4 I’s

Inconsistency Inevitably Invalidates Intensity

What if?

A piece I wrote ever so long ago and only just realised isn’t here on the site.
Hope you enjoy it!

Let’s say we’re wrong,
Us Christians and what we sing in our songs
let’s say the disciples of Jesus
went all out to fool us
and the stories of the bible
were bedtime stories for the people
say it was all some sort of fable
a tale from a land distant and impalpable

5 P’s

“Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance”

The Predator,

Kai Greene

The Best Ever: A lesson inspired by Rocky Balboa and Floyd Mayweather

In offering a rebuttal to the popular ideal Money May (Floyd Mayweather) asks, “How about you just don’t get hit?”

Whilst this proved to be an effective approach for the 49 – 0 pound for pound best boxer in a generation; Life tends to have significantly better aim.

Personally, I think Rocky got it right, you will never be smart enough, cautious enough, or just outright lucky enough (I don’t even believe in luck but that’s a discussion for another post ) to totally avoid hardship in life.
So when Life hits and it hits hard, what are you going to do?

Watched Over

The protector of Israel never dozes or sleeps. (Psalm 121:4 GNT)

Back in my boarding school in Ghana, West Africa, we had a tradition called “Akpakus”, which translates: School never ends. The concept was simple; for the last four or five days of the term you must not sleep.

Anyone you found sleeping was completely at your mercy, you could cover their faces with powder or any facial care product of your choice, remove their sleeping net, providing a buffet for mosquitoes, or my personal favourite, squeeze toothpaste in the palms of their hands and above their eyebrows, and wake them up. (Do not try this at home!) You didn’t need to fear any repercussions because it was “`Akpakus”.

How to pass (cheat) an eye exam.

It’s been a while since my last eye exam so I don’t know if this is still how they test it, but as I walked into the opticians office to have my eyes tested, I walked right next to the chart with all the randomly sized letters and almost instinctively took a good look at the smallest ones.
As I then proceeded with the test and went through the letters I could see at that distance, I realised I could very much see almost all of them.

To this very day I still don’t know if that was simply because I have exceptionally good eyesight or because I had seen the letters before the test.

2Ti 3:16a All Scripture is God-breathed.

Somehow, knowing what something is supposed to look, feel, taste, sound or smell like helps you “sense” it a little easier.

Try it, look around you and find something you can’t read because it is just that little bit too far away. Now, have someone tell you what it says and look again.

Can you now see it maybe just that little bit better? Can you actually see some of the words now?

You’ll find more often than not, (and I just tried this with a friend), you can now make out and actually see more words than you did before.

I find this same principle can be applied to God’s voice.

You might not know what His voice sounds like, or feels like just yet, or you might be wanting to gain a little more clarity on what you have come to know is God’s voice.
 I submit to you that reading and pondering His words (The Bible) will help you in this.

God will never contradict His Holy Bible, and luckily, no matter which version of it(The Holy Bible) you use, if you’re searching for Him (The One True God Jehovah), then it is His Spirit that will teach you His word and bring it to remembrance (John 14:26).

In saying all this the point I’m trying to make is this; Life can sometimes be like an Eye exam and to pass it you need to be able to discern what God is saying. It’s on the chart right in front of you but under various circumstances it can be hard to tell what it should read.
Let us endeavor to read and ponder God’s word a lot more, in order to pass (cheat) this exam (life) a little easier.

What’s in a name?

Another piece from the devotional I wrote back in University. Hope you find it at least, interesting.

Jeremiah 1:5a “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you”

I’ve had the pleasure of knowing on a very personal level two couples that have had children in the past couple of years. If you’ve ever known any expecting parents you can testify to the amount of preparation they make for the new addition to their family. They start buying clothes, toys, baby cots etc, they start taking lessons on how to take care of the new baby, and even how the man can best support the lady during labour. I, in making preparations of my own, start increasing the number of arm exercises I do so I can carry the baby for longer when it comes.

We make all this preparation because of love and God didn’t do much different.

God knew each and every single one of us long before we were even conceived. He also knew of the lineage of sin we’d suffer from and how we would all and each be sinners ourselves. He planned and prepared for that very situation from the very foundations of the earth.

Being as amazing as He is, He’s illustrated this in some amazing ways throughout the ages and I just want to share one small way He did here.

