Hide and Seek

Bag chasing, don’t keep a girl waiting
Using a Pop star to measure my self-rating
Hardly a chance passed without my drool booking
Open the door for her scowl and gascooking
Servant Maker, Lady of King’s Landing
Calling me Dragon, while dragging me from Eden
Yeahh
When I turned to the guys,
Dey go cover my eyes
Where majority blind
He who sees isn’t wise
Racking karma at night
I would dawn on the heights.
Why should I sacrifice
When it’s comfort I like?
Come Saturday Nights
Side hustle of Life
Didn’t matter the fight
If I’m winning delight
Sing songs of might
Who knows when I die
Gimme wings to fly
Only know when I try
Only smile when I buy
Does it matter why?
Instant Motivation, climbing up congratulations
Uniform of the patient, Moses on the wrong mountain

Like saying know the love of God that is beyond knowing
Like work out your salvation but it’s not about works
Like claiming something is deep without understanding it
Like knowing God keeps things secret but not willing to play hide and seek

not willing to play hide and seek
not willing to play hide and seek
not willing to play hide and seek
With God

Nun of the above
Still replaces love,
I became foolish
dodging what they want
Skipping last minute
Praying while I work
Till the cloud shifted
Made the view worth
My spirit stay lifted
God is my mounting
Teaching me to war
Redefining Work
Isaiah fifty five
New joy in my life

Like saying know the love of God that is beyond knowing
Like work out your salvation but it’s not about works
Like claiming something is deep without understanding it
Like knowing God keeps things secret but not willing to play hide and seek

not willing to play hide and seek
not willing to play hide and seek
not willing to play hide and seek
With God

Looking down now, I can see my own footsteps
Pieces of my heart, dinner dates with Miss Steps
Time is of the Lord,
God defines essence
Swallowing the Word
Na so I take get sense
Body count above
I pass over nonsense
Word-based love
I escape pretence
What is in the World?
Their stories don’t make sense.
Struggling to be
Only to regret
Saving up to live
Then spend it all on excess
Gun are the days
Of shooting up my exes
Father washed me clean
Gave me new habits

Like saying know the love of God that is beyond knowing
Like work out your salvation but it’s not about works
Like claiming something is deep without understanding it
Like knowing God keeps things secret but not willing to play hide and seek

not willing to play hide and seek
not willing to play hide and seek
not willing to play hide and seek
With God

Hannah DGinus
©2024

The Fire of God’s Love

What is God’s love?

A good feeling of acceptance or a strong sense of protection from evil?

God’s love is characterised by a commitment to His creation. A commitment to groom, nurture, provide, care, and sustain. The Word says “For God so loved the world” not Christians. His love will be biased if it was only committed to His followers, His nature is void of segregation. He loves the world, He loves His creation and unlike man, His love for us is not based on how well we reciprocate. His love doesn’t diminish when we walk outside His will, it takes a U-turn and chases after us.

God’s love is patient, fierce and eternal. His love never runs out on us because it doesn’t depend on us to keep it fresh. As a matter of fact, we do not have the ability to nurture or sustain it. Our decision to dismiss or accept it does not affect its intensity.

When we read the Adam story, it is tempting to think that God pushed them out of His love and security because they disobeyed Him. On the flip side, God knew that the genealogy of Adam had to begin for Him to send His son to come and provide a channel through which our acceptance seals us eternally to His love. So no, He didn’t push them out, He drew them closer with forgiveness through the sacrifice of the blood of His son, and since we all were in Adam it applies to us too. It is why He says in Hebrews 8:12 “… I will remember their sins no more” because His blood bought us back eternally.

Let’s look at the concept of fire, it refines and destroys. Fire refines gold but is also capable of destroying life and property. Fire burns but also produces. It is true that after a great famine comes a great harvest, if only you let go of all you lost and work towards all you can produce. The question is, what have you decided to make of the heat you feel?

The beauty of salvation is the freedom of choice. God is always willing to refine us as long as we let Him destroy the insecurity we feel, the habits that do not serve our purpose, the jealousy that eats us up, the immaturity that hinders responsibility, the ignorance that hides us from the truth… The list might be endless but the outcome is sure. If we let Him destroy all that is not of Him in our lives, He refines and produces in us beyond our desires. God’swill Ezeonyeka once shared with me that “When God is with you in the fire, the fire is the safest place to be” it blessed me.

Listen friends, the reconstruction you seek will not happen unless you allow God to do the demolition. You cannot get charcoal until you burn wood and no matter how rich your ingredients are, you do not get a meal until you light up the fire.

Let it burn, let the fire of God’s love permeate your being, it is the only fire that truly refines.

