EXCURSIONS IN MY MIND
Reflections and Studies in His Presence
BY
NANA AWERE DAMOAH
EXCURSIONS IN MY MIND
Reflections and Studies in His Presence
Nana Awere Damoah
Published by Nana Awere Damoah at Smashwords
All Rights Reserved
Copyright 2008 © Nana Awere Damoah
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by photocopying or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
ISBN 978-1-4661-1465-4
Author’s Contact: Nana Awere Damoah
Email: ndamoah@yahoo.co.uk
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In this brilliant series of articles, supported by quotations from literary sources, the Bible and contemporary Church leaders, Nana Awere Damoah covers the broad sweep of Christian faith as practised in everyday life.
The author’s background in Chemical Engineering, his studies in the UK and his work for Unilever in Ghana give him a sound working base for his outreach to fellow believers. His keen participation in the Joyful Way ministry and his manifest love of books also reveal his awareness of music and the power of the Word in every sense. Among these easily digestible, bite-sized essays are pieces of poetry and passages of Bible study, amusing stories about the author s family and schooling, and reflections on key issues such as self-help, leadership, love for one’s parents, the nature of friendship, and what he calls partnership with Jesus . Indeed, for Nana Damoah life is a business to be worked at and lived, not just dreamed about!
Also by Nana Awere Damoah
TALES FROM DIFFERENT TALES
THROUGH THE GATES OF THOUGHT
Nana Awere Damoah was born in Accra, Ghana. He holds a Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Nottingham, UK, a Bachelor’s in Chemical Engineering from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana. Nana spent all his secondary or high school years at Ghana National College, Cape Coast, Ghana and speaks fondly of growing up in the suburb of Kotobabi, in the Ghanaian capital, where he started his education at the local Providence Preparatory School.
A British Council Chevening alumnus, Nana works with Unilever West Africa. He is an associate of Joyful Way Incorporated, a Christian Music Ministry in Ghana, where he was the group’s National President from 2002 to 2004. Nana now serves on the Joyful Way’s Board.
Nana started writing seriously in 1993 when he was in the sixth form and has had a number of his short stories published in the Mirror and the Spectator. In 1997, he won the first prize in the Step Magazine National Story Writing Competition. His writing has appeared in StoryTime ezine, Legon Business Journal, Sentinel Nigeria Magazine and the anthology African Roar (StoryTime Publishing, 2010).
He is the author of two non-fiction books: Through the Gates of Thought (2010) and Excursions in my Mind (2008) and one fiction book (a collection of short stories), Tales from Different Tails (2011). He keeps a personal blog at www.nanadamoah.com, is the creator and editor of StoryLoom and Ghanamanisms (www.storyloom.wordpress.com and www.ghanamanisms.wordpress.com dedicated to Ghanaian fiction and non-fiction respectively) and is a columnist of Business and Financial Times newspaper.
He is married to Vivian. The couple and their children, Nana Kwame Bassanyin, Nana Yaw Appiah, and Maame Esi Akoah, are based in Tema, Ghana.
From whatever place
I write
you will expect
that part
of my ‘Travels’
will consist of
excursions in my own mind.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Dedicated to my mum, Elizabeth Somiah,
and to the memory of my dad,
George Nana Kwame Bassanyin Damoah;
both of them taught me to stop, think, act.
They gave their all...
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to my family for all the support throughout the years, to my wife Vivian for her patience and love, and to the many recipients and readers of the Excursion series for these past four years, whose inputs, corrections and encouragement have greatly helped to make this dream a reality.
To Athena Press for giving me the platform to launch, I say thanks and Ayekoo (well done!).
To all anonymous friends who contributed financially, materially and spiritually to this venture, your deeds were secret, but your reward will be evident, tangible and real. God bless you richly.
How These Series Began
I handed over as President of Joyful Way Incorporated, a Christian music evangelistic ministry in Ghana on 8 August 2004, after a term of two years, and I had been thinking about what next stage I could be used effectively by God, to bless people and make an impact. One of my strongest convictions is that I have a date with destiny, and that there is a greater impact I will make in this world before I enter the next. It is such a great conviction, and it challenges me to continually seek ways that I can bring that dream – in a rolling way – to pass.
