One of the most beautiful and peaceful sights I can never stop enjoying is what you see when you look out of an aircraft window as you fly above the clouds. No matter how many times I catch this view, I will always be enthralled the next time.  It’s so breathtaking. It just appears perfectly at ease, void of any disorder or chaos. The thicker the clouds, the prettier the appearance because nothing from beneath the clouds can peek through.

In spite of the magnificence of this view, the essence of flying is to move from place to place and not just to take in the view. So, at some point, the aircraft has to leave this view behind to descend through the clouds in order to land at the designated airport. Going through the clouds can be quite uncomfortable and bumpy. Sometimes it feels like a free fall through the skies and could be quite scary. In complete contrast with the view, the thicker the clouds, the bumpier the ride. When it starts, all you just want is for it to be all over. I had a nasty and embarrassing experience with this that I would rather forget.

The pilot cannot decide not to land the aircraft because the passengers love the view up there so much or if he does not want the passengers to feel the temporary discomfort of descending through the clouds. Some of the passengers may be distraught but his objective will always be to get the passengers to their destination.  

Life will throw different things at us. Sometimes, our experiences will feel as if we are gliding peacefully above the clouds and at other times, it appears as if we are stuck in the thick clouds. Life gets as bumpy as bumpy could be. In all things, God sees and God is in perfect control like a great pilot. We have his promises to reassure us that He will be with us, no matter the kind of clouds we find ourselves in.

When you’re in over your head, I’ll be there with you. When you’re in rough waters, you will not go down. When you’re between a rock and a hard place, it won’t be a dead end— Because I am GOD, your personal God, The Holy of Israel, your Saviour. I paid a huge price for you: all of Egypt, with rich Cush and Seba thrown in! That’s how much you mean to me! Isaiah 43: 2- 3 (MSG)

‘Do not fear [anything], for I am with you; Do not be afraid, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, be assured I will help you; I will certainly take hold of you with My righteous right hand [a hand of justice, of power, of victory, of salvation].’ Isaiah 41:10 (AMP)

God is our refuge and strength, a help always near in times of great trouble. That’s why we won’t be afraid when the world falls apart when the mountains crumble into the centre of the sea, when its waters roar and rage when the mountains shake because of its surging waves. Psalm 46: 1 – 5 (CEB)

You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance. Psalm 32:7 (NIV)

But the Lord can be trusted to make you strong and protect you from harm. 2 Thessalonians 3:3

Because we have these promises, we cannot turn around or yield to adversity. Like the pilot who keeps the end in mind, we can look through the issues with the filter of God’s limitless abilities and know that the Lord that keeps us neither sleeps nor slumbers. Even when you can’t see it or feel it, He never stops working.

The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.

From the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which he was lying, smoking, as was his custom, innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry Wotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured blossoms of a laburnum, whose tremulous branches seemed hardly able to bear the burden of a beauty so flamelike as theirs; and now and then the fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across the long tussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of the huge window, producing a kind of momentary Japanese effect, and making him think of those pallid, jade-faced painters of Tokyo who, through the medium of an art that is necessarily immobile, seek to convey the sense of swiftness and motion. The sullen murmur of the bees shouldering their way through the long unmown grass, or circling with monotonous insistence round the dusty gilt horns of the straggling woodbine, seemed to make the stillness more oppressive. The dim roar of London was like the bourdon note of a distant organ.

In the centre of the room, clamped to an upright easel, stood the full-length portrait of a young man of extraordinary personal beauty, and in front of it, some little distance away, was sitting the artist himself, Basil Hallward, whose sudden disappearance some years ago caused, at the time, such public excitement and gave rise to so many strange conjectures.

As the painter looked at the gracious and comely form he had so skilfully mirrored in his art, a smile of pleasure passed across his face, and seemed about to linger there. But he suddenly started up, and closing his eyes, placed his fingers upon the lids, as though he sought to imprison within his brain some curious dream from which he feared he might awake.

“It is your best work, Basil, the best thing you have ever done,” said Lord Henry languidly. “You must certainly send it next year to the Grosvenor. The Academy is too large and too vulgar. Whenever I have gone there, there have been either so many people that I have not been able to see the pictures, which was dreadful, or so many pictures that I have not been able to see the people, which was worse. The Grosvenor is really the only place.”

“I don’t think I shall send it anywhere,” he answered, tossing his head back in that odd way that used to make his friends laugh at him at Oxford. “No, I won’t send it anywhere.”

