Sell By Beauty

Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. (1Peter 3: 3, 4)

We are very conscious of the attractiveness and beauty of a woman at her peak. We are also conscious of the vigor of youth at their peak. We recognize the excellence of performers. Sportspeople, models and musicians are such people. The reason they are idolized is because they appear to exceed normal people in their specialty. They appear as if they have been taken from another world.

In the past they were actually declared gods. But we are not really much different as the only thing we do not in our ‘enlightenment’ do is call them gods. But we give them those ancient titles all the same assuming they are not indicative of our worship. Diva, cherubic, angelic, star and many other names and titles we give them are actually declarations of devotion, which is worship, anyway.

Girls at their peak will many times become too selective as to be obnoxious to young men of their age. They become too picky when approached for marriage, loathing the ‘hopeless’ young men without a future since many times they are just from completing education and possess nothing of worth to these goddesses who have the whole world ready to lick the dust of  their feet. The kind of man who meets their standard must be one with as much world as might please her.

The interesting fact is that the men who meet her qualification are mostly married men. They have the wealth, the respect, the allure consummate with the picky nature of the girl. The other class is men who are not interested with settling down with any woman, choosing to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of a wayward life. They will therefore want to exploit these beauties before they expire.

I want us to look at a very beautiful girl. And I am now using my many years of observation. I also have the advantage of sharing with many old men as I was growing and so have the benefits accruing from experience beyond mine. But I am sure you will bear me witness that what I am sharing is not hidden wisdom as it is the compilation of many years of observation, observation that is not restricted to my eyes.

In her teenage a girl is most attractive. Her budding body is full of the right curves and her desirability is at its peak. In the past she would be married off as there was nothing much expected of her but getting married, raising a family and putting herself at the disposal of building her community and culture.

But things have changed. The said girl will most likely be in school for the next seven to ten years and will therefore be exposed to a different set of values and expectations. Marriage is discouraged and indefinitely postponed until other expectations are met. This shifts the expectations of this girl beyond the ‘primitive’ expectation of a simple desire for marriage and family (1 Timothy 2: 15). Even the standards change beyond raising children and contributing to the wellbeing of society. The value of success changes beyond hard work and good breeding. The main driver of all this change is education and the expectation being placed on it. You see nobody goes to school to go to farm and raise livestock personally.

Our beauty therefore confronts a different social dynamic and value system. Whereas in the past the choice of a husband was dictated by society, sometimes even ignoring her choices, she is thrust into a situation where the whole marriage equation changes. The urgency diminishes, if not killing altogether the desire for marriage. In fact she is brought to believe that marriage is not only unhealthy at that age but totally retrogressive for her status.

With such a drastically changed definition of marriage and the new set of priorities, it comes as no surprise that she starts imagining that her beauty will last forever (at least until she becomes 30 which for her is not much different from forever). It is therefore not surprising that any proposal from young men will be met with disdain for the most part as she is convinced that she deserves better; a more educated man, a wealthier man, a prominent family, etc. and of course she believes she has all the time in the world to wait for her prince in shining armor.

Whereas in the past the desirability of a man had to do with his inner qualities (character, industry, honesty, prudence), the modern girl is faced with new qualities (caliber of university and course, employer, family wealth, car he drives) which are external with little to do with the kind of man he is. And it is no wonder that the rate of divorce, separation and infidelity has reached shocking proportions lately. You see a rich man is not necessarily a good man. Remember Christ talking about a rich man accessing the kingdom of God (Mark 10: 25)?

But these are the qualities our beauty is now brought up to desire and value.

But let me cut short this side of the story by saying that  this beauty will stay for very long without getting any eligible man due to her unreachable standards among the men who should marry her.

Incidentally those men will go for the girl who, though not as beautiful or endowed as she is, is ready to settle down in marriage. This girl will accept because though she might also have been fed with the same standards and expectations will realize that she is not as attractive or desirable as the really beautiful and will therefore lower her expectation in view of that simple fact. It follows the law of demand and supply that the most desired will have the highest expectations.

