What do you do when God isn’t funny

GOD HAS MADE ME TO LAUGH AND THOSE THAT HEAR WILL LAUGH WITH ME
-Sarah the wife of Abraham in genesis 21v6 said this just after a blessing from God. –

I want to reflect on the unfairness or what it would seem,this might be a little heavy just after Christmas but nonetheless life goes on.

Notice now then, two sisters who are from the same parents raised in the same household,both are married to equally good men,one has 4 children and just finished telling her sister that she is pregnant again,and her sister has mixed feelings about being happy for her sibling over her own sadness seeing as she has been on IVF treatments for the past 10 yrs and nothing has come of it…she is in fact hurting here and it’s no laughing matter.

Isn’t it funny though how the richer keep getting richer and the fat fatter and the dumb ones well you guessed it.

I have always believed every single thing happens for a reason; a cause and effect kind of thing and I just can’t accept the “things just happen” stance,my brain just can’t accept that.
This led me to a situations where things would happen I couldn’t quite explain with the cause and effect theory for as a man I too have done things which I couldn’t explain why I did them I just “did them”.Some might say that is in fact being human.

As a great apostle once observed:
“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.”

So then I conclude that “something” made me do it and it wasn’t just my insanity but there was a cause for the decision I “chose” to take that lead to that particular effect.This then means that nothing “just happens” there is a reason behind the madness.

Now I hope you are still with me up to this point,I don’t wanna lose you just yet..there is a point to all this.

If I am then created in his image then this should at least reflect that if a lesser being such as myself has been given a measure of intelligence to discern subjects like these,then my Almighty Lord God the creator of heavens and earth he who knows all has already seen this,figured it out and knows the reasons why things are happening this way.
I cannot come upon him and be calous and ask childish questions in strife, oh no! that would be foolishness and I know better than that.

But nonetheless a part of me still finds this situation not funny, I am hurting here and what I seek is wisdom and revelation, to, at least understand why what is happening is happening and in this fashion.What purpose does it serve for a man who has so much already to be given more while those that have so little continue to remain in such a needy state if not worse.

It is not that I don’t trust him and in him or that I have lost my faith oh no,I am still here for stronger is he that is in me that he that is in the world and for that very reason something inside me is so strong, I am still standing ……(just).

For my faith isn’t dead and I can show you my works that are a corresponding action to such faith I practice,after all I have been taking the injections,kept the marriage counselling appointments,have been sending out the CV like crazy,been talking to this teenage child of mine that’s acting a fool,praying for this wife to stop hitting me,and for that husband to get it together ……..I have tried it all,and yet the drunk gets away with that hit and run,and the crooked keep filling those pockets,what am I missing here oh Lord?!

I am hurting here.

I remember that

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

And the word continues

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.

This indicates to me not to think myself smarter than he who gave me wisdom.So I use that very wisdom to act in intelligence by choosing to believe his promise,follow the instructions and simply WALK BY FAITHand not trust what the circumstances look like.

But I am hurting here oh Lord.

God has made me laugh and all that hear will laugh with me.

so it is not strange for him to make me laugh too.

So I then wonder:-

What do you do when God’s isn’t funny?

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The “real” Christmas Day the 26th

Now that that’s over with;
The fake people, fake affections, polite conversations, it all starts to creep back up and real life begins to return but it really won’t hit till early January.

A fellow blogger pointed out something about Xmas that reflected my feelings completely,how she put it again? oh yeah “cruella deville all year long and want to smile at Xmas”. All this stuff  about its a special time of year that we show our loved ones that we truly care and appreciate them makes me sick.Question comes to mind then that isn’t this something we should be doing all year round anyway?

I mean I don’t need a special day to prove to my loved ones that I care about them and fellas if you are using this day to show how much you care for your ladies/family then something is wrong there as it is equally for the ladies who put a spread and look after everyone for this day alone then after the presents and dinner is done its back to you now who,to the family members that will go back to ignoring each other all year round till yeah ……..you guessed it,next Xmas.

Now I do believe periods like this and birthdays, anniversaries should not go unmarked and uncelebrated,it just has to be for the right reasons.We live in a society today where everyone is looking for an excuse to either party or celebrate something to justify spending money.

We have an office party,hair,nails,dress,new tux,refit the kitchen.

My cat made a friend gonna throw a do invite the neighbourhood.You get the idea ridiculous stuff.

Clearly Christmas has lost its true meaning a long time ago,I mean its all about people rushing in bad moods in shopping, family members getting  together exchanging presents,eating,drinking and that’s it really. I do  however take advantage of today,its a day for me that sales are on and I see it as my real Christmas day,and it has a been a tradition of mine to go out spending and get whatever I want as long as I can get a good deal then why not?

