I have been known to be cheesy and corny and perhaps this is my M.O … I stopped fighting it and embraced whatever it was I was being called. I just hated the gag looks I got and the ‘shoot-me-now’ thoughts I could see bouncing back and forth in peoples brains as they read my cheese!( FYI, it is really hard to hide those thoughts)

I was going down the spiral of self-discovery and trying to figure out what I was about when my life took a sudden turn.   You see, as a young man trying to fit into society after countless battles lost and worn within me, I had found a semblance of identity in the arts. I was getting the hang of singing,(though there were those better than me) I had subdued the art of acting( few matched me, I must say) and had masterfully hidden my insecurities behind an array of niceness, amiability and courteousness based on no other foundation but impressions. Yes, I made sure that if you didn’t know me, I would leave an unforgettable mark when I walked away from you – and by “you” here, I mean the ladies. I didn’t care much for the lads.

 

That afternoon, I had done the first show of what would later be called the epic start of our church’s Easter productions. It was that day that changed it all. She met Yours Truly on the Stage. I was acting as Jesus our savior. She came up to me after the production and we exchanged pleasantries. Being the celebrity I was, It didn’t mean much meeting new faces. But hers, I couldn’t forget.

 

Later on, along the corridors of the university halls, on the stone walks, we met up and there was a way she called me “Jesus” that didn’t register as the master of old. No. It sounded different every time she hollad out my Lords name… yet calling me!   I finally really took note of her after a prayer meeting under the mango tree near the chapel at the university. She had her nails done and her smile brighter! Her personality expelled fresh and unconventional humor. She was the moon on that starless night… and many nights after that!

I visited her room later that semester as we had grown to be acquaintances. She had invited me to come up to see her. She lived in what seemed like the top of a tower, which after climbing 10,000 flights of stairs felt like I had battled a fiery dragon and endless booby traps…

 

Months later, I am looking at her seated in my little car and I cant believe she feels this way for me. You see, in her unconventional geek like life, she had opened my eyes to a world of possibilities. Most importantly, she made me feel like I didn’t have to change a thing to be noticed by her. I discovered that I could be whoever I was and it was ok. She loved me.

Years later, with a few hiccups in the way, the principle still is the same. The girl still is the same! And today, I celebrate another one of those important days. I look back at the first time I celebrated that day and I am in awe…

What she saw in me that I never thought I had, I see now. She peeled back the layers of my niceness and courteousness (sometimes painfully) and revealed to me exactly Who God had purposed me to become. She saw right through the lies of my personality and saw the reality (sometimes frightening) of what I was.

To the woman that saw the King in me, long before I knew my royalty,

To the woman that Honors my passion and purity,

To the woman that puts the grays in my black and White,

To the Woman that knows me…

To Lynn Kirabo
Happy birthday.

One of the most painful things that sin brings about in our hearts is unforgiveness.  Unforgiveness is basically the decision to hold someone to a debt after they have hurt you. What has spurred me to write about it is the sudden realisation that Jesus Christ had a very serious and real point about unforgiveness in a little parable that he told. But a quick illustration before taking a look at the parable.

Recently, I was watching an American series called ‘The Good Wife’. It follows a married couple whose lives spin out of control after the husbands infidelity with a woman goes public. So after two years of ups and downs, they eventually start to  rebuild their marriage.

Then at the end of season two, she finds out that there was another woman he cheated with in the years past. So she kicks him out of the house. And the venom in between the couple rapidly builds. The man wants to reconcile, but the wife’s heart has hardened after all the pain she had gone through.

Right after this, her two teenage kids are feeling really confused. So her only daughter visits her at work. They enter the family car and have a really touching exchange. We jump into the conversation after her daughter asks why they can’t get back together.

Mom : “I am hurting”
Daughter : “Can’t Dad help you with that?”
Mom : “No”
Daughter : “But Dad is hurting too!”

This scene kind of sumed up the unfortunateness of the whole situtation. Two hurting people divided by unforgiveness that stands between them. Now, that was just an acted scene. But in real life, this is the kind of stuff that happens. People that loved each other suddenly turn into the most bitter of enemies. And they become completely blinded to each others feelings and the pain of those caught in their brawl.

