Category: Articles

Our love

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Our love tale started like soaking cannabis in hot water. I took a sip. You did likewise. The sole of our feet got baptised in this fever that got our tummies beating the African drums. We looked each other in the eyes, we found dark universe surrounded by a red sea. We could see what love is all about; two heads that one is better than. We felt like screaming but the fear that the onlookers would tag us mad forced us into each other’s arm.

You could hear my heart beating. It was not the Jazz you love. My heart made music, the kind Mozart made. You said it made you dull. But that was my whole life. I tried to let my eyes speak volumes of poetry anthologies but all you heard was words poorly knitted. You smiled. Not the type of smile you decorated the sky with the first day I stood before you as a stuttering child, fearful but determined to let you know that butterflies only visits your garden.

I prayed we never recovered from this euphoria. This state of having the moon constantly using our name in the lullaby it is singing. I told of the symphonies composed by the crickets and frogs ( hiding in the near by bush) in our favour. You said I was silly. Not that kind of silly. You meant that I stole your heart with my madness. I was happy. At least, someone has finally got me in the list of men who parade the face of earth with careless abandon of what lips would say. You were the earthquake my soul yearned for.

That was when you told me of a fairy land. I was the ragged prince and you the princess living in a mansion of a castle. You told me that I was the male Cinderella. I agreed. You made me to be born again. It is no metaphor. You turned me to a suckling praying that I will forever remain at your breast…

Simeon Chidi

(c) 2018

Justified to Hurt

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I lay down quietly in a boy’s only lodge as about 5 other young men spoke of love and ladies, one guy in particular told the heart wrenching story of how he loved a girl, so much and so truly and how she later left him simply because of another guy who had more money to offer, you could tell the hurt in his heart, he said he couldn’t get over her for months, he confessed there in the confines of us guys, that he truly loved with all his heart, and she broke it with all her might. Having been so wronged he explained how he could now without remorse play with any girls heart he could get his hands on, he knew the words, he knew the motions, he knew how to get in, get what he wanted and get out, without bathing an eyelash. In some mis-configured part of his brain he figured he was justified to hurt others as long he was pleased simply because he himself was once hurt.

Do you remember secondary school and particularly if you were in the boarding school? What was the number one reason SS3 students gave for acting cruelly to junior students? ‘Because they did it to me when I was a junior student!’, that was and still is the main plea by many, because as junior student some senior student took their foodstuffs they are now collecting foodstuffs from the entire student body!

It’s like the old an eye for an eye, but remember an eye for an eye sooner or later leaves everyone blind. There’s something in the average human’s subconscious that tends to do to others what have been done to them, that’s why the molester today was most likely abused as a child. It’s a vicious self-supporting cycle, running through generations and even ages.

It’s like the old an eye for an eye, but remember an eye for an eye sooner or later leaves everyone blind.

But yet the reverse is also the case; As a Jambito several years ago, I went to the newly established Federal university, Oye-Ekiti to write the screening exam required to gain entrance. I entered pari passu the setting sun, with little money, no friends and no contact, I had no place to stay and the stories of bandits who prowled at night did not in any way comfort me. Not too sure what to do I went out of the school compound and sighting some young men close by I went up to one of them and simply asked who I could meet for some sort of accommodation, he told me to follow him, he walked me into a room in a joint condo of sorts, pointed a bed and told me to stay there. To cut the short story shorter, I along with few other stranded Jambito’s ended up becoming buddies for the next 3 days of our stay all at no charge, no cost and no hidden agenda. I asked him later on why his magnanimity to us strangers, he answered simply ‘he was once a Jambito and someone took him in!’.

You see, cruelty of many ages can end in one generation, if the last person to contract Aids was the last person to spread it, HIV/ADIS would be only found in the history books in just one generation. You see you have a choice, you’re not just a biological psychological creature who’s actions and reactions are cast in stone based on the hand life deals you. You can let the hurt you suffered snare you into hurting others or you can break out of the mold like so many others have and change the culture that tried to change you from something beautiful to a shadow of your true self. We’re never justified to hurt because we were hurt, no matter the form, it’s a warped way of thinking that leaves everyone bleeding. You can break out of it, you can start a new cycle, you can set the new patterns for your children and your children’s children and the world at large. We have enough bad news to go around twice, we have enough victims who victimize and troubled people who trouble people. Let the pain motivate you to make a difference, not to even the score on people who were never in the picture in the first place.

We’re never justified to hurt because we were hurt

It was Jesus who brought the radical idea of loving your enemies and even praying for them, imagine; praying for the thief who stole from you, loving the idiot who swerved at 130km/hr in front of you on the highway while making a call, forgiving that guy who used you and dumped you. I admit, these are noble ideals too high for the vast majority of us, maybe that’s why Jesus offers to walk with us as we walk through the hurt, and he will, that is, if we let him.