I had been reflecting on this same theme during the morning of 28 August, 2004. Joyful Way had two programmes to sing at in the afternoon, and I had decided to be at the second programme at Action Chapel, Accra, Ghana. It was at Action Chapel that Bryan Anno, a member of our ministry, told me a group of his friends came together periodically as young graduates to brainstorm about their careers and their aspirations, and they wanted me to speak to them at one such gathering. I jumped at the idea, and committed myself to prepare for the talk. The topic given for me to treat was “Setting targets as a young graduate and professional”. I was excited about the invitation, because, as I wrote in my journal, “I am using this as a launch pad to something I am not clear about yet, but certainly it will be an era, a career, a ministry of empowering and encouraging young people.” The talk never came on, but just after the invitation, on an official Unilever trip to Cote d’Ivoire, I started writing the notes for the talk. I identified twelve (12) key targets a young graduate should work on.
Reading through the notes after some months, I decided that I could share them with my friends and colleagues, via email. The first of the ‘Empower Series’ was sent out on Monday, 4 October 2004. The circulation has grown to over five hundred (500) direct recipients, and many of my friends forward them all over the world. There is now an online weblog (http://excursionsinmymind.blogspot.com/) where the articles are updated, when they are sent out. On 15 March 2005, I received an email from a senior Unilever executive in South Africa, who had used one of the series as material for coaching senior managers in Unilever North America HPC, and stated that “Nana…[will] be aware of the power of your thoughts”.
Then, emails, calls and direct messages face-to-face started coming in about publishing for a wider audience. To quote one of my dearest friends and elder sister in the Lord, Dee Willie, “The gems you’ve been sharing are too precious and abundant for a small group like ours, and you should prayerfully consider putting it together for a wider readership.”
Well, this is the answer to those requests! And this is in line with my desire to share my experiences with the youth especially, with the hope that these writings, these excursions in my mind, will be a blessing, an encouragement and an empowering agent to you. As indicated on the weblog, “the world is my target and my hands are His to use”.
God bless.
Nana Damoah
Accra, Ghana
March 2008
Contents
Empower Series 1: Books and Knowledge
Empower Series 2: Self-worth – Define Yourself
Empower Series 3: How Do You Feel Today?
Empower Series 4: The Power of a Dream, of a Decision
Empower Series 5: The Faith You Have – in Whom is it Placed?
Empower Series 6: The Value of a Friend
Empower Series 7: Leadership – Seek to Lead
Empower Series 8: Merry Christmas!
Empower Series 9: Rise When You Fall
Empower Series 10: The Sense of Timing – Living Within Your Means
Empower Series 11: Living with Long Perspective in Mind
Empower Series 12: Your Responsibility, Until their Teeth are Gone!
Empower Series 13: Continuous Learning
Empower Series 14: Called to be Faithful
Empower Series 15: Keep on Keeping On
Empower Series 16: Fighting the Worry Virus
Empower Series 17: Due Time
Empower Series 18: Shyness in not a Virtue
Empower Series 19: The Lord my Partner
Empower Series 20: Fight that Fear
Empower Series 21: Enjoy the Journey of Life with Gratitude
Empower Series 22: Will you be there?
Empower Series 23: Traditional or Biblical?
Empower Series 24: The Power of Encouragement
Empower Series 25: You will See the Green Side if you Look Harder!
Empower Series 26: The Tsetse Fly Approach
Empower Series 27: What are thou, oh Man?
Empower Series 28: A Debt-free Life
Empower Series 29: Lift up Your Eyes
Empower Series 30: Bombay’s Legacy – Reflecting on Fatherhood
Empower Series 31: The Therapy Tool Called Forgiveness
Empower Series 32: Becoming the Friend You Should Be!
Empower Series 33: The Benefit of a Mistake
Empower Series 34: Righting the Decision
Empower Series 35: Fighting to the Point of Shedding Blood
Empower Series 36: Loss Taught Me
Empower Series Bonus: The Mountain Story
Empower Series 1:
Books and Knowledge
Knowledge is power, it is said, and the acquisition of this power must be done daily, a truly continuous process. Ever heard of the law of accumulation? It works in the same way. The more you accumulate, the more it grows. The more the principal builds up, the greater the power of the compound growth. Then you begin to move from addition to multiplication, but the key is to continue adding on a regular basis. Daily growth, daily and consistent addition of knowledge.
We are living in an era where everyone seems to have the urge, appetite and desire for fast things! Reading and appreciating what we read is fast becoming a practice of the past. And it is worrying.
