Identity is a strange thing. It is something that should be obvious but can be strangely mysterious. There are many, especially the young, who are going through an identity crisis. One dictionary defines identity crisis as a period of uncertainty and confusion in which a person’s sense of identity becomes insecure or unstable. An identity crisis usually occurs when there’s a change in a person’s life, and can also be due to a change in their expected aims or role in society. An identity crisis is a type of existential crisis. Existential crises generally have to do with questions and inner conflicts about the meaning and purpose of life. As thinking beings, reason and purpose have a central role to play in how we go about life.
Continue readingLearned
The Burning Bush
I, like many others, believe that God is. But I also, like many others, wish I could meet God like Moses met God in the burning bush encounter of Exodus 3 and 4. Moses’ encounter with God is one of the most iconic, most recognizable and unique instances of God revealing Himself to a man recorded in Scripture. Note, this was not a vision, or a dream, or an impression, or an imagination; as the Scriptures indicate later on in Numbers 11, God makes it clear that He speaks to Moses face to face, not in dreams or visions or dark sayings or riddles. So yes, though I believe that God is, and I believe in His Word, I still wish to meet Him like Moses did.
Sometime ago, God revealed to me that He’d already granted that wish (but in classical form, He had done it not in the way I was expecting). Then He went ahead to show me how the burning bush experience that Moses had in his time, was his (Moses’) version of what we would call in this dispensation, ‘the born-again experience’.
Continue reading
Increase In Knowledge; Persevere In Prayer
The Scriptures are littered with God’s promises to His people, and they are also littered with the consequences of disobedience and sin. But it would seem upon observation that the consequences of disobedience are more pronounced and are executed more speedily than the promises and blessings are manifested. That would suggest that ‘The Accuser’ and his team take their tasks more seriously than most Christians do.
It is true that God rules, He sets the rules and He reigns; but most of the time, we seem to forget that the devil is not a very obedient entity, and obviously not a ‘law-abiding citizen’; if he was, he would not have rebelled in the first place, and there wouldn’t be such disorder in creation. He may be a defeated foe, but he is not powerless, and he has not suddenly become obedient. The fact that God has said, “Touch not my anointed, and do my prophets no harm,” does not mean the devil will obediently leave you alone if you don’t know enough to stand upon that knowledge, and God knows this too; and that is why He has given us the provision of His Word, and the ability and tool of prayer, to contend against the devil and his team of experts.
Lessons Learned #2
At a point in my walk it dawned on me that I had been trying to play chess with God. I had been trying to get a ‘feel’ of how He works, when He moves, and how He moves, and what He moves for; So I could make my decisions with His moves in mind – no, not against Him – that would be worse than ridiculous; It’s more like we’re on the same team with no well-defined captain, and whoever moves first plays. Clearly, I haven’t exactly understood the concept of surrender or yielding. It’s a very frustrating game to play; with my mind telling me I ought to be winning and my conscience asking me what I think I’m doing. My eyes see clearly that things are not going the way I expect, but my hand keeps moving anyways, making the next best move even as I ask God why He isn’t playing.
Continue reading
Why I Seek (Monologue/Testimony)
According to my Mom, when I was born, I was weak to the point that the doctors thought I hadn’t made it. They later found out that I had a congenital heart defect (hole in heart, with an enlarged heart), and announced to my Mom that I wouldn’t make it past two months. That was twenty-nine years and a few months ago. This report came from doctors in the best hospital in the country (KBTH-Ghana), but at a time when not much could be done about it realistically. Long story short, she was devastated, but she brought me home, put my medical files with the diagnosis and prognosis to flames, prayed, and put her faith in God.
Lessons Learned #1
I usually put out free verse poems, but sorry to disappoint you today, this is going to be something different.
For a long time, I’d been at a level of faith (belief), that for convenience, I’ll call the ‘intellectual level’. I believe everything in the Bible is true and inspired by the Spirit of God. I know all the miracles – and there are some really blatantly epic ones – and most of the stories by heart. But they just didn’t seem or feel like they would apply or happen to me…couldn’t really accept that they could happen to me (just for the record, I don’t particularly look forward to wrestling with a lion, or surviving living with a bunch of starving lions, or killing a thousand men with the jawbone of an ass, or commanding the entire universe to stand still…this one would actually be really cool, but it’s not about being cool).
Continue reading
Makafui's Journal 