Desire is a tool to godliness

The word desire simply translated means "a strong feeling of wanting to have something or wishing for something to happen". I loosely translate it to mean that what you desire you don't have and not because you don't have the ability to have it but that the passion of that feeling of wanting to have that something has to be sustained. You have to keep at it.

I want to base this from a scripture that I love from Romans 7:14-25. I like what Paul puts forward as our daily struggle I believe. The innate desire to want to serve God faithfully and without fail but in full contrast to that desire dwells the appetites and wills of the flesh that naturally prison one to sin. What Paul is saying here is that not living a spiritual life is not due to lack of desire but that "evil is ever present with me and I am subject to its insistent demands". In verse 22 he says "For I endorse and delight in the Law of God in my inmost self [with my new nature]. He admits that being born again has not gotten him immune to the lust of the flesh. This is one of the most intriguing books in the bible, Paul bears all to these guys because he seeks to bring them closer God.

What brings me to write about this is that we mostly measure and pass judgement on each other based on things that we don't want to do but pay less attention on the desire to want to do good. You see my actions may not always reflect my desire but what I do is easy because the nature that indwells me demands contrary to my desire. So my mechanism is more in tuned to that which comes naturally to do. So by implication it will take much more strength and ability to be able to do this because the power that I need to be able to do this has to come from the supernatural to be able to subdue these demands and eventually to turn the tables around.

You need to stop concentrating on what you don't want to do but figure out ways to fuel your desire. Once you understand that honing & harnessing your desire will bring you much closer to godliness. Desire is not a problem, working on it is. Don't just stop at the door of desire but the company you keep must reflect your yearning & wanting to be freed from slavery. Remember that God will always grant you your heart's desires Psalms 37:4 but you must delight in Him. So this means that delighting in Him is actually working on your desire. Psalms 20:4 reads "May He grant you according to your heart's desire and fulfill all your plans". So God does not have a problem with what you desire because it is not naturally inherent in your sinful nature but lust, greed and all those appetites that automatically war against your desire to seek & search for righteousness; He loathes.

It is my wish that we can all come to a point where desire to do good overcomes that which comes habitually to do. I want us to learn to see beyond the actions that we do, to see if the desire is there. If we find that there is a desire in there; then put all our energies into making sure that, that desire is realized. Paul in verse 24 & 25 closes with a question & an answer which is Jesus our Lord and Savior. It is this virtue that keeps this desire alive; understanding that God knows the difficulty of living in this body. He holds no grudges for our shortcomings, in fact he continues to search & examines the desires of our hearts and that by His grace we are given a chance to make amends daily. Jeremiah says "it is because of His mercies that we are not consumed".

 Lastly Paul says "Therefore, my dear one, as you have always obeyed [my suggestions], so now, not only [with the enthusiasm you would show] in my presence but much more because I am absent, work out(cultivate, carry out to the goal, and fully complete) your own salvation with reverence and awe and trembling (self-distrust, with serious caution, tenderness of conscience, watchfulness against temptation, timidly shrinking from whatever might offend God and discredit the name of Christ).". Keep working on your desire because it will surely lead to godliness.

Workshopped by L Madubela

Beyond the fall of the statues

Wow! What interesting times we live in, in SA. There is always something to wake to in our country & we manage to lap up all of these things enthusiastically. The #Rhodes must fall campaign by the UCT students started another form of debate which is now getting everyone talking and expressing their feelings in all sorts of manner out there. In February we had our eyes set on SONA (state of the nation address) and the drama that came with it. We've heard reports that the public protector, Julius Malema & others are spies and many others that have happened in the space of just 3 months & 15 days.

Focusing on the statues you'll see that this has got everyone talking and has really sparked some sense of unity among SAns even though we differ on the fundamental meaning of these statues. It would be utterly wrong of us to narrowly respond on this issue of statues as just being about statues only. I do believe that there is more to this in that there is an unheard cry rising from the inner soul of SAns seeking for a common goal or cause to fight for. My fear though is that tend to react to these things and when we react to them we address only the symptoms & not the root cause.

In fact in some instances the response can be patronizing & annoying because it simplifies the issues at hand. Look at the Marikana tragedy and how the employers & government said these were just acts of criminality but we ended up with more than 30 people dead at the hands of the government of the people. We just recently played down the statement made by King Zwelithini and now KZN is in anarchy because of what he said. There have always been a cry of unemployed youth in this country and now when we see them channelling their anger however misguided it maybe; they are hurting from something deeper than what they are projecting. The truth is ladies & gentlemen; there is an energy & vigour that lies dormant in the soul of the South African community. What we see as criminality, the militancy in our youth, the rising frustrations on issues of transformation and the attacks on the statues & monuments of this country signifies that there is something brewing in the core of this country. What disadvantages us the most is that we have a leadership that is unable to neither discern nor decipher the moment or the times in which we are in. In fact the discrepancy in leadership is such that we cannot take the courage to lead when we are required to lead. We lead by reaction and even when we do that we simply address the problem at hand with no clue at all as to how we can guide that energy & vigour to our own agenda beyond the present. 