As the years go by our beauty remains unmarried as her less endowed ‘sisters’ land the men she had rejected and her prince gets farther and farther as the years are going. Eventually all her age mates get husbands as she holds on to her high horses.

But time is never stagnant. The men who were below her class got married anyway as it is impossible to wait for someone so discriminating, however desirable she may be. As usual the marriage will release them the favor God has promised (Proverbs 18: 22). As a result of that they are able to access the things our beauty was looking out for. They get the good jobs, the big cars, the houses, because they had crossed the barrier for favor.

All of a sudden our beauty finds out why all the men who met her standard were already married. It was marriage that opened them to that standard. Sadly for her all those who sought her hand in marriage already got married and render her regret vain and ineffectual. She is therefore locked out of her age mates through her extreme beauty and desirability. The proposals which were coming daily become rarer and rarer and the men becoming incomparably worse than those she had initially rejected so that accepting them would be a shame especially to those prime ones who had lacked a very slight mark. Imagine rejecting someone with a 90% mark and later being left with one with 40% after the first ones gave up on you and moved on?

Not only does it become more difficult for her to accept another proposal due to the fact that the cream passed her by meaning that the latter proposers were for all intents substandard compared to what she had rejected, but it starts taking desperate proportions since it now appears as if she has condemned herself to the eternal single state. But she is still beautiful and extremely attractive as a woman’s beauty peaks around 30.

Another factor that complicates her situation is that as she was making herself unapproachable, she was getting her own status beyond that beauty. She most likely got a good education and an excellent job, probably very wise investments. She therefore becomes choosier even as her situation becomes more desperate in the marriage direction. But worse is that she becomes too high for any man to think of proposing unless it is the silver tongued conmen who seek to use and dump her. It goes without say that even if she lowered her standards even below surface very few men will dare approach her, first because many have a record of the kind of men she rejected and second because she is above them in most, if not all social indicators. She has become the epitome of independence.

And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach. (Isaiah 4:1)

She will eventually conclude that a normal marriage is out of her way and must therefore look for a way out of her predicament respectfully. That is when we start seeing her looking to be second, third or any other number wife.

But then her contemporaries are not in the least interested in getting additional wives since they are just making it in life and still care for what society thinks and polygamy has never been respectable for younger men. Yet for her getting married to a tired old man is lower than even the desperation she feels under. How will those she rejected feel? Will she be able to handle the gloating of those who had pleaded with her unsuccessfully?

Again time does not wait for her. She reaches the plateau her beauty and attractiveness and still having challenges of the nature I have described. Then the graph starts going negative. Time starts to demonstrate that it was also a force. Bumps and dents start appearing here and there. The body shape starts disobeying her nutritional and exercise regimen. In short her age starts showing off. She could start applying paints but it becomes harder to conceal the truth.

Then another crisis develops. One very important reason for marriage is children, and she does not have children despite all her success. And marriage even as the seventh wife is becoming more and more an impossibility. What does she do to get a child? Remember many times this is a girl who has been in the church and therefore kept her sexuality for that prince, a prince who has decided to move elsewhere. Her regret at the wasted chances has not been able to rectify the situation.

Again she thinks to approach those she knows and trusts most, the men she had rejected in her ivory towered folly to provide seed so that she can get a child. They could even approach the wife so as to show that what she is interested is not marriage but just the seed. But her pleas do not succeed because the men’s consistent faith blocks it.

She could therefore give up waiting and decide that even dirty water can quench a fire and hire men to sleep with her so that she can get that child.

They give gifts to all whores: but thou givest thy gifts to all thy lovers, and hirest them, that they may come unto thee on every side for thy whoredom. (Ezekiel 16:33)

She is now become a harlot who started only with a lofty and worldly value system.

There is one quote I like. The ship is surrounded on all sides with water but the only water that sinks it is the one that gets into it.

I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. (John 17: 15 – 17)

The little world we allow into our spirits is the one that will wreck our lives.