Lord Henry elevated his eyebrows and looked at him in amazement through the thin blue wreaths of smoke that curled up in such fanciful whorls from his heavy, opium-tainted cigarette. “Not send it anywhere? My dear fellow, why? Have you any reason? What odd chaps you painters are! You do anything in the world to gain a reputation. As soon as you have one, you seem to want to throw it away. It is silly of you, for there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. A portrait like this would set you far above all the young men in England, and make the old men quite jealous, if old men are ever capable of any emotion.”

“I know you will laugh at me,” he replied, “but I really can’t exhibit it. I have put too much of myself into it.”

Lord Henry stretched himself out on the divan and laughed.

“Yes, I knew you would; but it is quite true, all the same.”

“Too much of yourself in it! Upon my word, Basil, I didn’t know you were so vain; and I really can’t see any resemblance between you, with your rugged strong face and your coal-black hair, and this young Adonis, who looks as if he was made out of ivory and rose-leaves. Why, my dear Basil, he is a Narcissus, and you—well, of course you have an intellectual expression and all that. But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face. The moment one sits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something horrid. Look at the successful men in any of the learned professions. How perfectly hideous they are! Except, of course, in the Church. But then in the Church they don’t think. A bishop keeps on saying at the age of eighty what he was told to say when he was a boy of eighteen, and as a natural consequence he always looks absolutely delightful. Your mysterious young friend, whose name you have never told me, but whose picture really fascinates me, never thinks. I feel quite sure of that. He is some brainless beautiful creature who should be always here in winter when we have no flowers to look at, and always here in summer when we want something to chill our intelligence. Don’t flatter yourself, Basil: you are not in the least like him.”

“You don’t understand me, Harry,” answered the artist. “Of course I am not like him. I know that perfectly well. Indeed, I should be sorry to look like him. You shrug your shoulders? I am telling you the truth. There is a fatality about all physical and intellectual distinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the faltering steps of kings. It is better not to be different from one’s fellows. The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live—undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet. They neither bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it from alien hands. Your rank and wealth, Harry; my brains, such as they are—my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray’s good looks—we shall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly.”

“Dorian Gray? Is that his name?” asked Lord Henry, walking across the studio towards Basil Hallward.

“Yes, that is his name. I didn’t intend to tell it to you.”

“Oh, I can’t explain. When I like people immensely, I never tell their names to any one. It is like surrendering a part of them. I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvellous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if one only hides it. When I leave town now I never tell my people where I am going. If I did, I would lose all my pleasure. It is a silly habit, I dare say, but somehow it seems to bring a great deal of romance into one’s life. I suppose you think me awfully foolish about it?”

“Not at all,” answered Lord Henry, “not at all, my dear Basil. You seem to forget that I am married, and the one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties. I never know where my wife is, and my wife never knows what I am doing. When we meet—we do meet occasionally, when we dine out together, or go down to the Duke’s—we tell each other the most absurd stories with the most serious faces. My wife is very good at it—much better, in fact, than I am. She never gets confused over her dates, and I always do. But when she does find me out, she makes no row at all. I sometimes wish she would; but she merely laughs at me.”

“I hate the way you talk about your married life, Harry,” said Basil Hallward, strolling towards the door that led into the garden. “I believe that you are really a very good husband, but that you are thoroughly ashamed of your own virtues. You are an extraordinary fellow. You never say a moral thing, and you never do a wrong thing. Your cynicism is simply a pose.”

“Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know,” cried Lord Henry, laughing; and the two young men went out into the garden together and ensconced themselves on a long bamboo seat that stood in the shade of a tall laurel bush. The sunlight slipped over the polished leaves. In the grass, white daisies were tremulous.

After a pause, Lord Henry pulled out his watch. “I am afraid I must be going, Basil,” he murmured, “and before I go, I insist on your answering a question I put to you some time ago.”

“What is that?” said the painter, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground.

“You know quite well.”

“I do not, Harry.”

We saw Nephilim there. (The descendants of Anak are Nephilim.) We felt as small as grasshoppers, and that’s how we must have looked to them.” Numbers 13:33 [GW]

This started as a thought, they turned it into words, which ultimately framed their destiny. 10 of the spies imagined themselves as grasshoppers in their own eyes when compared with the giants of Anak. Also, without speaking with those giants, they assumed that the giants considered them in the same way. They thought that the giants were thinking the same thoughts with them. This is all because they allowed the wrong thoughts to roost in their hearts. Joshua and Caleb saw the same thing, thought differently, and ended up differently.

