Take It Off

That mask doesn’t look good on you. Trust me. 

Your real self is so unique it can’t be faked. 

I know you don’t believe me. 

Your eyes say it all. 

They wonder if I am real. 

“Real people mask,” I hear you say. 

I beg to differ. Real people take the high road:

They are real to themselves and project these realities to others. 

Masking is not their thing.

It makes them feel strange to themselves; 

And even stranger to others. 

It’s too hard a job to act another man’s script. 

You risk losing you and with it your health and your life. 

So, stay with your script, buddy. 

Only the real you can make you happy. 

The road to genuine success is paved with authenticity. 

Is your mask still on?

Love Yourself! Even If And When Others Don’t

“I can buy myself flowers

Write my name in the sand

Talk to myself for hours

Say things you don't understand

I can take myself dancing

And I can hold my own hand

Yeah, I can love me better than you can” 

- Miley Cyrus from Flowers

—————

Miley Cyrus’ Flowers has rocked the music world in the last several months. Her deep and sonorous voice has filled homes, cars and dancing floors of nations and territories. Flowers pieced into our sedentary life of seeking the love of others, reminding us of the need to start loving ourselves better. The fine piece of music - devoid of vulgarity - won two awards at the just concluded 66th Grammy. Miley’s live performance of the night has elicited rave reviews for its naturalness, vocals mastery and a simple and less distracting choreography. 

For a conservative music lover like me, I find myself drawn to Flowers, not so much to the pomp and pageantry surrounding the Grammy night  performance, but to its lyrics and to Miley’s authenticity. 

Flowers challenges our undue reliance on love and affirmation from others. We feel good when we feel loved. We are happy when others make us happy by the things they do or say to us. In essence, we tie our wellbeing to the apron strings of others’ attitudes and actions. This is a grave mistake as human disappointments and betrayals are inevitable. And as the love and affirmation from others wane, we tend to lose our balance and with it our happiness. This overbearing reliance on others for our wellbeing is derided by the Scriptures. 

”Thus says the Lord: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man And makes flesh his strength, Whose heart departs from the Lord. For he shall be like a shrub in the desert, And shall not see when good comes, But shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, In a salt land which is not inhabited.“ Jeremiah‬ ‭17‬:‭5‬-‭6‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

The reason is that people will always be people - shifty as sand; unreliable at best; for “the heart [of man] is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; Who can know it?“ ‭‭Jeremiah‬ ‭17‬:‭9‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

The path to happiness begins with absolute trust in God. “For without Me you can do nothing!”(John 15:5) is the screaming headline from your Maker. To not recognize this is to court disaster. God is a missing link in Miley Cyrus’ Flowers: It shouldn’t be in your own life’s experience.

Then, you must have an unwavering faith in yourself. Miley suggests you appreciate yourself; buy yourself flowers. Motivate yourself to create indelible marks in the sand of time. Check what you are saying to yourself. Remember, as a man thinks in his heart so he is (Proverbs 23:7). So, be careful what you say to yourself, as your life invariably moves in the direction of your dominant thoughts. Love yourself - take yourself on a date, doing what you love doing, empowering yourself in the process. Hold your hand in an affectionate support. Never you forget, no one can love you better than yourself. Except God, of course.

Prophesies and the Culture of Silence

He stood like a god before a captive audience, moving sporadically like a drunk. His oversized handkerchief worked furiously, cleaning the endless beads of sweat streaming down his face. He looked like a visitor from heaven. Much like the Biblical Moses that was just back from God’s presence. The only difference was that his audience didn’t look away from the glory that the face radiated. May be, because it was the glory of man in a stupor and not the glory of God’s presence. 

Everyone was enamoured. Everyone hung on every word he spoke. The prophet, as he was called, knew his onions. He was a master at his craft. He knew how to play with a dramatic pause, how to manipulate the tone and the volume of his voice. He knew how to look like a disembodied spirit and sway his energetic body to the sporadic rhythm of the soulful music coming from the band. He usually started staring into nowhere, attracting a studied silence from the audience. Then, he moved. He stopped. He ran. He stopped again. Then, he spoke inaudible words, hands lifted to heaven, as if in a conversation with heaven. The audience knew the rhythm and the cues. They knew when silence was golden and when screaming made the prophet madder, or was it more anointed. It was one large choreographed orchestra with everyone playing their part. 

Then, he began. “I have received from the Lord concerning the 2023 Presidential elections in Nigeria.” Shouts of ‘Alleluia’, ‘glory’ rent the air. There were whistles, aimless walks, feet stamping, and diverse other religious poses. As the noise petered out, the prophet continued, “It will surprise you! I said it will surprise you!”

