When Love is not enough

If you asked me what love means, I wouldn't attempt an answer. It's one of those things that we cant seem to describe, right up there along with the meaning of life, and because it's so difficult to define it becomes easy to trivialize. It becomes easy to throw the word around without pausing to think about whether we mean it or not and even when we do the impact it has on the person to whom we are saying it. What has always bothered me is  how I can claim to feel something I do not understand. I love my family, that I know as sure as I know the sun is yellow but why do I love them? Is it because they love me? Was I conditioned to love them? Lord knows they aren't perfect, they do wrong and yet I love each and everyone of them. So why do I love them? Honestly, I don't know but I know that I cant stop.


The more I think about it one thing becomes clearer no matter how much i love or have loved, it isn't enough. I was in a relationship for a long time and at a point I was certain it could only end one way, I was in love, he loved me, I loved him, all roads lead to one destination, right? Wrong. That relationship ended and a number of people struggled to understand why, we loved each other and that was all that mattered, so what had happened? I had just one answer, love is not enough. Let me attempt an analogy, medical doctors have admitted that the will  to live plays a huge part in the recovery of a patient, patients with a stronger will to live were more likely to recover, however the doctors will not simply leave a patient to 'fight to live' without providing medical support. Get it now? What I'm trying to say is that it is not enough to love someone for everything to fall in place, love takes a lot of work. It is like a fickle flame that must be watched and fanned to be kept alive.


The greatest love of all is the 1st Corinthians 13 love, the agape love, the purest love.

"...love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. it is not rude, it is not self seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. it always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails."

Lets do a practical exercise here, if you're in love or love someone (not just romantically) raise your hand. Now take each of these attributes one by one and see whether they are reflected in this love that you feel. For instance, are you kind to this person? are you patient with them? Now how many of us have this kind of love for anyone? How many of us have this kind of love for God?


My hand went up the first time and for the second and third questions I had put it down. I don't love anyone with the kind of love described in Corinthians, I said I love my family but I am not always patient or kind to them, sometimes I am rude and I do keep record of wrongs. However the saddest part for me was realizing that even towards God I fall short in the kind of love I should have for Him. He asks me to wait and trust in Him but I am not always patient, He asks me to be kind to him by being kind to His manifestation on earth in the people around me, my prayer is not filled with songs of adoration, telling Him how much I love Him but of all the things I want from Him. Sometimes I don't trust that He can handle some things, some 'miracles' are just impossible. It broke my heart to realize that I was short-changing God on the kind of love I should have for Him and even more so when I know that He has the Corinthians kind of love for me. He is patient with me even when I am childish in His ways, He is so kind to me, blessing me with more than i deserve, He blots my transgressions and forgets my sins (Isaiah 43:25) He gave the blood of His son just to protect me, He trusts and perseveres, hoping that one day I will be all that He has called me to be.


I'm trying to make two important points here and the first is that the important thing is not conceptualizing what we feel or why we feel what we feel. The second thing is that even if we love the way we should, love is never enough. In our relationships love needs trust, it needs affirmation, sacrifice, patience, security and without these (and probably more) love tends to die out. With God, even if you stand on Kilimanjaro and declare your love for Him it means nothing if you cant do His will (John 14:15) Loving Him doesn't get you a free pass. He needs more than your love for Him, He needs your love for Him to drive your life, to propel you in all that you do, He needs it to be affirmed by your actions and just like the next person He needs you to tell Him as often as you can.

Tell Him you love Him, and when you're done tell someone  else you love them and really mean it!


I love you!


Nengidee

Because You're Worth It

I haven't been able to write for a while now because words literally fail me, my heart has been brimming with so much to say, I just didnt know how to put my heart into words.

I have waged a battle in my spirit for a long time now, I've been angry at everyone, angry at God but mostly I've been angry at myself. I feel like if I live my life right then things shouldn't go wrong and it hurts me because I feel like it shouldn't be hard for God to make my life right if He loves me as much as His word says he does. So I tried blackmail, I made deals, I made promises and still finding my prayers unanswered, I rebelled. I did(do) things which amount to walking outside God's will and at the end of my rope when the disappointment and self loathing kick in I find myself asking God to give up on me because deep down I have given up on myself.

