Wednesday, November 27, 2013

I am always left with the question


I am always left with the question “Who am I Lord that you are mindful of me?”
When I began my studies in Daystar University I had this plan in hand, that I would do a crash program and graduate by 2014.
I had so many other plans playing the background but one thing I was sure about was that I would graduate in 2014. It’s seven months to June, 2014, the graduation set date for Daystar graduates and I look back shaking my head…how imaginative could I get! Two years down the undergraduate lane and I have only covered three semesters….lol!



This semester was one among the three where you choose courses and tell God “Daddy, this is a tip of the iceberg of my faith, I will study, attend classes, do those cats, research on those term papers and projects, give my end of the bargain on group work, and how I trust that I shall sit for those exams at the end of the semester.”



Yesterday, at the very last day before exams, I had lost all human hope of a coming exam card…but hey, where human hope stills, that is where hope from above takes over.



Later in the evening I visited the financial aid office to check if they had replied to my request….my school fees had been cleared… not quarterly or semi…but all of it! By which sponsor? I don’t even know…


But I know I did not deserve it….. I know that I haven’t been a good and faithful servant as I ought to be… I have not been a perfect child this semester…and no, I have not been the most righteous…but still He provided for me, He saw me through this moment of my life where it all seemed like it was coming down. He showed me that I am worthy of His love.


My whole viewpoint of God changed as from yesterday. We all keep talking about God’s faithfulness. But we underestimate it if we do not give it the understanding it deserves. He is not faithful because we are faithful, He is faithful because that is just who He is.


I took time to study the story of David today morning before commencing my revision for my exams.  David desired to build a temple for God and He made it known to Prophet Nathan. His intentions were good, they were genuine…but God had a different plan.


So He communicated this to Nathan and made known to Him the promises and plans He had in store for David….


Then King David went in and sat before the Lord, and he said:
“Who am I, Lord God, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far? 17 And as if this were not enough in your sight, my God, you have spoken about the future of the house of your servant. You, Lord God, have looked on me as though I were the most exalted of men.
18 “What more can David say to you for honoring your servant? For you know your servant, 19 Lord. For the sake of your servant and according to your will, you have done this great thing and made known all these great promises.

I couldn’t help but relate to David’s prayer.


Despite of the much that I have or haven’t done for the kingdom, God has still made His promises manifest in my life. He has shown me and my loved ones kindness….. He has poured out and abundance of peace and outstretched His arms to take us back whenever we stray from His perfect will.
I know I have only covered three semesters, but I ma grateful for this far He has brought me.
He is not the kind of father that says “if you dare fall short of my glory, don’t ever come back to my throne of mercies”


Neither is He the kind of father that says “this is the last chance you have to make things right”
He is to me the kind of Father that has shown His unconditional love….without threats or restrain.
He has loved me in a way no man, or woman has before… I dot not even understand why am writing this right now, but I know that I am overwhelmed with the unaging love He’s shown me…


He has been mindful of me before my conception…way before I accepted Him as my Lord and Savior… way before salvation ever made sense to me..


Deeply caring…and deeply concerned about our wellbeing that He placed us in families, no matter how dysfunctional, that He knew would mold us to be what He has called us to be….

He predestined our yesterday, today and tomorrow…


He desires that we may be so lost in Him that everyone and everything that knocks on our heart’s doors shall have to seek permit from Him first for we are but kingdoms that He humbled Himself to dwell in….

My value, as a princess, as I have come to understand, is not come from physical attributes, spiritual gifts, educational achievements, socio-political persuasion, or even my position on the second coming of Jesus Christ…all these don’t define who I am.

I am defined by who He is to me, and who I am to Him…who we are to each other when the world’s curtains are drawn and all we have is each other…

To me He is not only the Lord I worship….His throne is not only to me a place of praise….He is to me more than what words can describe…more than what minds can comprehend….more than what feelings can fathom….more than intentions can concur…

So as I draw nearer to 2014, I so well know that I am not on that graduation list, I am far from it actually, but I have graduated in thought and worship, and so I am having this swell time rejoicing and looking at the things above and beyond my human eye.
It’s been two years since I joined Daystar University, two years since I gave my life to Christ, and two years of having a Savior transforming my mind..
Lord, 
We are a moment; You are forever,
Lord of the ages; God before time,
We are a vapor; You are eternal,
Love everlasting; reigning on high

Holy Holy Lord God Almighty
Worthy is the lamb who was slain
Highest praises, honor and glory
Be unto your name

We are the broken; You are the Healer,
Jesus Redeemer; mighty to save,
You are the love song; we’ll sing forever,
Bowing before You; blessing your name.

Holy Holy Lord God Almighty
Worthy is the lamb who was slain
Highest praises, honor and glory
Be unto your name

Friday, November 22, 2013

This Christmas....I'll be His

 
This Christmas you'l knock on my door and find me waiting...
This Christmas I'll be expecting you...
It's something else to want someone...and another to actually need someone..
and This Christmas I will be wanting you..
 