Months after, his prophecies did not materialize. Nobody expects an apology because the prophet never makes mistakes. Afterall, he is not human; he is a god. Some puerile attempts are made to assuage the battered hope of his audience. “Don’t believe all that you are seeing and hearing. God is full of surprises,” he says unconvincingly. “Don’t ever doubt the prophet, even if you think he is wrong. God’s ways are not your ways. Remember not to touch God’s anointed or do His prophet any harm.” 

The audience acts as if nothing is amiss. They see and hear what is happening in the political space. A few of them that have really sucked up to the prophet mount a fierce defence of the man of God. The vast majority carry in their fragile hearts unresolved conflicts between their prophet’s posture and the realities around them. They have unanswered questions. In moments of sober reflections, they accept that their faith is shaky as their belief system suffers a breakdown. They own up to their deteriorating mental wellness. They need help. They cry for help. But the culture of silence and the perverted notion of the prophet’s invincibility will not allow them question or confront the prophet with their fears. 

The prophet knows this and immediately concocts a new series of prophesies that are directed at keeping the sheep in line. He needs them more that they need him. They pay the bills, fuel his larger-than-life style and give him the affirmation that he is a prophet of God. And, as such, the deception goes on and on.

2023 Nigeria’s Presidential Elections: They Prayed, God Heard, God Answered

Today, the 29th May of 2023, a new President has been installed in Nigeria. There is as much jubilation as as there has been a disquiet. Bola Ahmed Tinubu, our new President, won a little less than 40% of the total votes cast. In what was the lowest tally for any winner of a Presidential election in Nigeria, he won only 12 states outright and secured 25% in 29 states. With claims and counterclaims of electoral malfeasance, the army of skeptics of his victory is ominously large. 

The disquiet and the skepticism are more pronounced among Christians, who had been more passionate and more involved in the last Presidential elections than at any time in history. Their reasons were just, their passion excusable, and their anger justified. A Christian in Aso Rock would have been a welcome departure from the former President, with his obvious and mindless favoritism for the people of his faith and region to the detriment of others. It showed in his kitchen cabinet. It reared its ugly head in every appointment and almost in every of his policies and programmes. The man both the Christians and Moslems voted into power twice did enough to alienate more than half of the population that do not share his faith. And my God, it seems he didn’t give a damn! Such an arrogance made the support of a Muslim-Muslim ticket in the just concluded presidential elections by most Christians a mountain too steep to climb and a rationale too difficult to defend. 

Not only did this move Christians to tears and drive them on their knees, the seemingly conspiratorial plan to prolong the Northerners’ hold on power raised many heart beats and pushed many politically docile Christians into activism. In their newfound pragmatism, they went shopping for a candidate. They found one that fitted the bill, even if not perfectly. Who is perfect anyway? The candidate became their rallying point. He was the town cryer announcing their freedom, the object of the change they sought, and the messiah to their dreamed up El-dorado. Their prayers were no longer general. It was no longer, “Lord, let your will be done.” In that drunken state of holy anger and in the deafening noise of a justified cause, they forgot to say like Jesus, “Nevertheless, not my will but your will be done.” You can only blame them if you are an angel. You can only fight them if you are a poor student of history. I hope you and anyone reading this will agree that our nation has just witnessed a revolution unleashed right before our eyes. Think about it for a minute; will you? A failed member of a 2019 presidential ticket and a man considered inconsequential to his former party’s quest for the highest office in 2023, rose to a new and historic third party stardom. The candidate said to have no structures won in Lagos, Nasarawa and Plateau, and broke the backs of seating Governors in the East and in the South South. A man from a tribe where self-determination is in the front burner, garnered an unprecedented National appeal and shattered myths that have long stigmatized the people of his race. A Christian man who has neither before healed the sick nor raised the dead, suddenly became the object of countless sermons and prophesies. Only a fool will see the candidate as a mere opportunist or equate him to a bull in a china shop. It will be foolhardy to see his support base - the multitudes of Christians and the young people from across religious and ethnic divides - as mere rabble rousers. 

Hell has no fury like a woman scorned, we often say. But we have just seen played out the fury of Christians and young people from across the nation as they raged and raced with unparalleled passion and commitment to the polling units. They did this to take a stand against the insensitivity, the callousness and the marginalization in the political calculations that have divided us along ethnic and religious fault lines. They did what they did to disavow a political system that disconnects and impoverishes. They rose up against debilitating insecurity and the disregard for human life and dignity. 

With the declaration of the winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission and his inauguration today, I only hope the new President saw them. I hope he heard them. He would be delusional not to have heard them. I hope he doesn’t have vengeance even in the remotest part of his mind. I hope he sees them as they are - the voices of patriots crying in the wilderness for good governance, justice, inclusiveness and a level playing field in a country in which we are all stakeholders. 

