Tag: bondage

TEMPLE RUN

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This week’s Freestyle Friday carried its own divine flair. The host introduced four remarkable topics, and what followed was a beautiful journey of creativity. Let’s get started.

TOPICS:
1. SAFETY
2. BONDAGE
3. TEMPLE RUN
4. SPIRITUAL PARALLAX
DATE: 29TH NOVEMBER, 2024
HOST: GODZNIEL

Godswill Ezeonyeka set the tone perfectly with this thought provoking piece :
Are we safe when they are no more threats in the room?
Are we safe when our minds finally chooses silence?

Are we safe when our sacrifices bear forth worthy fruit?
Are we safe when our lover loves our very essence?

Are we safe when we know every detail time is yet to produce?
Are we safe when we never forget any breathe we’ve spent?

And after that, the ever-graceful Hannah D’Ginus gave us this:
We say we are running the temple smoothly, but we are in prostitution
We claim to love the body, but we bow to other idols along with him
Salty-Fresh water
We claim we have heard of this
Selah

We say we are running this temple, but why does our shadow chase us?
If God is our Father, why do we behave like orphans?
Why can’t His reflection engulf us?

We claim we are always in zion, but why does our strength fail us?
Why do we insist on sewing fig leaves?
Why does fear haunt us?

We can not claim to run this temple when eyes don’t meet, hatred breeds, bitterness lingers while we smile with our open teeth,

The next time you claim you are part of this temple
Do a routine check if you are part of the assembly running it or if it’s just another temple run episode.
Selah

Godswill Ezeonyeka stepped in once more with this:
We can not claim to run this temple when eyes don’t meet, hatred breeds, bitterness lingers while we smile with our open teeth,

I want to hear this delivered like “boom boom boom” (if you know you know)

Then came this masterpiece by Damaris:
Chains have gotten fancy.
Fetters laced with gold
Handcuffs that bling

Chains have become a fashion statement
When we wear sin proudly on our necks
And bind them boldly over our hearts

Everyone is doing it
And so we kiss freedom goodbye
And exchange peace for pain
Addicted to our captor
Brainwashed to believe Stockholm syndrome is true love

But today our eyes are opened
Our chains are broken
Our freedom has truly begun and the bondage is over

GodzNiel stepped in with this gem:
Spiritual Parallax

I heard someone say, “Context is King.”
I raise you a jot of prophecy
Jesus rules all day and week
Strength to those who know they are weak
Fixed my eyes, didn’t need your Brille
I can’t fake how He keeps it real
Flesh of Christ overcame the Grill
I got the Christ-end of the deal

Yah

Mmmm – She said, you were never righteous
I said, Let The Lord touch us
Lose myself to what he taught us
Shadows never really light us – but Christ does
Its your choice – Best or worst
Can’t teach life to any dead ones
They keep saying we are brainwashed
Dodging anything that God loves
Finding newer ways to get lost
Prophets many, but he died once
Martyrs marketing without pause

And he said, I just don’t see it like that;
Science and Culture thrive on facts.
So I said, that’s spiritual parallax,
Trusting in things that changed in the past.
Row, Row, Row, roam the earth and its stats
You’ll see, the Word of God is still exact
So it’s either you live or leave like that
Is your story one of faith or fact?

With this divine words by GodzNiel, Freestyle Friday was concluded beautifully :
Temple Run

Temple, run
Run away to God’s hand
Build upon the Lord’s land
Yes his plan is more grand
He protects the unmanned
Block the bricks of sin’s clay
Win though windows sync lairs
Lairs of serpents, seen clear
God is how the scenes clear

Temple, run away from flooding your foundations
Except it’s with the Word – choose holy arbitration
Hearken – send the word across the sensations
Tell the heart to quarantine emotions
We only speak life, this is spirit medication
The boundaries join to spell dedication

Temple, run away from living off the flesh’ food
You might need to hear the Word of God just to do good
Keep a tight lip, don’t let trouble pair your Bluetooth
Good shoes – preach the Gospel in and out of issues

Temple
Run by the grace and mercy example
You won’t find Jacob with an angel but a limp will
Keep still
Chasing coin is never on a King’s will
Narrow is the way, be obedient and be nimble
Temple, sit and run in Christ or the people.

