Be wise.

Today, I remember one of my aunties, not that she’s dead, but she just vanished and there have been rumours from people who claimed to have seen her someplace. Her trauma started at the age of twenty-one or thereabout. She was a staunch christain, who love to worship God. But she was always so secretive; no one can guess what is going through her mind, not even my mum who is her older sister. She is the type that believes everybody is her enemy, especially her relatives. Back then I used to wonder why she was staying with us if she did not trust any of us enough to confide in us, even when is sick.
One day she decided to relocate to another city (Lagos), after a few months there she called my mum to inform her that the man she wanted to marry will be coming down home with her for introduction in a few days time. Then their father was still alive and my mum told her that while their aged father is still alive, she cannot make decisions on his behalf, that it will be better if she can come home first to discuss with their father and let him fix a date for the young man’s visit. She refused and she eventually had her way. About two weeks after that, she came back to inform the family of her marriage which was already fixed for two weeks from the day of her visit. Then every body in the family warned her about the consequences of marrying a man whose relatives were not known, that according to our culture, when the man was coming for the introduction, he should have come with some of his family members, he did not and that was overlooked simply because of the way she tried to hurry everyone into the ceremony. What transpired that day I can never forget, she bluntly told everyone that her husband to be is a pastor who does not need his family’s consent to be married. On the day of the wedding, no member of his family was present, only his church members.
Few months after the wedding, we were told of their transfer to a remote village for pastoral work. Mind you, she was about four months pregnant then. Communication between us after their transfer was almost non-existent, as we kept writing letters upon letters without getting replies. Around the time we suspected that she must have been delivered, we wrote again, but still no reply, then we started getting worried and had to go to Lagos in search of their old friends who told us a very shocking story; she said the man had left the ministry that sent him on transfer, and that means they also left that village, they moved to port-Harcourt, his hometown. But that before they left the former village, the pregnancy (twin baby) disappeared. On getting to port- Harcourt, she suffered a mental illness as a result of the pregnancy’s disappearance and the husband left her there to move back to Lagos to start a new life. We heard all these precisely seven years after their wedding. Nobody knew where to look for her; we set people to look for him, but all to no avail.
My mum called me one day to tell me that, this woman just walked into our house one day out of the blue, saying all sorts of incomprehensible things, it was immediately clear that she was stark raving mad.
We all gathered round to look for solutions. We took her to all the mental homes we could think of for treatment, even churches, but no way, at a time she seems to be getting better but one day she just plain disappeared, and since then we have not set eyes on her. My mum and other relations did all they could to find her, the only thing we heard from people who claimed to have seen her was that she said she was going to look for her husband and children.
Since this incidence, I have series of unanswered questions, one of which is how it was possible for a matured pregnancy to disappeared, no miscarriage, nothing.
Then how is it possible that when our parents advise us on love matters we always turn deaf ears? Believing we know better, also forgetting that what an old man sees sitting down, a child cannot glimpse while standing. Agreed they could not tell us who to marry or not to marry, but then there are some advice they could give that may be useful in ensuring the success of the union.
Remember that wisdoms is to lay hold of God's ways and to operate at God’s frequency. It means applying the right measure for every pressure measure.
Be wise.

Coke Zero

Dieting is now the in-thing among my female friends. I guess we all want to look trendy and gorgeous regardless of our age. But one thing I have found with dieting is that it improves the appetite. For me, I keep saying I want to stay off this and that, but it never worked. One thing I thought I was going to miss most is coca-cola, I love it to a fault, the chillier the better and since I have started the diet program I have decided to stay off because of the sugar content, until a friend introduced me to Coke zero.Real taste, zero sugar, it is simply Life as it should be. Now I have no more worries about the downside effect of coke on my dieting program, because it has no effect whatsoever.

The help of God.