I hope Christians from across the nation and in the diaspora will be grateful to God they have started a revolution that is bound to recalibrate our political campaigns, restructure the polity and redefine political class’ response to the yearnings of the various sections of our nation. 

There is no doubt their heartfelt prayers bombarded the heaven’s gate. The God of heaven heard. And He responded. But in His response, He chose neither earthquake nor fire as they earnestly demanded. Rather, His still small voice broke through the doors of their expectations and shattered the windows of their hope. It was His answer, not theirs. An answer that is nevertheless consistent with His omnipotent and omniscient nature. They should be clear about God’s sovereignty vis a vis their own limitations. “‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’ says the LORD. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.’” Isaiah 55:8,9 (NKJV). It is the habit of God to use the foolishness of this world to confound the wise. Just as it’s not unusual for Him to turn the stone rejected by the builder into a cornerstone. The God who called Nebuchadnezzar His servant and Cyrus His anointed is obviously wiser than us all. Therefore, knowing that His judgments and His ways are past finding out, they must now surrender to His will and rejoice in the hope and assurance that the road to the New Nigeria they seek passes through the new President. May they not miss God’s visitation just because it was not dressed in the familiar and did not look like the expected.

Trouble! You Don't Scare Me

I know there will always be an evil day. So, I am not scared of you, Trouble. The knowledge that you always lurk in the corner frees me of the fear of you. You are a certainty, not just a possibility. It’s only a matter of when next I will confront you. How can I be scared of what I cannot altogether control? Why must I die before my death? I don’t just know you will come but I know how you may come against me. You may desecrate my day with loads of disappointments, arising from the failure of man and his systems. You may manipulate the environment to make me abandon my principles and with it my hope. You may come at me with ailments, death in the family, financial loses, soured relationships and the like. You may deceive me into taking my eyes off God and off my peace. I know you, Trouble. The fear of you dissipates with my knowledge of you. 

 

You don’t scare me a bit, Trouble. You are not as life-threatening as you look. You an ant pretending to be an elephant; a weakling boasting of a non-existent strength. You are nothing but a storm in a tea cup. On the other side of you is all that God wants me to be. Yes, you heard me right. So, all I need to do is see past your antics. If I can only fix my gaze of Him, your threat turns to a treat. You become the bridge to my peace and to my destiny. “All things work together for good,” He said. As you pounce on the shore of my life, I am comforted that my Anchor stays strong and immovable. So, unwittingly, you help me focus more on God than on you. I have learned to see your roar as a test preceding my testimony; as a premonition pointing to my promotion. So, you see, you are an unusual ally on my way to becoming all that God has designed me to be. Why then should I be scared of you? 

 

In your hurry to afflict me, you underestimate my understanding of God’s love for me. There are so many battles against you that I do not know about. God literally takes my place and fights alongside me, as I hold His hands. His love simply wards you off and I get to win against you without putting up a fight. I know that sometimes I take my eyes of Jesus and I permit you to ride roughshod on me. Even then, His love for me swings into action. And even though you are right, His love marks you wrong. I know this is an unfair advantage. But, what can I say? He is my Father. On occasions, God allows you access to me because He knows I can handle you, having assured me He would not permit a challenge in my life that I cannot handle. And then, I need the discipline, the training and the growth my encounter with you will bring. So, I am always better than I was before you came calling. Can I tell you a secret? I rejoice in the tribulation you bring. I count it all joy when you unleash your diverse schemes. How can I fear you when I have Him in my corner? So, bring it on: God and I are in partnership to turn every of your wiles into a singing and dancing session.

 

The Miracle Of My Father's Arms

“Come on, child, your Father is here.”

 

With that, I turn my whole body towards the sound of His voice, beaming with smiles. His is a loving and soothing voice. Like a pool of water in the desert land. I fall recklessly in His arms - His arms long and big never disappoint. They pick me up with ease - with the dirt, the thorns and all. I feel safe. I am safe. My memories fail me. In His arms, I develop amnesia. I neither remember the pains of a lost business nor the shame of failing to meet people’s expectations of me. Not even my numerous challenges can scare me. The fear that I might fail again pales into insignificance. Lost in His arms, I dare to face life’s challenges, knowing that I cannot lose with Him in my corner. It is the miracle of my Father’s arms

 

Secured in His love, I rest. Even His rebuke is a scary delight. His cane is measured and purposeful. His words are framed to correct not to destroy. My Father’s frozen face makes me cry. I hate to cross His lines. But, come to think of it, I am only a child. No one knows that better than my Father. His anger is short-lived, like the morning dew in the scorching heat. Wait, I can hear Him say, “Come here child.” As I see His love eyes, I wipe away my tears, my feeling of condemnation dissipating. What boundless love is this? The miracle of my Father’s arms. 