I have just used beauty. But there is academic excellence, athletic prowess, entrepreneurial acumen which all lead to a similar sort of grave; regret and desperation.

How many extremely wealthy people commit suicide or even die through drug overdose? How many immensely successful people die of loneliness? How many are unable to settle down with their wife or husband without sleeping around?

A secular worldview will ultimately dominate your life, irrespective of how many verses of the Bible you know and believe. You see believing in God is not constrained to us, even the devil and his demons believe even more than us because they tremble because they know where that faith would take them, only that they are not willing to be led by it.

Does God dictate your choices? How do you choose your friends? What do you use to decide one job offer is better than another? What do you use to decide the ministry you will get involved? How do you decide the ministry or minister to give as worship? What do you use to gauge ministry success or effectiveness?

How deep is my devotion to God?

But not all beautiful girls are single because they became too selective. You see even men (and it is actually worse) allow the world to shape their value system. The men that ought to have approached her become too full of the world to offer anything of value to a girl with spiritual values. They will propose in a way as to cause the girl to prefer singlehood to marriage to such worldly and totally unspiritual men as those asking for her hand in marriage.

But that girl will not become desperate as God and her commitment to Him was the reason she is still not married. Her faith will continue being vibrant though the world may pour scorn on her decisiveness. And she is sure to be rewarded by the God who controls her value system.

The LORD recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the LORD God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust. (Ruth 2:12)

And that is the reason I started this post with the Peter passage. A truly transformed worldview will give me peace amidst the challenges the world offers.

Thorny Roses

And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope: And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. (Romans 5: 3 - 5)

Why must Christians experience hardships? Why do bees have stings? Why do roses have thorns? Why does HIV kill people? Why are desert plants thorny?

 You see a rose is extremely attractive and smells nice. With its beauty and scent it is irresistible to any passerby. We simply could not have any rose bush if the roses did not have thorns as they would all be plucked before they get fertilized. The thorns are their defense. And not defense so that it is not picked, but defense to give the rose a chance to reproduce. You see the rose is not mature when it buds. It does not reproduce when it blooms.

It has to be fertilized and the fertilization will happen when it is in full bloom, the exact time it is most attractive and crying to be picked to spread that fragrance and beautify someone’s room like it did to mine in college.

God’s way of preserving it for the purposes of reproduction is the reason the rose has thorns. Then due to that blockage to its beauty it is allowed time to reproduce after its kind as God had intended. Do you realize that the elements of the reproduction are not shielded from that rose? The bees can easily access it because they are necessary to that reproduction.

When I was a shepherd I remember eating the fruit of the cactus plant. I do not think there is a fruit with the kind of taste, texture that fruit produces. It is a fruit so unique in taste. To use a marketer’s language it is a fruit someone can kill to eat.

Interesting enough they are everywhere a cactus bush can be found, many times on roadsides. But very few have tasted them.

Why? The cactus is very thorny and the fruit is normally at the very top, many times in the middle of the bush. One had to very deftly and ‘professionally’ pick it amidst those thorns as a slight mistake and the fruit would fall inside the bush and completely out of reach and sight.

But getting it out of the bush was the easier part. The fruit itself has thorns which are worse than those of its parent, some tiny and barely visible. Getting rid of those thorns, especially those you couldn’t see was the main assignment and I don’t think it was possible to do it completely. We were pricked one way or the other as we peeled and ate the fruit, some remaining under the skin of our hands, even tongues, for days.

But eating that fruit compensated for all those sacrifices! Many of us started with a dare and ended with a commitment to eat that fruit at all cost. And the cost was truly high.

What do thorns have to do with the Christian life?

A lot of the preaching of our times presents a Christian life devoid of struggles. Most of those who preach about struggles make them struggles to attain worldly success instead of spiritual maturity.

Thorns ensure that the rose matures enough to reproduce. Cacti are plants of the desert where hardly anything grows and their fruit must have better fortification for the same reason. I doubt even nosey monkeys can dare get that tasty fruit from the cactus.

