I have known him for only 8 months but there are few young lads that have challenged me as much as he has. Even fewer that have a heart to serve, a mind to lead and the purpose to influence with as much passion and temperance as he has.

His writings are soul deep as they are revelatory. I pray you embrace his message for I have found it fruitful and sound in doctrine. He is a young prolific writer with much to put out and a place to put it. Here! 

I am honored and greatly privileged to Host for the very first time, a friend, a Colleague  and a man destined for greatness.   

 

Ladies and gentlemen, readers of the eloquent silences, welcome with me, Ralph Othembi !

There are many that believe that because they walk in power and perform miracles and  speak in tongues and prophesy, they are qualified Men/ of God.

There are few deceptions that match this.

The gift doesn’t qualify the Man of God. God qualifies him to be or not.

Jesus said it himself, “ not all that call me “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven..”   He goes on to say, “ many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord did we not prophesy in your name?, In your name did we not drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ “

It is Jesus’ response to these that astounds me and terrifies me at the same time. “ Away from me, You evil doors” – WHAT?

 

They performed Miracles, they prophesied, they drove out demons, they lived in power and in authority… they were doing this in His NAME!!! How could they possibly be workers of iniquity?

 

Matthew 7 is a chapter that brings to light the state of man from an eternal perspective. There is something else Jesus is looking at here, if it isn’t the wondrous works of the Spirit that prove a man to be his!  If it isn’t the red sea parting or the multiplication of food… If it isn’t the excessive riches or the magnificent authority, then what is it!??

Jesus says the only person that qualifies to enter into his kingdom is the one that DOES the WILL of His Father!

What is the Will? You ask.  Later on in Chapter 25, God describes what it is.  “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and gave me drink, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in Prison and you came to visit me”
This is the heart of Christ! That we look beyond power and Gifting to see where his heart is. With the broken, with the poor, with the fatherless, with the hopeless… His heart is out for them, to redeem them, to restore them, to love them… through you and me.

 

Is it possible to run on power without the source? Paul clearly stated that the gifts were to build the Church and to edify it. To equip those with his heart to reach out and bring healing and restoration to the lost and peace to the weary!

We must return to this true heart. The heart To care more for the powerless than for power.  The heart to cloth the naked, to feed the hungry, to look after the sick…  a heart to Love!
It was never about the power to heal, or performing miracles or prophesying riches.   It was never about exposing prosperity for one to believe…. These never heal the world. These bring carnality to the heart of Christ.
Behind the pursuit of “power” and anointing to perform wonders lies a hideous and silent dread.  The Greed for greatness!

To all fellow believers,we are not called to perform miracles… we are called to bring people to the saving Grace of Our Lord. To Live in obedience to his Command. We are called to Love. This is the heart of Christ.

 

 

The president of our awesome nation Uganda categorically declared his ill feelings towards the gay community on international television. He said so after he’d signed off on the “anti-gay” bill. 

 

Years ago, if I were asked whether this was right, I would, in my bigotry, condone and fully give of my entire resources to back this, our dear president up on grounds of my faith and the understanding there in. 
To me, the concept of homosexuality was nothing short of a piece of hell on earth topped with disgust and abhorrence. I just simply couldn’t understand or give ear to the repugnant notion that homosexuality was anything but what I knew it to be. Filthy, revolting acts of disgrace that minimizes the importance of sex and reduce it to their levels of nascent behavior.

I in fact challenged a dear friend on this blog who was questioning the non-tolerance of Christians towards the gay community. I let her have it, poor thing.

 

While my feelings toward the sexual act itself haven’t changed one bit, everything else has.  Yes. I may receive banter from the more conservative of my kind after this goes public but I must be clear on this. As a Christian, I am growing in the word and I understand it better.  It is on my Christian moral principles that everything I am going to say here is based. 