This has been an incredibly enriching experience. Thank you for always being a part of it. Till we meet again, stay blessed 🥂

Authors
Godswill Ezeonyeka
Hannah D’Ginus
Damaris
GodzNiel

Which Way

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The broad way is tempting.
So spacious, it feels liberating
This disguised bondage
The broad way seems like the logical option
The right answer, The convenient choice
The broad way is the new cool, the celebrated path

And the narrow way seems too lonely
Not wide enough to walk in properly
So I’m always stumbling
Falling head over heels
Trying to keep up with God
Looking up to religion
The author and finisher of my misery
The tormentor of my soul
On this middle ground, my body is in Canaan and soul in Egypt.

I make choices that betray my words
I take steps that draw me back
I’m a little bit of both
But not quite of any
What do you call light with a dash of darkness?

I was on the brink of desperation
Ready to resignation to fate
Surrender to my mistakes
Let myself go
Then He spoke to me, reminded me of what He had said
That His love was louder than my drowning voice
That His grace was stronger than my weak resolve
His Word outweighed my will
His promises infinitely greater than my grave mistakes.

Nothing compares to the safety net of His love
That He would never leave me
He’s right there with me
Not shaking in anger, but extending his grace
That saves me from the sinking sand of religion
In His grace I find strength
To overcome, to live His life
to take a sharp turn off the broad way
to the road less travelled
The path paved by His sacrifice alone

So in life or death
In sickness or health
In my lowest or my highest
I rest easy because
Nothing compares to the promise I have.

Damaris Akhigbe
(C) 2022

GLORY

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We built houses
with an even mix of mud and imagination
our hands were soiled, our eyes were bright
we smiled our teeth missing but our joy complete
we laughed, our sound a symphony of disjointed, pointless happiness
we knew no shame, so we knew no bondage
our childishness was our charm
our naivety, our glory
but glory, like a flower
fades.

Damaris Akhigbe
©2021

GENERATIONS

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I have really wise friends
I have really smart friends
And then I have these other friends. These ones I don’t know how to classify them.

For when you hear their thought process, you will wonder if this part of the body called a brain is vestigial in some animals.
When they utter words, you automatically want an occupation with hammers for every thing they say make you want to break their head.

But then I got to thinking;
6 years,
10 years;
200 years from now and these same ‘not so senseless’, poor in making decisions, and utterly tiring friends of mine would be known as ‘the ancestors’
A status men will begin to idolize.

I see us use a whole lot of our mind’s compartment to believe things that were told to us by people who couldn’t figure out simple things, I mean, some of the very learned of them actually argued that the earth was flat, like a table.

Hollup!

I am not even talking about the unlearned ones from your villages that birthed those you now call grandpa. Just imagine it.

They told you to pour drinks on the floor for the ancestors and you agree, well it’s *Omenala, so it can’t be broken.
They said a woman should be shorn when her husband dies and well, who are we to not obey the voices of ignorance passed down to us?

We carry knowledge like tentacles on a snail’s head but still slip back into the cave of ignorance we use to shell whatever good we can make of life, just because we have been told to ‘stand on the wisdom of the elders’,
Now guess who said that? ‘THE ELDERS’

I feel this is rigged.

Then our faith, love, strength, and even humanity is subject to a broken past called tradition,
Something that might have been suggested by a ‘not so smart’ old man who was only opportune to live before us.

So I take a stand today.
I will relate with the rules of the ancestors like they were still alive now
I will weigh their wisdom based on how wise it is, NOW!
I will not waste my time in their myth, only to satisfy their dead bones long gone with the sands of time.

I will make decisions now and then advice younger generations to learn from my words, but before I go from this earth;

I will let them know I wasn’t the wisest
I wasn’t the smartest
I was as man as man can be

And most of all;
As they grow, and find better ways to do what I said couldn’t be done,

They shouldn’t be afraid to discard my letters and fly the plane of their imaginations to outer space and back.

For no matter how sacred we decide to treat the scrolls of heroes past,
And bend always to their judgments on matters, using them as the ultimate yardstick to measure life.

I dare say that many of them were also as confused as we are at some points of important decisions,
And to crown it all, some chose wrongly.

Which only goes to say that we with them were all normal humans.

And if I won’t let another man dictate what I do and decide I run my life, I’m including the great ancestors too.

 

*Omenala is the Igbo(Nigerian Language) word that means tradition