There is nothing that satisfies like a good book! I saw a documentary on North Korea, which emphasised the life and role of the former Korean President, referred to as the "Great Leader". One instruction the Great Leader gave to his country struck me, to wit: " A child should always have a book in his hands. He must read always. He should never be without a book, not even for a single day." I agree with him.
In secondary school (I became a Christian in Form 3), we devoured Christian literature, the works of great writers and inspirational books and novels as if they were hot, spicy kele wele (fried plantain). These books were the commentaries we had of the Bible, second only to Daily Guide and Daily Bread. Those books shaped my life. I will never forget how the book by Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People changed my outlook and comportment. I bought and read so many books and grew thereby on the spiritual milk (1 Peter 2:2).
Nothing can replace a good book - nothing! Unfortunately, this discipline of reading is dying in these times. We just don't read anymore. We don't study anymore. We are not adding knowledge, at all !! When was the last time you read any good book? It is with difficulty that we even read and meditate on the Word of God. We need to grow and grow, and we need to read and read if we are to grow. Read every day, if you want to grow.
The great men of our world have been readers; they have been learners. Jesus read, and it showed in His sermons. Paul was well read. Nkrumah read. Martin Luther King Jnr read. Abraham Lincoln didn't have what you would call a formal education, but he taught himself through reading. He actually studied law books he found at the base of items he had bought at an auction, and he became a great and effective lawyer and President of the United States of America. Lincoln talked of his love of books: “The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who’ll get me a book I ain’t read.” One of the all-time great Presidents of America, Theodore Roosevelt, read. He was reported to have died with a book under his pillow.
Solomon, the man touted as the wisest man that ever lived, sings this tune with me: "A wise man will hear and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels: To understand a proverb, and the interpretation, the words of the wise and their dark sayings." Proverbs 1:5,6.
What legacy of knowledge acquisition are we leaving our children? Cicero noted that “To add a library to a house is to give that house a soul.” I read somewhere that you can gauge how much a man loves knowledge by comparing the size of his library to the size of his television!
Make a pledge today that you are changing your ways. Make a commitment that you will read at least a book every two months. Monitor your progress, review your status and keep at it. And, by all means, bequeath that discipline to your kids.
Remember, little drops of knowledge make a mighty man or woman.
Action Exercise
Make a pledge today that you are changing your ways. Make a commitment that you will read at least a book every two months. Monitor your progress, review your status and keep at it. And, by all means, bequeath that discipline to your kids.
Remember, little drops of knowledge make a mighty man or woman.
Quotes
To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism, to steal ideas from many is research.
Anonymous
All that mankind has done, thought, gained or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books.
Thomas Carlyle
The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man. Nothing else that he builds ever lasts. Monuments fall, nations perish, civilizations grow old and die out, and after an era of darkness new races build others. But in the world of books are volumes that have seen this happen again and again and yet live on, still young, still fresh as the day they were written, still telling men’s hearts of the hearts of men centuries dead.
Clarence Day
When I get a little money, I buy books; if any is left, I buy food and clothes.
Desiderius Erasmus
A dollar put into a book and a book mastered might change the whole course of a boy’s life. It might easily be the beginning of the development of leadership that would carry the boy far in service to his fellow men.
Henry Ford
Never lend books, for no one ever returns them; the only books I have in my library are books that other folks lent to me!
Anatole France
Were I to pray for a taste which should stand me in good stead under every variety of circumstances and be a source of happiness and a cheerfulness to me during life and a shield against its ills, however things might go amiss and the world frown upon me, it would be a taste for reading.
Sir John Herschel
I would rather be a poor man in a garret with plenty of books than a king who did not love reading.
Thomas B Macaulay
To desire to have many books, and never use them, is like the child that will have a candle burning by him all the while he is sleeping.
Henry Peacham
Knowledge is free at the library. Just bring your own container.
Anonymous
What I don’t know isn’t knowledge.
Henry Charles Beeching
I love to lose myself in other men’s mind. When I am not walking, I am reading; I cannot sit and think. Books think for me.
Charles Lamb
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few are to be chewed and digested.
Francis Bacon
Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man and writing an exact man.
Francis Bacon
Ignorance is the night of the mind, but a night without moon and star.