Our words are not just words, they have sources, just like the great rivers and oceans that cover about 71% of our earth. The mighty rivers look nothing like their sources. Most rivers grow into massive water bodies, stretching thousands of kilometres in length. Their sources would never have imagined how far they would travel and the impact that they would have on the world. This is how it is with words that start in the recesses of our hearts as thoughts. Death and life are in the power of the tongue, but it starts from thoughts.

Words kill, words give life; they’re either poison or fruit—you choose. Proverbs 18:21 [MSG]

Similarly, our actions especially when it comes to relationships with other people have the same origin. As long as we are still on this part of the divide, there will be people that will leave us with good memories and there will be people that will leave us negative stains. This is beyond our control. However, what is firmly within our control is what we do with the memories of both sets of people.

When we dwell on offence, it has an effect similar to what meditating on the word of God should produce in us, just that it is on the negative side. When we meditate on the word of God, our understanding is increased as the Holy Spirit enlightens us, our faith grows, and God is magnified in our eyes. When we dwell on offence, the depth of the hurt is increased, the pain is magnified, and we feel worse and worse. This eventually affects the way we see the people and relate to them. Bitterness and resentment get rooted in our lives.

Make sure that everyone has kindness from God so that bitterness doesn’t take root and grow up to cause trouble that corrupts many of you. Hebrews 12:15 [GW]

If we do not err in thoughts, we will most likely not err in words and deeds. It is therefore imperative that we have to guard our hearts to ensure that wrong thoughts do not grow therein. We have the power to control what goes into our hearts.

Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious – the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Philippians 4:8[MSG]

There will definitely be reasons for us to err in these areas. Offence will always be with us; we may face different shades of difficulties that will test our faith like 10 of the 12 spies. We will always have a choice of what we think, say, or do. God’s grace abounds for us to think like Philippians 4:8 suggests and to speak life with our words.

picture credit: https://gettingunstuckllc.com

Jesus told them again, “Peace be with you. Just as the Father has sent me, SO I AM SENDING YOU.” John 20:21

Many of us must have heard different versions of the story where a father told his kid to tell his friend that was visiting that he was not at home, just because he did not want to see the friend at that time. Kids will be kids and the young one did what kids will do by saying exactly what the father told him to say, while emphasizing that the message was from the father. Well…we could berate the kid for betraying the father, but this was a display of complete obedience :).

In a way, this is similar to how Jesus walked the earth in His days. He always alluded to the fact that He was fully in contact with the Father and transmitting the messages He got from the Father to those that came to listen to Him. He also let them know that whatever He did was because He was in consonance with God.

I have not spoken on my own. Instead, the Father who sent me told me what I should say and how I should say it. John 12:49[GW]

So Jesus explained himself at length. “I’m telling you this straight. The Son can’t independently do a thing, only what he sees the Father doing. What the Father does, the Son does. John 5:19[MSG]

And on one of those days, when Philip asked Jesus to show them the Father, this was Jesus’s answer to him in the presence if the other disciples:

Jesus replied, “I have been with all of you for a long time. Don’t you know me yet, Philip? The person who has seen me has seen the Father. So how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? John 14:9[GW]

So essentially, Jesus was sent to deliver the word of God to everyone and also to live in such a way that everyone that saw Him should be left with no doubt as to who the Father was and what the Father’s character was.

Therefore, if Jesus sent us the same way He was sent by the Father, it means that the totality of our lives should reflect Jesus. When people hear us, they should understand what Jesus sounded like and the messages that He brought with Him from the Father. When they interact with us, they should imagine exactly what Jesus would have been like if they were born in His days. We should be the image of Jesus that people see in our generation.

If we spend some time in introspection, what would we see in comparison to the expectation of Jesus in sending us out? We should be bold enough to say like Paul: Follow my example, just like I follow Christ’s. 1 Corinthians 11:1 [CEB]

I will end with the words of this hymn by Albert W. T. Orsborn

Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me,

All his wonderful passion and purity,

O thou Spirit divine, all my nature refine,

Till the beauty of Jesus be seen in me.