 

Now, I am grown but I am still a child. I don’t ever wish to grow out of His arms. Surely, I have grown in knowledge, wisdom and stature. But just so that I might become more of a child He envisaged. The more I know the more I wish to know, of His love, truth and power. As I grow wiser, I tremble more at His infinite wisdom. His unsearchable wisdom eclipses mine. Every statute I gain reminds me of His incomparable stature. It doesn’t reduce my stature, it only elevates His. It doesn’t make me weak, it only reminds me how much stronger His arms are. Now, I do more than doff my hat to the great God; I just fall into His arms and worship at His feet. His arms are my safety net; His feet my path to victory. It’s the miracle of my Father’s arms.

The Politics and Religion of Ransoms: Rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s

“Pray, should we pay taxes to Caesar?”

It was intended as a trap. To say Yes was to accept Caesar’s rule and, perhaps, make him a deity. A No would put Jesus at cross purposes with the ultimate ruler. 

Jesus called them hypocrites. And rightly so. God and reason are not always at loggerheads, except when they should be. To be sure, taxes, not prayers, repair roads, build schools and equip hospitals. Sometimes, the demands of Caesar might be inconvenient, hurtful and even unfair. But you obey all the same, having considered the implications of disobedience. In some circumstances, you choose disobedience. “This is not Caesar’s,” you firmly assert. In the former, your faith excuses your obedience while denying obedience in the latter. It is the way of faith and reason. In essence, faith keeps us on the higher grounds of belief and conduct even when reason suggests otherwise.  It is a no brainer choosing one without the consideration of the other. For how can we know the limit of reason without the triumph of faith? And how can we savour the beauty of faith without the discipline of reason?

So, Caesar should have his taxes. And he doesn’t have to be a deity to enjoy that priviledge. He should even have more, much more. He should have obedience to lawful and reasonable demands. He should also have the respect and honour his office demands. Even then, we should never hesitate to say to Caesar, “This is not yours but God’s.” The question is: who is Caesar? He is the one who has power over you, who can put you in a difficult situation from which you cannot easily extricate yourself. The power may be a force of love or of coercion. Caesar is the armed robber that demands your car key at gunpoint. He is the rapist that overpowers you in the dark corner of a deserted street. In either case, you pray fervently for help. You also assess the situation reasonably in an interplay of faith and reason. In one possible scenario, the chilling sound of a police siren may be the divine intervention you need to save you from the armed robber. In another, it may be the succumbing to the brutal force, while trusting the Lord to keep you safe. You may miraculously overpower the rapist, or you may choose to live to tell the tale of God’s miraculous help for a rape victim. 

Recently, the Prelate of the Methodist Church of Nigeria - His Eminence, ArchBishop Samuel Kanu-Uche - and two of his co-travelers were before their Caesar. The notorious band of eight Fulani herdsmen had made them trek for several hours in the wilderness and under the cover of the night. Their Caesar showed them the gully of dead bones of victims that had failed to render unto Caesar the things that were Caesar’s. Tortured, wounded and desecrated, the Prelate engaged his Caesar as we should all do ours. He negotiated the ransom and their release. Meanwhile, the Church and the nation were praying. In a matter of hours, N130 million was raised, out of which N100 million was rendered to Caesar in five sacks of N20 million each. 

After their release, the Prelate in a press conference announced that their release was made possible by God that enabled the Church to pay the negotiated ransom. Before then, Governor Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State had attributed the release of the Prelate within 24 hours “to the grace of God, the fervent prayers of the Christian community and the well coordinated response from security agencies in Abia State.” He was right about the grace of God and the fervent prayers of the Christian community. However, the well coordinated response from the security agencies the Governor spoke about only existed in his fertile imaginations. It was a mere political grandstanding designed to give a false impression of security in an obviously dangerous environment. 

Simply put, the Prelate rendered unto Caesar what was Caesar’s, despite being aware of the National Assembly’s attempt to criminalize ransom payment and the tough but empty boasts of “well coordinated response from the security agencies”. In essence, there were two Caesars the Prelate faced. One Caesar was the fearless and the seemingly invincible band of abductors he was locked in with in the wilderness and in the dark of the night. The other Caesar was the government, whose representatives were asleep in comfortable mansions, oblivious of and detached from the existential security threat the nation was wallowing in. Another set of representatives of this Caesar were on the streets harassing and extorting from traders, motorists and any young person with evidence of means. 

The Prelate pragmatically chose his Caesar. And he rendered to him the things that were his. By doing so, he wittingly or unwittingly refused to render his trust and confidence in the promised protection of the other Caesar. He is alive to tell the story without shame. If anyone should be ashamed, it would be the other Caesar, whose security policies are long on promise but short on performance.