It may not be popular, you may feel out of place, you may be called a fool, but the freedom from the hurt is in repaying it with love. And truly as it has been said; it’s love that makes the world go round.

…the freedom from the hurt is in repaying it with love

Udousoro William (2018)

My Prayer

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Success is subjective to individual values. The most popular definition of success however is attached to money and things money can buy. These things, no doubt make life beautiful; ranging from grand glass houses by the beach, buying an island for oneself, driving speedy bullet proof metallic cars, owning fleets of Titanics, drinking the best of wines and having to associate only with people of the same class. Giving 90% of one’s monetary worth to charity and still not being able to track one’s wealth without the help of a financial manager should be success enough. This introduces the next most popular definition of success.

Giving back to the society has become an everyday phrase. People want to impart on other people’s lives, genuinely or in genuinely. Some rich folks want ‘philanthropist’ added to their titles. Some want more fame than they have. Others use it as a diversion or leverage to retain what they have and keep gaining riches.

Another set of people have sympathy for humanity and want to help change lives. These set of people may not have much money but they are willing to share the little they have with people that don’t have. Nothing else gives them more satisfaction than the smile they put on people’s faces and to them this is success.

Worthy to note is the division that associate success to their careers. Doing well in what you like doing should be satisfying. Being recognized as a champion in one’s field of operation is elevating. The idea of being a professional and the most sort in the labor market is 90% of dreams that creep around at night on earth. Earning grandly in this career one loves is not something that is seen every day, so may it receive its due acknowledgement.

This last category is what I want my definition of ‘success’ to be. Firstly, I want my heart to burn so fiercely for God. I want him to set my heart on fire. I want to be consumed by desire for him. To be able to put him first and not trade him for anything else is what I desire. To lay on my death bed and be able to smile because all my life I have preached the gospel; I have won souls for Jesus; I have fought the good fight of faith; to have the gospel as my number one mission in life is my goal. For God to be ‘practically’ (not just generically) more important than my spouse, mother, father, siblings, career, money is my prayer. I am not satisfied with just telling him I love him and that he is more important than every other thing. I really want to deeply love him with clenches, fists, my last drop of blood and last draw of breath. I want to be able to preach the gospel without reservation; to yearn and groan for people who do not understand; to study and know the bible so well that I can teach effectively and answer questions in the hearts of men and to choose discomfort and inconvenience for the sake of the gospel. I want to be a mobile gospel, in fact. I need money, career and everything the world has to offer to weigh less than my desire to preach the gospel. I want nothing else in mind when I pray asides my brokenness for him and my requests for hearts receiving the gospel. I want to die calling myself successful because I preached the gospel and I love the lord. This is my prayer. I pray that I be successful!

FAQs

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For a while now, I’ve been so confused about Christianity. Everyone has their own version of everything. So many different doctrines! So many lifestyles. I heard that all you need to do to be a believer is believe in Jesus. Wait, that doesn’t sound right. I had my doubts too.

A friend asked me why I didn’t attend church service. I told him I needed a breather. I had had it up to my neck. I said, “I need to know God for myself”. I sat back and folded my arms. That was my mantra for a long while and I wasn’t doing anything to solve my problem.

I had questions but I wasn’t asking them. What about my actions? That’s the only way people will know I’m a Christian. “By their fruits you shall know them”, right? Paul said, “I discipline my body” but I thought we have power over sin and it’s by the grace of God. Ah, tongues. That had always been and is still my biggest question. Is it a proof of the Holy Spirit? Must every believer have it? What if I don’t desire it? But we are to “desire all gifts”. As a Christian, should I listen to secular music? I really like some of them. What is secular music?

So many of them but I just folded my arms and carried them about. In fact, some of them are still questions and very necessary for spiritual growth. I am working on getting answers now. But I’m not writing this piece to answer the questions. I am writing this piece because I got an answer yesterday to the only thing that matters.

Yes. All it takes to be a believer is to believe in Jesus.

John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.

Acts 16:31 Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.

Romans 10:9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

John 1:12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name.

Letter to the Boy

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Being single could make one appear socially awkward, especially, when you get to 24. People would ask a lot of why questions and before you know it, you are out of perfect replies. It could be maddening, you know? Especially, when they see you converse with a pretty lady, then start with their 1000 rule advice on how to win her over, as though you had asked their counsel on how to get a “bae”. It could be ridiculous too, when a lady tells you, “upon all this your sweet mouth, you dey claim say you no get babe”, as though being a good talker is all you need in order to be in a relationship. dat one no too dey pain me. I get more annoyed when fellas try to point out a girl for me just because she has the kind of hips that are very close relatives of Abakiliki mounds and breasts that are large enough to suffocate a toddler. And on more occasions, a complexion that is characterized of an over ripped pawpaw. They would just shout “wow” like Jesus Christ got born again… I know you got the juicy part of such tales in your head.