Picture credit: https://fpcparagould.org/

Imagine for one moment that someone got priceless gifts for you. Your name is on all the gifts and they are perfectly wrapped and preserved in a house that is locked. The person that bought the gifts tells you everything that is in the house and you get all excited and start celebrating but you don’t enter the house to unwrap the gifts. There are a few windows around the house and you admire the gifts from the different windows and you still don’t go in to take possession of the gifts. The gifts will remain of no benefit until they are unwrapped, no matter their value.

The Bible is packed with so much words for our reproof, correction and instruction in righteousness. It also contains loads of promises that Christ has bought and prepared for us. Sadly, many of these promises go unclaimed because we don’t know that they exist. In some cases, when we know that they exist, we do not take enough steps to do all that we need to do to claim them. We often stop at talking about them, and most of what we say are based on what we heard others say about the promises. We do not take the pain to dig in and discover these treasures by ourselves.

God conceals the revelation of his word in the hiding place of his glory. But the honour of kings is revealed by how they thoroughly search out the deeper meaning of all that God says. Proverbs 25:2 [TPT]

If we cast our minds back to when Daniel and his countrymen were confined in captivity to a country that was not theirs. Jeremiah had prophesied that this ordeal would last 70 years (Jeremiah 29:10). It was only after Daniel sought out and understood this prophecy from the scriptures that he went to God in prayer to start asking for an end to their bondage.

In that first year of his reign, I, Daniel, learned from the book of Jeremiah the prophet that Jerusalem must lie desolate for seventy years. So I earnestly pleaded with the Lord God to end our captivity and send us back to our own land. Daniel 9: 2 – 3 [TLB]

Because Daniel had seen and understood this promise, he was able to go to God and pray aright in faith. He had solid grounds on which to stand and petition God. At that time, his faith could not have been weakened by their continued bondage because he knew what he had seen in the scriptures. This is the same with us – when we study the scriptures and the eyes of our understanding are opened to anything written therein, our faith in that area becomes unshakeable.

When our prayers and confessions are based solely on other people’s revelations our raison d’etre for approaching God with confidence may not always be sure and steadfast. When we have seen it with our eyes and we know that we know that we know, opposing circumstances will mean nothing to us when we approach God with the promises He made to us. We will stand our ground, no matter how long it takes.

We want to tell you about the Word that gives life—the one who existed before the world began. This is the one we have heard and have seen with our own eyes. We saw what he did, and our hands touched him. 1 John 1:1 [ERV]

After this experience, there was no way the disciples could entertain any doubt about the incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection and glorification of Jesus. Similarly, when we encounter revelation into God’s word, our faith in His promises will become unwavering no matter what we experience with our 5 senses. God’s grace is available for us to study and discover. Let’s get digging.

I will end with Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians

I have not stopped thanking God for you. I pray for you constantly, asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and insight so that you might grow in your knowledge of God. I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called—his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance. I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honour at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms. Ephesians 1: 16 – 20[NLT]

I was on the cast of a stage play in my secondary school days. I did not have to memorize any scripts. I was a soldier in the play and all I had to do was to appear on stage at the right time with the other soldiers and fight. We disappeared backstage as the curtains were drawn on our scene. There was also another one in which I was just one of the stagehands and only got on to the stage when the curtains were drawn and away from the sight of the cheering audience.

On these two occasions, I definitely did not get any accolades from the audience because I did not do anything remarkable in their sight. However, without the fight scene in the play, it would not have been complete and of course, no stage play is smooth without the work of the invisible team that rearranges the stage between the scenes.

Celebration of those that are in our faces is a natural reaction for us and should not come as a surprise to anyone. However, some people do a lot of heavy lifting behind the scenes and never make it to the stage in their entire careers. Yet without these people, the A-list actors that we celebrate will not be where they are today.

There are quite a few people in the Bible that did some heavy lifting in the background, they are not mentioned many times in the scriptures. Yet without their exploits, the story would be far from complete. I have chosen to call Ananias the Chief of this group of people. After he prayed for Paul and baptized him, his name was mentioned only once again in the Bible and that was by Paul himself during a speech. Under the prevailing circumstances in his days, getting up to seek out and pray for Paul was a great act of faith and obedience and definitely went a long way to shape the story of the New Testament scriptures as we have it today.

Another person that did not get much screen time but played a significant role was Hur, who helped to hold up the hands of Moses with Aaron in the battle against the Amalekites. This act secured victory for the Israelites at that time.