This Christmas I'll be warm and tender,...
The blood of Jesus will flow through my innermost being and light within me a fire that transcends from the Holy ghost fire...
I will have intercourse with the pages of my Bible...
As many of them as I possibly can...
I shall have candle lights surrounding every thread of my flesh...and every fiber of my pigments...
oh how I shall loose this flesh that I may be adorned a robe so righteous...

This Christmas was meant just for me...
For me and the lover of my soul....
You already know how He does it...
He allows Himself to incarnate as man and be born in our hearts...
He finds us worthy of a crown that we ourselves claim not it's possession..
He knows our motives....He Himself called our hearts wicked....but still, look at how deeply He cares....

We do not say that we are any better than non-believers..that we dare not....but just look at the measure He's placed on us despite of our iniquities...

If I should live not past this Christmas....then may I live for this Christ of mass...

My life is a pickle jar......being filled and emptied.....filled that I may be emptied.....thus if I should die this Christmas, I'd rather die empty as I celebrate a life dead to Christ.

Yes, This Christmas....I will lie in bed alone....This Christmas.....I will let Jesus be born to the words of a love song...and the allure of poetry...This Christmas I will be in a harmony of a silent night..holy night....my first night with the King.....

This Christmas I shall be unveiled to the Prince of peace..to Him most Holy....To Him most loving....Oh how I shall spend this Christmas with the Great I AM!!!!

It shall be like no other...for every time He is born in me....it feels like the very first time! 

I'll be His, this Christmas, and always...

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Mandisa - Overcomer

It was a whirlwind of fantasies....



She fell deep asleep in a dreamland unknown to her. She longed for things only her desires could fathom the existence. It was a whirlwind of fantasies. A desire of things out of this world. She crawled to a world of uncertainties, a world where she thought she’s allowed to be herself in the deepest of ways. Who could ever carry this burden off her shoulder? Who could ever understand that there are those moments where she can be insecure, those moments where she can doubt, those moments where she too can be afraid? How else could she progress out of this if not by drifting into a world unknown?  Life plays games on the lives of many, but she wanted out. She desired acceptance. She desired some deep kind of love where one can be allowed to be and stay honest and not have to even sense of a coming day when it would all be dead and gone because she has been unraveled. How else can one love? She wondered! How else can one claim to truly love as Jesus did? How else can one claim this deep unconditional feeling if all we place on it are norms stated by those gone before us? Who is this who dares to be different? Who is this who can try love without victimizing the loved? She longed to live in this fairy tale she’s dreamt of all her life. She yearned for moments of epitomes of true expressions of desires unmet. Where it is not about sex…neither is it about how good she does or does not look…moments where her past does not have to be a constant reminder of how easy she behaved in her younger years in the search of approval. She remembers vividly the story of how her dad denied her on the day of her birth. She remembers with tears in her eyes how he left her to the mother that bore her on that hospital bed because for some reason he just didn’t want her. And even as she grows up she now understands why all her life she’s been seeking some sort of approval from the world…all because she was denied on the day of her birth. She swells up in lost glories and growing pains.
 
All the crowd screams is you gotta be strong! What if she’s tired of being strong? What if this time she truly needs someone that would love her and express it to her the same way that he did yesterday? What if all she ever really wanted is someone who would try not to conform to the damned spirit of familiarity and somehow choose to find reason to fall in love with her everyday? She knows she’s yet to see this human man…and she also knows, that the day he’ll walk by, it would be to take her down the aisle. She though, finds rest in knowing she’s got someone, who despite of his physical absence, somehow makes his presence felt in her life. She is not the kind that sits and awaits a prince charming to drop down from heaven like manna...NO! Even as she waits she's serving, she keeps her life in progress and her heart at the best of the glorious harmonious medley of the heavens and earth below singing 'How Great Is Our God!', as her soul gets satiated by its lover. She’s the kind of woman that has got the full package; she’s got the lover of her soul as she awaits the lover of her flesh. She's got the man that holds her all through the day and night as she awaits the man that will be kind enough to hold her through the night. The man that sees beyond her outward radiance.... to the beauty of her untapped glory. The man that loves her, simply because he wants to. This man she spends her breath on…is indeed the man her heart leans in to. No greater love has she found, than the one coming from the holder of soul, Jesus.
 
The diary of that girl in a woman....

Friday, November 8, 2013

You must be a cunning woman!