Then, if you are not careful, you would settle for the glaze on the utensil without considering the type of material it is made of. That’s me waving a “welcome to Hell Street”, because, all you will ever dream of is, an exit strategy from this business that you entered into without much consideration. You know how you just end up scheming on ways to get her hyper pissed off with you and end up asking you for a break up, but when it fails, you start rehearsal of your 360-word break up line. And when finally you are done with the inscription on her heart, she starts seeing all boys, guys, and men, (forgive the redundancy), as an evil she have to live with. However, because emotions still run through her veins, if no one wise enough is close by to advise her rightly, she becomes a formidable heart basher, who only cares about your little change, in an exchange for the toy of herself, remember you made her to start feeling like a toy.

A thing about Faith pt4

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On Faith for Creativity
This actually is not a particularly different revelation for only being creative, if applied it will produce results in every other area of life, faith for being creative in your writings as a poet is not different from faith for provisions, faith for healing, faith for anything really, it’s still the same principle only now concentrated on the particular gift of writing with inspiration (creativity).

3 Principles
Believe you are anointed
Stir the waters in your spirit
Meditate and give it expression

Believe you are anointed because you are, let me explain a little what we mean by the anointing; the anointing firstly, is not a bottle of oil, it is the enablement to carry out a task you have been assigned, the power of the Spirit of God in you at work through you to accomplish His purpose for you. For example, if my boss were to send me on an errand of satchet water purchasing, he gives me N300 for the work, N200 to transport myself going and coming and N100 for buying the water, you see that money given in this scenario is THE ANOINTING, it is the enablement by which I will carry out his assignment.
So if you ever feel God has called you or mandated or talented you to do something, then know with that call comes the anointing, you don’t need to be pray to be anointed for what you’ve been sent to do, the ability to coin words, frame stories, make characters, write exquisitely and express fluently is already upon you oh dear writer! Believe it!, believe it with every red blood cell of your body, you must believe not just in Gods power but in Gods power at work in you, have faith not just in the Word of God but in the Word of God in your mouth, the Word of God in your heart, the Word of God in your pen.

Stir the Waters, I’ll explain using the man crippled for 38 years waiting for the angel who stirred the waters every year, hopefully you know the story already. In those days before the Spirit came to dwell in us, they had to go somewhere to get a miracle, they had to meet someone to hear the Lord, they would need external help to be helped but now in this new covenant we don’t need to go anywhere to access all the help we need. Why? Because the Helper Himself has a new permanent residential address in our spirits, Jesus said “out of your belly (spirit) shall flow rivers of living water”. Do you see it? Back then they went to the pool of waters, today, the river flows within us.

We don’t go looking for a miracle, we are the miracle happening everywhere we go!

So what do we do, we stir up those waters of ideas locked in our spirits, those waters of insight, of plot and of character, it’s all within us and we can and must stir it till it finds expression all over the pages of our books, we stir the gifts within us as we pray in tongues, as we commune with like minds and commune this faith and these truths. Have you never heard a person’s testimony and you felt like going to pray? Have you never seen a picture that made you burst in tongues? Put the vision before you, paste it on the wall, buy a world atlas and place it on your roof, open your eyes from sleep to see it and gain motivation to change your world, stir yourself and let yourself be stirred by the Spirit.

Meditate, the idea of meditation is not a hermit locked in a mountain chanting kumbaya. No, a thousand times no, it simply means carrying in your thoughts actively and on purpose a particular line of thought, it means to so dwell on it you begin to mutter it, your begin to roar it. O dear poet, many a times you must go to a quiet place and maintain a quiet mind and focus all that energy on the seed of idea God has planted in your spirit, as you do this, it begins to germinate, and grow and become a fruit bearing tree from which the whole world can eat. And once you have a sniffling of an inspired thought express it, by jotting it down, immediately somewhere, anywhere you can later reference it from. Many a great stories and songs have been lost by poets who felt their heads were magnets and the words metals. Please, our minds can be very short-term at times, treat preciously the ideas that come your way and save them, and from there meditate on it and develop it and save it again, and continue this process till it’s a tree so big you don’t have to worry ever loosing it. I hope this blessed you!

 

 – Williams Udousoro

A thing about Faith pt3

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On Hindrance
I had earlier begun on the premise that for the believer, faith is natural; its his mother tongue, his lingua franca, his only tongue really, but alas this is not the daily experience of most believers. We normally find ourselves like the man who brought his son to be healed…

Lord I believe, help my unbelief.