Lets look at it this way, we know we were born for a purpose and that there is a standard for living to reach that purpose. The standard for living is clear and simple; be imitators of Christ (1 Cor 1:11). We all know how easy that one is. When I first became grounded in my faith, anytime I slipped the pain was literally searing and I would immediately ask God for forgiveness, however I noticed that each time I strayed away from God and sinned I would begin to rationalize my actions "Oh, she deserved it, she insulted me first" or "Oh, its not wrong, everybody does it" and at its worst I would be overcome with a numbness and couldn't even care, like I had sinned yeah yeah, lets move on, afterall if God had answered my prayers I wouldnt be in this position so lets face it, it was God;s fault. This is the most terrifying place to find yourself as a Christian, that point where you just don't care, when you've thrown in the towel and said "God it's too hard for me to be like you so just give up on me and face the next person". I know I've been there, I've lived there, maybe because I was frustrated or maybe because I had genuinely started to believe that I was past redemption and would never be all that God had called me to be.

So i start to ask myself "If i've given up then why do i care? Why is there an echo of a fight in me?" Then I realise that its because God has simply refused to give up on me and then I ask myself "why?" I have literally told God to move on, that I wasnt ready to live as He had called me to so why was He on my case? His answer was so clear "Because you're worth it" It was something that i struggled to understand, Worth it? How can I be worth it? I come from filth, I have been in filth, I am weak, resentful, angry and lazy, how can i be worth it? Then He reminds me that its not what i've been through that justifies me but what He's done for me, what He's sacrificed for me. The minute He gave Jesus to die for me my value was increased significantly and not even a sinful life could detract from that.

These words literally came to me this morning and as I lay in bed thinking about them it was like a puzzle being finished before my own eyes. I know that I am worth it, that's why there's a battle for my soul, God doesn't want me in heaven simply to win a numbers game with the devil but because he knows all that He has invested in me, He knows my potentials, what I'm capable of, He knows my worth. The devil on the other hand is trying to win a numbers game so that he can spite God and say to him "Look at her, after all you gave her, after all you invested in her, this is the one you sent your son to die for and at the end of the day I got her" It plays out in front of my eyes and I realize that God is giving me a choice again and I can realise and accept that I am worth everything He has done for me, that I am worthy of His loving me and having endless hope that one day I can live up to His expectations for me.

I've decided to snap out of my spiritual lethargy and I wont pretend for a second that it will be easy getting back in tune with  the Holy Spirit but if coming to the realization that I am worth it is all I accomplish today then that in itself is a big step.

So maybe you're having one of those days when you feel that life is too hard and that you cant live up to expectations, maybe you're tired of living right and having everything go wrong or maybe you have given up on yourself, God is reminding you that no matter what He will never give up on you because He knows what He's placed inside of you and what He gave up so you could live, He wont give up on you because you're worth it.

Keeping the faith

"Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering for He is faithful that promised" - Hebrews 10:23. 

Faith: the number one requirement in the manual to being a Christian. Without faith it is impossible to please God, its importance cannot be overstated. Keeping the faith? Now thats entirely different, how easy is it to be faith-filled in the midst of lack, in death, in confusion, in sickness? Not very easy, but that doesn't diminish its importance. God is merciful but our lapses are not justified by the trials we go through. My faith levels waver more dangerously than the weight of a yo-yo dieter but because i know what my faith means to me I get back up each time. I marvel when I talk to atheists because I don't understand how they can go through life without being moored to something thats bigger than themselves, I know I couldn't. My faith keeps me sane, it keeps me grounded because in the midst of it all it reminds me that no matter what happens around me I have a goal, a place I must reach and because I know the devil will try to steal my faith with the trials of this life, I will guard it jealously and  encourage you to do the same.  One reader shares the difficult journey that brought him to a place of renewed faith in God.

 

