THE STORM CALMER

It's been a tough week for me.Here is why;
 I love peace: to have peace of  mind and heart and to be at peace with God and men. That directly translates to the fact that anything that disrupts my peace serves to spoil my day.. So this has been one such week; with lots and lots of noise and quarrels on what we do and what we don't do. This affected me in every sense; right from my devotion to my happiness; so much so that I did not have the peace to seek The Prince of Peace. It is ironical don't you think so?  I think so too. 

So after two days of auto pilot mode it hit me that we seek what we lack; not what we have. So I humbled my proud self and decided to go back to the foot of the cross. I picked from where my consistent Bible reading had stopped. it coincidentally happened to be Mark 11.

As I read through  I came to the point that says if we pray for anything  with faith God will grant us and that if we hold a grudge against anyone we should forgive so that God will forgive us

24.Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. 25.And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”

Well i must admit that is the kind of verses that makes you feel stupid for reading it. You mean all this lack of peace would have been solved with peace if I simply asked for it? Then as I continued to reflect I was reminded of the verse that we do not have because we do not ask in
James 4:2.....You do not have because you do not ask God.  Let's say this added salt to injury.
Peace was just a prayer away??? More than stupid I felt foolish. 

I decide to read on and on and that takes me to chapter 12 where I read about the Pharisees and i  get that pharisaic feeling. I get the conviction that while faulting others I forgot to see the fault in myself. It strikes me that I have looked at  others through a microscope and at myself through a telescope.. No wonder I felt like the right one in all this hullabaloo. the spirit of God was reminding me that I am as terrible as man and in that case woman; can be. And i agree I can be terrible..  So there I am again repenting for being pharisaic.

That was the end of my Bible reading. I had a good share already. So i took the time to repent of my self-righteousness and to ask for peace moving forward. I was then reminded of the Philippians 4:6-7 that I should not be anxious about anything but in prayer and supplication I should make my request known to the Lord and He would give me a peace that surpasses all human understanding.

I get up ready to start my day. I feel energized rejuvenated and enthusiastic about what lies ahead. I know that I  know that things will not be the same again. Peace is my portion and love too.

I write this a day later and I am glad to report that there is so much peace here. Not because I prayed hard enough but because the Prince of Peace STILL lives.The Jesus who calmed the storm 2000+years ago can also calm the storm,  in our lives, in our offices, in our homes, whenever, wherever, whether internal or external storms.

"PEACE BE STILL" Jesus says to your troubling situation. "PEACE "

MAKING A DIFFERENCE

As part of my random reflections it struck my mind that there is a big difference between making a living and making a difference. While both are examples of making, the contrast is great.

Making a living focuses on self, on how I will be better, how 'I' will earn more,  how 'I' will beat everyone else. On the other hand, making a difference focuses on how to make the lives of others better even as we work on our own. 

I realized that there is more to life than making a living. There is making a difference which, in my opinion, will in the end be worth more than the living we make for ourselves. 

While making a living will soon be forgotten, making a difference will outlive us. No  one remembers that we had meals every day or that we had fat bank accounts. However, the small acts of kindness we do everyday, the small puddles we jump everyday for others, the efforts we make to make the lives of others better will forever be etched in their memories. This is what can outlive us.  Kathy Davis clearly reminds us this

In his own wisdom Ralph Waldo Emerson reminds  us that
“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”
When all is said done, while you are making a living, strive to make a difference in others' life.
Be the reason behind the smile on at least one's person's life. TOUCH A LIFE. In your own little way make that difference. it matters least how little the way is. It counts.

   

 

 At a younger age, we want to change the world. We look for big opportunities to revolutionize the world. At a certain age we finally make peace with the fact that we really might not make it to change the world. We recognize that though we cannot change it, we can make a difference in it and that difference will make a difference. if we all make the small differences in our humble capacities, we can turn the world around and make the desired change.

KEEP AT IT

There will be days when life feels like the hole in the doughnut,

When  you feel so alone in a crowd.

Those days when life is meaningless  makes literal sense.

Yes there will be days when all you want is to cover up in a blanket;

not to meet anyone;  let alone the person in the mirror

There will be days when frustration will seem to be your third name and fear your fourth
When all you have held onto feels like it's tumbling down
When all feels plainly  empty and you are not sure what can fill you up
When the bridges you tried so hard to build seem all burnt
And all feels like walls enclosing in a bricked room; never to break. 

Such days are sure to come. 

Yet weeping can only last a night and joy is sure to come in the morning.
So, hold on, hang in there, keep at it.
Don't let go before the sun rays have broken through the cloud.
For the sun will be sure to shine again. 