But thorns also speak another message. Those who need whatever they are protecting must surmount the defense they are offering to access it. Roses are still being worn on lapels. Roses still decorate office receptions. Roses are exported to lands with unfavorable weather.

To benefit from the rose someone has to necessarily be ready to deal with those thorns. He has to prepare himself adequately for him to come out of the picking unharmed, which is the reason for those thorns. He must see ahead to be willing to face those thorns. In short the thorns are a sort of weeding of the pickers as the casual will not dare to face those thorns.

Does this speak about spiritual growth?  Does it speak about of our pursuit of holiness? Does it speak about discipleship?

Are we desperate enough to grow that we will forego ‘fun’ to do it? Are we desperate enough to attain spiritual stature that we will invest heavily in the process? Are we prepared to fast and pray to hear what God wants of us as opposed to what He has for us? Is our eternal destination as desirable as our earthly comfort that we will stop wasting our waking hours on this world and all it has to offer? How do we define our spiritual pursuit?

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. (Matthew 5:6)

We can be so convincing that we really love God. Many times we even end up deceiving ourselves that we are sold out to God’s agenda. But many times our choices point us and those who are looking at us another direction.

Do I really love God if I will need to rush to the pastor every time I need to get God’s direction? Do I love God if I must listen to a preacher to get my encouragement? Am I sold out to God’s agenda in my life when someone else must give me that boost for godliness? Is God really my all in all if He does not give me precise direction concerning my giving? Do I really belong to God if He does not determine my dressing choices?

But there is another aspect to the thorns. Hardship is a necessary accessory to growth. We grow as we are able to handle resistance.

Immunity is the body’s way to handle infection. And why do we have immunity? Nature is progressive. The body must therefore grow as it is exposed to that change.

HIV kills that immunity. Yet do you know that there is something probably more dangerous than HIV? It is a body so shielded from the elements that infections are blocked from touching it. And why is it so? The body slowly adjusts itself to the reality that it is safe and stops developing antibodies since there is no need for them.

Have you ever realized that most wealthy people die from very cheap ailments? Flu, food poisoning etc? Why? Their bodies get accustomed to adequate external (medical) protection that they stop developing their own internal defense. They become similar to people with full blown AIDS because their systems forget how to fight viral and bacterial attacks from their environment.

They will only take purified water and eat safely prepared food. They will live in sanitized neighborhoods and urgently call a doctor in case they feel the slightest discomfort so that it is dealt with immediately and conclusively. Though they have life insurance, they will not take chances to allow their bodies the shortest time to at least identify those biological intruders.

Slowly by slowly their immunity ‘collapses’ so that the slightest attack they encounter will kill them easily if they are not near a hospital.

Contrast them with those who eat from dumps. These eat stale, even rotting food yet look very healthy. They never go to any hospitals as I doubt anyone would attend to them if they went anyway. They sleep outdoors, looking to be shielded from the extremes of the weather and are barely dressed yet you will rarely see them having chest infections.

This is because their bodies adjust to their environment and come better off. They deal with food poisoning all the time and so their systems can deal with it without much effort. They deal with the extremes of weather and their bodies adjust accordingly. They encounter allergies and are comfortable with them.

The body becomes what you condition it for. That is why a marathoner is different from a sprinter or a footballer. This is because they each train their body for the thing they want it to accomplish. And immunity is not much different. The body learns to deal only with what it encounters. Any other thing it encounters will depend on the kind of training it was exposed to as it dealt with earlier invaders.

The other day there was a scuffle in parliament in Kenya. Many Kenyans were infuriated that an MP who was bitten by another was admitted in hospital for that bite. It actually looks comical. That a whole human being is admitted in hospital for a couple of days for being bitten by a person, even to the point of being put on a drip.

While many think it is pretense, which wouldn’t be strange knowing politicians, it might actually be that he needed that kind of hospitalization and treatment. Knowing the kind of fortification they put their bodies under, a wound of that nature is capable of becoming life threatening.

