Contrast.

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For Those Who Ask Questions.

Do you ever feel small in a world you have to use airplanes to walk across?

Do you ever sense the hand of a big God in a world you’re too small to walk across like you’re in your room?

We are the small beings who can outlast the world we can’t walk across if only we allow a God so infinitely big to dwell in finitely little us

Do you ever have questions you seem not to find answers to?

Like a heart that keeps breaking and someone who died for no reason?

Do you ever come across contrasts that seem so not understandable?

Like light, a particle and a wave

Like big things found in small things

Like God not seen but everywhere

Like the same God having the whole world in his hands but coming in as a little baby just like us.

If you search for answers and find none, it doesn’t mean some questions have no answers

If you try to explain the paradox and end up where you started, It doesn’t mean there are problems with no solutions.

Step beyond yourself.

We are small beings asking big questions but wanting small answers we can take in.

Welcome. God.

He’s lion and the lamb

He’s father and a friend

He’s fire and the source of the streams that flow in desert places

Now you have a question.

Never mind, He’s the answer.

Can you handle him?

No you can’t

No you shouldn’t

Just trust Him

Stand at the edge

Take a deep breathe

And thrust yourself into ocean God

Then…

Start to swim and discover

You will find for yourself they weren’t contrasts after all

Hard questions with no answers or life paradox circles that brings us back where we started

No they weren’t

They were just realities that could never be understood from the edge of doubt

You need to be in the sea to see things in the sea

You need to be in the sea to see things for what they are

We risk jumping

We risk letting go

Sometimes the best we do is to stand at the edge and point fingers to God

It’s not too late

That you are reading this; Dive in

Take my hands through the proverbial paper and do that leap of faith

I have jumped and didn’t land on hard ground with broken bones

I was caught. . .

By the Sea

In the sea we see things as they are

By the sea we see things as we are

By the sea is not in the sea

Don’t make your conclusions by the sea

Jump into the sea.

It takes faith

It takes leaving all you have been told 

It takes leaving all you have known

It takes stepping beyond yourself  

The end of fear is faith

The end of self is the your real self

Breathe.

Jump.

Swim.

It’s worth it.

In the sea we see.

The Grandfather Paradox [A Guest Post by Seye Kuyinu]

Today I'm excited to have over at 'The Voice' my buddy, Seye Kuyinu whose blog I have always admired and whose heart [I know] is large enough to take in the world. He is a Poet, Music maker, Designer and a Professional techie. Seye's words have spoken to me in deep ways for many years and today it's a privilege to present them to you.

[Image via Pinterest]

Warning: This article is about how you read this very  article yesterday without knowing. This article is also about you reading this article while forgetting that you read it yesterday. And I will explain how.

For some reason, I stumbled upon a link that took me to a Wikipedia page that describes what is known as the Grandfather Paradox. Okay here it is(*rolls eyes*): According to Wikipedia(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandfather_paradox),  The Grandfather Paradox is this-  suppose a man traveled back in time and killed his biological grandfather before the latter met the traveler's grandmother. As a result, one of the traveler's parents (and by extension the traveler himself) would never have been conceived. This would imply that he could not have traveled back in time after all, which means the grandfather would still be alive, and the traveler would have been conceived allowing him to travel back in time and kill his grandfather. Thus each possibility seems to imply its own negation, a type of logical paradox.

If I had more androgen(the hormone that gives ladies the feminine character), I would have rolled my eyes more. Like seriously, why do people bother themselves with baseless thinking?

I didn't know I myself would be caught in this thinking because for more than a week I kept playing the different scenarios in my head, occasionally wanting to imagine myself fighting my great grandfather for land. Or maybe his wife. Soon,  it sounded like something I could fix up and write a poem about. In fact, it occurred to me that many novels(and movies by extension) have taken the inspiration that comes from this theory. Let's start with Denzel Washington's De Javu. Or even the highly grossing Inception.  Even Michael Crichton wrote a novel called Timeline.  He had this idea in play.

Like many of things I encounter each day, I find a way to relate lessons or scenario back to God, my relationship with him and spirituality in general.  I have gone past the phase in my life where thinking about how God came to be doesn't matter the least to me. If the Big Bang was true- matter colliding causing a big bang- how did matter start? Who created matter? Was there another bang that created it. Would it be possible for me to go back in time to become God? Silly question. 

Sometimes we need to remember that TIME is as physical as the wind. Not seen but so much there. God created TIME and when he did he made it govern a part of existence. He lived before time was created. But here is where I am going: the great book that I have so come to love, tells me that God knew me before I was born. He knew my action on this particular day even before the world began (Okay so if God knew me before I was born, he probably knows that I made a mistake with the last sentence.) If he did, he must have charted a course for my life. If he charted a course for my life and he's not controlling  me like a marionette, would I still fall through with his plans?