Others are Elisheba, the wife of Aaron and matriarch of a great lineage of priests that include Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar; Joanna, the wife of Chuza, one of the women that supplied the physical needs of Jesus while He walked the earth; Gilalai, one of the priests that participated as a musician in the procession led by Ezra; Hassenaah, a man whose sons built the Fish Gate during the reconstruction of the walls of Jerusalem under the repair programme led by Nehemiah; Jehiah, one of the gatekeepers for the Ark of the Covenant in the time of king David. There are so many more. These people may not have had a great mention, but their exploits are by no means meager and the scriptures will not be complete without them. What is important is that they played their part in God’s “play”.

Now we are on that stage, and we have to play our parts. That natural desire to be seen and applauded will always be there. So, if the acts and scenes we regularly appear in do not attract many accolades, the tendency to want to trade places will often tug at us. However, we must consciously remind ourselves that the applause of men is not our purpose and God’s scale of success and prominence is different from the scale that we use and it is His own that really matters.

Whatever you do [whatever your task may be], work from the soul [that is, put in your very best effort], as [something done] for the Lord and not for men. Colossians 3:23 [AMP]

Whatever it is that you are doing, God sees, God knows and God gives the best accolades. Let us not grow weary or become discouraged in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap if we do not give in. Galatians 6:9 [AMP]

“Remain seated until the seat belt sign is turned off”

                                                                                  Every pilot

I have been travelling quite a lot recently and each time the aircraft lands, the pilot or the cabin crew lead always makes this announcement: “Remain seated with your seat belt fastened until the aircraft comes to a complete stop and the seat belt sign is turned off”. 9 times out of 10, people just ignore the instruction and jump out of their seats as if the instructions were to the birds of the air. I have observed this with different nationalities, so it’s not the specialty of any particular set of people.

When you don’t get up like everyone else, there is a strong pull to conform and do the wrong thing with the crowd because everyone is doing it and everyone seems to accept it. This is worse if you are in an aisle seat and the passengers you have blocked in are giving you that quizzical look. The force of the stare could almost lift you off your seat. It takes a deliberate decision not to join the crowd on those occasions.

As we navigate our multifaceted courses in life, we will come face to face with opportunities to follow the crowd in the wrong direction. The decision may be seemingly innocuous or in some cases, quite significant. At those times, “The end justifies the means” appears to be a wise counsel. When we find ourselves at those points, our focus should be the internal satisfaction that comes from a good conscience and not external satisfaction.

The Bible is filled with examples of those that tilted to either side of the balance in following the crowd and we can learn from all of them:

Aaron buckled under the pressure of the crowd and made the golden calf as a god for the people of Israel. 10 out of 12 spies chose to see themselves as grasshoppers, while Joshua and Caleb saw things differently. Noah endured the mocking of the crowd for a very long time to build the ark. Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego chose to stand alone and not flow with the crowd, even when faced with the lion’s den and the fiery furnace. We know how the story ended for each group.

In these days when many people are under so much pressure from the strains of the global economy, the temptation to make little compromises for gain may appear so strong. When we can’t see any way out of the pit we find ourselves in, joining the crowd may appear logical, especially if the compromise seems insignificant. Wrong is wrong and the number of people doing wrong does not make the definition of wrong to change. We can find encouragement and direction from the following scriptures and more:

You must not follow a crowd in wrongdoing. Do not testify in a lawsuit and go along with a crowd to pervert justice. Exodus 23:2

Don’t copy the behaviour and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. Romans 12:2

My child, if sinners entice you, turn your back on them! Proverbs 1:10

Don’t look for shortcuts to God. The market is flooded with surefire, easygoing formulas for a successful life that can be practiced in your spare time. Don’t fall for that stuff, even though crowds of people do. The way to life—to God!—is vigorous and requires total attention. Mathew 7: 13 – 14

God knows, God sees and His grace is sufficient. Stay the course and don’t join the crowd. God is able to do it, but even if He doesn’t do it the way expect or when you expect it. He is still faithful.

Growing up, one thing that I kept trying to do each year was to retain money in my home-made piggy bank, hoping that I would accumulate enough money at the end of the year to buy something that I really wanted to have. All through those years, one thing that remained constant was that I never did it. I either did not start or when I started, I broke the bank mid-way into the year. The fact that I was not able to pull this off in the previous year did not make me stop trying.