 

Whereas our dear president and all those he represents are right about the repulsive acts imbedded in homosexuality, while they are right in condemning it as un natural, I find criminalizing an individual, on grounds of their sexual orientation a tad bit much.  It is one thing to be a criminal in terms of sex offenders, rapists, solicitors of juvenile prostitution,  child trafficking and the rest of hell’s customs- completely another being thrown in jail because one has the proclivity  toward the “forbidden”.  Not to sound like an alarmist but it does bring a bit of fright my way to think that the state can determine, lawfully which sexual orientation one must fall under or be crushed by! 

I am not an advocate for gay rights. ( to put to rest the minds that may have termed me as such already) I do see the sacredness of proper sexuality in light of the state. But the idea that I can dictate by law what orientation someone should be is a stretch. Just because I am uncomfortable with it doesn’t mean you must go to jail for it.    Now I know the law is under amendment and there have been many inaccurate generalizations concerning it. But it is my hope that it protects and promotes the rights of the people, gay or not.

 

As a Christian, it is believed that ‘all have sinned’ and not one is righteous. It is believed that since the fall of mankind, SIN entered into the world and has remained to date. It is a common Christian belief that people are born SINNERs-People with a proclivity to endless sin and immeasurable evil.

 If this is true of us, if one can be born a sinner, then I wouldn’t put it too far from truth that one can be born GAY.  For we live in a fallen world with all its depravities, how would we know which evil is natural and which one is made… does it even matter?

“We don’t hate the Human beings, we hate the state of being.”
 

If we can be born with the possibility to be thieves, robbers, haters, prostitutes, liars and the like, then it is within the gays’ ballpark to be born that way. 
I wouldn’t disagree with a homosexual individual that confesses how this is what he has always known. 

I would treat them as I am called to treat any other sinner in need of the saving grace of our lord and Savior…

the conqueror of sin and death.

 

It’s a crazy turn up and everybody is here.  She doesn’t expect it and she is scared! She thinks she is going to meet what could be the very end of her!

 

Her lover awaits with egger giddiness. 

“Ok people! Be Nice!!” He bellows.  “This is going to be awesome! Yo’ll are going to love her!”

 

She knows within her she is unworthy! She finds solace in his love.. but does she deserve it? It is still a wonder how out of all of them he picked her!  Her!

“How will they see me?” she thinks out loud. 

“ Oh God if you are there, I am scared!”  A chill runs down her spine as she imagines the worst that could happen… she looks around warily and then looks for the nearest reflective surface… anything…. Finds it, looks round and tactfully glances at it! However much she felt she had done, it just didn’t feel enough.. it didn’t feel enough to see her prince in all his glory.

 

 

With an outburst of strength she knocked timidly at the bronze ornate door .  with her flashing eyes and cold sweat, she swallows what felt like too much and knocked again, a little louder.
“Oh God! Hope that wasn’t too loud” she whispered between her breaths. 

The door slid open on its own and out came a sound of music… soothing, and up beat… then followed by chatter from a distance…

She peeped, still timid and called out softly “ Hello? I am here!”

From the corner of her eye she saw her… the young little niece! She was all glee on the face and waiting to pounce on her favorite new aunt!

“Hello darling!!!” she whispered, “ how have you been?”

“Im fine!” she screamed as she run staggering toward her. The little thing slipped and just as she plunged into the air to meet her bright eyed newly found muse, Lisa jumped in heroic poise and grabbed the miniature being mid-air and they both fell to the ground chackling and giggling away…

Hand in hand they walked through the corridor that looked like a passageway to eternity.

As they turned the corner into the big ornamented ball room, screams and shouts broke out!
“She is here! That’s the one!”  She couldn’t understand what was going on.  Celebration brock out, glitter and confetti  burst forth in front of her and all of a sudden, she realizes she is the center of attention… everyone is beaming with smiles of awe and wonder… the little girl hugged her tight and through the screams she managed to shout out “ we love you aunti!”

 

There he stood, with his unyielding smile and gazing beady eyes….

All time stopped, all was silent as she beheld her prince…..

“ you changed my life…. We celebrate you..” he said….
He took a knee ….