Its a relief,you should be able to just get out there at  any time of the year and get what you want if you can afford it of course,same goes for showing love for one another,why wait for a “special day” these are things that should be done everyday,anyway.

Makes me loathe Christmas day  for what society  has made it  become and what it represents,the way it changes people really evil on the days before (especially in rushed last minutes shopping cause you just cant turn up without a present now can you?) and extremely pleasant on the day then,well back again yo yoing around,I can’t stand that and people like that.

Where are all the real people gone to these days?

So today I go forth and keep the tradition going to get something ridiculously priced just coz I can,no excuses,no pressure as today is my “real Christmas day the 26th”

Suppose I am alone in this.I wonder what other’s do today besides fight and be depressed ,or return the kid(s).It can be a sad time of year.

Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas ya all.

Love one another and keep the faith,a king was born today.

What do you do when the other half doesn’t get the memo?

THEY SAY A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS
Please observe the images below as a man regardless of his status in the world talks to another woman a little too much while the other half is present.

Yes,yes she gets “the look” (middle picture) and the man changes seats.
I find it very interesting that regardless of who we are in the world,we all are faced with similar issues and if any men are out there you know once that she has “that look” oh!! you better change seats and shut your mouth and even though you live in the white house soon as you get home you in the dog house.

On a my last post I had great insights that raised more questions that it answered but nonetheless a few were answered and revelation was brought.

ITS NOT ABOUT YOU ALL YOU CAN IS LOVE.ITS NOT ABOUT YOU BUT ABOUT THE OTHER PERSON.ITS NOT ABOUT WHAT YOU CAN GET OUT OF IT BUT RATHER WHAT YOU CAN PUT INTO IT.

Now all these are noble statements ones that I have churned myself and heard and admired.Nobility,.. yes,yes to be noble.

Then further into my quest in the cyberworld I came across this:
“WHEN SOMEONE MAKES YOU SUFFER IT IS BECAUSE THEY TOO SUFFER DEEPLY WITHIN THEMSELVES AND THEIR SUFFERING IS SPILLING OVER.THEY DO NOT NEED PUNISHING,THEY NEED HELP THIS IS THE MESSAGE THEY ARE SENDING”

Now here, if I am in this situation this then puts me in a position open to abuse and toxicity,for I cannot truly stand in this commotion and not be scaved somehow.Sooner or later I will get marked and my attempts to diffuse the negativity with positivity are more likely to be taken advantage of and mistaken for stupidity and weakness birthing the results of more sufferings on my part,consequently the message I am trying to send has been lost in translation and misconstrued completely.
Funny how easily this happens I am sure most of us have been guilty of this countless times.

I then realise the primary source of our confusion is we send the message hoping the other half will understand and extrapolate the contents of the message there sent and though it may not be in written form,the fact that we have a bond and a relationship it is then a form of communication that by any rights is legally,emotionally, verbally and gesticulatory binding, yes, yes, hence a memo of sorts.

Now what do you do then when the other half doesn’t get the memo?
For years you have been pouring out, giving your all,sacrificing,being there, supporting,understanding and now you are tired,the easy is answer is hang in there but you are tired of hanging in and on,sick and tired of being sick and tired.And your problems got problems of their own.I am hoping a wiser person will come to the rescue here,(not to me personally BTW its all good ATM 😉 of course status of such is subjected to change after this post lol, hope not).
But in all seriousness I wish I could find the answer to this doomer of relationships.
The answer right now is I DONT KNOW hence the question:
WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN THE OTHER HALF DOESN’T GET THE MEMO?

Inspired by the following lovely bloggers in our interactions:

dietrying999.wordpress.com This lady reminds me so much of my elder sister its shocking, inspiring lady.

ecc714.wordpress.com My main man MAO poet at heart God loving warrior.

freedomborn.wordpress.com Lovely&Strong and wise Christian couple from down under Aussie.

justmebeingcurious.com Newcastle supporter but we wont hold that against you.

askinsaneelaine.com Inspiring blog full of life

Get it right the first time round.

On typical cold somewhat gloomy  winter afternoon in the North of England I found myself at a family gathering. Pleasantries are exchanged,and I heard over to the manpit where the fire is along with barbecue stand.

I look around me there is food good conversation going I am surrounded by the 7 wisemen all fairly older than myself relations of some sort and something struck me, I was the only one among them not married……..yet.Why that was significant I have no idea and perhaps its not but nonetheless the thought came to me.