I've never really thought of myself as ‘normal’. My mum reminds me of a time I was about 3 years old and terribly ill. I was unable to keep anything down, she put her hands on my head and prayed and the moment she was done I sprang up from bed and began running all over the house screaming 'I'm well, I'm well'. Miraculously I was healed and didn't need any medicines after that. What baffles me now is how I could have so much faith as a child, faith that eludes me sometimes now, and how I can remember that day so vividly. My life has been ‘drama-filled’, even before I was aware of it, in the throes of labour, my mother drove herself to the hospital. Between then and now a lot has happened, some of them were ALL my fault and others I didn’t think I'd ever understand why they happened to me. I had thought on several occasions that I was cursed or that God just didn't give a rats tail about people like me. I had some good reasons to feel this way, I had four close friends and today three of them are dead, not the kind of deaths I'd wish on anyone either. I held one of them in my hands as he bled to death after being shot at 18, another drowned to death while he was trying to escape a police raid and the third died in a car accident...guess who was driving? Why I survived that accident PHYSICALLY unscathed is yet another mystery to me, I say physically because many years later the invisible scars remain and they haunt me. I believed that I survived because I was chosen for extraordinary things, but by the time I was 23 I saw life differently, it was inevitable with the mental scars I carried and the dysfunctional group that I call family. Let's just say I was and still am a pretty different thinking human and not necessarily in a good way either. I know that some people reading this would probably say I couldn’t walk a mile in their shoes, at which point I’d smugly point out that I’m the one telling the story. If you think that way, in a way you wouldn’t be wrong because I’m not just telling my story, at some point we’ve all been where I’ve been, the only difference is that we all haven’t ended up at the same place. I've had super trials in my life, but if that's the case how come we don't all come out of these trials for the better? I HONESTLY think that its because of the very first thing I talked about in the beginning, FAITH. Now I'm not saying I've always kept the faith that I had as a child. What I’m saying is that things didn't really change for me until I got that faith back (even now I haven't totally but I'm well on my way). At some point in my life I literally felt within me a constant battle for my soul, I could actually feel the war within me, sometimes I’d look in the mirror and could have sworn I saw someone else staring back at me for a split second, like someone was reminding me that he was there. I had dreams that kept me awake, at a point I was afraid to dream because some of my dreams actually came to pass. These issues came up again recently during my service year, I was posted to a bleak Northern state, it was hard to get used to the weather, I saw another level of poverty. To top it all my career seemed to be going nowhere, my 7 year relationship came to an end and on top of that colossal family issues. In one year I was stripped of EVERYTHING I thought was anything. In all of this a friend of mine asked me a profound question. He said “Don't you think someone's trying to say something to you?”  Thinking back, service year in that state was the best thing that could have happened to me. Hosea 6:1-2 says 'Come let us return to Yahweh, He who shattered us to pieces, will heal us as well; He has struck us down, but he will bind up our wounds'. The point is I had to go through everything I went through to be able to write this. I had to lose my friends in that manner to be able to appreciate the ones I have now, I had to be stupid broke to be able thankful for what I have now. I had to go through what I'm going through with my family so that I can avoid making the same mistakes when I get married and have kids. Most of all, I had to lose the faith of that 3 year old to be able to let go and genuinely leave everything in Gods hands now. I honestly believe God does not take it easy on people that he has some extra-ordinary love for therefore He will not let any little cock-up of yours slide because he knows your heart and sees who he wants you to be. Have you asked yourself in all honesty whether you're supposed to be alive today? I could have died at least four times over by now. In the words of my friend, maybe someone is trying to tell you something??? I think the things I've been through and those I'm going through, God used to bring me back to Him. I think of Jesus who learned through suffering what obedience meant (Hebrews 5: 7-10). I'm not a preacher, just someone who feels his story could someway, somehow have an impact on someone else's. What I’m trying to say in so many words is that if you look through your tears, you’d realize that there's an extraordinary love for you, that all your tribulations are channeled towards your growth it all depends on whether or not you believe... *If you'd like to share your story or an experience please send me an email at nengidee@hotmail.com God bless you!

Carrying Your Worship

Have you ever gone to a new church and decided not to go back either because you didn't like the message or the choir, or maybe an usher (those mean people that never let us sit where we want to)? I'm sure most of us have. One thing that draws me to a church is the choir, give me a good choir and I'm sold.

For a long time I struggled with my identity as a Christian, who I was supposed to be in the house of God. Some were pastors, prophets, healers, prayer warriors and for a long time I struggled to find my niche. As a child I had been in the choir, drama, dance group and in uni had a short stint as an usher. As i grew older and spiritually I began to feel as though the fact that it was so hard to put myself in one place meant that I wasn't 'there' yet, and I continued to struggle. Many times people would ask if i had received the Spirit and i wouldn't know what to say. Anytime i spoke in tongues i felt like a fraud so i decided not to. When we'd be asked to pray in the spirit I would piously pray in English. I wasn't going to deceive myself so i didn't bother.