Our people are not simply going out there to destroy & cause anarchy but I hear them crying out for something more. They are yearning for something that will unify us and make us all focus in the one vision that will be the South African vision. If you look back in our recent history you'll see that when we have a common goal, agenda or vision; we rally around that until we see it to the end. The lack of that common goal puts us in this position. I myself long for the vision and the idea of South Africa that will be driven by all and for us all. The Americans call it the "American Dream" and however divided they may be especially with their own issues of racism coming to the fore, they still very much believe in the American dream. This as I understand took a lot of years to build & entrench but in all their fumbling they still believe in the American dream. It's their compass and remains very central in their politics. It is my belief that what is brewing in the South African community is an energy & vigour that needs to be driven towards a cause that is nation building in nature. A cause that will stand beyond the fall of the statues, a dream that will outlive the ruling party. Meaning; even when the ANC is not in power but the cause remains relevant. This should cut across all nationalities, colour lines should not matter but the "South African Dream" must rise above all of these. 

The Freedom Charter in my view encompasses what I would call the South African Dream & it embodies it very well more than the NDP (National Development Plan) but its own handicap is that it is linked to the ANC. That then cripples it but its very core and its foundation shows that we had a leadership that sort to drive an agenda for this country & not like the one where the agenda is hijacked from the people. All we hear from our leaders is that let's debate these things and let us be orderly when we address issues. Look if we think that this is simply about statues, foreigners, service delivery, Nkandla, Cosatu divisions & any other burning issues of the now; we are mistaken. We need a common agenda, a centred focus point we need a SAD (South African Dream). We need leaders who can rally us to that point. The ideal SA is within all of us; it only needs to be inspired & nurtured to be realized. It is often said that we did not heal from the wounds of apartheid & I concur with that 100% but healing will come when we point that pain to a positively uniting factor. Uniting is not a problem for us. A common goal is. 

Work-shopped by Lungelo Madubela

Success is in Removing the Default Menu/Button.

Its been a while since I've sat and written something down. The idea of putting something down is always with me but I constantly shelve it for next time and that has got to change. I must say that 2015 is slowly chipping away but the amount of drama, fun & energy it brings with is absolutely amazing just by judging the early events that we've seen thus far. I however don't want to delve into the happenings of our current environment but rather the deep conflicts of our being and the things that stand in way of achieving our desired goals.

I want to talk about removing the default menu/button which I regard to be anything that is designed to keep you within what you normally regard as your limit. I am choosing to use a word that is synonymous with computers as they come with preset programs that are used as guides to the user. These programs are nice to have but if you only follow their promptings you'll learn nothing from these devices. To be able to learn more you should be able to ignore the default menu at times & venture into new spheres all on your own. In fact we have a lot of testimonies these days because our very own kids are the champions of working outside the default menus or buttons. My son can operate any device without going through the default menus or settings.

 The most daunting thing about the reliance on these menus is that when you seem to lose your sense of venture & zeal; you quickly fall back to the default settings and that can scupper ones progress for good. The same is the reality of life that those who desire to succeed must remove any "default menus/buttons" in their lives so that they can forge a new path for themselves. There are a lot of these in our lives. The environment that you've grown up in can be your default menu in that what you know can become your limitation and your fall back position. The fact that you've grown up in a family where there is not a single entrepreneur does not mean that you can't be one. You may be from a family of teachers or a background of non-graduates; but you can chose to rise above all of those limits.

You see fear is one of the reasons for seeking to stick with the known or familiar surroundings. The unknown is frightening & carries with it a lot of risk whilst the known is safe but terribly stagnating. I myself have been a victim of my own default menus/buttons and continue to hinder me in my other ventures. I have since identified these and am currently working on them. If you look across history you'll see that those who make a difference or succeed in life are those who decided to defy what is familiar to them and may sometimes be seen as being rebellious. Success is not always mined on the strength of what is proven & tested because there is no greatness in that. True greatness & success comes without the strings of known territories but it is with vision, passion & focus that the unknown is conquered.

