Differences

Why are we all different? Some are rich while some are poor. Some are intelligent while some are not. Some are athletic while some are fat slobs. Some are eloquent while some are stammers.

The book of Genesis made it very CLEAR that we were made in the image of God. As we all know, God is ever present and all knowing, in other words, He is perfect. God pointed out that man needed help and are therefore not perfect, that is why he created Eve (the helper). Coupled with the fall of man, this made our imperfections obvious and glaring. That Gap was however bridged by the sending of his only begotten son (Jesus).

After reading my devotional guide this morning, I got a clear picture in my mind about why we all are different. The Bible says we are all part of the same body, we all have different roles to play. 1Cor 12:21 explains that one part of the body can't do without the other irrespective of the level of importance or attractiveness of each part.

Personally, I think the reason we are all somewhat different is because God made it so. He recognized man’s deficiency and made up for it by making a help meet for Adam. After the fall of man, a gap was created between God and man and Jesus Christ, as earlier said, came to bridge that gap. If we as Christians follow the Christ wholly, our imperfection will be made perfect.

'Dare Oladeji

Emotional Cheaters

I put up a post last year about crossing the line between fantasy and cheating. There has been a trend of emotional cheating in many marriages lately. This is rampant among both Christians and non-Christians marriages. We have people that we bond with in different ways and this is most common in the workplace. Some get into it intentionally and others just find themselves in such situations.


First case scenario

Healthy marriage, but there is this beautiful lady at work, they are ‘just friends’ and they do every single thing together. He now looks forward to being with her, weekends are now boring because they don’t have the excuse to do things together. He is not cheating on his wife sexually but he is no longer enthusiastic about her company.

Second case scenario

Unhappy, almost destroyed marriage. Wife is always pretending to be happy at work, but not enough to fool her close male colleague. She starts to confide in him, and they both develop a soft spot for each other. They bond on all levels and he becomes a way of escape out of her abusive marriage. Now she is happier and she has a reason to live again. She can now enjoy d sessions of love making with her husband so far she is picturing the face of her colleague at that time. She has not yet slept with him but she has been seriously fantasizing about the act, they are both waiting for the ‘right’ opportunity and they know that it is just a matter of time before it happens.

What we should ask is where exactly our marriage is right now and where we want it to be. Will emotional cheating on our spouse get us to that desired destination or take us far away from it? Ponder on this question.

What is she doing here?

I was recently led to work with the teenagers in my church, and like my curious self, I have constantly been studying their ways and mannerisms. Needless to say, I have observed a lot, both positive & negative.

On a particular Sunday, a girl in her late teens walked in and she was practically naked. Her back was completely bare and her front her breasts was barely covered, her hair was fixed to look like an old school Rihanna style, her skirt rode far above her knees. Adorned with her designer bag and neck and hand bead, she looked like she was going to a night club. When I saw her, my jaw dropped, she walked in with two other girls who were also flamboyantly dressed but still looked descent.

The first thing that crossed my mind when I saw her was ‘which parent allowed her child to leave home like this?’ It was bad enough dressing like that but worse when the intended destination is church but I tried to compose myself so that my face won’t betray my thoughts. I am sure the same thing was going through the mind of other adults. One mixed race boy of about 13 yrs of age behind me suddenly said, ‘where do they think they are, they don’t even know that they are coming to church (hiss)?’ Now hold it there, didn’t she dress that way so that other teenagers could admire her and see her as a hot babe, why the opposite reaction from them?

I thought to myself, what could I do now? Maybe I should just walk up to her and ask her to go out and dress properly (no, that would be very unchristian and unwise), or maybe I should just look for a scarf for her to cover herself. After a while, I managed to ignore my longing to solve the problem.

As I teenager, I have dressed crazily, I wore spaghetti gowns (I still do), I wore contrasting pairs of earrings, I sagged my jeans, I hung my baggy dungarees on a single strap, and when I started realizing that I am a lady, my grandmother complained that my tops were always too jumpy, my earrings were too big and my lip gloss was too shiny. If any part of my stomach showed, she would pull my pants or skirts up, and hold it wit safety pin so that they won’t ride down again. This was quite understandable as I am her first granddaughter and my mother was just tired of me. The only person that seemed to ‘understand me’ and wanted to be like me was my younger sister, which also was not surprising since I was the only elder female influence she had in her life and she admired my independence. So, you wont blame me for being shocked when I saw ‘sister scandalous’.

Where are the parents, who have they relegated their duties to, the school, the teachers or the church? We need to be aware of the kind of children we are nurturing and take an active position in their decision making instead of raring breeds who will eventually become a potential danger to their generation.