Many people are so detoxified to the point of being unhealthy. Antibiotics have killed all the diseases that they have even killed the necessary bacteria that keep the body in a balanced biological state. Their systems are so clean that they are dead or in other words not functioning as normal human bodies. All the detoxification has resulted in the body lacking normal functions unless they are aided by drugs.

I remember when I was a shepherd. Since we had no shoes one would have their whole toe nail knocked off and we would not even want our parents to know. Our antiseptic was plain roadside dust to stop bleeding and heal the wound. We had real adventure as we tasted all the fruits and leaves we could to know which was sweeter. Yet none of us became sick of anything.

Ever heard of urine therapy? This is where a person uses urine to treat their skin. Why is that and how does body waste become useful? It brings balance to a dysfunctional body. And it is a field that has gained currency very recently.

What about poop therapy? I laughed when a friend mentioned it and challenged me to check it out. Poop therapy is when stool (waste matter) from someone is inserted to a sick person where all treatment has failed. It heals by restoring normal processes of the digestive system that have been harmed or removed by medicines, especially antibiotics.

But we are here dealing with spiritual realities. Do you know that the person most shielded from the world is the one easily ensnared by it?  Like the body shielded from infection will collapse from an insignificant infection that may not even be noticed by a normal body, a person who has been shielded from spiritual conflict is more prone than one who has learnt to recognize the wiles the devil uses over time.

These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)

I wonder what many people think when they read this verse. Is that our experience?

Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. (2Timothy 3:12)

Who preaches that doctrine nowadays?

We are so scared when we hear about persecution. Most have always imagined that persecution ended with the book of Acts. Some even preached something like that for generations, even implying that whatever the Christians in the former atheist USSR were going through was deserved due to their lack of zeal or generational curses without forgetting that they probably had the most portent church on earth.

Let me summarize the message of the thorns.

The first thing thorns do is locking out intruders who are unnecessary or undesirable to my growth. They protect me from people and things that are negative to my spiritual reproduction. Like the thorns on a rose they block casual visitors and intruders from interfering with my growth and maturity.

This is where company comes in, where church and preachers come in. This is where our interaction on and with the media come in. This is where we obstruct our interactions with the world to ensure weeds and other destructive enemies and pests are locked out.

Our thorns are the standards we establish and are connected to the other aspect of the thorns.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it. (Matthew 13: 45, 46)

Our spirituality is of prime importance to us. It is a priority for us to grow and we will breach any obstacle placed on our pursuit.

Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. (Matthew 5: 10 – 12)

How ready are we to deal with the opposition our commitment to Christ must attract?

But we must not create opposition. In fact we are God’s enemies if we create enemies. Remember Christ said we love our enemies? We are to be simply so committed to God that anything and anyone not aligned to God will automatically hate us because they hate or are not as committed to God as God demands.

There are habits that give us those thorns as well as create thorns for others.

Consistent reading and study of God’s word, the Bible, makes us know what exactly God not only wants from us but especially wants of us. We will know who we are and should be in the sight of the author of the Bible, who of course is not your favorite pastor.

Living by the standards the Bible and my study of it dictates makes me radically obedient that the casual and politically or other correctly set Christian will see me as a threat, and not because I care for their lifestyle but because my radical obedience is painting his compromise in very clear, sharp colors. And that is one source of the persecution, Christians who are not sold out to the cause of Christ.

A devotional life and prayer will keep me in constant connection to the heavenly throne. And this will attract the wrath of the enemy of souls for the simple reason that that lifestyle draws people to God better than a magnet would iron. He therefore will keep his resistance to me extreme to try his best to water down that commitment.

That is the reason it is folly to rebuke hardship or persecution as they are positive contributors to a thriving and healthy Christian life.

Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. (2Timothy 2:3)

Shortcutting a Blessing

And make ye marriages with us, and give your daughters unto us, and take our daughters unto you. And ye shall dwell with us: and the land shall be before you; dwell and trade ye therein, and get you possessions therein. (Genesis 34: 9, 10)

What happens when an offer comes that seems to accelerate a promise? What does one do in such an instance?