Things sometimes happen in our lives that, we may not be able to explain why it happened or the purpose for which it happened. I have heard many stories of how God uses someone to prevent something bad happening to another person. It has happened series of time, as I have heard stories like; I was supposed to be in that bus, but I had to go back home at the last minute to pick up something I forgot and that was how I escaped being a victim. One of my cousins was in a bus travelling from his state of residence to another and not quite twenty minutes into the journey, the bus somersaulted three times and fifteen out of the eighteen passengers died. He was lucky to be one of the three survivors. After regaining consciousness, he said he was thankful to God for giving him a second chance at life. I liked what he said because despite the pains from the injuries he sustained he believed that his being in that bus was not a mistake.
Sometimes back I read the story of someone also traveling in a bus to a far distance. Two hours into the trip, an argument ensued between two of the passengers, their quarrel forced the driver to stop and they were delayed for about thirty minutes, meanwhile the other passengers were very angry at the delay. After the matter was settled, they proceeded on their journey and about an hour later, came across several human corpses. A bus had been robbed thirty minutes earlier, and all the passengers concluded that the argument that delayed them was for a good cause.
There is also the story of a pastor that was working late; he decided to call his wife before he left for home. It was about 10:00pm, but his wife didn't answer the phone. He let the phone ring many times. He thought it was odd that she didn't answer, but decided to wrap up a few things and try again in a few minutes. When he tried again she answered right away. He asked her why she hadn't answered before, and she said that it hadn't rung at their house. They brushed it off as a fluke and went on their merry ways. The following Monday, the pastor received a call at the church office, which was the phone that he'd used that Saturday night. The man that he spoke with wanted to know why he'd called on Saturday night. The pastor couldn't figure out what the man was talking about. Then the man said, "It rang and rang, but I didn't answer." The pastor remembered the mishap and apologized for disturbing him, explaining that he'd intended to call his wife. The man said, "That's, OK. Let me tell you my story. ”You see, I was planning to commit suicide on Saturday night, but before I did, I prayed, 'God if you're there, and you don't want me to do this, give me a sign now.' At that point my phone started to ring. I looked at the caller ID, and it said, 'Almighty God'. I was afraid to answer!" The reason why it showed on the man's caller ID that the call came from "Almighty God" is because the church that the pastor attends is called Almighty God Tabernacle!!
Let’s encourage ourselves with these thoughts, that whatever happen to us, happens for a purpose. God’s purpose for our lives will never go unfulfilled.He is a present help in times of need.

The danger of Success.

Are you drunken with success? Is the knowledge that you have it all intoxicating you? If it is then you need to know that when you've really won big, it's easy to let down, get overconfident, or just get careless. When you've been the champion for a while, you tend to coast, and suddenly you're not the champion anymore. That doesn't just happen in sports, it happens in life. In fact, it has happened many times in the Bible; like what happened to the Jewish king Uzziah (II Chr. 26). We can conclude from that story that a season of success in your life may actually be the most dangerous season of all. Uzziah led his nation to new levels of economic prosperity, military dominance, and international respect. The Bible says, "As long as he sought the Lord, God gave him success”. Notice, God gave him success; success is not your achievement. It's God's gift.
If you read down the chapter, you will see that Uzziah’s fame spread far and wide; he was greatly helped until he became powerful. But after Uzziah became powerful, his pride led to his downfall." What follows is the tragic account of a king who becomes arrogant, self-willed, a man who starts doing it His way, not God's way; and ultimately a man who dies the horrible death of leprosy.

This story is, unfortunately, not unique. The truth is that very few of us are able to handle success. If you're experiencing a time of success and pretty smooth sailing right now, it's important to realize that you may be in the spiritual danger zone. When you're flying high, it's all too easy to forget how you got there. Or, more importantly, who got you there. The ancient Jews were given a solemn warning from God when they went from the wilderness to the wealth of the Promised Land: "Be careful that you do not forget the Lord." And, sure enough, they did.

So if this is a good season of your life, don't ruin it by getting careless. Have you allowed your success to inflate you?
Are you thinking, "Hey, I'm really something" instead of "He's really something"?
Have you moved from the desperate praying of the hard times to less frequent, less fervent prayers now that you're in the good times?
Have you started to rely on your gifts, your cleverness, your experience or your strength instead of what you once did - totally depending on God?
Are you becoming more self-focused?
Are you taking more things into your own hands instead of leaving them in God's hands?

Those are some of the great dangers of success. Don't make God remind you that He is the source of everything you've got, because success that costs you the blessing of your Lord is simply success that you can't afford.Remember that to be better off is not to be better.

