There is still hope. Grace is still available. There is still enough power, to stay pure in a sexually immoral world. I love you ❤️
Life
Life promises you so much beyond your imagination on the day of your arrival. Literally everyone has a clean sheet and a bright future. However, we stepped in blind from a dark womb. Our own cry puzzles us. Aren’t we supposed to be happy to be born? And this one that I’ve caused such extreme pain, why is she pretending to be happy? Will it cause similar pain to leave this realm?
It didn’t take me long to know that life is a driver, who has no idea where he’s taking me. Or perhaps, he makes me the driver, having no experience and bumping into situations and circumstances beyond my control well enough before figuring out there are no brakes. To add insult to injury, the steering wheel is as stiff as my thinking. Unable to see the road, my vision is shortsighted. Can’t see the bigger picture, ’cause there are so many details in the little I can see.
After being able to figure out how to drive after so many mistakes, pain and hurt, I realise I’m in the middle of one gigantic labyrinth with so many drivers as reckless and clueless as me. When you do not know where you’re going, any road will take you there. I try to find my path. Once in a while, I take a hit from other vehicles. Some leave a permanent scar on my skin. Some, just a bruise. All take so long to heal.
What we all have in common is brokenness. No matter how careful or reckless you are, it’s indubitably inevitable.
Many begin to follow my tracks. Little do they know that U have no idea where I’m headed. With time we each began to find our path. Some, much earlier; others, a little later. And oh, the joy of riding in my own lane, competing with no one as no one in their path competes with me. I ask you to take your time to look all around you. What life once promised comes to mind,
Find your path & know your place, the right people will eventually come along
Life is not meant to be figured out. Life is meant to be lived. In the end, it will all make sense. For the time being, life is not entitled to make sense to you. God has His own way of connecting dots that we thought weren’t part of the story. So live. Live to the fullest. Live life more abundantly. For when we have life, we can have everything else. But when we lose the Life, we lose everything.