Okay let me rephrase. If the Bible says His thoughts toward me are not of evil but are of good to bring me to an expected end, will I actually end good?

We need to once in a while stop and think about who God is. Yes, we think about him as the All-in-All, the Omnipresent, we think of him as God-the-God. But God is huger than our small, fickle minds can ever conceive.  God is BIGGER than TIME. He can change time. He can MOULD time with his bare hands. But he did that before. Wasn't it him that made time? Wasn't it God who with the command of Joshua stopped the sun and the moon for a day? The consequence: the leap year. God is big! God is bigger than whatever our minds can  consider thinking. Even the Bible mentioned at one point, 'To him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can THINK or ask'. Gosh! Thinking about this blows my mind all the time!

So talking in the context of TIME, it has not been proven yet that we can go back in time. The Grandfather Paradox also concludes with the negatives and possibilities of a future past that can never be altered.  The Bible exposes us to what God teaches us about the past. God, through written scriptures, tells us that ALL IS OURS. In 1 Cor 3:21, he says 'all is yours,… whether the present or the future'. Notice how he doesn't add the past. This is just so beautiful. This present second is mine! The future I don't see in my grip is mine. I can make of it whatever I want. 

So for me, I am well aware of what God has given me and you… his Grace. God looked into the future and came back to the present just to tell me that he's the one that's able to keep me from falling (Jude 1:24). That fact has definitely added a bounce to my walk. It means I can walk freely, resting on his grace. That Grace means a whole lot to me. And like Paul had once mentioned, I should forget about the past and trudge forward.  I can forget about my past mistakes, accomplishments and accolades and just move on. In his own words: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal..(Phillipians 3:13). That future!

If you read this article from the beginning to the end, or you are just seeing this portion, it was arranged years before you were born, by some 'divine scheme' for you to read this.

Friends

Do you have friends?

Are you sure?

If you just won a lottery or wrote a book that got you on Oprah. I would bet you would have nothing less than 50 friends to take along on the trip all the way to chicago plus 30 more asking you if they could come along.
But please be honest if all around you was falling apart in the middle of a cold black night, how many people would picking the telephone bring near at that moment.

There are lots of people around us, but how many are with us?
I am all for friendship but they are not built over pop corns and sodas.
They are built when we choose to take hands and walk on a road no matter what comes.
They are built when we open our lives to one another not scared that we will be judged.
They are built when two parties realize their humaneness thoroughly and completely but choose to represent the grace of God to one another.
Friendship is beautiful, not because it will all be glossy from the outside but because if we choose to do the hard work of living deeply with one another, opening our lives even when we feel shame barging through,we will harvest and taste the sweetest fruit ever.
It's the result we get when we side step the phony 'Hello goodbye' of society and choose to see friendship actually as a bottomless blue sea instead of a ship or boat that takes us over the canal of what we want.

That's why it beautiful, that's why it's friendship.
We might play the safe game of choosing fans as friends, surrounding ourselves with those who call us superstars.
But do you have someone who would look into your face with pure honesty when you've missed it and tell you that you are out of your flipping mind?
People you can celebrate with and whose legs or dancing shoes aren't stuck in the mud of envy when it's time to dance for you?
Someone who doesn't mind the 2 am alarm call
Look through your house; are there mannequins or humans?

I would ask you once again

Do you have friends?

The Breathing of Your Heart [It's So Easy]

It is so easy to name all you are and forget who you are.
It is so easy to mention all you've got and forget God's got you.
Today I caught my self analyzing an appreciation and a well doing, mentioning how I did this and that to get that.
Can I be honest with you, God never came into the picture.

If you are strong, God is your strength and if not, you are weak. . . In the long run and even now, you are just being deceived.

If you are talented, God gave it to you and if not, you are empty. . . In the long run and even now, you are just behind a crumbling facade, like fancy lady makeup in the rain.

We are so small and yet so naïve. Who gets rid of God from the picture he's painting?
His name should be heralded in all art, music and book even if it isn't about Him, it must be about something He started.

Even if it doesn't make sense, He must be remembered for the obvious things we accomplished by ourselves.

I just sat on chair in my study, I said ' Thank you Jesus'
I just stretched my hands for a can of soda. I whispered a 'Thank You' again.
My lips would ache, sometimes I would forget.
But I must discipline a wayward heart yearning for glory and power to give it back to whom it's due at every instant
Sometimes hypocrisy creeps in when the lips are moving and the heart is frigid.
Open your heart and say a prayer every step of life's way
It's not about you. Everything.
There's a maker
There's a picture painter who also came into the picture.
Do not say He isn't a part of everyday life.
Never rant some things are allowed not to include Him
Let 'Thank You' be the breathing of your heart.