Friends, workmates and even people who serve in church are not spared from this kind of pain and suffering. So is there a solution? Escpecially for those called to live for Christ. But first we have to clarify what unforgiveness does to us. And I think Christ captured it wonderfuly in a parable commonly known as the patable of the unforgiving servant.

Matthew 18:21-29, 31-35 NKJV
Then Peter came to Him and said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.  Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants.  And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents.  But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded that he be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and that payment be made.  The servant therefore fell down before him, saying, ‘Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all.’  Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt. “But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii; and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, ‘Pay me what you owe!’  So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you all.’  So when his fellow servants saw what had been done, they were very grieved, and came and told their master all that had been done.  Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me.  Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?’  And his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him. “So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.”

After reading this, I get the picture the unforgiveness does two things. Firstly, it turns us into what we hate. And then it blocks us off from God’s forgiveness. Generally speaking, when you make the choice to not forgive someone, your heart hardens and you end up releasing that pain and hatred to those around you.

Then it cuts us off from God’s forgiveness simply because by refusing to forgive, we attempt to cling to God’s mercy while being unmerciful to others. And closing off our hearts the forgiveness only God can give causes us to fall further from God’s illuminating light.

Now all that fancy talk aside, can we forgive people after they have hurt us? Because that is what it comes down to. All the sweet words from the Bible would mean nothing if we could never live them out.

Now, I don’t know if I am qualified to speak over anyones life. But someone who died for the sins of the world is. And if he says that we should forgive. Then I know God has placed in us the potential to cancel the debts we are owed.

Jesus doesn’t say that you should just drop it. The weight of the debt owed us when we are sinned against is acknowledged. But only that we let God pay out of his riches instead of demanding our pound of flesh.

I don’t know what you are going through. But whatever it is, please choose first to forgive.

Let’s pray;
Dear God, this is a hard thing for our stubborn hearts. Please help us forgive as you have forgiven us.
Amen

Uganda has these little insects called mosquitoes in plenty. They make a rather annoying sound when they pass close to your ear that can wake you up from even the sweetest slumber. And they suck blood. Nothing like a friendly neighbourhood spider.

One of the little creatures fell upon me one night and decided to get their nourishment from my bloodstream. In the porcess, it gave me a disease commomly known as malaria. It kills in 24 hours by destroying your red blood cells and burning you out with fever.

So as I lay down in bed feeling weak and feverish, the thought of how fragile my life is came very clearly into my mind. The life we are blessed with withouth asking for it and that is taken from us when we least expect it.  And according to some people, behind the veil of death lies the great nothing. Because when you ask the dead, they say nothing.

Fear is the feeling that best fit with the situtation I was in. Yet I felt something different. For the first time in my life, I was sick with Christ at my bedside. Trusting him like a child who leans on her father’s strong shoulders. Having faith that it would hold her up.

God had been present in the fullness of reality too much for me to miss the obvious. That while so many people do not know what is behind the Great Wall of the grave, he knows. And as someone who accepted his son, my perspective had to be stretched to the eternal.

Heaven is the word we use. It brings about imagery of gold paved streets and angels playing harps. But I think there is something more about heaven that perhaps had not occured to me before. The constant sense of peace with God and our fellow man. Where relationships find their completeness.

When my time comes, I will let go of this life. Maybe it will be quick, sudden, violent. Maybe people will say I died too young. Or it will be slow and all the right ‘goodbyes’ will be said in time. And at my funeral one person I love will comment on how I have lived a ‘full’ life. But among the crowd, believers and disbelievers alike will get a sneaking suspision that haunts us all our lives on earth. The silent voice that reminds us death is not the end of life. But a coma in an eternal story.

God bless you. I am off to take my medication. : )

Let’s pray;

Dear God,
Help us see you for how you love us and desire for us to choose you.
In your hands is life in all its fullness.
Amen

John 14:19-20 NKJV
“A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also.  At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.

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.