This is what appears to be happening to Israel here. God had promised his fathers the land he was in though it was already inhabited. The condition gave for their habitation was that the iniquity of those inhabitants will have to reach its peak before they are given that land.

It is possible for some of those details to have been forgotten and only one fact to remain, that God had promised them that land. And this is what we see with Esau as he dealt with issues. His memory retained the key details as he sought to make a living.

Israel is being presented with an offer to settle down and own the land he was promised. He was being invited to make covenants and develop partnerships in that land. Incidentally that is what we see Solomon doing with the nations God had forbidden.

Israel is in a dilemma like all of us would be in. Agreeing would compromise the promise and refusing would be to abuse the hospitality offered him. It is his sons’ craftiness that maintains the focus of the promise by rejecting the shortcut.

What could have happened if he had acceded to the offer being extended to him? The first thing is that he would have started being part of the problem instead of the solution. Remember what Abraham was told?

But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. (Genesis 15:16)

Joining with them stood directly against the promise though on the surface it appeared as if it was being actualized.

Does that happen to us? You may ask.

Do you know God’s promise to you? And here I am talking about customized and not wholesale promises. What is the source from where you get those promises? How specific is it? How clear is it?

The fact that your preacher of choice can psych you about this promise or the other does not make it yours. Like rain a blessing does not fall only on its intended address. It blesses many around the blessed. Again look at Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and wherever they went. Everybody not only could see but also confessed that they were being blessed because of their relationship with the blessed. We see the same with Joseph where even the prison was blessed because of him.  It is therefore probable that the blessing you boast about as you give testimony after another is an overflow of somebody else walking in his.

Could you be cursed yet think you are blessed because you are in close proximity with someone with the blessing?

That the Bible is full of promises is not in doubt. That they are meant for God’s people is also very clear. The problem with most is who God’s people are and what the qualifications are for those blessings to fall.

You might be around someone like Joseph or Daniel. You might be friends with the likes of Elijah and Elisha and so are swimming in the miracles they attract. But like the baker you might be headed to your death because the blessings you were enjoying were overflows from the blessed. Like Gehazi you might experience a negative miracle because you personalized what was not yours. Like Judas you might even have performed miracles yet kill yourself when you realize who you are relative to the promise.

Do you know what your blessing is? Can you pinpoint it when you are not with the crowd? Does it come from God to you or is it a compilation of your favorite sermons or books?

What is a blessing anyway? Does the Bible have conditions for them?

And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth: And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God. (Deuteronomy 28: 1, 2)

That is the source of Biblical blessings. Any other source is not God, however much we might try to justify it.

Obedience and blessing are inseparable. Sanctification and the blessing are synonymous. Speaking about a blessing without dealing with that is actually playing the devil’s game of deception. That is why generalizing the blessing is actually teaching rebellion instead of faith as it appears (Jeremiah 28 and 29). A blessing thrives in obedience and sanctification and shrivels away from that soil.

Anyway, it is possible to appear to be amidst a blessing only because you are in close proximity to someone walking in it as I have just said. And that is why we need to establish the boundaries of the blessing before talking about its shortcut. You see the people swimming in the blessings of the blessed can never short cut because it really is not theirs. I will compare it to having a neighbor with a very tall and shady tree next to your compound. Your neighbor holds the key to that shade. Though he might never charge you for that shade you are enjoying and you might assume it really is yours, he just needs to trim or cut it for his own purposes for you to realize how empty you were.

Lot may have thought that it was his righteousness that caused him to be snatched out of blazing Sodom but we know he was as qualified as the other person in Sodom but for his affinity to Abraham. His rescue had everything to do with his uncle. The 276 people in the ship Paul was using to get to Rome may have thought it was their miracle that none of them drowned but the truth was that Paul was the ONLY reason. The nation of Judah continued existing ONLY because of David’s relationship to God.

Again I ask whether the miracle and blessing you are testifying about is customized to you or is it as a result of another who is covering you.