Confucius
Empower Series 2:
Self-worth - Define Yourself
One of the shortest quotes that is so powerful is: ‘Man/Woman, Know thyself.’
Who are you, and what are the beliefs you have about your self? When you have defined yourself, circumstances don’t define you – they only refine you. Worth maketh the man. As a man thinks, so is he. ‘I think, therefore I am.’ Our beliefs about our abilities and the capabilities we have are usually the limiting reactants in the chain reaction of our lives. Life is a chain of reactions, and it is a continuous process.
Action Exercises:
Build a host of empowering beliefs about yourself.
In my case, I tell myself:
I am a first class graduate, and an award winner.
I am a top achiever and a great performer.
I am a child of God and a licensed user of the grace of God. One of the empowering beliefs is that the grace of God is more than sufficient to take me through every situation, every position, every challenge in my life. The grace of God gives strength. Christ lives in me.
All our knowledge is ourselves to know. The most effective emancipation comes from knowing yourself. Put yourself in perspective. If you have a low esteem of yourself, set a new target for putting your-self esteem at the top. How high your self-esteem is will determine the available volume for your success.
Resolve to be thyself; and know, that he
Who finds himself, loses his misery.
Matthew Arnold
Having defined yourself and found your worth, pursue it daily, and build your worth up!
Quotes
Look round the habitable world; how few
Know their own good; or knowing it, pursue.
John Dryden
What a superior man seeks is in himself; what the small man seeks is in others.
Confucius
If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
No Longer Lost
Aliens from the Commonwealth
Of Israel
Alienated from the body of Christ
But now we are co-heirs with Christ
Oh, what grace! Oh, what love!
We who once were far off
Directionless, lost with hope
And without God in this world
But now people of God, His own nation
Oh what grace! Oh what love!
Gentiles once in the flesh
Called ‘The Uncircumcised’
Once beyond the walls of salvation
But now we can go through into the broken
Curtain of separation
Oh, what grace! Oh, what love!
For Christ has brought us near
By His blood
He has abolished in His flesh
The law that separated us
He has become our peace
And reconciled us unto God
What grace! What love!
We have access by one Spirit
To the Father
Right into the throne room of Grace!
Behold what manner of love
The Father has given unto us,
That we should be called the children of God
No longer strangers
No longer aliens
Halleluyah, no longer lost!!
Indeed, what love!
Indeed, what Grace!
Empower Series 3:
How Do You Feel Today?
Aboko usually purchased his weekend newspapers from Agya Nsiah, whose stand was about 200 metres away from his house. It was Aboko’s habit to walk leisurely every Saturday morning to the stand, getting there earlier than even the earliest of customers for the day. This way, Aboko could have his usual uninterrrupted chat with Agya Nsiah before the customers came trooping in. Agya Nsiah was a fount of wisdom, and he always had a story to illustrate an important lesson for Aboko. To Aboko, Agya Nsiah was not just a newsvendor, but a sage and Aboko bought more than newspapers from him – he also bought wisdom; just that the latter was pro bono service from Agya.
Uncle Thomas was the greatest sore-head Aboko had even seen in his life; Mr Thomas was always angry and unpleasant to deal with, and this was the same no matter the weather, season or time of day. Saturday mornings seemed to be the worst. Aboko could never forget greeting Uncle Thomas with “Good morning” one day. The man nearly spat in Aboko’s face. He blurted out right in the face of the young boy, “What is good about the morning, eh? What is good about this morning? It is a bloody morning, an awful morning!!” Aboko learnt to keep at least a kilometer away from him from that moment onwards!!
Except at Agya Nsiah’s stand, where Uncle Thomas was a regular customer. Mr. Thomas was at the stand every Saturday complete with his negative attitude, which he wore next to his skin. Surprisingly, Agya Nsiah treated Uncle Thomas’s with the same demeanor he treated every customer with, if not better. Agya Nsiah was ever courteous, replying each of Uncle Thomas’ stinging words with a kind one, and with a smile as well. Only the obvious dissimilarities between black and white could describe the opposite extremities of expressions of Agya Nsiah and Uncle Thomas – a smile verses a stone wall, painted black. Aboko never ceased to be amazed. One day, he asked Agya Nsiah how he managed to keep his composure with Uncle Thomas.
“My son,” Agya started, “you are responsible for how you feel and how you will behave. You should not be like a chameleon whose colour will become red-hot because the fire in the other person is burning. You decide how you behave – absolutely – not anyone else.”
