Don’t stop laughing…

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There was a very gracious lady who was mailing an old family

Bible to her brother in another part of the country. “Is there

anything breakable in here?” asked the postal clerk. “Only the

Ten Commandments.” Answered the lady.

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Somebody has said there are only two kinds of people in the

world. There are those who wake up in the morning and say,

“Good morning, Lord,” and there are those who wake up in the

morning and say, “Good Lord, it’s morning.”

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A minister parked his car in a no-parking zone in a large city

because he was short of time and couldn’t find a space with a

meter. Then he put a note under the windshield wiper that read:

“I have circled the block 10 times. If I don’t park here, I’ll miss

my appointment. Forgive us our trespasses.”

When he returned, he found a citation from a police officer along

with this note “I’ve circled this block for 10 years. If I don’t

give

you a ticket I’ll lose my job. “Lead us not into temptation.”

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There is the story of a pastor who got up one Sunday and

announced to his congregation: “I have good news and bad

news. The good news is, we have enough money to pay for our

new building program. The bad news is, it’s still out there in

your pockets.

Give me a sense of humor, Lord,

Give me the grace to see a joke,

To get some humor out of life,

And pass it on to other folk!      Amen    Culled fromwww.godsminute.com

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Do have a beautiful week! And may you have something to make you smiling and laughing all week.

When Life throws you down….

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One of the biggest challenges in Jason’s life was to relate with people, he was that kind of guy you never noticed whether he was in a place or not. Without exaggerating, he was the kind of person that could hardly say a paragraph in a day. Saying hello to anyone was a problem and if anyone said hi, the person would have gone have a mile before Jason decided whether to reply or not. Not because he was a snob, he did not just know how to carry on the shortest conversation with anybody. Fortunately, he has the good looks, speaks good English with a British accent and very neat, these qualities ordinarily will make people want to relate with him but it was the other way round.

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All through his primary and secondary school, he never asked questions in class, seldom answered when he was asked but he always wrote the right things on his paper and came top of his class. While in the university, the status quo was maintained and no one really noticed him until he was pronounced as the best graduating student of his set.

On the contrary, what the few people who know him did not know was that Jason was a talker, while alone in his room, you would think he was talking to three to four people, switching roles and rehearsing how he would make a friend the following day but he always failed himself. By the time he got his first job, the world had become a virtual public and people could actually live on the social media like real people so Jason’s fears of relating with people was forgotten, he lived and practically did all online, having  friends to chat with. Funnily, these were people whom Jason did not relate with as colleagues in the office, friends in church and in professional bodies but kept as contacts on social media anonymously.

Years down the line, as Jason rose in his career as a software programmer, he needed to hold talks and seminars regularly with companies in and outside the country and his fears resurrected from where he thought he had buried them. His colleagues and associates could not fathom why Jason could not explain the procedure he had used to design a particular program to people who needed his services urgently. At a time people began to doubt his credibility of the software programs when he could not explain the procedure, but later, they saw for themselves what the problem was.

More so, prominent organizations and agencies wanted to have him as speakers on seminars and youth shows to mentor youths and teach them to be successful but he had to turn most of it down, the ones he saw that he could not turn down, he refused to show up as planned, sending apologies to many. Whenever anyone got close to help, he took on the heels and ran for his life so people did not see him as only shy but weird and some began to avoid him as he was also avoiding people.

Titilola, a cute and caring colleague of his, who realized the predicament arranged with the management of his company to get a communication tutor for him, because being a brain behind the mysteries he was designing as a software, he needed to overcome his communication problem. But the communicator expert gave up on him after two years of trying to get him to talk. Titilola took it up from there and every one could see that there was a connection between these two but Jason became worse, the inability to engage people in conversations has become normal to him overtime, but not being able to talk with Titilola was miserable for him, this was the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

Every morning he planned on how he was going to share his bottled up emotions, how he was going to tell her that he has never found anyone so beautiful and how he cannot stop thinking about her. He planned how he was going to make her his only confidant, how she was going to be the only one closest to him because no one has ever been. He rehearsed ‘God knows how many’ times, how he was going to share his childhood: how he grew up with his father, a very hardworking man who lived alone with his son in a four bedroom duplex.

They hardly saw, because he got up so early and came back so late at night. His aunt was the one who brought him up but as soon as he was five the dad told her they could manage and told her to leave. Jason remembered how he and the aunt had wept, finding it hard to leave him alone but the dad had ordered  him to behave himself and that was what he had  actually done ever since “go to your room and behave yourself” that was all.