The Reason for the Wait

I can't begin to count the times I've been the same way with God about something I wanted or needed. "What's taking so long, God? I want it, and I want it NOW!" Maybe there's something you've been asking and trusting God for a while, and it still hasn't come. You want it now, but there's a reason God isn't giving it to you now. It's not ready yet. And it would disappoint you if He gave it to you now.
There's a word that's one of the major keys to God's best, a word that is spelled out in our word for today from the Word of God. Psalm 37, beginning with verse 5, tells us to: "Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him and He will do this ... Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him ... Wait for the Lord and keep His way." There's the word that often stands between you and God's best - wait. Part of committing your way to the Lord, of trusting in Him, is to wait until God says it's ready; until God says you're ready. So many people are living today in the heartache of their own impatience. They couldn't wait, so they grabbed what they could have now. And it's been much less than what God was getting ready for them.
You've been waiting for God to come through. You want to be married. You're waiting for Him to answer your prayer about having a child or raising a child. You're waiting for that job, that heart change, that breakthrough, that answer, and it hasn't come yet. Don't panic. Don't let impatience cost you the perfect will of God. Premature babies aren't as healthy as ones that are full-term. Premature solutions aren't healthy either. Wait until it's full-term. Remember the principle of Galatians 4:4, "In the fullness of time, God ..." God will bring you your answer when it's ready. So stop whimpering, stop whining, stop trying to grab it before it's ready. If you insist on having it now, you're not going to like it! NOTE:GOD makes things beautiful in His own time..........

Keys to increase.

There are various ladders one can climb to increase, part of which are caring for others, daring for others, giving and sharing. In other to increase we need to learn to make others happy and successful. We need to develop the habit of caring for others, taking up challenges, risks, daring for others, giving and sharing with others, not just for our relations and ourselves alone. Increase is the evidence of life; we all know that dead things don’t increase, they rotten or decay. Giving is one important factor that releases automatic blessing upon the giver. If you have it, learn to share it with others. Here is the story of a young lady waiting for a flight in the boarding room of a big airport. As she would need to wait many hours, she decided to buy a book to while away the time. She also bought a packet of cookies to munch. She sat down in an armchair, in the VIP lounge of the airport, to rest and read in peace. Beside the armchair where the packet of cookies lay, a man sat down in the next seat, opened his magazine and started reading. When she took out the first cookie, the man took one also. She felt irritated but said nothing. She just thought:
“What a nerve! If I was in the mood I would punch him for daring!”
For each cookie she took, the man took one too. This was infuriating her but she did not want to cause a scene. When only one cookie remained, she thought:
“Ah... I wonder what this offensive man would do now?”
Then, the man, taking the last cookie, divided it into two, giving her one half. Ah! That was too much! She was much too angry now! In a huff, she took her book, her things and stormed to the boarding place.
When she sat down in her seat, inside the plane, she looked into her purse to take out her eyeglasses, and, to her surprise, her packet of cookies was there, untouched, unopened!
She felt so ashamed!! She realized that she was wrong... She had forgotten that her cookies were kept in her purse. The man had divided his cookies with her, without feeling anger ...while she had been very angry, thinking that she was dividing her cookies with him.
When you share with others, it will be very difficult for people to stop your increase, as the power for increase does not submit to conditions or environmental pressure.

Be Blessed.

GOD makes all things beautiful in His own time.

Why do people love to get rich quick?
Why do they have to go all out to make money?
Why do we have to be rich at the expense of others?
Why can’t we all wait for God’s appointed time?
Is patient such a terrible virtue?

If you acquire things (money, wealth, children, husband, name it) through unscrupulous means, how comfortable are you enjoying these things?

I thought that with all the negative publicity that advanced free fraud aka 419 has been receiving, that the people involved in this would look for alternative decent means of survival. The time it takes you to compose all those stupid letters and mails you send to people could have been used constructively.
I must tell you also that it takes a smart person to carry out the research involved in making the mails look and sound real.

Why don’t you divert all those intelligence into doing something good and stop giving us bad names in this country?

You drug dealers and peddlers, why don’t you realize the number of lives you have destroyed with your so-called business. Anyway the judgment that fall upon the wicked is already yours just for the sins you’re committing against humanity.

I have this word for you all, because you are lazy and look for the quickest way to get rich, your desires shall kill you; for your hands refuse to labour, (Prov. 21:25) you covet greedily what belong to others then shall your house be overthrown (Prov 14:11), Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? Wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously? (Jer 12:1). If you persist in defrauding people and stripping them of what rightfully belong to them, then such are my prayers for you.

Learn to wait for God's blessing. Stop be in a hurry.

Be blessed.