Who would not love a God like this?
Who would not wash His feet with tears?
Who would not raise her hands in His presence?
Or kiss His nail-scarred hands, when these are the hands that reach out to heal the broken areas in her life?
A woman needs to know that there is a God who can know her darkest, deepest secrets and still have compassion for her.
What woman would not tremble in the presence of a God who would assume the task of defending her and stand between her and her assailants?
What woman would not appreciate a God, who becomes an attorney, assumes her case, requires no fee, and wins her the victory?
What woman would not be awed to know that there is a God who can be convinced of her guilt and yet insist on her forgiveness?
This is the epitome of love: to know that we are all naked before Him and yet somehow He, by His grace, stoops down and touches the dirty places in our lives.
It is recognizing this kind of mercy that causes the woman of the twenty-first century to fall in love with the God who is called the ‘Ancient of Days.’
He is older than time itself, and yet He is more relevant than this morning’s paper.
He is before when or where; He is before this or that.
And yet He is God who is never referred to in the past tense.
He is not the God that was; He is the God that is.
He is the God that is called I Am. I Am what? You ask. He is whatever you need Him to be, whenever you need Him to be.
I am sorry, and I apologize on behalf of all the men of the world because none of them can be this but God.
He is the absolute of which the men are just a shadow.
He is the reality of which the men are just a substitute.
The man can hold you through the night, but He can hold you through the ages.
So when our arms grow weak and weary, we can recommend a God who neither sleeps nor slumbers.
He can stop the stones that should have been hurled at you.
One word from Him gives you the second chance you need to succeed.
Your husband may be the lover of your body, but He is the lover of your soul.
Your husband may kiss your lips, but He can kiss the tears from your eyes, the pain from your memories, the clouds from your skies.
He is the great lover.
He paid the price to bear the name.
He shed the blood that became the evidence, and became the judge of this world to throw your case out of court.
Because of Him, you are free!
You must be a cunning woman

A cunning woman is a woman who is intelligent enough to know what it is she needs and who possesses the ability to accomplish the goal she has determined.
The goal is to have an intimate, personal relationship with God.
He then becomes the underground water that replenishes the dry soil and prepares your ground for the abundant harvest of blessing that is promised through His Word.
You must pursue him with passion.
You must pursue him with intensity.
I cannot explain it, but there seems to be some depth of worship that the feminine heart has a tendency to reach but only few men will ever encounter.
It seems that women somehow understand how to lose themselves in the presence of God in a unique and powerful way.
Once a woman understands that Christ is her goal, she seems able to focus on Him, allure Him, and entertain Him with a level of praise that is so engrossing that she is healed by His touch and fulfilled by His Word.
I have seen women who were so impacted by His invisible presence that they were able to walk away from the presence of others who were far more tangible, but far less effective.
These women praise the Lord with a romanticism that is so engrossing.
They write Him poetry and sing Him songs.
They dance in His presence.
They raise hands toward Him in the middle of the night.
They walk through the house exchanging thoughts and pleasantries.
They seem almost like little girls sitting in the lap of an aged father whose touch is so loving.
These women arise from the altar of praise and walk the streets of life with an inner confidence and an inner knowing that cause them to have a smile for which no man is responsible.
These are the daughters of Sarah.
In order to be a daughter of Sarah you must be a woman whose relationship with God is so intense that when you are faced with challenges you refuse to be intimidated or overwhelmed.
In fact, you resist the temptation to be traumatized by the crises of life.
You choose to walk in the full assurance that the presence of God is there to walk beside you.
You breathe the good of life and exhale the bad of life.
And the process continues without asphyxiation because you have learned that all these things are but a process, a process that will lead you closer to the presence of God.





(excerpt from 'The Lady, Her Lover, and Her Lord' ....T.D. Jakes)

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

He is! Yes! He is!


I fall, I sin, I even delight in sinful ways.


I am a spiritual adulterer as I mourn and groan in the arms of another in sinful lust.


I am frail, I  am fragile, I am weak and I know it.


I am sick, so sick of this kind of life but still I’d rather be sick than be healed by the Healer.


I’d rather soar high in sin because then the world would embrace me still.


BUT! Each time I settle for less, the spirit in me asks, “Who is like He that loves me anyway?”


“Who is He that says I should come as I am?”


He that says that I am His child, as prodigal as I am.




So I rejoice in my weakness. I rejoice in who I am. I love what I am becoming. Because I know that the Lord is working on me.
I am not there yet, but this is better than where I was before He lit my path.


He is! Yes! He is!


He is working on me!


He is working on me!


My flesh fails me. I am weak….but He loves me anyway. He lifts me anyway. He tells me He is doing a new thing in me anyway!


He whispers whenever I care to listen.


He gives me insight whenever I care to see.


He says I am His and the spirit He put in me when I accepted Him is jealous, jealous for me!


He says He is raising a Gideon in me.


My background does not allow me….my sinful nature discourages me….my fragility in thought and in speech remind me that I am but human.


But still He loves me.


I see many people proclaiming how strong they are.


I see many more speaking of how capable they are.


I see even a whole lot more who trust in themselves so intently that they claim trust in oneself is all it takes to go up the stairs of life.


But as for me, I am nothing on my own.


I am nothing without my creator.


I am nothing if He is not everything to me.


I fall, I sin, I even have ungodly thoughts, I got envy, I have pride, and I hunger and covet for what’s not mine. And that's not even all...


But with Him in me, a new thing is done, a new thing is made!


With Him in me, a whole creation abides!


With Him in me, I stand!


With Him in me I am able to smile, to laugh, to sing, to write, to dance, to rejoice the loudest in the crowd. To walk in a grace that transcends my innermost being. To hold and to be held by the potter. To rest in the shadow of the Almighty because He, I AM, has found in me a worthy place to lay his Head.


He is all that and so much more to me!


To speak and command authority I shall because it is Him that is working in me.


So Yes! I am weak, but He that is in me is strong.


He is the ancient of days, if He raised a Gideon then, He shall raise a Gideon in me now!


Praise the Lord, O my soul!


Praise the Lord!