It was the aunt that told him how his mother had died at his birth which had greatly affected his dad’s life, it was later, Jason realized his dad blamed him for his mother’s death. As much as he would have preferred, his father did not want to have much to do with him, he wanted his wife back. And all he did was to make sure he never lacked anything, he had his own driver, there was a cleaner and chef in the house, so all Jason did was to eat and go to school. From time to time, his father would only ask what he needed in terms of school fees and clothing and upkeep money. So this was how Jason’s life was shaped, the only one he could call family shut everyone out of his life because of his grief.

Jason did not even know it was abnormal not to relate with people, he thought it was a way of life that people didn’t want to be disturbed, that everyone should just keep to themselves, until people started having issues with him in school, saying he is snobbish, egoistic, proud and pretentious. But they did not know that he wanted to able to do this too but just didn’t know how. He found it hard to even talk with the communicator expert his company had hired for him and his rules were just too many. He was so sure that with Titi his fate might actually change but his problem was how an adult can tell another: please teach me how to communicate.

When the management saw that they could no longer put up with Jason’s shell life, another programmer was employed and within months he began travelling round countries, enjoying all the benefits Jason was to be enjoying. Jason got angry with this and left to stand on his own, he had the money and the brain power but because of this same problem of his, his company; Jason’s plus folded up. It was when he saw Titi’s wedding invitation’s website link on his Facebook page that he knew his life was going to come to a miserable end if he didn’t help himself. His aunt being the only one he could talk to as family became his succor, he cried out his heart to her knowing that at thirty eight if nobody came to his help he was going to die irrelevant.

Aunt Marie could not but grief with him, she even blamed herself for leaving him with his father, she did not know he had all of these problems going on. All these years, Jason had hid behind his smile. Not knowing what to do, she told Jason to start writing all he wanted to say to people on paper in a form of diary, no matter how weird it sounds, he had to start from somewhere. When Jason wanted to give excuses, Aunt Marie became furious with him, challenging him:

“if you end up this way, you have yourself to blame, Jason, look at yourself, God has provided everything you will ever need on earth, fine! Blame me for leaving you or blame your mother for dying or your father for bringing you up in the most unloving manner but what have you done about it, sit there, waiting for a miracle? Jason, can’t you see how God has been faithful to you, providing you help all the way but you rejected them all, as a believer, you know God does not leave nor forsake his children, you have that in your bible which you strongly believe in, so it is not about God letting you down but you letting God down. Imagine the number of lives you could have touched, people you could have influenced by your successful life but you did not want to live your comfortable shell, you preferred to stay there, I can’t see much of efforts on your part here but only intentions and wishes.All is gradually slipping away from you now and if you don’t break this hold on you, you will have yourself to blame for this.”

Aunt Marie had never spoken to him like that before but the words sank, he had to stay there a few days before deciding what he was going to do. The rudiments of greeting people started with Aunt Marie, it was awkward at first but by asking for God’s help and confessing Psalms 121, he began to improve. When he returned to his home, he greeted his neighbour for the first time in years and by evening, the man brought his family members to say hi to him.

He enrolled himself in a communication program learning how to listen, relate with individuals, groups and communicate publicly. He took this program so serious his tutors thought he was over serious but he told them he had to pay severely for what he had lost. When he applied for his former position at the company he worked for, he was turned down and many who offered to accept him wanted to pay less than he was worth so he gave it a try to re-openJason’s Plus and that was when his breakthrough started. Through his program he connected with human resources agents who helped him with the recruitment and marketed his products and capabilities. At the company’s third year, even his former employers wanted to have him as a consultant but he was too busy for that, they could only join his mentoring program. All the while he continued with his program of communication because he didn’t want to lose it. Even when his tutors told him it was okay to withdraw, he still employed a personal trainer because he did not want to take chances with God’s gift over his life.

At forty three, when he was getting married to thirty-two year old Daniela, the one he “wooed” all by himself but with God’s leading anyway, he gave everyone a free copy of their book titled IF LIFE THROWS YOU DOWN, BLAME YOURSELF FOR NOT GETTING UP” authored by Daniela and Jason Olabode.

Empty Head

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He woke up on that Sunday morning with no particular agenda on his mind as usual, his family members had gone to church but he was sleeping when they left. Not that he would have followed them when they were leaving but at least he could have demanded that his breakfast be brought to the bedroom. He brushed his teeth and went to the dining table, his food had already been prepared, he ate hurriedly just so he could watch the highlights of his football team which would be playing later in the evening. At about 10:00 am, there was power outage so he became so bored, he didn’t know what he could do again; after watching football; movies and eating, or just sitting around, his list of ‘things to do’ become exhausted.