Hold on to hope but let go of the fragments on your hands,

Give them to the potter, He shall mould the pot yet again

He will restore its use to noble and honourable

He who made the pot can sure mend the broken

No matter how fragmented it may seem

HANDLE WITH GRACE

I have commonly seen it written on cartons;  handle with care!!! In some instances they even tell you the kind of substance inside whether liquid, glass, heavy material. The company even cautions one that there is heavy material inside. some companies do not leave anything to chance.. they even tell you which end up, which one down and which material is inside.All these cautions are good as they help the handlers to take necessary care as befitting the device they are handling.

Human beings come with similar cautions only they are not written in capitals on the forehead. However if we observed closely we would hear the unspoken words of people screaming, beseeching and pleading "please handle me with care " please handle me with grace " we would see the unwritten inscriptions behind their wrinkles and frowning faces.We would touch their hurts and feel their longing for an extension of grace to them.

Every human being comes with a package of emotions and feelings. I have heard it quoted and occasionally captioned that  the human ego is fragile as the hearts.

One thing that is sure is that it is easy to hurt people. Sometimes with our words sometimes with our actions.I raise the caution that  peoples' hearts are not made of stones. They are all flesh and blood. They all suffer pain. they all bleed when cut deep. If we are not careful we can easily leave a trail of hurting hearts and bruised people all around as just due to carelessness.

Over time, I have come to appreciate the fact that people walk into our lives for different reasons and seasons. That God is deliberate about the people He allows into our lives. Enough times we have mishandled God's own.

Maybe it is time we became more deliberate about being kind.
Today, I challenge us to handle with grace every person that God brings our way. For the season that the people are in our lives, handle them with care,  better than you would handle the cartons. Not so much for the fragility of the egos but because they are God's own creation; made in His image and likeness.

WITH CHRIST IN THE BOAT

Out of the twelve disciples of Jesus I bet I find Peter the most interesting. Could be because my brother is a Peter too but I don't think so.

Peter is seemingly so random so zealous in a rather likeable manner. I would guess if we could have a hybrid of Peter and Paul in matters spreading the gospel this nation would be saturated with a revival.  However I would like to focus on his cowardly brave day. His faith, faithless day
On this day Jesus had gone to a solitary place to pray after such a long day.A day of bad news of the death of John the Baptist and then to the miracle of feeding a multitude.

It is evening and the disciples are sailing in a boat. Then the waves start pounding on their boat and they were terrified.. They had to be anyway. How could they dare go to murky waters without Jesus?
Jesus comes towards the boat and our guy Peter says Jesus IF IT IS YOU; tell me to come. I like how specific he is. More like if it is not Jesus he wasn't willing to go. Then Jesus says Come. Peter leaves the boat and starts walking on water. Wow! I can imagine him feeling like a superstar. You know. Just walking on the water as on land and with ease while the other eleven watched on. A moment of courage and faith blended together.

When Peter looked at the winds He was frightened and he cried out to Jesus to save him. It is important to note that for as long as his focus was on Jesus, He walked. When he shifted attention to the winds, He began to sink and now starts to cry out for help..Really? Things were doing just fine until the time that focus shifted to the environment.
Jesus is shocked at how little Peter's faith is. When Jesus gets into the boat, the boat calms. Peace. The boat is still. That is the difference Jesus brings to our lives. He is the Prince of Peace. He calms the storms in our hearts.
For as long as Jesus is in our boat, we are safe. For as long as our attention is on Jesus rather than the storms and waves, we are secure.

                                             

Friend; Keep Jesus in your boat. Keep your focus on Him alone.

FREE FROM FEAR

I was reading through a friend's page only to find a sharing of a blogpost I had made close to four years ago before i disappeared into the thick air of knowledge hunting and thatching with Margaret(students of Moi University will understand what i mean). 

Four years down, I am here staring at a blog I started in my younger and innocent days of campus.A first year who had just completed her second semester in school and was apprehensive of the four years that lay ahead. A lot has changed since then. I am all grown now, taller, more plumb, less chubby but more knowledgeable. since I last posted. Moreover, I have come to know God better, we have become such good friends that we talk to each other daily, sometimes for hours.

I have also cleared campus and joined the world out there, but I am told that there is another out there that I have not been into yet. well so far so good. I am still experiencing God's favor. His mercies have been new each day.Goodness and mercies are surely still following me.
Last confession now,before I sign off and go for lunch, is that at some point, fear seized and crippled me, so much so that i did not fan into flame the desire and the gift of encouraging others. Fear is bad friends. However I am glad to report that in May 2016, I broke free from the chains of fear and i can say like the Bethel Music

I am no longer a slave of fear, I am a child of God.

In short,I have thrown fear out of the window. I am now free to encourage you, challenge you, inspire you and share with you my random thoughts of encouragement and convictions that i will be developing by the day.

Feel free to stop by anytime for refreshing by the ink drops.