Faith and Christianity

When it comes to Faith and it's definition Hebrews 11:1 is the go to Bible passage for most Christians: 

"To have Faith is to be sure of the things we hope for, to be certain of the things we cannot see."

I was making notes on this particular chapter recently as I was reading through it. It didn't occur to me then to share what I had written down until I read over it today. It seemed like something everyone would know, until I realised that I only made those notes because even if I knew most of the things I often forgot them. So for those who are prone to forgetfulness like I am, I will leave this here so we can always come back and remember all that Faith is and should be. 

Through our faith we win God's approval: the Bible constantly reminds us that God doesn't bless us because of the works of our hands but because of His infinite grace and mercy. Yet it is by our faith in God that we qualify because we prove our obedience to God. God in His loving kindness never deserts us even when we desert Him, but it is important for us to understand that having faith in Him and trusting Him draws us nearer to Him. In this way we are able to please God because by putting our trust in Him we receive the gift of His righteousness. 

Because of our faith we present a better offering to God: before anyone bites of my head this isn't a prosperity gospel thing. Think of it this way. If you trust someone, you give freely to them. It's natural. In the same way when you put your trust completely in God you give freely to Him of ALL you have. Now of course that depends a lot on what it is that you have! You cannot give someone what you don't already possess. So by giving all you have to God I don't necessarily mean in a monetary way. I also mean an offering of the heart and the soul, a sweet smelling praise and worship, a heart wrenching prayer. Whatever you have, give.

Faith helps us carry out God's plan even when we can't see or understand it: believe it or not a few years ago saying "I surrender Lord" or "Not my will Father but Yours" was one of the most difficult things for me. Letting go of all that control just made me feel weak. I couldn't bring myself to trust God to do the impossible because it still looked impossible to me. Two things changed my mind. Firstly a lot of communicating with God about giving me the strength to let go made me realise that it took strength to let go. Thus releasing control stopped being a sign of weakness. Secondly it is easy to hold on to control when you're in control but when things are completely out of your control holding on becomes kind of stupid. 

Faith is a prerequisite for miracles: ask any children's book writer; the impossible cannot happen unless you are crazy enough to believe it. Faith MAKES the impossible possible. 

Through faith we can plan ahead: because we believe in the promise of tomorrow, we make plans for tomorrow. You cannot make plans for a time that does not exist.

Faith makes us reject sin by keeping us focused on heaven and it's future rewards, not on the world: saying no is never easy but it becomes much easier when there is hope for a better yes. Faith helps us defy the devil when he tempts us because we know that God has better things in store.

Faith strengthens us by helping us endure persecution: faith strengthens us in many other ways as I explained before but one of the most important ways for me is strength in the time of persecution. Now many will say they haven't faced persecution before and perhaps they are right. However if you think about it, chances are you have. Every time someone has laughed at you or ridiculed you for making time for God, every time someone has pointed out your faith as a reason for a joke, you have faced a degree of persecution. Of course that is NOTHING compared to thousands that are literally slaughtered for their faith in Christ. But how we deal with persecution shouldn't differ according to how serious we deem it. 

Matthew 10: 32-33

"If anyone declares publicly that he belongs to me, I will do the same for him before my Father in heaven. But if anyone rejects me publicly, I will reject him before my Father in heaven." 

Collab Post: 'Tis the season to be loving...

PHASE RANT: Where did all the love go?

Well I'm sure everyone is coming off the high of Valentine's weekend now. I hope you enjoyed it. On my way home tonight I saw a crushed rose, the remnants of the weekend of love.

Karl Marx must be doing cartwheels in his grave because he warned us but we ignored. Love is now seen as a commodity, something you can buy and sell. The reason I believe this is so prevalent is because people find meaning for love, as with most things, in the media. As a media student and practitioner I am SORRY to break this to you but the media is as much a part of capitalist society as any other institution. It is the media's job is to tell you what to buy. The media tells you through music that love and sex are the same thing. It tells you through movies that love is spontaneous, romantic, feisty, exciting and will always work out in the end. It tells you through advertising that to be successful and to love you need to buy everything from the right house to the right car, own the right pets, shop in the right supermarkets etc. Somewhere down the line love and money began to merge and we have not been the same since. There are 365 days in a year (366 in those odd ball fun years of surplus). Why is this one day such a big deal? Why do people go crazy in anticipation of one day then carry on with their lives afterwards like love is a mythical creature that only appears during full moons? Well because telling you to buy love everyday is not quite enough. People will lose interest after a while. But when you have that one special day where you can buy love and buy it extravagantly then you've really hit the mark. Thus Valentine's day, a day when many people celebrate the shallow misrepresentation of 21st Century through the trivialities provided us.