Imani Dokubo
© 2023

A LETTER TO MY OLD RUGGED CROSS

Dear old rugged cross
Blessed are you among wood and timber
Because on you rested the greatest sacrifice ever
On that night at Golgotha
On you was my Jesus crucified
And now I stand justified
Before the God of my salvation and life

Dear old rugged cross
It hurts to tell you that many are lost
And those who remain cling to a civilised cross
They have forsaken the ancient landmark
While on a self-satisfaction task
Ignorantly falling to damnation on a fast track

Yes you may have seen some violence
But not as much as there is in my presence
For the love of men wax cold
And iniquity is in abundance
The time of true faith fades away
And religion, false belief finds its way
And unfortunately, the Christians refuse to take their place

I must confess you are quite heavy
And I might stumble and fall on this journey
But all my cares on Jesus I lay
Dear old rugged cross
On you, I sacrifice all my flaws
As I wait for my Lord’s applause

Yours sincerely,
The Young Believer


Ezeonyeka Godswill
(C) 2011

LOT’S BROTHER-IN-LAW

Take me back to Gwags;
Let me remake the lags and crags that tripped me forward into UNN.
I thought myself a goner, no Arsenal, and yet I won the war with a few good men.

Barely two years into
UNN my issues
Pointed me to people
Who would grow me into
Feet that would fill great shoes
Burst ma brain, no pimples
I ran into you people
Now I’m pretty grateful

So if you take me back to Gwags
I won’t need the swag
That once was a must-have
No, right now, I have Christ
That sure peace I roll on
That faith is my profession

Tertiary choices once lay ahead of me
A barrier between
the now then and this
I chose first indeed
But God will have his

Abrahaming through lands,
I was my own Isaac – the Son was in the Man

God asked for my sacrifice
I kept dodging all his eyes
I thought that I was wise
Arguing through all his whys

But let me remake
The crags and lags that made
me trip into UNN
Let’s see what happened then…

The Niel Quchi
© 2020

The Upgrade

I love you Lord;
For your voice means the world to me;
Say it, I’ll do it,
I needn’t understand
For you have made your dwelling with me.

O Lord you will lead me through the valleys,
Of the shadows of the death of me,
You O Lord puts the word in season in my mouth;
You have made my tongue the pen of a ready writer,
For you have chosen me for deeds noble.

I will never really understand your love,
How you choose to love an adulterer,
Or make prayers in folded palms,
For the ones whom a hole,
They drilled into your palms,
Or choose to let a kiss betray you,
And yet still gave your life,
As a sacrifice! All for what?
To prove your love for me,
Yes, I have denied you more than three times,
Yet, you choose to love me,
I guess my eyes will always see love differently,
Love that crossed my I’s,
Love on the crossed-eye
love of God, for I!

How do I tell this story,
A tale as old as two cities,
Before time could even speak,
My brain never seems to figure out the math,
Of how you could love scandalously,
How a Prince gave up everything,
To love a low-life like me!
My scars didn’t scare Him,
Rather He kissed them!
Now I see nothing but love!

And when I kept at you,
You looked at me so tender
You said, “spread your mercy abroad,
To the good and to the ungrateful,
You’re like me that way,
What I do for my living,
This is the upgrade you need”.

Olaoye Adeleye,
Favour Omeje,
©2020

Sleep

Let’s talk about sleep
There is a sin in sleep
The sin of drunkenness
When men are not sober and careful
When you no longer watch and pray

Let’s talk about sleep
That which you do in closed eyes
Dark nights
When your lamp is out
When your love waxes cold

So how do you not sleep?
Watch and pray
Shut up and ponder the Word
Let your words be few
For a man of many words , is a man of deep sleep

And when you don’t sleep
You become a star
A light in the dark world of heavy sleepers
And you will extinguish darkness wherever you go
Making the Kingdom come

The LORD never sleeps and never slumbers
Learn a sober and self controlled lesson
His army is a people of an alert watching and waiting
Are you in the LORD’s army?
What are you waiting for?

The LORD gives to His beloved sleep
In His presence is joy and pleasures for ever more
This is not like the fleeting pleasures of sin
This is the orgasm of resurrection
The sleep He gives is the resurrection of a living sacrifice

While men slept, the enemy sows tars
Your old men shall dream dreams
You sleep in order to dream
This is a word for the wise at heart
A promise for them who have a track record of the fear of God

Favour Omeje
© 2020

With These Hands

With these hands, I will write a hymn, a poem, and a love note,
Just to express the joy my soul feels.
From the gifts of which your word wrote,
And the ails of that which it heals.

For In his hands, are holes that I be made whole,
That I be free from the world and it’s ill
By his sacrifice I am a saved soul
And a co heir to his estate and will.

With these hands, I will lift his name on High
Above issues or powers that be
For your authority, no being can defy
The lord, there is no one as he.

In his hands, is joy, love and peace.
I shall forever bask in his embrace.
Forever anxious for nothing, my heart shall be at ease.
I live not by my being, but being in his grace.

Ini Brown
©2020