“ I celebrate you”

….

So shall it be, when we meet our Lord! 🙂 

Wars started and ended with the woman….

The single greatest invasion of man’s pride!

The single greatest sustenance of his pride …

The woman!

She birthed nations and raised a world. She nourished and bred the mighty and the weak alike…

The woman, fickle and delicate in all her grace has ruled the wildest of hearts, the bravest of warriors….

There is no single corridor of times past, that the woman hasn’t made her mark…

Whether in small deeds or the grandest of gestures…

Whether in scornful fury or in clandestine ruin… the woman was and always will be the indubitable force of nature.

History greets the truth of a woman’s sway with resolute certitude, convinced of a beauty undefined but ever real non-the less.

 

I take this moment to distinguish her. My woman… my wonder of all…

The heart of the world…

Enduring inconceivable and inextricable pain, she brings life and beauty into a heartless world…

Years go by as she hopes, she prays, she hopes some more, that the life she brought would in fact live…. Live for life…

She works and toils… she endures the cruelty of the man.

The man she was made for…. Not to use but to adore…

I distinguish her…

 

I take this moment to honor her…. My blood… my parallel…

A true reflection of what I am not…

Persistent in our existence together…

Though we war at heart… we love with all

We cherish , we busk , we glory in our link together…

Forever bound by love….

I honor her…

 

I take this moment to love her … The woman, My woman…

The always and forever in every story…

The dainty of love,… the sparkle of glorious wonder….

A celestial masterpiece!  A creation like no other…

Yes! The one that Men die for. The one they live for…
The one they search for…

She gives purpose to man…To serve and to protect

she bares color to  man’s grays…

In the whispers of a tomorrow,

Deprived of her glory,

is one with blackness and void of life…

If there be any such luck to us that we may hear the sound….

Harken oh man, to the voice of the cold…

Distinguish, honor and love the woman…

For without her… we are lost…

Mankind forever forgotten will be…..

Lo my soul,

Love with might, Honor with power…

Let her busk in your light for a change

Let her calmness fill your heart,

That she may see your grace…

She is woman!

Your woman

 

Faith reveals the beauty of Love. When someone finds meaning in his life, they have purpose and a destiny.  They Value life and honor creation. They witness the remarkable harmony that was right there before them and with vile contempt look no longer to the past for answers.

He that finds faith, finds love.

It is however, critical that all men know that without the element of love, faith degenerates into a baseless set of rubrics. There is a grave danger to revert to the ways of old in the name of faith.

As a matter of fact, the annals of History are littered with extremists that took faith into their own hands and enforced a rule of law. Blind to their own demise, they relapsed to man’s old destructive ways. They introduced more pain than they brought healing.

 

Scared by it all, the intellects rejected faith, the philosophers blamed faith, and the scientists saw no reason for it. They still do.

I don’t blame them either. When the governance of Love is taken out of the picture, [by the very ones appointed to endorse it] faith losses it’s purpose.

And so we have a faction of misguided zealots dictating preferences rather than endorse ideals.

Their misguided zealotry created darkness yet again!

Anti-Semitism, religious disintegration and narcissistic revolutions…

Wars broke out in the name of faith, lives were taken in the name of faith…

and  like a virus , darkness  was re-introduced into a system that had fought it well. This time with more fury, the darkness arguably rained havoc more dire in the name of faith than in any other foray in history.

 

If it were not for love, all hope would be lost, and all faith obscure. Love championed a regeneration of all things. Those, for whom it took root as they found faith, discovered the greatest asset of all life forms.

Love in its abundance, singlehandedly made a public spectacle of death and darkness.  Love shamed its power and declared the war won.
Love in its subtlety, dealt the hordes of despair a blow that would leave them crushed for all time.
Love came through every time. The Hero of old… the revelation of Power…

 

Mistaken for weakness, death danced arrogantly at loves nature.

It was however, this very “weakness” that disarmed the darkness that ever so eludes us.