Everything I know love to be is Biblical. I can't separate the two. And as such I cant separate one kind of love from another. I imagine that the way I love my husband would be similar to the way I love my mother-except the baby making part. As Christians we believe that God sent His only son down from heaven to be human and live amongst us in the flesh, suffering the same temptations we suffer but remaining steadfast to the Father. He lived a pure and holy life that was a blessing to all around him. That life was consequently cut short for our sake. So that our sins may be forgiven and we may be considered pure before the Father he sacrificed His life for our salvation. A love that runs so deeply is a rarity in these times of fleeting pleasures. Yet I will accept nothing less. This is what we should celebrate. Sacrificial love. A feeling so pure and so true that you'd give up your very last breath so that the one you love can breathe. Is anyone capable of that?

Museboxxe: Romantic Love, as told by someone who’s never experienced it.

When I was a child, I remember asking my mother why all the songs on the radio were about love. 

“Why can’t they write music about animals?” I had asked (it was my “animal phase”, when I was determined to become a vet, before realising I was actually terrible at science). 

“What’s so interesting about love?”

My mother had chuckled then, giving one of those infuriating smiles that said: Never you mind; you’re too young to understand.

As it turns out, I still don’t understand, much to the horror and amusement of most people around me. Don’t get me wrong, I understand many aspects of love, but they all fall in the friendship and family categories. I’ve yet to experience true romantic love, where I dream about spending my life with one person, raising a family and getting old and wrinkly together. 

It’s hard to imagine love as the Disney princess version, especially in these modern times. Nowadays, we don’t expect a Prince Charming to come riding in on his white horse, whilst the ladies primp and preen waiting for him: the modern world is much different. 

There are so many representations of love: the brokenhearted ballads or clichéd chick-flicks (that somehow only come out in cinema around Valentine’s day), the Romeo & Juliet style of love at first sight, to the tales of slowly falling in love with your best friend. It’s overwhelming. I can’t help but wonder: which story will be mine? Will I be swept off my feet or experience a forbidden love? Or will I realise that all along, my life partner has been right beside me? It’s one benefit of never experiencing love before: the unexpected. I don’t know how it will happen, so I’m free to daydream- though I suppose this could blur into a negative aspect if I decided to set the bar too high for myself. After all, if I’m fantasising about dramatic movie-esque scenarios, then Sod’s Law dictates that it has a 0% chance of actually happening.

When you think about it, love sounds terrifying: the complete vulnerability of entrusting someone with everything you are, wilfully handing over your fragile heart and praying it won’t be returned to you in pieces. Then there’s the commitment, deciding to tie yourself down for the rest of your life to one person, making every decision based on the fact that it might affect your other half. 

I imagine love to be like this: always wanting to be with one another, feeling incomplete without that person. When you have the same silly sense of humour and you text them because something you saw reminds you of them. When you want the other person to be happy no matter what, even if it means sacrificing some of your own happiness, because no matter what, they come first. I imagine love is a tingle of warmth in your fingertips when they hold your hand, spreading throughout your body. I imagine it keeps you smiling even in the most dire of situations, simply because you’re with them. When you look at everyone else round you and wonder if any of them are even capable of feeling what you feel. I think love is handing everything you are and giving one person the absolute power to destroy you- and trusting that they won’t.

I imagine after all the possible hurt and heartbreak and torment, love is worth the wait.

Find Museboxxe at: www.museboxxe.com and www.museboxxe.tumblr.com

Self-Taught Woman

This one is going to be long, so get comfortable guys and gals.

I'm not much of a feminist-not in the puritan sense of the word. I often laugh uncontrollably at sexist jokes, dance to sexist music that gives detailed directions on how to further objectify your body (albeit in jest), and use sexist language, all this after years of compulsory and independent study on and around the subjects of gender roles, feminism, post feminism and other forms of prejudice. For those who willingly admit it, I'm the worst kind of woman-A BLACK WOMAN. Not only is my skin against me, my choice of reproductive organs have also joined the coup. Thankfully I couldn't care less. After all I think like a genius, look like a goddess and have the firm handshake of a...of a...man?

I wasn't brought up with a superfluity of men in my life; I was raised by strong women. And although I learnt from their strengths and weaknesses, I was never told what kind of woman to be. All that was self taught over years of watching many such strong women up close and some times from afar. So imagine my surprise and disappointment when I realised how much I had become a product of society. Bye bye girl power. Hello self-doubt.

Over the last few weeks I subconsciously started re-learning what it means to be a strong willed, self-taught woman. It started with God. My Pastor briefly mentioned a plan that would help you read the books of Psalms and Proverbs over the period of a month. As I decided to start the journey, I remember getting excited about Proverbs 31. Now for many Christian women Proverbs 31 is the go-to chapter when in doubt about anything from your role and identity to your faith and independence. Undoubtedly many non-Christians will take this time to remind me of the sexist nature of the Bible. To them I present this:

"She looks at land and buys it, and with money she has earned she plants a vineyard" 

Proverbs 31: 16

"She spins her own thread and weaves her own cloth" 

Proverbs 31: 19

"She makes clothes and belts, and sells them to merchants. She is strong and respected and not afraid of the future. She speaks with a gentle wisdom."