Such a purposeless life, he didn’t even have a job but he was a handsome one, it was years after the wife married him that she realised she had only married looks, asides this, he was lazy, lackadaisical and had no plans for his life not to talk of family. He on the other end married to get his free meal tickets and a house keeper, -a desperate rich lady met a purposeless poor man-! His wife must have taken her wallet to church or else he could have gone to take money to fuel the generator. So he did what he could do best; shower and look good and then he took a stroll, thinking “I may just visit one beer joint and hear the latest in town or probably just roll with the men”

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The street was quiet save for few people still rushing to go church probably those already late or those going for the second service. He was already half way when he realised he didn’t even have a dime in his pocket, he cursed silently “to hell with that woman and her wallet, she could not even leave money for me, she would get it from me again today” so he made to turn back when he noticed a shadow, from the newly occupied attractive house on the street, the curtains lifted and the shadow beckoned on him to come, at first he wasn’t sure but the shadow kept beckoning. “I will just go see what it is” he said and moved closer, the shadow had moved from the window to the entrance door.

He saw clearly now, it was a shapely slender figure hiding behind the curtain, a leg was popped out, it was a fair smooth leg with a chain at the ankle, his mind began figuring what all these could mean. Then he moved closer again, and a hand adorned with trinkets, with long fingernails painted in red and gold made an invitation signal. Fascinated by the theatrics he moved closer a bit. The curtain was raised up to reveal two fair spotless smooth legs. Curious, he moved closer and now the figure peeped behind the curtain, having seen that it was a woman he threw caution to the wind not minding if it was a bait or something dangerous, he trampled reasoning, walked straight to the door of the house and pushed the curtain aside. There she was, with a wrapper hanging loosely around her chest, her makeup was loud and rebellious, the paint on her lips was that of a honey comb and the words ‘come’ which came from her mouth was smoother than oil.

When she said come, he could not decipher what was going on around him, his whole being yelled “ here I am, do whatever you want with me” he was there standing  but he did not know whether he was standing, running,  sitting or falling, then she caught him and kissed him and brazenly said unto him:

I have peace offerings with me; this day have I payed my vows. Therefore came I forth to meet thee, diligently to seek thy face, and I have found thee. I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, with carved works, with fine linen of Egypt.  I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning: let us solace ourselves with loves. For the goodman is not at home, he is gone a long journey:  He hath taken a bag of money with him, and will come home at the day appointed.”

And With her much fair speech she caused him to yield, with the flattering of her lips she forced him. He goeth after her straightway, as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks. Until an arrow pierces his heart, like a bird darting into a trap. He does not realize that it will cost him his life.  He never lived to tell the story. His whole life was summarized thus: “he was among the simple ones, among the youths, a young man void of understanding”

Now, sons, listen to me. Pay attention to the words from my mouth. Do not let your heart be turned to her ways. Do not wander onto her paths, because she has brought down many victims, and she has killed all too many. Her home is the way to hell and leads to the darkest vaults of death.

Whatever name you call it, ‘scoring’ ‘away game’ ‘double dating’, ‘back up’, ‘friends with benefits’ ‘helping each other’ and so on….. fornication and adultery has only one end which is destruction: for the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil:  But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two edged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell. Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them.

Hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth. Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house: Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel: Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth; and thy labours be in the house of a stranger; And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed, And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof;  And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!

DON’T BE AN EMPTY HEAD, THE LORD PLACES VALUE ON YOUR LIFE BY DYING FOR YOU, PLACE VALUE ON YOUR SELF AND LIVE FOR THE ONE WHO CREATED YOU.

NB: REFERENCES: Proverbs 7: 6-27, 5: 1-23.

BUY THE TRUTH AND DO NOT SELL IT!

Life is a series of shopping; buying and selling, and I tell you it’s so interesting. You cannot but buy something even if you don’t sell a thing throughout your life time, you just have to buy. While some of us are shopaholics, some buy on impulse and some are very selective in what they buy. Some buy things they don’t need while some others are very strict and specific; they only buy what they need. More so we have a varying list of things to always buy every day, every week or every month depending on individual’s shopping schedules. Some of us just love the idea of shopping; just going round those big malls or surfing the shopping sites give us some kind of joy only we can explain. Again, shopping can be a journey of three hours for some and can be as quick as fifteen minutes, the bottom line is that the acquisition of new things feel good to the soul.

Most importantly, the word of God has some basic truth about our buying and selling life: no matter what you buy in as much as you don’t run into debts, shop excessively or waste money on frivolities, the bible says to you today: buy the truth and do not sell it.