What you know is valuable but don't let it stand in the way of what you could become because that might be invaluable to us all. Abraham is one of the true pioneers of the unknown territories and he conquered all of the in each step he took to venture into the unknown. Faith in ones abilities is essential but more than that you have to trust that God is looking out for you at all times. If you fall it's fine but it's not the end of the road.  It is in falling that we learn to rise up again.

Work-shopped by Lungelo Madubela

Quieting the Mind

It's been a wonderful week for me but there was a lot of turbulence in the mind. You know when your mind wants to champion everything that you do. In fact ever since I've decided to continue with my writings i find that there are a lot of topics that are pitching for a spot light, particularly this week. This has been so hard for me such that i decided to make all of this the subject of my topic this week. The mind is a very competitive element of our being and if left to it's own vices can even lead one to nowhere.

I even gotten to a stage where i thought about a line in the movie The Last Samurai. Tom Cruise is an American soldier captured by the Samurai warriors and they happen to develop a relationship which leads to them teaching him the way of the Samurai. In a duel as he learns this way of fighting with swords he get's defeated and one of the Japanese proteges says to him, "to many minds". Its a funny line but what he's implying is that he has a lot in his mind and until he can master that fact he won't master his fighting skills. In a nut shell he was telling him to zone his mind to a place where he can only think and concentrate on what he's doing and nothing else.

Quieting the mind is not an easy thing to do because the mind is a factory reason; rational; sense and logic. We all know that we need those things because those are the things that keep us safe. It would be utterly stupid to act without reason or any of the things that  show that you've taken time to think before you act. Here's the thing, the mind's duty is really to caution us not to take unmeasured risks or do anything you might regret at the end of the day. But sometimes it can stand in the way of great things because without risk there is little reward. Just think about the moment where Madiba was to make the most important speech of his life binding his fellow comrades in it as well.

Can you imagine the kind of noise & turbulence that engulfed his mind at the time, worse even the line where he says "if needs be this is an ideal for which am prepared to die". Those words don't come without the presence of great adversity in oneself. It's like he didn't understand what he was saying and someone needed to wake him up & tell him that you are asking for a death sentence here. This speech was not made in the absence of the mind i believe, but in the quietness of the mind. Quieting the mind is about identifying that life or history defining moment and plunge yourself into it. That moment is where all of us have been to or are faced with everyday of our lives. This is so huge such that it determines whether or not you'll be wearing the crown or you'll be watching someone else wearing it.

Another example in the bible is David. This boy at the time must have been outside his mind. What was he thinking? Going against Goliath in the presence of great men of war who saw this giant & were paled with fear at the site of him. David with no armor, no sword and no war experience decides that this is his moment. With just one shot from his sling, he defeats him and that moment would define his life forever. Nothing makes sense from this story, logic cannot define it, reason will fall short & intellect will always fail but the truth of the story is that David's life was different from that moment. People stopped seeing a shepherd boy but they saw a king.

I have some turbulence of my own on a daily basis and the truth is that we all have our own. It's all about safety you see, we want to be safe. We don't want to go against the tide. A quote I like from the Julius Caesar book by William Shakespeare goes like this "there is a tide in the affairs of men. Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows & misery. On such a full sea are we now afloat, and we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures." Ladies & gentlemen, we all understand these moments that Brutus is talking about. Moments where when you look back in hind sight; you know that you allowed the noise in your mind to steal from you the crown. Am posing a challenge to all of us. For once move out of the safety zone and live cause you might just change your life forever.

Work-shopped by Lungelo Madubela

Betrayal & forgiveness: The Et Tu Brutus effect.

This is not the easiest of topics to talk about especially for me because I have both been on the receiving end and as the perpetrator of betrayal as it were. May be my writing of this is for my personal healing but I believe that it will help others as well. I have a line from a story known by most especially the Bantu education folk who have learnt these stories over the years & still find them interesting. This story was made famous by William Shakespeare one of the best writers in the human history. The assassination of Julius Caesar is one of the stories that bring to light the sin of betrayal & the impact it has on a person particularly when it’s by someone you know.

The legend says that when the senators attacked Caesar he resisted and fought them until a moment where he saw Brutus. It is believed that he uttered these words “Et tu, Brute?” meaning you too Brutus. Of course other scholars say he didn’t say nothing while another said that Caeser said “you to my son” saying these words to Brutus. The impact of the betrayal however cuts deeper than just the words that Julius said as it was the monumental realization of the fact that a close friend was also part of the people that carried knives to stab him. He’s resilience & fighting finesse was all dried up by the knowledge of the fact that a trusted friend, partner or child or someone very close to him had in fact conspired against him. Let’s face it folks, that it’s not the size of the betrayal that counts most of the time but who executes it.