It was a battle of cosmic proportions.

Ancient texts attest to its magnitude. It is written of this battle, “ death has lost its sting.”

 

Love Championed the release of captives, the healing of the broken hearted, Love bound the wounded, and restored life.

Hope may have done the clandestine groundbreaking… faith may have sounded the war cry… But it was love that won the Victory.  It was and always will be love working behind the scenes of the cosmos restoring balance to the universe.
Love is the single greatest force man will ever have in his corner.

Hope and Faith in all their splendor and strength always will salute love’s ineradicable power.

 

Amidst suffering, amidst pain… whether hard pressed or crushed… we are more than Conquerors.

We hope in Love. We believe in Love.

 

“And now, these three remain: Faith, Hope and Love. But the greatest of these is Love.” ~1Cor.13:13.

 

 

 

Suffering will continue to terrorize human existence. Whether it was by man’s doing or by external forces… Humanity will always be at war with suffering that Death conveyed.  The death I refer to is the system breakdown of the human psyche. Something went wrong and life was at war with itself. Death manifested and found its place among the living and has since consumed incalculably, leaving behind victims of despair.

The unbearable pain in the fabrics of human life led to some of the most atrocious acts that threatened its very survival.

The Suffering… the loss and the anguish became the mortar that built the walls of mortality. Chipping away years and lives…

Along with it.. Hope.

Hope that with the loss of every life, a new one is introduced. Hope that at every turning point there is a way…. Even when there is no way, Hope!

Hope that all of life is valid and valued. Hope that there is something better than this darkness.

Hope that there is a light still.

Hope that in the ambers of our race… burning gently is a light that will never be consumed by night of old.

Hope that some day, this light will over come. Hope that there is something greater… someone greater…

Suddenly, the walls of mortality aren’t that frightening. Suddenly, death is faintly loosing its grip. Hope reaches out to the pangs of its darkness, stares at it square in the face… and says to it “what else you gat?”

Hope amidst pain brings to life an assuredness unlike any other.  A substance of all that is hoped for is made manifest.

A concept becomes a charge.

An idea becomes sentience.

Out of the ruins of this darkness, out of the vestiges of its horror, sprouts a benign form. One undetected, but powerful non the less.

A force, unlike nature, that death will reckon with…

For out of pain and suffering… from within the pangs of despair and the cruel surge of mortality’s evolution, was birthed a potency like no other. Hope in pain brought to life an epic revolution.

Faith…

Hope, faith and Love… What a completion of life. What a testament to renewal.
Like a newborn baby to its mother, so are these three to the expanse of our lives, as we know it. These three represent a profound continuity. An indescribable and unfathomable permanence of all we know [and don’t know] life to be.

These three make all the difference in the world. They are the crux of belief in something greater… they are the foundations of humanity’s very existence…

They are the eternal forces that reckon Goodness. They are the light of old… against the hordes of a very unmistakable and sure darkness.

I have been surrounded by the darkness of death lately. Lives ending all around me… Lives of those close to me, friends of friends, acquaintances… My heart goes out to the bereaved… those in the pain of loss. One in particular of whom I have grown to love… Hers is an indescribable ration of loss. Perhaps because I am too close to the picture… I can’t help but feel it too…

It is easy to revert to the fickleness of life and its puny demands when you look at the all-consuming obscurity that is death.  It is easy to loot what is and should be rightly yours when the screeching fears of death’s bellow haunt the very existence of life as you know it.  The uncertainty, unnerving as death itself, drives many into reckless living.

“Live now for there is no tomorrow” they say..

“what is the meaning of life, if it is only but to die?”
“ where is the purpose for living?”

The trepidations embedded in questions like these have plagued mankind for all of time. He still asks the very same questions one life after another. One generation following another.. Decade after decade, Century after century… they have asked…

They still ask.

I ponder too. Why is life worth living if all that is foreseen is total emptiness and complete obliteration of its essence? What is there to live for?