You may have a mother as I have constantly interceding for you and you remain content to remain in that shadow. You may have a father who is sold out to the ministry that his commitment provides ample cover that you remain content swimming in the shade. You may have a church that covers you in prayer as you play around with your pastoral responsibilities. That blessing or cover you enjoy is legally not yours.

It is essential that you establish your own centre of favor and blessing instead of basking in others’. This is because it is possible for that cover to wear thin as it is not dependent on you. Like with Lot you might have to part ways with that cover. Like with Paul he will complete his journey yet the sea is your business. Like with a pastor the congregation may get fed up with your dramatics and move on.

But even if nothing changes, establishing your own centre of blessing magnifies the one you were enjoying earlier. You increase in potency as God starts dealing with your address, an address that already has previous connection. It can be compared to boosting the reception.

Again we go to the scriptures. Ishmael was as blessed as Isaac, yet his mother through pride and self seeking required them to be removed from the centre of the blessing. Esau was had greater justification for the blessing but his short sighted view of life left him at the periphery of the blessing. Reuben was the target of the double portion but he lost it because his sensual nature overtook his responsibility.

Joseph connected to the double portion not only because his father loved him. His life consistently shows a commitment to God that went beyond the blessing of his forefathers. That he could maintain his faith amidst paganism and ungodliness even in slavery and prison puts him on the path of a customized blessing.

David, though overlooked even by his own father is able to establish his address as a centre of blessing. So much so that he is the one even his parents look upon when they need security. Caleb made himself a centre of blessing when he broke through the collective conclusion of the spying team. And we know Paul established his own centre of blessing on that Damascus road. We know Abraham became a centre when he left all his security to follow God to the unknown.

There MUST be an encounter before one starts dealing with a customized blessing. And the Bible is awash with those encounters. I am repeating about the need for a customized blessing again and again because it is extremely essential that we might continue enjoying someone else’s overflow yet thinking that it belongs to us.

And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none. (Ezekiel 22:30)

Had there been one man in that gap, people may never have known that God was angry enough with them.

And he said, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for ten's sake. (Genesis 18:32)

Again we see the same principle. God is willing to waive the judgment of a couple of cities due to the prayer of one if only ten righteous are found there. Had there been ten righteous I doubt nobody but Abraham would have known that disaster had been abated.

You might be enjoying security and peace because there are effective spiritual watchmen (maybe even one) covering your area. You may be enjoying abundance because there are spiritual ‘farmers’ around you. You might be enjoying job security and promotion because there is a giant slayer who is consistently putting down the spirit of mammon in your area.

Your nation might be reaping the harvest of the spiritual investment of your forebears when you are thinking it is your selfish leaning prayers that are being answered. Your family might be enjoying astounding success in a particular area because someone in the lineage invested heavily in the spiritual realm. You might be experiencing enough spiritual success due to the ungrudging sacrifices someone close to you gave.

Before you shout answered prayer I think a story will do the explaining.

Two men were swept ashore a remote island as the sole survivors of a terrible shipwreck. As happens with people one dared that they separated to prove whose prayer saved them. And the proof was this; the one whose prayers were answered would be the one.

Of course the one who originated the idea started to pray and things were happening. He got food and ate without caring for his friend. He got shelter and became looked down on his friend more. He prayed for a wife and finally thought that he needed to get out of that island since it had become evident his prayers were the ones being answered. So after prayer a ship arrived.

As he was boarding God asked him why he was leaving his friend.

None of his prayers are getting answered. Why should he ride on my prayers?

Do you know what he prayed? God asked.

Why should I ask and I have seen nothing happening on his side of the island. Is that not evidence enough?

He prayed for only one thing. God told him.

And what could it be? The man asked.

His only prayer was that I answer all your prayers. God replied.

… what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it? (1Corinthians 4:7b)

I am repeating again and again the need of you being the address for a blessing and receiving a customized blessing for one main reason. It is impossible to short cut someone else’s blessing. It is impossible to mess the overflow of someone’s blessing when it is falling on you. It is impossible to block rain destined for your neighbor falling on your land.