 

SHOPPING LIST FOR 19TH SEPTEMBER, 2015 and still counting………………..

 

BUY WISDOM: Wisdom is the principal thing, therefore get wisdom- Proverbs 4:7, James 1:5

BUY UNDERSTANDING: With all thy getting, get understanding- Proverbs 4:7

BUY INSTRUCTION: My son, pay attention to my words and incline thy ears to my sayings, for they are life to those who find them and health to all their flesh- proverbs 4:20-22

BUY RESPECT- You can never go wrong with respect; treat with honour, due obedience and courtesy your father and mother that all may go well for you. Show respect to the elderly and honour older people. Exodus 20:12, Leviticus 19:32, Ephesian 6: 3

BUY LEARNING- Get educated, be learned and continue to hold to the things that you have learned and of which you are convinced, knowing from whom you learned them 2Timothy 3:14

BUY DISCIPLINE– Keep and guard you heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.

SHOP ADDRESS

YOU can get it all in the all-encompassing book of life (THE BIBLE) and get more insights in different books and messages written and preached by God’s sons and daughters.

And please when you buy, do not sell it, do not trade it for what money can buy. Remember, all of these are worth paying for but too valuable to sell.

YOUR SHOPPING STARTS NOW, ENJOY!truth

Do nothing, Get nothing, Be nothing!

When I was fourteen, I thought my life was so difficult. I mean I was just fourteen and I had a lot to do unlike many boys my age. At that time, I had to wake up as early as 4:30 am to help my Mama prepare food that she would later sell at the Motor Park. Being a male child did not exclude cooking and house chores in my house, my parents frowned at laziness of any kind, even girls had days they wash my father’s motor cycle. By 6.00 am, my mother would be at the park, my siblings and I would later help my father arrange the shop where he sells building materials. Every morning, we had to arrange the materials, displaying them outside the shop before 7.00am so as to meet up with early buyers. 

Bathing and eating only takes thirty minutes because my father would never hear that a child of his went late to school. After school, I attended extra lessons in a teacher’s house who had taken interest in me. He wanted me to enroll for a junior mathematics competition which would earn me a scholarship to one of the best science schools in the country at that time. My parents believed I should not just enroll for the competition but Pass excellently. I did not believe I should; I was doing well in my class and all was well with me even though I was not like Gabriel, my friend who had a less difficult life than mine. At least he didn’t have to wake up at 4:30 am nor do a number of house chores. Worse still, he was not forced to attend the rigorous lessons I had to attend. The last time we went to his house after school, that was before I went for my extra lessons. Lunch was already on the dining table waiting for him and after we ate his food, he switched on the TV and said he had some programmes he had to catch up with.

When I was coming back from the lesson that day, I was embittered, I wished I had Gabriel’s parents. They didn’t push him to do more than he did. He wasn’t part of the top ten in our class, but his parents were contented with his performance. I was one of the best three in my class and parents felt I could do more. Less I forget I didn’t tell you that after lessons, I had to help mama wash the plates used at the park while my siblings also help in picking beans, washing pepper and the likes. The News was the only TV programme we were allowed to watch on week days, after that, we all go the library to read. Sometimes our parents stay and pray with us after reading, other times they remain in the sitting room and call us for prayers afterwards. We were allowed to watch our favourite shows on weekends, even at that, we still had to read.

Ten years down the line, what I thought was a difficult life has paid off for me so tremendously. Now I don’t wake up to cook at 4:30 am anymore neither does my mama but my day starts at 4:30 am nonetheless.  The discipline my parents instilled in us has prepared us for the enviable places my siblings and I are now. They saw what we didn’t see; they pushed us to fill our capacity. I remember the last time I went home, my friend Gabriel whom I envied so much at that time now had his turn to envy my success. I thought the kind of parents he had were the best, but mine were and still are. My parents are enjoying their lives right now because they are indeed ‘eating the fruits of their labour’.

Oh, I eventually passed that junior mathematics competition and my life has not remained the same ever since. Actually, that was the last time my parents paid for my tuition. I had three full scholarship offers for my Masters in choicest universities and as it is now I am in the place every 24 year old wish they could be but are not. As for me, this is just the beginning because eyes hath not seen nor ears heard, what God has in store for me. If you feel your life is difficult now because of the price you have to pay to be successful and become what God has planned for you, I tell you the alternative is to do nothing and then you won’t get anything and then you won’t become anything. Your life and destiny is worth the price, so please do something, don’t be tired, then do more and do more and Keep flying high because that is where God wants you to be.do nothing, get nothing