Wednesday 26 July 2017

DECISIONS

If your dad had a farm and worked hard in his youth and planted many crops, and no calamities came to him or his farm, you would grow up with a full belly.

If my dad had a farm and didn't work hard, or fulani herdsmen destroyed everythin' on it, I would grow up hungry.

Either way, you and I didn't earn our beginnings. You didn't earn a successful father any more than I earned an unsuccessful one. We were fated to them.

You, the well fed child, would be strong and perhaps with enough leisure time to develop other skills, ones that make you competitive. You would assume your childhood is what all childhood is like.

I on the other hand would be frail and lookin' for food. My dad may be frail too. I may have to look after him. I may be hardened by the meanness of my fate. I may distrust and therefore refuse to develop any skills.

You may meet me on the playground (though unlikely because we wouldn't go to the same school) and ask why my clothes are dirty. I would be ashamed. You may be kind and successful. I would most likely be hard and sad. Both are a self-affirmin' spiral.

Now imagine this cycle over ten generations. It just repeats itself.

There is a paradox in our thinking: to believe that the efforts or misfortunes of our parents greatly determine our lives (this is logically true), while simultaneously believin' that we come into life on equal footin' and that our successes are ours to boast about.

This seems responsible for the tension in the air. The sins and efforts of the father, the abuse and wealth and crookedness and goodness, all commingled into history. We wake up into life profitin' by, or disadvantaged by, the events of our ancestors. We're proud of some of the things, we ignore others. We stand on the shoulders of great humans and the backs of the enslaved or cheated and yet, here we are, responsible for our own lives, takin' credit for our hard work and our careers, blamin' the junky for his weakness, praisin' the entrepreneur for his work ethic. Ignorin' the puppeteer of history and consequence.


You see, someone once said: when you are born, you look like your parents. When you are old, you really only look like your decisions. Make the right decisions if you wanna bloom.

Sunday 23 July 2017

SAME CALL, DIFFERENT ROUTES

Last week, I got stuck in terrible traffic – traffic so bad it took me almost 30 minutes to go less than ¼ of a mile.

I was on my way for an appointment. Since plyin' that route, traffic has been almost non-existent, so it wasn’t somethin’ I had planned for. I left home with what would have been plenty of time to spare, but due to a messy accident down the road, I found I was cuttin' it close.  And to make matters worse, I absent-mindedly left my phone at home, so I could neither look up a faster route on google map nor contact the person on the other end to let her know I was runnin' late.

At that point, I had to make a decision. I could either sit in that traffic, which would have resulted in me missin' out on my commitment, or I could take the only other route I knew of - a much longer, less direct route. With about 15 minutes to spare, I decided to turn around and go the longer, less convenient way. My flustered, frustrated self, made it there - and right on time too.

Sometimes, I think we find ourselves in similar situations when it comes to followin’ God. God may call us to something, and we commit to answerin' that call. We think we know what we are gettin' into - what the journey will look like. And then, just when we think we have it all together, God makes it clear that our ideal route is not His route. And it’s in those moments that we have a decision to make: we can either miss out on what God ultimately has in store, or we can buckle up and take the longer, harder, holy route.


God can change our course without changin' our call. Let’s be faithful and choose the route He has for us. Even when it’s puzzling. Even when it’s challenging. Even when it’s untimely. Even when it isn’t ours. Don’t miss out on God’s plan if you wish to bloom.