Let me explain. Jacob did not mess Esau’s blessing; it was Esau who despised the vehicle of accessing it. When he demeaned his double portion, the birthright, by exchanging it with a meal, he showed that he was in no position to customize himself for the blessing. Though his father sought to favor him through granting him the blessing, I doubt that it could have done him any good even if he had been successful in doing it.

Saul and Jeroboam were offered kingdoms. They were therefore in a position to enjoy them forever had they chosen and so it is no surprise that they short cut their kingdoms. Jonathan was a recipient of the overflow of that blessing. That is the reason he died when his father was dying for his sin though he was not part of his father’s sin. But look at this.

And thou shalt not only while yet I live shew me the kindness of the LORD, that I die not: But also thou shalt not cut off thy kindness from my house for ever: no, not when the LORD hath cut off the enemies of David every one from the face of the earth. (1Samuel 20: 14, 15)

He realizes that his family is destined for destruction due to Saul’s sin and positions himself for a blessing through connecting with and protecting David, the blessed. But he does even better. Knowing that Saul’s judgment might mean the wiping out of his whole posterity he positions his seed for that blessing. Incidentally that was the only one who remained of Saul’s posterity.

I have mentioned a few things we must need to make ourselves the address for a blessing, what will make us start receiving customized blessings instead of some overflow from someone who is the address. This is because though it may appear most generous, it is not really meant for me and will stay as long as I enjoy that proximity and the recipient does not mess his blessing or move on.

Israel enjoyed Moses’ cover. He fought for them, interceded for them, lost sleep for them. He prevented their extermination more than once. But he died. I find it interesting that God starts commissioning Joshua by stating the obvious, Moses My servant is dead. In other words Moses’ chapter is now closed. You will not be able to count on Moses for intercession or leadership. He is not there to cover your disobedience any more.

That is the reality of life. That overflow will at one time move on and chances are that you may not be prepared for it especially if you were in deception thinking that the blessing was yours. And I will restate the blessing verses from Deuteronomy 28 once again.

And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth: And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God. (Deuteronomy 28: 1, 2)

We must listen very carefully to what God is saying to us and do everything that He tells us to do to be able to access His blessings.

That is the reason we must have an encounter with God at a personal level. A wholesale encounter does not count because some words could get lost in the way. For me to hear diligently I must be in close proximity to the speaker of those words so that I do not lose any.

As a father I understand this through experience. Send a child to the shop when they are playing or doing some fun activities, especially if he will leave them playing. His desire to obey you will cause him to rush to respond to your command but his heart and mind will be in the game or activity he has left the others doing. He of course hears what you want and rushes out and his mind is still focused on the game. By the time he gets to the shop he can remember the game but not what you were sending him to buy. It might be worse if he decides to buy what he thinks you wanted because it will most likely related to the game his mind was on.

This is the reason I am emphasizing an encounter with God as opposed to a series of sermons or teachings. This because a secondary message has a very high possibility of leaving out one or the other of the totality of God’s commands to you yet God says ALL His commandments. And even 99.9% is not all. This means that you MUST hear from God himself to know the ALL He requires you to obey as opposed to the all He has told somebody else.

But the encounter is not an end. It is the beginning of an experience; an experience of consistently being able to hear ALL He has for you to do on a daily basis. This is what results in sanctification, our holiness as God will never lead us outside His holy nature. And that is the problem I have with those wholesale blessings because they do not seem to have an issue with sin and disobedience. Though they may generously use Deuteronomy 28, they are mainly focused on what God will do as opposed to what I ought to do for God to do what He has promised.

And this is where worship comes in.

Worship not like we many times think it is, a series of songs that supposedly bring down God’s presence. Worship is what a man does when he encounters God as opposed to what he does to appease God. And that is what the Bible consistently demonstrates.

But that is also not an end but a beginning. It is the enrichment of the relationship.

I trust that God will enable me to focus on shortcutting of the blessing next week. I just felt the need to draw our attention to the need for each of us to establish ourselves as the centre of our blessing instead of boasting about blessings we access that are the overflow of someone else’s blessing.