At the beginning of each year, the expectations are very high for the days ahead and the excitement is almost palpable. With this euphoria, many of us set goals and write down our lofty aspirations. At that point, nobody sets out not to achieve these goals. We write them down because we hope to see them materialize at the set time. We also write down things that we commit to pray for throughout the year, asking God in faith and believing that they will come to pass.

When the end of the year beckons, most people make out time to look at the year in retrospect. On many occasions, it would be that some of those things we planned to achieve at the beginning of the year are real only on paper or wherever we wrote them down. Also, some of the prayer points may not have materialized the way we expected. It could be disappointing and discouraging.

When this happens, it is easy to focus on those unachieved goals and unanswered prayers. It becomes even more debilitating when we compare ourselves with other people that seem to have everything working for them like clockwork and it appears as if there is something wrong with us or something we are not doing well. A pity party is born. Ingratitude sets in. We wonder why God did not answer our prayers and it goes on and on like that.

When we find ourselves going down this road, we need to make a conscious decision to count our blessings instead of counting the woes by focusing on the things that did not work as expected. What we focus on becomes magnified in our eyes and ultimately shapes our thoughts and lives. When we make a deliberate attempt to count our blessings, we would indeed be surprised like the old hymn says. We would realize that we have so much to be thankful to God for. One thing we will discover when we count is that we made some achievements that were part of our list and also others that came to us as a bonus. In all these things, we ought to remain thankful by default.

I find the words of the hymn Count your Blessings very instructive in this direction and I would like to encourage you to take some time out to sing and think deeply about those words as this year comes to an end.

Recently, I had to go through a test that involved riding a bicycle for 6 minutes at different speeds to generate power. I started with an initial target of 60 Watts and ended at 145 Watts. It was very easy at the beginning as I had full energy and the required effort was not much. As it got harder, my energy waned, the required effort increased but I needed to complete the task. During the last 30 seconds, I almost gave up. The assessor had to count down for me. As he got closer to zero, I managed to pull together a burst of energy to make it to the end. When I almost quit, the countdown from the assessor and his reassurance somehow gave me the courage to persevere to the end. It didn’t matter that my legs were quaking at the end, what was important was that I didn’t give up. I made it!

The first chapter of Joshua has 18 verses and the phrase “Be strong and courageous” appears in 4 of those verses. 3 times God used this phrase to charge Joshua and the last time, it was the response of the people to his ‘commencement’ speech as they prepared to go into Canaan.

This same Joshua was one of the 12 secret agents that saw the giants in the land and had the temerity to bring back good news to the people, telling them that they could take over the land even though they were indeed minuscule when compared to the size of the giants. Even when 10 of them rationalized and buckled. Before then, Joshua had passed through intense mentoring and internship in the school of Moses. He had both theoretical and practical experience. Also, Moses had deposited a measure of the Spirit in him by laying hands on him. Yet, when it was time to lead the people into the land of their promise, God felt he needed this charge. Why?

Moses had put his hands on Joshua and appointed him to be the new leader. Then Joshua, son of Nun was filled with the spirit of wisdom. So, the Israelites began to obey Joshua, and they did what the Lord had commanded Moses. Deuteronomy 34:9

Joshua had the commission to lead the people, the people had the promise that they would inherit the land. God’s promises are sure and steadfast, but it did not mean that there would be no obstacles and hurdles along the way. For God to repeat that phrase multiple times suggests that in spite of the anointing, Joshua’s work experience and the foundation of God’s infallible promise, some of those obstacles had the power to initiate the thoughts of quitting in his mind. If he gave enough thought to the obstacles instead of fixing his mind on the promise, nothing would have stopped him from giving up on the way. That would have made the people to miss the bounty that God promised them.

Joshua went, saw and conquered. The promise of God did not remove the giants that they had seen during their reconnaissance visit. They still had to fight and overcome them. He held on to God’s promise and the charge to be strong and courageous. He led the people to their inheritance. He has left the stage and we are on the scene now. As sure as the rising of the sun each day, we will face our own giants. Reasons to doubt the efficacy of God’s promise will abound. We will get to the brink. When those storms arise, we have the same charge and promise. Indeed, we have more than enough promises to keep us going in the Bible. If He did it for Joshua, He is able to do it for us as long as we remain strong and courageous, fixing our eyes on Him and His word.

Jesus Christ never changes! He is the same yesterday, today and forever. Hebrews 13:8 (CEV)

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