Search Engines

When using a search engine, the first thought that comes to mind is to use one that is reliable and can return the required information in detail. There are a number of such search engines these days, but the question is how fast, reliable, authentic and safe are these facilities? While trying to locate the address of a company with a branch office in my country, I came across Masterseek, a new search engine that offers free and fast access to any information you may require about a company, ranging from access to their profiles, locations, the description of the products and services they render. Masterseek is a global search engine for all type of users, whether you are a buyer or you have something to sell.

masterseek

Check this out

I recently stumbled upon a site, which offer opportunities for bloggers, advertisers and agencies. At bloggerwave there are different opportunities for different categories of people involved in blogging, all you need do is visit the site, declare your interest by registering for the category you want,then wait for their feedback.
For bloggers, I see this as a clean and cool way to earn extra cash by posting an honest and candid opinion of products and services in the opportunity taken.
For advertisers, a simple and cost effective advertising strategy whereby advertisers can showcase their company identity, sell their products and services and promote their company image. Advertising in bloggerwave exposes the products, goods and services of the advertiser to a wider audience and boost the sale of the products and services.

Bloggerwave

I Shouldn't Have the Onions

A young man went to a local restaurant that was voted by locals to have the best hamburgers in the city. As the young man approached the cashier to place his order, he began to rattle off the things he did not want on his burgers. He began to explain to the cashier that he did not want onions because he did not want the smell of them on his breath. Because he had nothing to counter the smell, he knew what he ingested was likely to come out of his mouth and not smell too good. Therefore, he decided that he "shouldn't have the onions."It is important for every Christian to know that everything we ingest will come out in some way or another. If we ingest negativity from people, negativity will begin to come out of our mouths. If we ingest positive things, positive affirmations will come out of our mouths. Negativity is like the smell of onions in the eyes of God and we cannot allow ourselves and/or other people place it in our lives. Doubt, complaining, self-pity are among the many onions we sometimes ingest. Because we ingest these onions, we begin to speak negative things over our lives, and it stinks. We must decide to no longer think or speak negatively over our lives or allow others to do so. God has purpose and destiny for our lives and the enemy knows this and wants to rob us of it. Therefore, it is up to us not to allow negativity to stink it up, but decide that we "shouldn't have the onions."
Our perception of people should always be good. If we expect the best from people, we get the best out of them.
It is important to remember that death and life are in the power of the tongue; we should also learn to caution our tongues.Watch what you say to people, a single word wrongly uttered could destroy a life.
I used to have this habit of abusing other drivers when I drive. Often times I come across people that drive recklessly, some stop without signaling that they are about to stop, others just come out on the road without watching well. It then became a habit to expect other drivers on the road to drive as such and when they do, I was always ready with a word and I sometimes park to reprimand and lecture, especially the taxi drivers. I later realize that some don't even have to do anything before I start screaming at them for an offence they are yet to commit. My son will turn to look at me with an expression that says: why are you shouting? And I will feel terrible inside of me until I started praying that God should teach me to overlook all these minor lapses and help me to control my tongue. It worked because any time I tried to open my mouth to abuse or curse I will remember that the tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit. (Prov. 18:21)

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Facing Your Fears

It's time for you to do the some thing - to stop avoiding something you've been afraid to face - stop running from it. And it's possible to do that if you'll claim as a promise the words of David in our word for today from the Word of God. They're in Psalm 34:4. It's been an anchor verse in my live.
As you hear what David says, remember that he's writing this while hiding in a cave, King Saul's army is pursuing him; they want to kill him on sight if they find him. Talk about fear! Here's the verse I have claimed so many times, "I sought the Lord, and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears." He wants to do that for you.
Where's the issue you've been afraid to deal with? it could be some very painful things in your past, or a loss you haven't allowed yourself to grieve for, or some area in which you've refused to obey God's direction because of your fear of the unknown. Maybe there's a ticking time bomb in your marriage, in some of your children, or in your church. It could be you've got a fear of abandonment. But if there is any issue like these that you have been too afraid to face, you know that ignoring it doesn't make it go away. It never has.
In fact, an un-confronted fear just keeps on paralyzing you every time a reminder of it comes up. This is a time for courage, for facing the monster that you've been running from for so long. You begin by believing God, that He can "deliver you from all your fears." Then, by faith, get a buddy (maybe a counselor) to walk out on that deck with you. You'll have to confide in someone. Maybe there's a letter you should write, a call you need to make, a conversation you need to have, a forgiveness you need to grant.
And as you walk courageously into your personal "fear zone," you don't walk alone. God's promise is this in Isaiah 43, "Fear not, for I have redeemed you ... you are Mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned ... for I am the Lord, your God."
With that kind of assurance, with that kind of a God, you can face your fears and you can begin to finally conquer what has conquered you for so long.

FEAR NOT FOR GOD IS WITH YOU