In Genesis 5, the bible documents the ancestry of Noah using the names of all the relevant males in his genealogy. In and of itself it is a relatively boring chapter (yeah I said it!) but the Bible is always amazing, even when it’s boring.

Skilfully hidden in the arrangement of the names, which were written chronologically, is a description of something that wasn’t going to happen till thousands of years later. An illustration of a Father making preparations for His children long before they had even been born.

Here’s what I’m talking about

Hebrew	English
Adam	Man
Seth	Appointed
Enosh	Mortal
Kenan	Sorrow;
Mahalalel	The Blessed God
Jared	Shall come down
Enoch	Teaching
Methuselah	His death shall bring
Lamech	The Despairing
Noah	Rest or comfort.

In a sentence this would sound a little like this:

Man (is) appointed mortal sorrow; (but) the Blessed God shall come down teaching (that) His death shall bring (the) despairing rest.

Sound familiar?

Just as parents go out making preparations for their unborn child God made preparations for our salvation though the Blessed God (Jesus Christ) long before we were even born, long before our parents were born, from Genesis 5, long before the entire bible was even completed.

Be reminded of the fact that God’s love for YOU, His desire to save you, started long before you even existed. If love grew with time God’s had an eternity plus two thousand and fourteen years to amass love for you, and just in case you didn’t notice, that is a whole lot of love.

Be blessed

OPPOSITES

my, not so little, little sister breaking it down

Sarah Fynn

If birds of the same feather flock together then why do opposites attract?

If I seek to get then why did curiosity kill the cat?

If absence makes the heart grow fonder why am I out of your mind when I am out of sight?

And if the grass is greener on the other side, and home is where the heart is then why I am not happy with my home been on the opposite side?

Stillness

And as the arms wrap around her, her thoughts come alive

And he has no idea the very words he speaks illicts an opposite response in her mind.

‘for the rest of my life I want to be with you’

I cant be with him

I want to give you everything

There are some luxuries I cant afford

I want to make you happy

Like been happy

I will fight for you

I…

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Catered for

In my last year of university, I had the privilege of working on a series of devotionals for a the society I was part of. I’ll be posting some of them back up every now and then.
This was the first one I wrote.
Enjoy and be blessed and thanks for stopping by.

Romans 8:26-28 MSG

Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

When my gym buddy says he can bench press 120kg, I do not doubt it. I’ve seen him do it before! So when he’s helping me bench press 110kg I take security in the fact that He can carry it if I drop it and I won’t inadvertently decapitate myself in the process.

For they that love the Lord, He says He will make all things work together for our good. Now in as much as I’ve not yet seen God physically working on anything before, I have seen Him at work in my life and I take security in the fact that He is capable of doing exactly what He said in Romans 8:28, because I’ve seen Him do it before.

We see Him do it all over the bible, I mean look at Joseph (Genesis 37 – 50) and everything he went through. I sincerely think that story has one of the greatest twists ever. (Spoiler Alert!) There was absolutely no indication at any point, that he would be raised to the position of prime minister in all of Egypt (think Obama in current times), and after all he went through, he could confidently say to his brothers what they meant for evil God used for good (Gen 50:20).
How about that?!

You might be in a situation where there seems to be no hope, in fact you might be in a situation where to the very best of your knowledge there IS no hope. Take security in this:
God has said something concerning those who love Him, and it is that HE will make all things work together for your good.
Hold Him to it! He can bench press so much more than 120kg.
Be blessed.

A Soldiers’ Prayer

theprofila

I will like to dedicate this to all soldiers and especially the lead man in a patrol, the one with the task of clearing a safe path for everyone else. This also goes to all EOD and Search soldiers. To those who gave their lives…

A soldiers Prayer

The Vallon is my shepherd, I shall not want
It makes me to lie down in Afghan soil
And leads me away from IED’s.
It assures my colleagues, and guides me in the path of the desert sand.
For His name sake, even though I crawl through the ditches
And patrol the villages of the Taliban, I will fear no dicker
For my body armour and SA80 is with me,
The hoodlum and the brush, they comfort me
The Sigs prepare an ECM bubble before me
In the presence of RCIED’s
I anoint my robot with explosives, my safety is reassured
Surely…

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4 I’s

Inconsistency Inevitably Invalidates Intensity

5 P’s

“Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance”

The Predator,

Kai Greene