I had my epiphany about 4 years ago. My Dad had been diagnosed with prostate cancer and was scheduled to have his operation soon, he was in a bad shape and each morning I would wake up and look at him certain that it would be the last time I'd see him. I'd pray and then tell myself to prepare for the worst. Then one afternoon after i left the hospital it hit me that i wasn't ready to let my Dad go no matter what and I knew I had to tell God that. So I got home, locked myself in my room and settled down to pray, I knelt down and found that words failed me. I didn't know what to say, I just kept crying and saying "please God, please'. Then I started to sing worship songs. I told God he was awesome, He was magnificent, He was great, mighty and song after song they kept coming. I was crying and singing and I could feel myself being elevated into this place that I cannot describe. Suddenly I felt like I was the only one in the world, everything else seemed to fade away and there was this core I needed to pour myself into. I cried till I felt like I was dry inside and suddenly I felt like something was being pulled out of me. I began to hear this voice, a strange guttural sound speaking a language I did not understand and it took me a moment to realise it was coming from me. I couldn't stop it, I dont know how long I laid there on the floor because after a while i fell asleep.

I woke up and suddenly everything felt different, I felt lighter. I smiled through the rest of the day because more than ever I was so certain that God understood how I felt and it had taken a language I did not understand to let Him know and it had taken true worship to get me to speak in a language I did not understand. That was when I knew who I was in the kingdom of God. I was a worshipper, I was the one who told Him that I knew who He was and how happy I was to know Him the way I did. Identifying who I was was a big step for me because when things got hard I knew what I had to do.

One pastor said something that was so profound, he was telling us about when he went to a Haitian church, he said they worshipped in their language and yet he was blessed because he had carried his worship there. When they worshipped as they knew how, he worshipped as he did. This made me realize something very important, a lot of Christians go to church to take while they are not prepared to give anything back. Let me explain, we carry all our problems, all our desires and march them to church expecting a quick fix, and if the pastor or choir fails to ‘deliver’ then ‘oh it’s a bad church, that pastor cant preach, the choir cant sing’. I know this because I have been guilty of it. If Christ is in us and we are the church, we go to church not only to partake but to give back, we have to carry our worship, our own praise and not to expect someone to do it for us. Worship is so important to me because it helps me to magnify God and set my focus a hundred percent on Him, it makes me receptive, open to hear from Him. It does things for me that are difficult to put into words and since I know how important it is to me I carry my worship with me wherever I go, in the shower, on the bus, walking on the road.

If you’ve ever been in love then you’d understand what I mean, how  you feel when your partner says the right things to you, imagine if you could make God feel a fraction of what you felt. As much as God is omnipotent and beyond our understanding our relationship with Him is something within our grasp, something we have total control over. Use that power to your advantage, for your own good.

Nengidee

Welcome!

If i believed in horoscopes then i'd be able to better explain something about myself, i do quite a number of things rather well but i wouldn't say i am perfect when it comes to those things. I have a passable singing voice but i'm no Mariah Carey, i make hair well but i'm no Nicky Clarke either and I write well but i'm no Soyinka. One thing I know though is that I know how to get my point across, I can take the feelings inside me and put them to words. It took me a long time to realize how this could be a gift and how to use it the right way. 

I started blogging last year, it was a personal blog and i remained anonymous. I would talk about my life, the things that had happened to me, my relationships with different people and sometimes shared experiences. It provided release for me when i needed it, like i could take my words and throw them into the air and someone somewhere would catch it. However what it did not give me was fulfillment, it didn't give me relevance either. I wanted to be witty, i wanted people to read my blog and laugh and even though they didn't know who I was I wanted them to like me, at least the me I was when I sat behind my computer.

I don't know when it changed, when it stopped being enough but I'm glad it did, because here I am, as I am. Not hiding behind the cloak of anonymity, not concerned about being liked or being popular or having hundreds of followers or subscribers. Maybe I'm here because of one person, and for that person I will strive to be all that God wants me to be, because its not for that one person alone its for me too.

I'm growing everyday, learning new things and excited in a way that i cannot explain, I want to share those things with you and I hope that you'll let me. Most of you are my friends and this may be a side to me that you are not familiar with but I encourage you to embrace it and encourage me. I welcome and value your support and your encouragement.

My writings will be centred on faith as it relates to everything around us, love, difference, tolerance and so much more. Please invite your friends and if you'd be interested in contributing to this space either by writing, moderating or being an interviewee please leave a comment with your email so I can contact you.

Looking forward to having you back,

Nengidee