EVERY SINGLE SOUL

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The streets I walk are filled with eyes
There are persons passing me by, people I bypass
There are souls alive I barely ever know, soles that thread snappily, or sluggishly
There are paces to lives, faces to size up, twice as many thumbprints as there are lives lived
But for figures, I could have been more careful
Numbers are a forgetful label, worse than trashing from form to stale stones
Peebles, dull reflection painting grey versions of life into mental existence
So hasty, hectic, flip flap, floppy, rushed,  trivial, near-invisible thread
Worthless, like nothingness, pointless

In thinking, I trace translucence, character traits bouncing off us all
Faith raises the life high, to leave sighs and resigned shrugs behind
Fate raises no consequence, save for no movement, radical apathy
How do we marry these, for it is the gospel of the postmodern, the great desolation
The flowering into desert, vitality so safe, so speculative, so passive, violently inactive
Wed these, weld vigorous franticness into deterministic want of meaning
Out comes plenty talk of love, of inspiration, of human sympathy
Out flows pitiable desperateness of inward cries for more than tortuous sameness
While we still bypass the passer-by
While we address the rest by avoiding their eyes
Their souls
Our souls too

Back we go to what makes us joyful
Not what catches fancy while lights still die out
To rediscover the thing that makes us thick, the who, what and why of living
When I finally stop to say “hi”, to place it a long way before “bye”
When the best I give is more than a glance, a stare, a shallow inquiry
When my eyes fixed on yours is a driving together to bond
My gaze on you is part of a probe into you, to find your concern, to find you
Instead of excusing my neglect of heavenly duty for shyness or tight routine
For we only have a while to love up the imperfect towards perfection
To be disrupter of dark bitter severed state
To help melt stony hearts, giving life in place of wasteful slumber
For none is too difficult a subject to face with Christlike involvement
Whether to relieve, to reform, or to snatch out of the fire.

#CHOSEN 04: STAND OUT

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Text: Gen. 37:1-11

I got born again the same year I got admission in the university. Before then, I had friends that I usually hung around with, who had hideous tendencies. I found myself deep in these relationships before I was arrested by God. One of the challenges I had was to translate what has happened to me to my friends. I saw the need to break out of that circus, but I lacked the will power to. For about a year after I got born again, I was struggling to get my friends to understand that I was a different person. Well, God helped me and I was able to declare my stand and break out of that circus.

It is easy to do the pulpit gymnastics on the necessity to stand out, but trust me, when your life is at stake, that is when you will fully grasp what is involved.

Standing out is not something you do by your own strength, you need God’s help. In standing out, you will make a whole lot of enemies, who might go to the extent of wanting to take your life.

Joseph faced this situation. He made a choice not to be part of what his brothers were doing. I can imagine a scenario where the brothers will connive and sell some of their father’s sheep and agree to tell their father that they were either stolen or attacked by wild animals. Joseph may have eavesdropped on their plan and reported to their father. It made the brothers hate him. Of course you are not expecting Simeon to come back and give him a pat in the back and say, “well done Jo”. There was a big rift between Joseph and his elder brothers.

Joseph knew he was a special child, so he was more interested in doing what pleased the father than collude with his brothers. He cherished his father’s love more than his brothers’ praises.

As a believer, God has special love and a great plan for your life. You ought also to reciprocate this love by doing the things that pleases Him. The world will hate you, that’s alright. People will scorn you, it’s okay. Just take a stand to sustain what you share with your father, that’s all that matters.

Please share with others and let it bless them as it blessed you

Stay blessed.       
  
©TRANSFORMING WORDS SERIES
(Transforming the World through the Word)