Many of us are reactive, not proactive. We react. We hit back. We are ‘an eye for an eye’ practitioners. We attack when we are attacked, with good measure. Our barometer reads from the environment and makes us act accordingly. We are mirrors who reflect the anger in others, the bad attitude in the other person, the negative comments of others. Let me show you a higher level of living.
Be controlled from the inside of you. Be controlled by your standards. Be motivated by your decisions. Have high standards of behaviour that ride over the negative noise of others. Laugh with those who laugh, mourn with those who mourn, but don’t mourn when you don’t want to, and laugh at those who laugh at you if you want to. Determine not to be a photo-sensor that brightens the lights only when people are nice to you.
Why? Because there are lots of negative and irritable people in our world. Sometimes you wonder whether they are sorted out and specially packaged for your pleasure! You must learn to ride above the noise.
People will doubt you, but do you doubt your own self? People will insult your integrity, but do you trust yourself? If you are at peace with yourself and with God, you can be at peace with the world.
So, how do you feel today? And are your feelings under your control? Is how you feel today your own doing?
Action Exercises
Decide to maintain a positive attitude, in spite of the environment.
Review yourself each day, to ensure you are controlling yourself from the inside. Ask yourself: Today, was I a slave to someone else’s attitude?
Quotes
We do not what we ought,
What we ought not, we do;
And lean upon the thought
That chance will bring us through;
But our own acts, for good or ill,
Are mightier powers.
Matthew Arnold
Our lives are not determined by what happens to us but by how we react to what happens, not by what life brings to us, but by the attitude we bring to life. A positive attitude causes a chain reaction of positive thoughts, events, and outcomes. It is a catalyst, a spark that creates extraordinary results.
Anonymous
Attitude might not catch fish, but it helps when you don't.
Anonymous
Empower Series 4:
The Power of a Dream, of a Decision
Many of us don’t dream; more dangerously, many of us don’t spend quality time thinking!! We worry, yes, but we do not think. We don’t project ourselves into the future. We don’t utilise imagination. For many who do dream, what is lacking is the translation of the dream into reality and the tenacity to hold on to the dream when the going gets tough. According to Myles Munroe, the poorest man in the world is the man without a dream and the most frustrated man in the world is the man with a dream that never becomes reality.
When we were children, our dreams were big, awesome and so achievable; but like Peter, when he walked on the waters towards Jesus, we lose our dreams as we consider the circumstances around us as we age.
Dreams are very powerful, because they energise and embolden us. Every success started with a dream, with an idealistic image, with a shot at the skies. Martin Luther King stated that he had a dream, a dream that white and colored will sit together; that one day the United States will rise up and live the true meaning of its creed. And today it has come to pass. A dream, a decision, a shot at the skies. President Bill Clinton of the United States is known to have first dreamt about becoming a president of his nation after a meeting with President J F Kennedy in the White House.
You can change your stars if you want to! And you can do that by your dreams and by pursuing them. When you have a dream, you have something to live for. Living without a current project is like taking a stroll in life. ‘Many a man deals with life as children with play, who first misuse, then cast their toys away’ (William Cowper). Without a dream, life is like children with play. With a dream, resources are harnessed and every day assumes a whole new dimension.
Napoleon Hill, author of the bestseller ‘Think and Grow Rich’ puts it most aptly: “Our brains become magnetized with the dominating thoughts which we hold in our minds, and, by means which no man is familiar, these ‘magnets’ attract to us the forces, the people, the circumstances of life which harmonize with the nature of our dominating thoughts.”
Every dream should be translated into a decision, a target.
I have had my own dreams, and continue to have them. I decided early in life that I wanted to be the best in every class at each stage of my education. I owe this decision and dream to the encouragement of my father. At a point, I was afraid that my passion for this dream was unbiblical!! But I heard a sermon once in church and received my Word that such a dream in my heart was like God’s promise to me. It is amazing how this dream has come to pass! I was the best student in my preparatory school in the Common Entrance, I was the Best Student at the O Level at Ghana National College, Best Science student at A Level at the same school, and the Best Graduating Student in my final year in Chemical Engineering in KNUST. The power of a dream.