This lead me to something I always wondered,what truly really made their marriages work?They all seemed fairly happy and interacted well with their respective other halves, so me being the questioning kind I thought I’d ask,and the answer I got  somehow shocked me. One of them to me plainly ” GET MARRIED TO SOMEONE YOU GET ALONG WITH AND NOT SOMEONE YOU LOVE” I stood there for a few minutes as they took it in turns churning out advice and to my surprise most of them agreed with this train of thought.

Now this got me thinking.I can attest to ever loving 2 females (I mean the real thing) and I must say the feelings were  too pure and intense I mean you now when you know in fact about 10 years went by before I could the feel that way again  even though I was seeing other people in between,so yeah I  kinda know what love feels like and what it doesn’t.

Now here is the problem,the ones that you do Love you cant get along with.Just cant seem to happen.2 hrs  and you ready to kill eachother.

And yet the ones that,that feeling is missing, it  is just effortless and can hardly remember when your last fight was, of course you do have your occasional little disagreements that’s bound to happen 2 different personalities cannot always agree on stuff,but I am sure you can make a distinctions on the levels of conflict an chaos.

Some things I disproved along the way:

Love conqures all;- no it doesnt.

Love eachother strong enough you will work it out:- no you won’t.

If you Love something let it go and if returns  …Blah blah ….please!!!do me a favour.

All you need is Love …….right right.

 

Now of course this is based purely on observation and some,(and empasis on some experience)which makes me wonder if the wisemen had a point.It was some thing to think about on the long drive down.Normally I wouldn’t take this kind of approach I always had a belief that love will happen when it does but with where I am right now I dont know,what if they were right? Its kind of hard to argue with the facts and history.Or perhaps its something only men will admit to?

I just strongly believe in getting married once,and this is just a personal view,the history I have had, of course,lets just say if I had gotten round to getting married  I would have been divorced at least once or maybe more than once but that is irrelevant its just serving a point that I realise things do go wrong and I am not knocking divorcees.Needless to say my life is a little different now values change and so do aspirations and desires,and when it comes to marriage I just want to get it right the first time around. 

The Last Samurai

I was only a long train journey today and found myself just staring out the window.For some reason this movie came into my head,strange cause this first in 04 when it came out and the DVD is somewhere in storage.I am an extremely visual and auditory person and this has been rather problematic for those close to me for when I see a movie once or twice I will be reciting most of it,and that can be quite annoying or so I have been told.I don’t mean to do it but it just happens sometimes.

If you missed the movie somehow the plot is basically an American Captain who is haunted by what he has done on the battlefield and as a result he has a drinking problem,a functioning alcoholic of sorts.He is hired to train the Emperor’s soldiers in Japan as they are to fight against the Samurai.He then gets captured by the Samurai and brought back to their village and it is then that his journey starts.

Anyway,going through the movie in my head one scene among many others came to my mind was when Algren (Tom cruise’s character) was in talking to Katsumoto,the head of the samurai clan that had captured him.It went something like this:

Algren: [shouts] What do you want from me?
Katsumoto: What do you want for yourself?
This questions I have asked at times in my life frustrated with not getting any answers,thinking that God is holding me captive somewhere without me knowing what the purpose is.The more I saw the response the more light bulb went in my head.

Later on in the story Algren goes through a detox and was screaming for Sake (a Japanese alcoholic drink) and having nightmares,this was clearly a guy with demons,lets face it we all have a few of those.We see a little later slowly getting to peace with himself spiritually and mentally,he kept a diary, so a fellow blogger he was.He had this to say in it:
” This marks the longest I’ve stayed in one place since I left the farm at 17. There is so much here I will never understand. I’ve never been a church going man, and what I’ve seen on the field of battle has led me to question God’s purpose. But there is indeed something spiritual in this place. And though it may forever be obscure to me, I cannot but be aware of its power. I do know that it is here that I’ve known my first untroubled sleep in many years.”

Later on he writes:
“What does it mean to be Samurai? To devote yourself utterly to a set of moral principles. To seek a stillness of your mind. And to master the way of the sword.”

With each moment I was replacing what he was saying I instead asked “what does it mean to be a Christian?To devote yourself to a set of just morals and values.To renew your mind.And to master the Word of God.”
At this point he is suffering nightmares no more,the addiction is gone,he has finally found a measure of peace.

There are many great scenes and conversations between the two many characters,both learn from each other as evident in another conversation;
Katsumoto: You believe a man can change his destiny?
Algren: I think a man does what he can, until his destiny is revealed.
At this point I am relating more and more that before I was merely doing what I could waiting on the Lord to reveal my destiny and my purpose to me,only I didn’t know it at the time.