Proverbs 31: 24-26

Of course we could nit pick about a million and one things surrounding this, but this is my little way of showing you that contrary to popular belief the Bible did in fact cater to women, despite the circumstances of the times in which it was writing about, written and published. But I digress...

In anticipation of reading this chapter I was unusually alert about gender equality especially in the Bible and in the Church. So of course my ears stood on end when the subject of the submissive wife was approached. I could hear the many chants of the modern feminist but I chose to keep an open mind. The Pastor's  wife who spoke briefly on her active understanding of the role of a submissive wife, said many things that I took away with me that day. But what stuck the most was the most simple of truths. The meaning of the word "submissive" like many other words in our lexicon today, has shifted drastically. Of course I couldn't verify on the spot, but my mind returned to a musty A-Level's English Language classroom with a man that looked well beyond his years teaching us the many ways in which words lose and gain meaning, both negative and positive, over time. 

Fast forward a month, and I'm flicking through my copy of The New English Dictionary published in 1932, when I decided to look up the meaning of submissive. After my initial excitement I compared the meaning to that of the eight edition of the Little Oxford English Dictionary published in 2002. Admittedly 70 years didn't make as much of a difference as I thought it would and a quick Google search showed me that the first acknowledged and complete translation of the Bible into English happened a good 500 years before my 1932 dictionary. Nevertheless my findings excited me. There is more than one definition in both dictionaries but I'll stick to the ones that are of interest to us.

1932

Submit: To yield or surrender oneself; to put forward deferentially; to yield, to surrender, to give in.

Submission: Compliance. Obedience. Resignation. Meekness.

2002

Submit: To give in to the authority, control, or greater strength of someone or something. Subject to a particular process. 

Submissive: Very obedient or passive.

First I think it is worth noting that the language changed enough in those 70 years that submission is only defined in terms of handing in work in the 2002 dictionary. Now to the main gist of it all. Whereas in 1932 submission is seen as a willing act of respect and the choice of humility, it seems that today it is viewed as a passive act of being controlled. The 2002 definition places great focus on strength and weakness while the 1932 definition focuses more on willing meekness. It's no wonder then that the idea of submitting to God (never mind your husband!!) is something that terrifies most of us today. Language teaches us that by submitting we are being forced to put control of our lives in someone else's hands. Ironic really, considering it's an action word...

Now let me go back to why I gathered you all here to waste your time. Like many things that began before our generation was even a concept in the human mind, feminism has lost a lot of meaning. It has also gained a lot of unflattering meaning and many modern feminists think so what?! Let it be unflattering; it's not a pretty little dress and pigtails, it's not meant to be an easy pill to swallow. I suppose in many ways they are right. However, it does have the tendency to go from educational to outrageous all too quickly and so many women find themselves saying out loud, "I am not a feminist". They're claiming not to be something without even being sure what being that thing means!

For me, in the simplest of terms Feminism is Equality. I don't aim to overpower any man or live without men, I don't want to make up for years of their sexism by being sexist myself, I don't want the world to be split jaggedly in half. I want to be treated with respect and equality in all things. I remembered what feminism meant to me after a necessary conversation with a friend from work and it is reiterated every day on my twitter page when I see the handle @EverydaySexism. Honestly following this twitter account will change your life. And if you're curious about how it started?? Here you go http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBeNfSoMqjY Don't say I never do anything for you.

Thank you for following me on my little nerdy journey and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed haphazardly putting it together. 

Happy New Year!!

Our generation has done it again!! We survived the end of the world. We are nothing if not persistent viral infections.

Anyway, all that aside I am happy about this New Year. Although we are only 8 days in and these 8 days haven't been complete and utter perfection, it feels dangerously close. I'm just happy for no reason and every reason.

Even as a young girl I didn't take New Year's resolutions seriously; I had a habit of breaking them all by day two. It almost felt like tradition!! This year however I have resolved a few things I plan to take seriously.

1. I've resolved to be me, regardless of what ANYONE (family, friends or otherwise. in fact anyone short of God or His mouthpiece) has to say about it.
2. I've resolved to be closer to God no matter how hard the year makes it for me.
3. I've resolved to take a closer look at my future and make more solid plans regarding a number of things, i.e. what I want to do, where I want to do it et al.
4. I've resolved to stay out of all manners of conflict.
5. I've resolved to cut off all negative energy from my life in the forms of people or things/activities that have proven to be without benefit.
6. And finally I've resolved to be happy and thankful through all of it.

all these have put quite  a smile on my face and i publicise them thus as a point of reference, so whenever I feel like my year isn't going as I think it should I can come back here.

Oh and I started reading The Songs of Songs or The Songs of Solomon from the Bible recently, and all I have to say is wow!! Poetry at it's very best. 

PS

I was in Nigeria for 2 weeks recently so when I sort myself out I should have pictures and stories to share. 

Stay Tuned!!