The problem of Faith is never the opposition we face, it’s not the mountains or the giants that challenge us in daily life, many times those temptations we fall for, only show that something within us is not quite right. The children of Israel’s problem was never with the mightiness of the Philistines or the multitude of Assyrians, it was always a matter of their current state with their God. So also, it’s not for plenty witches from our villages but that we’ve not settled the fight in us, as has been said; win the battle within and you’ve already won every war without.
‬ I’ll explain the hindrance to faith using the parable of the Sower, the parable goes…

Bros farmer went a sowing and his seeds went every all the where, some on stony grounds, some on the road path, some on thorny ground and some on good soil.

Jesus told us the meaning; the ground represents the heart, the seed represents the Word, the problem was not with the seed but with the ground, the heart is where the Word (and remember faith comes by hearing and hearing the Word) lands, the problem is the system of this world in which we live have been planting stones, rocks, concrete, mines, and every conceivable anti-seed material in our minds and so it has given us a system of thinking, of believing, of seeing things and of responding to things. So powerful it is that even when we get born again our spirits are made perfectly as Jesus is but our minds have to be renewed, that is made anew. Hence Romans 12 says“Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind”, its like saying, now that this land (heart) now belongs to farmer Jesus, go get the Tractor of the Word and overhaul EVERYTHING! Get all the stones, thorns and other junks out of the ground, and remember some of this stuff has gone down so deep, but must all be overhauled, and so that the heart can now become the good soil and receive the engrafted Word and bear fruits.
‬In English what I’ve been saying is; the hindrance to the Faith of God in us is the things we faith in already, she believes if he’s not from her village he cannot be a good husband, so she will leave the Angel from the next village and marry Lucifer dressed in a tuxedo all because he’s from her village. That mindset is a stone in her heart that will choke the Word and make it unproductive. They’ve told him all male from their family becomes asthmatic at a certain age, that it’s a natural hereditary condition in his bloodline, he has swallowed it, asthma will soon be the portion of this blood-bought child of God. He, like the Pharisees have made the word of God of no effect by his traditions (that is by staying with the norms of this un-renewed worlds mindset), the list goes on.

‬The Cure
The cure to the problem is still the Word. God pours out His spirit of Faith, God pours out His all and already He has but the problem is not God giving, it is us receiving. Like Rom 5 says, “they that RECEIVE the abundance of Grace…shall reign in life”, our mind is cleared of the crazy as we stay on God’s Word from personal study and listening to relevant teachings, so poet or pastor if you don’t have a consistent personal time of study of the Word and of prayer, you can’t receive all God has already given you and you can’t express all that is already within you. This point calls for more but I’ll stop here for brevity sake.

– William Udousoro
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A thing about Faith pt2

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I said earlier Faith is natural for the believer.

The thing about faith I always look at, is not so much how much of it you know or can say but how it affects your everyday life, when the bible says we walk by faith and not by sight what exactly does it mean, does it mean we are to go about parting red seas and multiplying fishes to show our 6 packs and biceps of faith? I don’t think so (at least not always)! The Life of Faith is simply living your everyday normal life based on Faith, based on the Word, based on your belief in that Word. So someone asks you for something and you actually believe it is better to give than to receive so you part with that item; that’s the life of faith, you are living by faith when you refuse to listen to your family who tell you not to marry him because he’s from Edo and you’re from Ebonyi because you believe in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile, it is a life of faith when you choose to pray for the thief that stole your phone and sentenced you to Nokia Torch because you believe bless those who persecute and pray for your enemies, it’s a life of faith when you, against your insecurities and inferiority complex, choose to write and publish that book because you believe that the greater one is in you and He that is born of God overcomes the world, it’s a life of faith when you choose to forsake that ungodly habit because you believe my body is the temple of the Lord, the Spirit of God dwells within you. It’s a life of faith when you say we would rather fail honestly than succeed deceitfully because you believe God is a rewarder of all they who diligently seek Him, it’s a life of faith when you believe that you are still a beloved child of God even when you’ve made a mistake because you believe that you are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus and the blood of Jesus washes you from all iniquities.

It is not a life of Faith just when you stand on a stage with a suit like a pastor in a healing service, it’s a life of faith when you can lay hands on the cripple who begs by your street corner because you believe they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover, its a life of Faith when you believe for me to live is CHRIST and to die is gain, when you are ready to lose your life for the sake of Christ, its a life of faith when you ‘trust in the Lord with all your heart and you lean not on your own understanding’, when you agree to be led by the Spirit of God, even when it makes no logical sense; this is the beginning of walking by faith.

 

– William Udousoro