Most people who are usually spectators or speak outside of the scenes of betrayal usually emphasize their analysis on the size of the act whilst the affected individual is traumatised by the perpetrator. You see betrayal is one of the’ selfish sins under the sun because it’s about taking from someone or at someone else’s expense. Betrayal is the breaking or violation of a presumptive contract, trust, or confidence that produces moral and psychological conflict within a relationship amongst individuals, between organizations or between individuals and organizations. This explanation is from Wiki and does sum up the content of what betrayal is. But still what it is cannot be compared to the scars that it engraves emotionally, psychologically & spiritually.

When this is visited upon you, it can kick God out of your life, the will to live and can certainly deaden a part of you for a very long time. Your zeal for life can be snatched away & a great deal of resentment, hatred and numbness could be the order of the day. It is also possible that you’ll start shrinking your environment either because of shame and therefore you don’t want people to feel sorry for you. I tell you in times like these even a small whisper or laughter in a corner out there it’s as if it’s directed at you. The amount of anger is sometimes hoarded inside or misdirected to whomever finds himself/herself in its way. At this point words like forgive & forget become a distant memory as a victim is trying to make sense of the situation. Words like I have the right to be angry seem to be much more comforting. You need people to understand why you are angry and justify your withdrawal from friends & family.

I am sharing with you this because I believe there is no shame in being betrayed. This is a circle of life in which lessons are learned. I can assure you that it is not about learning to trust others any less but it’s about being able to harvest from such the courage to live a life full of love and forgiveness. I am sure that the greatest lesson from betrayal is forgiveness. When you are shuttered, all of that numbness has indwelled you & the anger is as the size of Mount Kilimanjaro there is a voice that tells you to forgive. You know it and it haunts you daily and am telling you now it’s not going to stop unless you chose to yield to it. The chance of living life to the fullest rests on it, so that you are free from this bondage. Failure to forgive brings with it a trust less, non-social & emotionally damaged life forever. Bitterness becomes the stretch marks that will live with you and no matter how much you try to hide it, it rears its ugly head.

So don’t let the et tu, Brute effect sink you into the world of destitute & despondency. Instead seek to love more, seek to trust more, and seek to live a life that allows others into your life. Be selective of who you bring closer but don’t let the scars of betrayal dictate to you who to trust and who to let into your life. Don’t banish the “Brutus” either especially when he/she has asked for forgiveness & atonement from their misdeed. The value of this person may have diminished for a moment but the future contribution maybe more colossal & monumental than the actual act of betrayal. In fact the act & lesson of being able to forgive is far greater that of being forgiven. Remember blessed is the hand that gives than the one that takes.

Betrayal begets forgiveness in that it gives you a chance to rise to a position where you give another person a second chance. It puts you in the same position that Jesus was in & he chose to forgive even when remorse wasn’t shown and forgiveness wasn’t asked for. Don’t wait for him/her to come in order for you to forgive. Do it for you and for your own peace of mind. In the aftermath of great betrayal let forgiveness sit on the throne & peace will reign.

Workshopped by Lungelo

The power that spiritual leaders wield.

I was just pondering over some of the things that are happening in the church and the power that the leaders wield over the people is beyond me. But as soon as i started digesting this thought it dawned on me that there was a time where myself i was under the same power as it were albeit not as extreme as to drink petrol or chow grass. I have to thank my leaders of the time particularly Apostle O Nkosi who shared an undiluted truth to us and directed us to the author and finisher of our faith.

Let me take you into my confidence a little bit. I want to start by making an example of the power through the story of Peter. So Peter sees the Roman soldiers coming for Jesus and he decides to snatch a sword from one of the soldiers and begins to fight on in defense of his master. Its important to note that Peter was a fisherman and therefore had no business trying to fight soldiers of the most sound regime of that time the Roman Empire. What is actually good about this story is that Jesus rebukes Peter as he was not looking at the bigger picture which is the cross where our sins were atoned for through the death of our Lord and Savior Jesus. I argue that the power that saw Peter lose any sense of reasoning & rational to attack soldiers of the highest caliber of the day to defend Jesus is the same power that sees people do crazy things today. Let's look at this power in detail and the type of manipulation that happens in order to keep that power with the leaders always.

Leaders by their very nature have the ability to get people to things that they've never thought they had the ability to do. Personally i believe that a great leader should be able to get people to want to do things for them all in the quest of a common goal. This is not done in a manipulative manner that seeks to self indulge in one's power to sway people. No. Again i say no. Leaders must inspire others to rise above their own limitations for the greater good of themselves and others. Now this is power, and in the hands of power hungry and egotistically self absorbed leaders can lead to all kinds of shenanigans. This unfortunately is becoming the order of the day in the church where we would least expect to find any such shenanigans.