The challenges come, but when you are focused on your dream, you arrive. In preparatory school, I slipped to third place in class five in the third term, and to fifth place the next term in class six. But with focus on my dream, I bounced back to the top. In the university, I began my dream starting at fifth place in my class. Write your dreams down, and run with them. Winston Churchill, the great wartime Prime Minister of Great Britain, had a vision during the war and he verbalized it, in 1940 – see how it energizes you:
“We shall not flag or fail. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”
Martin Luther King had a dream, Lincoln had a dream to see a united Union. And their dreams came to pass.
So dream. Make your dreams into decisions. Write them down. Spend quality time thinking about your future and document your dreams and aspirations. Then, run with them. Samuel Taylor Coleridge stated, ‘From wherever place I write, you will expect that part of my “Travels” will consist of excursions in my own mind.’
Are you dreaming?
Actions Exercises
Spend quality time thinking about your future. What are the top three targets you would want to achieve in the next five years? Do you know them?
Whatever my mind would conceive
And my heart would believe
With God’s help I can achieve.
Napoleon Hill (attrib.)
We are what we think
All that we are arises
With our thoughts.
With our thoughts,
We make our world.
Siddhartha Gautama
A person who aims at nothing is sure to hit it.
Anonymous
The whole world steps aside for the man who knows where he is going.
Anonymous
Spend time daily reviewing your dreams and periodically check your progress with respect to your dreams. It will amaze you how focused you will become and how the whole of Nature seems to be on the side of your dreams!
I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor.
Henry David Thoreau
Quotes
I happen temporarily to occupy this big White House. I am living witness that any one of your children may look to come here as my father’s child has.
Abraham Lincoln
We are told never to cross a bridge until we come to it, but this world is owned by men who have 'crossed bridges' in their imagination far ahead of the crowd.
Anonymous
Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong attitude.
Thomas Jefferson
If you would hit the mark, you must aim a little above it; every arrow that flies feels the attraction of the earth.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Empower Series 5:
The Faith You Have – in Whom Is It Placed?
I owe this story to a good colleague called Richard Laryea:
She couldn't take another year in prison. She couldn't even think about it. It had become so loathsome that it was almost preferable to die than to waste away any longer behind those walls. So her appeal began, not to the Governor, nor to the warden, but to the prison undertaker. The undertaker was responsible for all inmates who died. He placed them in coffins, sealed the coffins, and took them out for burial.
After
some time, and using female wiles, she was finally able to persuade
the man to help her escape. The plan was simple. The next time
someone died, he would allow her to get into the coffin with the dead
body. He would then nail the lid shut, take it out to the graveyard,
bury it, and return under the cover of darkness to open it and free
her. There would be enough oxygen in the coffin for that amount of
time.
Eventually
the opportunity came. Someone died. According to the plan, she
sneaked into the darkened parlor and crawled into the coffin with the
body. Shortly after that, the lid was nailed down. She felt the
movement of the coffin as it was carried out to the waiting wagon.
There was a rocking motion as it was pulled out of the prison yard,
through the gates that were locked upon her for so many years, beyond
the walls that she could never climb. She felt the wagon stop in the
paupers’ graveyard, sensed the downward motion of the coffin as
it was lowered into the hole dug for it. A swelling sense of victory
filled her. The ploy was going to work!
She heard the clunking
noise of earth being shoveled onto the coffin, until at last she
could hear no more. Now it was only a short wait until the undertaker
would come for her. Being curious, she lit a match to see who had
died.
In
the brief flare of the light she saw who it was. It was the
undertaker...
Each of us has faith; without faith, you cannot live. As John Maxwell asserts in his book, Today Matters, it is faith that makes you go to see a doctor you don’t know, accept a prescription you can’t read, take it to a pharmacist you’ve never seen before, receive from the pharmacist a drug whose manufacturer and site you’ve never visited or vetted and take this drug believing that it will cure your illness!
Many of us ridicule faith, but we exercise faith every day. The bridge you just drove over - did you stop to examine its ability to carry your car before you drove over it? The plane you traveled on during your last trip – how could you tell that the pilot was of a sound mind? The food you ate during your recent outing at the restaurant – did it occur to you that it could have been poisoned?
No man is an atheist. The fact that you don’t believe in God is a belief in itself.
I chose to believe in God. In Him, I have found my Saviour:
I FOUND HIM
A Saviour I found
My faith in Him so sound
Because He's always around
My life is as firm as the ground
When my life was in tatters
And all my plans shattered