No more sugar coating.

Earlier last month one of my friends was murdered, it was a very sad experience for me especially because I feel like I contributed to his death. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t arrange for his death, neither am I a murderer, but his way of death could have been prevented, it was not an accident but something to be expected, I might sound so odd to expect someone’s death, but it’s true his way of living was likely to lead to death.

 I had known him for more than four years and he was a close friend, we did things together, both good and bad, but in the long run I decided not do the bad things but I allowed him to do both. I could have been true to him and tell him to change but it felt so hard ,I was scared he would avoid me, but where did that fear lead to?

Since then I have been thinking of how to make a positive impact on the lives of those around me, and today I got the answer, being honest.  This simply means saying the truth at all times regardless of the risk involved. Honesty is one of foundational basis of any relationship. Honesty bores, trust and confidence, it will make you feel secure around someone and for sure it will make you feel treasured and cared for.

Honesty can be observed in three dimensions, i.e. confession, confrontation and correction; I call this the 3Cs of honesty. Many relationships that I know have all the great attributes of love, passion, respect, romance and affection, care and all the good names we label them, but the truth is all these names are just phantom, they are all sweet, meaningless, empty names and until we learn to say the truth and say it without sugar coating it, then all those things we are seeking for in relationships will never come.

Have you ever done something wrong that it makes you sick inside? It eats you up, makes your blood boil and you can’t keep in inside any longer? Well I have been there many times and the only way to cool down the hit is let it out. Confessing what you did. This is the first C of honesty. When you are wrong, you don’t need to justify yourself. You might convince someone with the lie you formulate to cover up the mistake you did, but guilty is bright and will never be convinced.

There is nothing that has never been forgiven in this world and definitely you are not the first one to make a mistake. By confessing your mistakes to those you care about, proves your care, it shows your respect to them.  We men we have a tendency of hurting the feelings of our spouses then come with the flowers to make them forget. That’s foolish, women don’t forget and they don’t want to be convinced by the flowers all they are seeking for is the truth and if you think you are permitted to tell white lies all the time then soon you will grow color blind. 
Do you have those friends who are always coming to you for help, who will come to your house and make themselves at home, who will eat your food, drink all of your drinks  from the fridge and even personalize your remote control?  Well they are there and I know you have them, and if you are one of them then you need help. You keep saying ‘so and so can’t stop coming to you for help and so and so can’t stop disturbing you when you need a ‘Me time’ and blah! Blah! Blah!’ but stop for a minute and think, why are they always coming to you? Simple, it’s because you let them with an excuse that you are so scared of telling them the truth of how disturbed you feel every time they come.

We are always tolerating the things we hate for the name of care. We can’t confront our friends about their canning nature for the name of, ‘I don’t want them to get mad’. Well, you will become mad yourself; if are not honest, soon you will go mad. We have to confront our friends and tell them the things that we don’t like in them, it’s not because you despise them but because you care about your friendship. We always tell lies and pretend when we are afraid, afraid of what we don’t know, afraid of what others will think, afraid of what will be found out about us. But every time we tell a lie the thing that we fear grows stronger.

Every time we are looking for people to love, we always focus on how they look, their beautiful smile and everything physical about them, just to come to find out they were not as good as we thought. Everyone has a weakness beneath the colored skin that we see and that should tell you that perfection only exist in the word of the angels and God the father. The problem with us imperfect humans is that we know of our nature yet we pretend not to. Honesty involves correction. Telling others of their mistakes and showing them the better way if not the right way.

Sometimes we lie to people by telling them how elegant they are dressed yet your other ‘you ‘hold a complete different opinion. We tell our girlfriends how tasty the food they prepared tastes, but after that we sneak to the nearby cafeteria and grab some fast food, we are so scared of telling our friends about the importance of water 'on' the body, not just for drinking. You are afraid of telling your boyfriend of their ill-mannered behaviors at the dining table, just because they will be offended, but how are we helping them? Where are the honest people of  this world? Correcting the mistakes of our imperfection is nothing to be embarrassed about. It’s something to applause to and give a standing ovation to.

Remember, honesty pays however much it doesn’t seem to pay for some people, but for the sake of our relationships, we have to practice  honesty, confessing the dark secrets of our lives locked in our traumatized  hearts, confronting the characters of the ones we love and correcting their weakness to make them the persons we are proud of.  Truth is the only thing worth having, and in a civilized world like ours where reality is bad enough, the truth is the only thing that will make you unique, worthy and free. Say the truth and the truth shall set you free.

Wake up let us journey on.

Can you be Trusted?

Have you ever given yourself to someone fully?  Allow them to control your life, advice you and lead you every step of the way?  It brings out the ease of doing things, someone planning everything for you; you just have to follow, not to worry about the next step. Well it’s a great feeling. But the sad part comes when that person  makes a fool of you, when they lead you to the high cliffs of life then let you fall, when they blind fold you with all the good things life offers then all over sadden it’s all gone. It leaves you lost, makes you cry, makes you heart broken and always brings out the bitter feeling of “I wish I knew”.

Relationship is the hardest thing to try, yet it’s the only thing we can’t live without. We are relational beings and forever we will need people to be with. Someone who will listen to your hoarse voice without complains someone who will put up with all your weaknesses, someone who will keep the deepest secrets of your life and not to tell even with a bullet on their head, someone who is trust worthy. But those people are hard to find, they exist yes, but in the rare corners of this dark earth. We all want them, and when the loving master brings them our way, then life becomes complete.

