My Christian walk

Image from Godtv.com What do these people have in common? 1. Mary, in the story of turning water into wine [John 2:3-5]. Jesus says, "It's not yet my time." and Marry goes ahead to tell the disciples to do as He commands them. And then Jesus turns water into wine. 2. The Greek woman whose daughter was demon-possessed [Mark 7:26-29]. Jesus tells her, "... it is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to the dogs." to which she replies, "... even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." And Jesus says, "Because of that reply, your daughter is well." 3. Or King Hezekiah (2 Kings 20:5) when the prophet told him that God had said he was going to die; he turned to the wall and asked God for more years and it was done for him. All the pronounced bible characters, Jacob, the woman with a bleeding issue, and many others seem to have moved God even when He didn't seem to have set out to move that way. God responded be...

Many thanks to Saint Mary's Press What if God asked you, "What do you want me to do for you?" Without even thinking hard, I guess a bunch of us would most probably say, "Please give me wisdom!" Over the years, I've found myself silently hearing God asking me this question, just like many fellow Christians I talk to, and we all said that, "Give me wisdom." was our response every time. This is simply because we have been taught that wisdom is the most perfect prayer request one can make, just like king Solomon did when he asked God for wisdom instead of riches, fame and long life (1 Kings 3:9). We continue to learn that God was so pleased with king Solomon's request that he gave him the wisdom and also added to him fame and riches  (1 King 3:13). However, I now have a few points that I believe need to be considered before we crown "wisdom" as the most perfect prayer request: Wisdom doesn't always guarantee a good ending. Even with a...

Image from imgflip.com The disappointment I felt every end of year when I looked at the resolutions I had set to accomplish that year and I had not ticked even a single one of them off the list was too much. And yet, when you set your goals right, you'll end up setting resolutions that you'll manage to accomplish. And at the end of the year when you look at that list and realize you've ticked off almost everything of those that you'd intended to do, it's such an amazing feeling. I have come to appreciate the following 5 tips in setting resolutions that get accomplished: 1. Set goals that matter to you. In most cases, we find ourselves setting goals that matter to our parents, teachers, friends, neighbors or our society, which is why we often find it hard, or even pointless to accomplish those specific goals. That external motivation that comes from wanting to please those around us is not motivation enough to get us through from setting a particular goal to accompli...

photo by:  Contributed Photo New year, new goals. But before you chase that goal… I want to believe that most, if not all of us, want to achieve some sort of a better life. We each have a unique image of what a better life means to us: more money, better family, better job, bigger platform, more influence, you name it. We spend a lot of time striving to get to our version of "better", but very often we forget to look into the real cost that comes with this our version of  better .   Every good thing we can think of comes with a ' cross' The idea of attaining a "better life" tends to be so exciting that sometimes we sacrifice too much to get that better life; and sadly, oftentimes when we eventually get it, we realize that the cost was too much, and then we start to hate what we strove so hard to get. Every good thing we can think of comes with a  cross_  something attached to it: responsibility, accountability, too much work, limited freedom, and many ...

Thanks to Ngozikaa! on WordPress From this previous article  you might recall that I mentioned that God chose to grow my faith through personal interactions with the Holy Spirit. He spoke to me directly almost every day through dreams, visions, convictions, knowings and His audible voice in times when I didn't have a  pastor or spiritual mentor. With this I found myself heavily relying on the active instruction of God to make any decision in my life, until a couple of years ago when that changed and I could only hear from God through His written word in the bible. You can't imagine how nervous I got every time I needed to make a decision, especially those major decisions, because I was used to God revealing things to me beforehand, and the Holy Spirit advising me on most things; but now, there was nothing, only silence. I cried, I prayed, I fasted, I begged the Lord for instruction, but all I got was a calm silence. Then I realized  that I needed to learn more about ...

Image from www.singleblackmale.org Do you know how cliche it looks when people start a ceremony with "deep" prayer and worship, after which they go ahead to party in a secular manner? Or when you enter a home and you find a big bible at the table, but the people in that home are living like they don't know a single thing about what that bible says? Or when we say a prayer for journey mercies while setting off for a long trip, and there after we start drinking and being immoral along the way? Or when someone wears a big rosary, but behaves like they've never met Christ? Or they have a bumper sticker that says, "Love one another," but they spit hate at every turn they make? I remember holding these conversations with friends as we went ahead to describe other believers as hypocritical Christians.  A few weeks ago, the Holy Spirit, with a heavy sadness, reminded me of a phrase from Enid Mercy's Book, Imitators of God .  " What you say you prioritize Vs...

