Welcome to the November 22nd edition of Faith & Life Lessons.
You will see this email full of tidbits from my week. My goal is simple. I hope that from how I live my life, you can find a thing or two that helps you as you try to live a life that matters. I am always trying to do one thing - make Christ-focused decisions in love, work, and life. And this was my week.
The Story Of My Week
If you grew up in the nineties, you would have watched "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air".
It was not a stereotypical black show and it still found ways to deal with some of the difficult issues in society.
Fun fact, almost all the people working behind the camera for the all-black show cast were white Caucasians.
The cast came together this week for a 30-year reunion. They had had reunions in the past but this one was special. Unfortunately, the patriarch of the family, Philip Banks could not be there as James Avery, the actor who played it had passed on in 2013.
The biggest act of the night was the reunion of the cast with the actress that played Aunt Viv, Janet Hubert, for the first 3 seasons.
There had been a falling out with her and Will Smith. The two reconciled during the reunion and made apologies where needed.
She then joined the rest of the other cast.
Guess what, someone posted that Alfonso Ribeiro, who played, Carlton was not there when the cast met up with Janet Hubert during the union broadcast. It was then insinuated that perhaps the feud was still on between her and him.
Just like people trying to look for a problem when there isn't one.
Janet responded, "Don't assume, he was working and I wasn't there, Let it go sweetie, we have."
It reminded me of how it's easy for simple actions to be misinterpreted to create a problem where there is none.
I reminded myself this week to always interpret events in the best light until I hear the official story from the people involved.
Things I Learnt
1-When we Forget the Supernatural: Someone posted a response to a recent story by a Nigerian pastor of someone who was supernaturally transported from one European country to another.
In the story, the man had entered the toilet in one European country and as he walked out of the toilet, he came out in another country.
In short, he refused to believe the story happened. According to him, the person in question did not even have valid papers to be in Europe. To now imagine that the same person heard God tell him to go to another country in Europe was incredible.
I guess I was pricked when he took the argument to the extreme that the story reeks of voodoo-laced movies where after making incarnations, a person could disappear from one place to appear in another.
I have no problem if he chooses not to believe the story of The Transporting Man.
My problem is when he chooses to say that God cannot do transporting, only the devil does.
We forget that God created the devil. All the powers that the devil has come from God. He perverts what God has given him to deceive the world.
If the devil, a created being, has the power of transport, how can we imagine that God, the Creator, does not have the power of transport?
I think part of it comes from the illogical teachings we have heard over the years that the devil is fighting God. The devil is not fighting God - it is a mismatch.
God has set a time for the judgment and punishment of the devil. Until that time, the devil has all the playtime he wants. But God still controls how he plays (remember Job?).
Do you know in the end, it is not God who handles the devil - it was just an angel
Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven with the key to the bottomless pita and a heavy chain in his hand. He seized the dragon—that old serpent, who is the devil, Satan—and bound him in chains for a thousand years. The angel threw him into the bottomless pit, which he then shut and locked so Satan could not deceive the nations anymore until the thousand years were finished. Afterward, he must be released for a little while. - Revelations 20:1-3
We may disagree with the stories told by others but we must never minimize the power of God to justify our disagreement
2-Good Times for a bad People: Social media is giving voice to so many things. Sadly, it's made someone of us a Christian lose our discipline of searching things out and testing them before we speak.
I also think that we have become so enamored with the advances of modern development that we interpret everything through those lenses.
A friend of mine shared this on social media
King Leopold of Belgium killed over 10 Million Africans. No ancestral curse follows Belgium till date. Africans don't let religion lie to you about ancestral curses holding you down from developing. Wake up, think, Right actions bring development.
I am not one for public debates - I try to avoid it. I sent a direct message to him. My response is below
I saw what you posted on Belgium and UK. Interesting...let me share a thought with you. God told Abraham that He was wiping out the Canaanites because of their sin.
Guess what? They continued to prosper for over another 700 years - that's at least 5-6 generations.
You can imagine how so many people would have said, "doing bad is good because you get away with it".
Don't let today's seeming prosperity confuse and make you believe that there is no judgment for iniquity.
By the way, I think we are always too hard on Africa. Consider that most European countries have had many years to evolve. They have gone through dictators and kings that controlled everything leaving their people poor. They have made their mistakes with over centuries to learn from. Africa did not have that benefit.
We must not let developmental advances make us doubt the supernatural workings of a God who intervenes in human activities.
Sodom & Gomorrah were destroyed as a judgment of God. But excavations would explain it as the effect of a volcano that went active, raining molten lava aka fire & burning sulfur. I bet if scientist searched further would probably explain why the volcano went active.
But we understand it as the supernatural effect of God's judgment on the sin of a people.
Do you want to talk about the Canaanites wipe out? We could call it Israel's systematic elimination of a people, their civilization, and culture aka genocide. God called it the execution of His judgment on their sin.
God is still at work doing His supernatural intervention, bringing a blessing and saving people who may be under the cover of any curse to the deliverance that comes from Jesus' salvation.
Unless God blesses human efforts, it doesn't translate to success. Even Satan had to get "blessing" from God before he could do anything to Job
Postscript
May you never forget that it is God who blesses your effort with the success you achieve in what you do. May you not stop working. Amen.
Tata,
Tola
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