The ending sees Algren meeting the Emperor who at this time has a change of heart and he knew Katsumoto who at this point has been killed in battle and I find this exchange interesting:
Emperor: Tell me how he died.
Algren: I will tell you how he lived.
Like most of us the Emperor was interested in the end,but it would seem to me that Algren had opened his eyes so to speak,renewed his mind and saw that its not the end (result) that matters more but the journey.

In our walk through life we have questions,we may be broken,in pain,lonely,lost,angry,confused,bitter,broke,in addiction(and I believe addiction is not the problem in itself there is always an underlying issue,look at the relapse rates trying to cure the addiction and not dealing with what’s causing it but that’s a post in itself in the future) whatever it is,the good news is that like you too can have an ending like Algren,though it maybe a bit hard to find a Samurai clan that will help deal with your issues.You could follow my example and try God,Free of charge and 24/7 365 support,and only one prayer away through Jesus.

Right before the end credits a narration
“As for the American Captain, no one knows what became of him. Some say that he died of his wounds. Others, that he returned to his own country. But I like to think he may have at last found some small measure of peace, that we all seek, and few of us ever find.”

Wow peace we seek but only a few us find.You too can be The Last Samurai.

Fighting an invisible enemy

FOR WE DO NOT WRESTLE AGAINST FRESH AND BLOOD, BUT AGAINST PRINCIPALITIES.

I would like to share a certain revelation I have had during my time away.
You know in life everything that has ever gone wrong or hasn’t gone the way we expected it to or anything that brought a result which was unpalatable,we assign blame to it.Whether be it a loved one,a colleague a boss,our pet,an acquaintance,the car broke down,she did this or he did that,it snowed outside,the train was late or maybe am just I am black 🙂 whatever it may be.Saddest thing most times we blame ourselves badly “or maybe I should’ve done this” or “if only I had done that” ………yada yada yada on on and on.

It is a fact then that as human beings we sort explanations and understanding of why things happen the way they do or why people act the way they do.But instead of trying to understand the person or the circumstance understand the root cause.See this thing is like a disease and you have to run a diagnosis.The signs and Symptoms are there and it is in part; all these people around you acting all crazy and being unreasonable,testing your patience,mistreating you all kinds of things,situations where you cant just get a break,everything is going wrong.
I then realised I have been treating the symptoms and been ignoring the disease.For years I had been taking Aspirin for the fever and the headaches instead of an antibiotic to fend of the infection.No wonder I was never healed. Temporary solutions to permanent problem.

Be vigilant; because your adversary,walketh about,seeking whom he may devour

No matter what position you hold the undeniable fact is we face struggles and situations we just cant at times understand.Are people just inherently evil? Does “stuff” just happen sometime? Do we reap what we sow?……………….so many questions can be asked but that does not really matter because whatever answers we come up with still will not address the issue,let alone help us in our circumstances and whatever issues we are faced with.
No matter where you go,whichever part of the world/city you may move to ,or no matter the new people you meet with, certain traits of people you no longer associate with (negative traits) will try to manifest in your new created associates.The very things you left behind seem to be popping up again only slightly differently flavoured and in a different colouring.But still the same engine underneath the hood.

My Eureka moment came to me here,I had I wasted so much time and energy focusing on the “people” around me (what they did,how wrong it was etc) and paid too much attention to my “circumstance”.My attention had been divided and I was getting conquered indeed.One of the oldest battle strategy.

You have to stop fighting people and holding grudges let it all go,accept the fact that people will violate your values and no matter how distasteful that may be its just a fact of life,and also recognise that your “values” are your own and not everybody will honour them just because you do.

Focus on the bigger picture.
The people around you are not the real true enemy no matter what has transpired (especially if its bad).People in your life are mere conduits brought about to either aid or thwart your destiny,you just have to figure out which and it gets clearer with each passing moment and times its clear from the beginning.Henceforth pick the fights cleverly and with wisdom,leave negative emotions like hatred,bitterness,blame,regret, behind they just weight you down. The signs&symptoms (ie people+situations,the bad decisions,bad luck,the wrongs and results thereof) don’t matter.THEY DO NOT MATTER.Waste no time fighting and worrying about these.Cure the disease not the symptom.

In the Journey that is life we will get sick several times,how will you go through yours?
Will it be with a myriad of untreated ailments?Or will you stop along the way getting healed as you go by.

Be smart when faced with the odds

in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory.Sun Tzu

So dont just fight the good fight but pick the good fight which you will fight Especially when:
FIGHTING AN INVISIBLE ENEMY