Photo by imdb on Pinterest In the beginning, God put Adam into a deep sleep, removed his rib and made Eve, remember? Then God brought her to Adam, and Adam exclaimed: "This is now bone of my bones  and flesh of my flesh;  she shall be called 'woman,'  for she was taken out of man." - Genesis 2:21 - 23  Maybe these are not the most romantic words you have ever read, but please stick with me. Adam says to Eve the most confirming, the most secure words ever, he almost breaks out into song, to me those words sound like: "Woow wow wow This is now, Bone of my bone, We are made for each other We compliment each other She shall be called my wife For she was made for me!" Adam is not afraid that he might be wrong, he is not afraid that she might give him the forbidden fruit later, he is so confident in what he is feeling, seeing, knowing, and appreciating that he is able to speak out what he couldn't have possibly known: Eve being made from his bone. These are so...

Image from christiandiary4u.blogspot.com   Being generous means being willing to give money, kindness, etc, especially more than is usually expected (Cambridge dictionary) The difference between healthy and unhealthy generosity is the reason WHY we are being generous, or the reason why we give. "But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." Matthew 6:3-4 Jesus encourages us to give in secret so that God can reward us, because when we do our acts of kindness for any other reason, we have already gotten that reward, so God can't add us another heavenly reward. For example, we might be giving: to be applauded, to get a better view of oneself, to appear wealthy, to appear better than others or to be seen, whatever the reason is; we don't get a reward from God because we have already gotten that reward of being seen or ...

Bad News | The New Yorker A girl had gone away from home to go to college, and while at college, she wrote her parents a letter that said, " Since I left for college, I've been remiss in writing, and am sorry for my thoughtlessness and not having written until now. But I'll bring you up to date now. But before you read on, please sit down. Are you sitting down? Don't read unless you're sitting down! Well, am getting along pretty well now, the skull fracture concussion that I got when I jumped out of my dormitory window when it caught on fire shortly after my arrival here, is pretty well healed. I only get those sick headaches that I've been having now once in a while instead of everyday. Fortunately, the fire in my dorm and the jump was witnessed by an attendant at the gas station. He ran over, took me to the hospital and continued to visit me there. When I eventually got out of the hospital, I had no where to live because of the burnt-out conditions of my room...

Photo by Diana Simumpande on Unsplush.com I am quite convinced that the Lord's prayer as we know it is just a portion of Jesus' complete lesson on prayer. Luke 11:1-2    ...one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples." He said to them, "When you pray, say: "'Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come... He continues to share with them the Lord's prayer as we (might) know it until verse 5, where my point for today is. He continues to tell them a story about a man who asks his friend for bread in the middle of the night and he's given that bread, not because of their friendship but because of his shameless audacity, his capacity to dare, to disturb his friend in the middle of the night. He also continues in verse 9 to tell us, "... ask, and it will be given to you;   seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you."   I am convinced that Jesus' complete ...

Image "Uh, it was just a dream!" A lot of times, most of us have often said this statement in relief upon waking up after having a horrible dream, or even a really good one. There is this amazing story of someone who might have said the same after having a dream, am almost more than sure you have heard of his story before, the story of the wise King Solomon. God asked King Solomon in the book of first Kings chapter 3, to ask for anything he wanted and he asked for wisdom, which pleased God that king Solomon had asked for wisdom instead of riches or fame, so God decided to make him the wisest man ever and added him wealth and fame too. The interesting thing is that this entire conversation and blessing took place in a dream: 1 Kings 3:5  That night the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream , and God said, "What do you want? Ask, and I will give it to you!" 1 Kings 3:15  Then Solomon woke up and realized it had been a dream... Yes, the famous wise King Solomon receiv...

Image from www.mywedding.co.ug Ephesians 5:24-25: "Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.  Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her." It's interesting when we, women, sometimes complain about having to submit, we have movements that oppose submission to the husband yet, in summary, the above Bible verse sounds like this to me:  Wife:  submit to him;  Husband:  die for her. Those  tasked to die  do not always complain as much as those tasked to submit! Die to your desires that He who died might live in you  (1 Peter 2:24 paraphrase):   As Christians, we are tasked not to act upon our mundane desires or feelings, but to live and act like Jesus indeed lives within us. For example, when you are very angry at someone and you feel like giving them a piece of your mind, you are not to act upon that feeling. Rather, ...

After high school, I was more than excited to finally grow my hair long (in case you didn't know, most Ugandan schools don't allow students to grow long hair). After a few months into the long holiday (here we normally call it a vacation)  before joining university, almost automatically, I went ahead to chemically relax my hair. No thought into it, it was just what it was: almost everyone I knew straightened their hair with chemicals. Before that, I had thin brownish hair strands, but the situation got even worse when I relaxed my hair with chemicals. The kindest people always made fun of how thin and sparse my hair was while the not-so-nice ones simply laughed off and gossiped away the matter. As if that wasn't enough, the chemicals burnt my scalp  so badly, that each time for retouch I couldn't help tearing at the smell of the chemical relaxers. After yet another chemical burn, I painfully wondered why we had to relax our hair with chemicals. ...