This Moment Is For You

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I slipped

I tripped
I sinned
I messed up
and now I'm running
From you
Not to you

These things
That I can't stand on my own
That I need hands stronger than I to hold me through life
That I need a light not to stumble in the dark
Isn't that why you came?

For every one step back let it be a two step forward
If this was meant to be a romance let this be the clumsy dance lovers do
Cause the moments I fall is for you to catch me
The moments I stumble in the darkness is for you to be a light
And the moment I'm trapped is for you to set me free from me

I slipped
I tripped
I sinned
I messed up
and now I'm running
But I will run to you and not from you
Cause this is when you can be my Hosea
This is when salvation stops been a cliche
I will give my self a little grace
I will let you pick me up and wipe my tears
I will let you whisper into my ears how much I'm loved
I will run smashing into you when I've been smashed by the world

Times we fall aren't times to keep falling
Times we fall are times to be caught
This moment is for you Sweet Jesus
This moment is for you
Catch me

Beauty Is Intentional

[Image by Rodney Smith via Pinterest]

I think one of the greatest pitfalls of the evolution theory is the assumption that beauty can just happen, that chaos if left alone over time would turn out to be beautiful. This thought if embraced might be the greatest enemy of change and all things beautiful.

There is a face behind beauty, a hand behind anything well done and an intention behind the beautiful things we see all around. As artists and creators of art we must embrace the sometimes mind numbing truth that anything beautiful doesn’t just happen., that beauty burgeons when the chaos is rearranged. It is a light that chases away all shadows of procrastination, helplessness, creative block and the tendency to give up on a work of art. 

Beauty is everywhere, even if we do not see it. I think the real job of the artist is to continually keep redefining chaos. The artist that creates well knows that chaos is great asset. When he comes in contact with it, he doesn’t shrink back or give up, he rearranges it  to define beauty.

" And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light"  - (Genesis 1:2-3)

Em ty

Sometimes we forget the promise that He is no more in the tomb, in the dead places, in the broken places that remind us of all that has gone by. Like Mary, we search frantically for the body of our Lord in this places, we don't find Him. We find an empty tomb, we weep, we cry cause we think it's a second death and our Lord's body has been stolen from us. Wasn't it enough they killed Him, wasn't it enough they beat Him so bad, mocked Him and took Him away so soon from a people in need of him. No more miracles from the hands of the Nazarene. Imagine with me for a while, we are Mary and the others and we have brought spices to anoint the body of our dead Lord. Imagine, stay on it, ponder. What emotions run through you?
I think one of the many flaws we exhibit as christians in telling the God story is that we rush over to the light part too soon. The dark friday and saturdays are only emphasized for a second before we show the sunday slides all day long. We brush over the hopelessness like it was nothing. We talk of the darkness like it has no power before the light comes. We trivialize evil and maybe that's why the listeners don't listen and tag us playful or 'they don't know what they're saying'. They want to know. They want to know how dark the darkness His light can chase. They want to know if there's hope for such hopelessness as theirs. But telling it like a fairy tale does none of these things. In fact pick a bible up; the pesky death parts and heartbreaks aren't skipped, they are told.
So imagine with me, we are Mary. What emotions run through you. I will tell you mine. I feel hopeless, I feel wasted. I feel my efforts have been in vain. All the spice and all. I feel the memory of something sweet has just been snatched from me. But in all this feelings, a voice calls to us from behind, we think he is the gardner so we ask him harshly ' where have you taken our Lord? Where have you kept Him?'.
But in that moment we hear our name again 'Mary' and we see we are being called by our Teacher not a gardner.
Sometimes all we need is some guiding, instructing and learning to gain a better perspective on things happening around us. But sometimes I'm scared of us, I'm scared of a generation that has tagged God it's gardner and not it's Teacher. We need a guide not a genie, we need to be led not to lead. We need to go back to the spiritual classrooms and take permanent seats.
This might help us: sometimes we forget, we forget that He promised to go away all for our own good. All for our own good. . So that He could come to us in a greater measure, as a counselor, helper, our advocate and teacher. To abide in us and not just around us.
It is for our good he went so that the counselor, the Spirit present at creation, the Spirit of truth can come and abide in us. I have heard christians talk about how they wish they lived in the times of Jesus. Sometimes honestly, I wish He's sitting across my bed so we can talk about the matters that are dear to my heart, and discuss the questions that wake me up in the wee hours of the morning staring at my ceiling but I'm failing to see the good in his absence. I am failing to see he is present even while absent in a greater way. I'm failing to see that more than across my bed, he lives in me doing life with me when I let him and in fact calling me to a deeper place at every moment.
So on empty tombs and empty hearts, we must learn from these stories. These all happened as a warning and platform for us to do a better dance and have less missed steps in the waltz called life.
First, whenever we arrive at our empty tombs whatever that might be for you, maybe a failed relationship or a future that gets you questioning the promises of God, pause and gain perspective. Don't call the teacher a gardner. It would help us hear what He has to say to us, and explain to us what happened while we were asleep on our 'saturdays' and where we are to meet Him come 'monday'.
And, we must remember. We need this in our memory constantly if we would ever have what he desires for us to have with him, that deep place that - it is all for our good he went to the tomb. When we feel empty and lost, we need to open the pages of the bible to see the picture of the empty tomb. No bones, no decayed flesh. He's not lying dead someplace in Jerusalem. He lives in you. He's risen. The tomb is empty so we wouldn't be.
" But now I am on my way to the One who sent me. Not one of you has asked, 'Where are you going?' Instead, the longer I've talked, the sadder you've become. So let me say it again, this truth: It's better for you that I leave. If I don't leave, the Friend won't come. But if I go, I'll send him to you." - Jesus (John 15 : 5-7)