But what normally changes, what makes them to just abandon us and leave, what makes your own father to turn against you and treat you like his wife, what makes that man that you placed all your trust in to become an animal.  I need answers to all the life’s questions, what changes the minds of those who claim to love us. You trusted them with your life, you allowed them to lead you every step of the way, just to find out that they are not who they say they are? Just to see the monster in them? Why does God allow such people in our lives, why?

The wounds in our heart need nursing, but what happens if your night nurse, removes the mask and reveals the ghost beneath the mask, who do you run to, who do you trust to be real? No man is an island, but this is the place when you wish you will become one, this is the time you shout for independence, you long for visions about your life, and not to forget, you wish for vengeance. 

As a child , you would always believe everything your dad  told you, you would jump to the arms of your mum knowing she will hold you, you would cry just to get away with whatever you were hiding, you had people who lead you. Then you grew up and fell in the arms of the secret charming who know just what to say, you gave them your heart, minds, soul and not to forget the body. They use you and then let you fall. They make you feel useless and dirty; they abuse you not with words but actions, taking your trust just for a ride. Those friends that we tell everything just to come and find out that they are responsible for our miserable lives, that uncle who looks at you with evil eyes from head to toe, just to land on your innocence and take away the precious gift of purity. Who is there to trust?

Life has provided all the reasons for selfishness; life has all the convincing reasons for hatred. You are not a weirdo when you feel that someone should pay; you are not an alien to think that we should move to another planet. It’s okay to feel rage, since a broken trust is painful. But we are all human, bound to fail, or fail others, beneath every person, there is that feeling of, ‘me first’ everybody has the genes of selfishness, but it should not be an excuse for breaking hearts. We can purpose to protect lives by being trust worthy; you can be a trust worthy parent to your kids, a trustworthy partner to your spouse and a trustworthy Christian to God the father.

We are all looking for people to trust, but I guess we are just looking in the wrong places, start to focus your search towards heaven, there is a friend named Jesus, who will never let you down. What a friend we have in him, what a lover he is, the best parent anyone can ever have, the only promising arms to jump to. If we learn to trust in God with all our heart and not to lean on our own understanding, then our paths of life will be illuminated. We will see where we are heading to. If only all of us would be like Jesus then I would not be writing this blog. Can you be trusted? Are you one of those beings who allow their selfishness to exceed their humanity?  Are you a heart breaker? What makes you different from the serpent who crawled in the holy gardens of Eden and brought perversion? You say you trust God; but can he trust you with his children?

Wake up let us journey on.

Freedom, nothing tastes better.

‘Freedom’ we all long for freedom. Freedom from the bondages that we entangle our selves with, freedom from the mistakes we have made and freedom from all the desires that have stuck with us.  We are addicted to things all over; things that are not worth associating with, things that kill the inner conscience and seers the innocence in us if at all there is any.

Growing up in some blocks of the streets aint easy, hearing the gun shots every night before retiring to bed is not so much fun, having an angry dad who will never say am sorry or I love u is not something you would pray for, homes becoming unbearable with the tears and screams from the innocent mum, horror laughter from the drunkard dad, and the squeaking of the scared little children. When will it all end, when will freedom knock at our doors.

“What did I do to God?’ this is always the question. You cry yourself to sleep, yet no one comes with the package of the so desired freedom. Living free, enjoying the natural pleasure of the sun, when will it come? Until when will this dehydration continue? We all start to seek freedom in our own ways, beat them or join them, entangle with the evil society, turn to be my drunkard father, bear bitterness as long as I live, and believing in everything else other than God.

We want to run away from it all, forget it never happened, become who we are not, live others’ purposes, but still there is no freedom. Bitterness bears its names on our foreheads; unforgiveness rule our hearts and revenge become the common syllable. We all want them to pay. They took away our freedom they ought to pay, “he stole my childhood, he must pay! he took away my innocence, that man took away my innocence, he deserves death!, the father I never knew, he abandoned me, left me in poverty, and the creator who took away my mum, she was the only hope of life but he took her away” … tears, rage, pain, bitterness seeking to devour me.

But freedom where is your light of hope, I have hated, cling on the past, revenged, why am I still in bondage, why can’t I be free? Am tired of all this please leave me alone, freedom, please come for me. Where are you and why am I burdened? Its not my fault that all this happened to me, I didn’t choose to be born of them, did I sent a letter requesting for this kind of life? Am through with you, if you can’t come for me, then I will do without you.

Pain rises, eats us alive, consumes us and in the end we are useless, still no freedom, still a slave of pain and anger, still succumbed in the arms unforgiveness. Freedom won’t come after all. I guess, I have to let it go, I desire freedom so let me surrender. Let all the pain be the things of the past, let the people who took me to hell in the present life not bother me anymore; they took a lot anyway, for how long will they rule my living. I want to be free, I free those that I had enslaved with my anger, and I surrender them to the one who truly understand my worth. I let it all go.

 The past is behind me am not looking back; my past is gonna be a stepping stone to see a brighter future. I will no longer focus on the past, it has happen and I can’t change it, but see I can change my future, yes! I can change my future, I am free to change the future, I am free, I have freedom! Yes! finally freedom has come my way freedom at last, I will embrace this freedom, freedom to have a hope and a future, freedom to experience eternity. I Am changed am renewed, transformed in the likeness of Jesus who gives freedom.

Wake up let us journey on.