Friends? Why? They will be gone like the wind tomorrow! Forgotten! U will be forgotten. I will be forgotten!

Do we live for ourselves? To amass wealth and pleasure while it lasts? Then what? To what end is nothingness?

Why should I live a life of pain and Sorrow?  When I could save myself and end it.

Yes… In a darkness so blinding, the light of life dims… and when despair is fully birthed  … there is no value for life or existence. Not anymore…

Life is just another random calculation on the vast canvas of chance.

What a load of crap!

The intellects reckon we are alone. The philosophers have more questions than answers. The scientists, soo near sighted only see evidence, and facts before them. They tell only what’s up and never why it is!!!

Any one can figure out what… but “why?”… That is the man-question!

Death sucks!

Death could have single handedly declare a state of total chaos and destruction…. But for faith, hope and Love.

to be continued…..

TIME. A phenomenon well known by all of mankind! This is the single most profound entity of the universe, as we know it. A continuation of existence! There is no telling what time will be or whether it could change its course. All we know, is we travel through it and from the perspective of reality, time can never and will never be taken back.  The only time we have is now. And as soon as it is in the past, the best one can do is recall.  I really wish we could go back in time or manipulate it to go our way.

Ohhh, the wrongs I could make right!! It is a dream I have had from the first time I embarrassed myself by letting my bowels feel free…. to the time I mumbled words I didn’t know ever existed in my vocabulary, (in reality, they still don’t exist yet)  just to please a girl. I have made a fool out of myself and have been  made a fool of. I have lost a lot, and even more has been stolen from me. If I could take back time, the world would know me as a saint! My name would be sung for ages to come. I would simply be the most profound being of my time! Right!?

But all we have is now.  No human being( to the best of my knowledge) has ever had such power on time.  No one can turn back time. All we have is now…

And “Now” is but for a moment, then it is gone! So how do the history makers do it! The Gandhis, the Mother Teresas, the Abraham Lincolns… How did they face Time and the gory truths that stared at them in the face? It hit me. In time, they became what they were. In time, we read of their attributes and wonders and know that only time could have enabled them to do these.

It is in this light, that a profound TRUTH turned my way. When Paul the Apostle says “…in Part we know, and in Part we don’t” he is referring to the very fabrics of time and the correlation with Truth.

Truth is (in my opinion) a verified series of facts as seen through the eye of reality over TIME.  For me, TRUTH is a much more important entity than facts will ever be. We will always have facts, but truth is a revelation of what they epitomize.

Time always will be Truths ally in a world dipped in falsehood and lies. In a world where half of it is a distortion or an enemy of Truth as it should be presented, Time will reveal all.

In my ranting and discourse with those that walk not the path of TRUTH I chose, I pride myself in the one thing that anyone will agree with me on, TIME. So to the atheists, the agnostics and all other “ists” I may not mention;

Though our paths may be far apart, and though our minds collide on beliefs and facts…. We will surely set the record straight.  Time is the best chance we ever have to prove whether what we proclaim, believe or ascribe to is TRUTH.

As a Christian, I believe that Time is God’s best invention to prove anything about himself. So I worry myself no longer on what better ways I would argue my opinions to prove to myself and to others of the God-Sensation. I am confident in the Creator of Time and as all these questions well up.. about his very existence, about his reign, about his sovereignty, about his rule… Time will set it all straight. We might not ever get the Chance to glance into time or travel back therein, but I as a man of faith, I place my hope and Trust in He that makes all things known. The Author of time!

There were concerns that my last article “ON MATTERS OF FAITH” was borderline heretic at best. Concerns from both the believers and the “not-so believable” made very convincing arguments about how I am trading on a very dangerous precipice.  But like everything else, I am under the scrutiny of time. I will be proven wrong or right. If my theology lacks character or is speculative at best, I Have all I need to Prove whether the ideas on the faith matters are wrong or right. I am not afraid to be wrong, Let time Prove it! 

All TRUTH shall be revealed in the fullness of TIME.

I rest my case.