[iRecommend] Get 3 Books by Francis Chan Free.

On good Friday, I got informed via Jaycee of Light Her Lamp on Facebook that Francis Chan's critically acclaimed book 'Crazy Love' ( which I have read ) was free on amazon.com (Kindle Edition). So I decided to take a snoop and found out that all his 3 books are free (for a limited time) on Amazon (Kindle Edition).

The good news, if you do not own a Kindle and you would like to read, you can get a Kindle reading app here for your PC, Blackberry, iPad, iPhone, Android, and Mac here. Or journey down ( if you are KindlePhobic) to Christianbooks.com by clicking here. It's a much easier process for those who do not reside in the US which would require a quick registration and installing Adobe Digital Editions on your PC which would be done automatically when downloading the book ( Don't worry you can latter transfer the books to your iPad or reader since they are DRM free from christianbooks.com and if you have no reader you can as well enjoy reading them via Adobe Digital Editions on your PC).

Honestly you don't want to miss this, I got 'Erasing Hell' ( his latest and the only one of his books I don't have in hard copy) for my iPad, really excited about that. All three titles available; 'Crazy Love', 'Forgotten God' and 'Erasing Hell'. You've heard of the inspiring and bold Francis Chan, now is the time to know him. Go go go.

From me to you, happy Easter holidays :)

Why Your Sin Isn't Your Problem [An Easter Musing]

Read Matt 27:3-5 (NLT)
"I have sinned," he declared, "for I have betrayed an innocent man."
"What do we care?" They retorted. "That's your problem." - Matt 27:4

One of the greatest mistakes we can make as humans is to acknowledge wrong doing or a misdirection that has occurred and then try to fix it ourselves. It's usually a dead end of guilt.
Here Judas realized he had sinned and in fact declared it but he was told 'that was his problem'. We know the end result; he went ahead to hang himself.

We can never solve the problem of sin and that's why Jesus came.
The practicals: even when you have made that grand mistake and you are awaken in the aftermath reality that unfolds, you must be quick to accept that if your own reasoning and doing got you into that mess, it wouldn't get you out of it.

I think one of the best things I have heard in the moments I think I've failed and realized it was God telling me 'I am with you even in this mess and I want to help you out of this place'.

This in no way is to make us irresponsible but your sin isn't your problem, not cause you didn't commit it but cause you can't solve it.

Maybe if Judas knew why his master really had to die, he wouldn't have died.
Maybe if people look at the cross in times of their deepest regrets and failures they wouldn't end up like the bloodied mess they find there.

There Are Things Around You You Aren't Seeing

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O-R-I-G-A-M-I

Seven letters that simply have to do with the science of folding. I came across this word first through a friend who was involved in the art. I remember visiting him and him showing me the various work of art he had invested his time in. 'Beautiful' I remember saying 'so wants this called' I later asked as I carefully handed back one of his art piece. 'Origami' he answered. 'Origami?' I stared back 'never heard of that before'. But that was a lie at least an unconscious one.

It was latter I discovered that the same word had always been staring at me on my iPad slideshow menu settings (which I have had for more than a year now. But I only saw it but never observed it.

In the end it really boils down to our desires and interest, what we really want (in fact out of life). It determines what we see, it determines what we take interest in. And it's a dangerous place if we are not seeing and taking interest in the things we need for our life journey. For me, to simply break it down career wise, it's entrepreneurship, business management, writing, music and art, that is nothing should come my way which includes these 5 things that shouldn't grab my attention. Now if they aren't grabbing my attention  then I have to go back to the drawing board cause there's a problem somewhere.

Over time our desires and interest would be more concentrated, focused and in fact reduced but our present desires, if our hearts are awaken must draw  us to see the things we are meant to see around us.
Are there things around you you aren't probably seeing? Are there various opportunities that have passed  you by due to this? What can you do to create more focus to open your eyes to the knowledge and wisdom you need for your life journey? Please share, I would be reading your comments