Ladies & gentlemen people out there are searching & looking for anything that is bigger than themselves. People are looking for something to believe in even if it sound stupid and wacky it doesn't matter as long as it can feed their hunger & thirst to believe. Now whenever there is a demand, supply must be activated to meet that demand. The supply of miracles at the alter of Christianity or any kind of spirituality that may help with meeting this demand has a field day in our world today. Spiritual leaders recognize this demand and further understand the power that comes with meeting this demand as it were. Can you explain why people are willing to do things that are beyond our explanation all because some guy sad he must do it. I don't even want to make this about the drinking petrol saga and so on. People give monies, cars, laptops & other valuable materials because they have been made to believe that they will become rich.

You see the secret weapon that  these leaders are using is what Jesus was talking about when he said the harvest is plenty but the workers are few. Indeed in these days it's cool to be spiritual and if you are not church going or involved in some spirituality program you are far behind the social lines. You won't have something to talk about in your social circles. So this desire is not met with the authentic gospel of Christ but with the foolishness of miracles. The unexplained wealth that these leaders amass as a result of all this is there for everyone to see. The poor & the rich all flock to these places. These leaders have almost risen above the head of the church himself because they no longer point people to Jesus but to themselves. They don't teach people to access these things from the Lord on their own but will tell you that if you bless them and obey them then Jesus will bless you. It simply doesn't make any business sense to them for people to be able to access this power without them.

They point people to themselves as the anointed of God and therefore they are the only channel through which they can access the power of God. This is all utter rubbish and foolishness. This is where i thank God for the teachings that we got from our mentors in the Lord. What further aggravates the situation is when you get the Nigerian accident at TB Joshua's church. You wonder what pushes people to go all the way to Nigeria when they can access God in their own homes. "For behold the temple of God is among  men". That is a quote from the book of Matthew simply read means that God is omnipresent and cannot be found only in the temple or through one man but to all those who accept him as their personal Savior. Failure to grasp this truth about God as being accessible to all will open you up to all kinds of undesirable cultism centered spirituality.

It's time to get our act together and wake up from this sleep which is induced upon our people by manipulative & crooked leaders. Jesus says there is a price to pay when we follow him and that we must be willing to pay that cost if we are to truly be his followers. He himself paid that price for us and he became the ultimate example & he is the one we must follow always. Our focus must be to him & him alone.  

Workshoped by Lungelo 

Things we know to do!

Things we know to do!

I’m seriously thinking very hard as I write this message to you about things we know to do and whether or not we did do those things this year or better yet whether we excelled in them or not. I ponder at the idea of always wanting to do more of what we don’t know & in the process ignore those that we do so well. Others tend to want to stay with what they know so well because they do it so well and how we criticize them for lack of adventure. I’m not offering a right or wrong judgement on this one because my mind is just juggling as it always does when I sit to pen something that’s close to my heart for people that are close to my heart, so I let it juggle but we always come to a point.

We know how to love; but do we take time to know how those we offer our love to, would like to be loved? So that we can love them not they way we know how to love them but rather how they know they would like to be loved. So then can we claim that we know how to love them even when we love people not the way they would like for us to love them, perhaps not.

We know how to criticize; but do we also know how to encourage & build others in the same way that we criticize them? If not, then I think that we don’t know how to criticize if we can only point out the negative and not see the positive in others. If you can ponder over the negative then there is no reason why you can’t ponder over the positive.

We know how to be who we are; but do we know how who we are affect those who are around us? This is one of the greatest questions that we should ask ourselves often because this is the core of humanity. The day we stop caring and pondering about how we impact others, then that will be the day we lose our core. Cain when asked by God “Where is thy brother Abel?” Cain responded “Am I my brother’s keeper?” This is not a response I imagine anyone of us should give in this day & age because we need each other now more than ever before.

What am I saying? There are a lot of things that we know how to do & the greatest find in those things we know how to do is to love ourselves. This is the very same find that we need to make SA a better place because with loving oneself comes better treatment of others, by not drinking & driving, not smoking among others, not infringing each others rights, giving credit where credit is due, providing where there’s no provision, offering a little love a little tenderness where there’s none, treating others the same way you would like to be treated, offering kindness to others in exchange we get back the very essence of humanity.

This is who we are & we do what we are because this is the thing we know to do, all I’m asking for is that we excel in it before we get curious about doing what we don’t know to do.

I love you all & have yourselves a NCHAA Christmas & a Happy Nu YEAR!!!