Ed note

As I sat down to write this week’s Ed’s Note, the church service I attended on July 17th at St Columbus CCAP came to mind. The sermon was simple, practical and funny. It was also very thought-provoking and (I hope) worth sharing to all of you.

The theme was “how do we safeguard the blessings that God has given unto us?”

According to the preacher, marriages, children, jobs, homes, businesses, our lives are some of the manifestations of God’s blessings upon our lives. However, on the flip side of the coin, we are also responsible for protecting those blessings. We are responsible for nurturing them so that they flourish. As human beings, we often take them for granted and sometimes pay them no mind as soon as they are given unto us.

We forget that when we are happy and fulfilled, the devil is often nearby, scheming on how to steal, kill and destroy us so that our lives revert to misery. It is for this reason that we should work extra hard and pray more fervently to sustain our blessings once we attain them. We must not, under any circumstances, slacken or cease our efforts unless we would like to go back to square one.

In illustration, the preacher spoke of marriage; a topic that elicited a lot of laughter and whispering from the congregation.  He said in his research on marriage affairs and interviews with several couples, he found out that a lot of people grow apart because they take each other for granted. Men complain that their wives are not innovative enough anymore and that the home is run like a bureaucracy, government style.

Women, on the other hand, say men stop being loving and kind. They turn into ‘traffic police officers’ who always want to find faults with how things are done. The end result? Men sneak off to the ATM (assistance to madam) and stay there because they want a breath of fresh air and a bit of fun. The women end up resenting their husbands and Holy Matrimony is thrown out the window! His advice? If you prayed for that husband or wife and you got him, then you better keep praying for God to guide your relationship and both parties ought to make the effort to keep the flame burning otherwise things will go awry.

Children are a Godly gift that parents (apparently) abuse, albeit unknowingly. By giving them everything they ask for, sending them to expensive schools yet failing to discipline them when they get bad grades, letting them play video games and ‘hang out’ all holiday long while the house help wash, clean and cook for them, are we actually safeguarding these children or are we setting them up for disaster? Will this equip them with the skills necessary to face the real world once they come of age? Think about it.

The same concept applies to how we do our jobs, run our businesses and a lot more things in our lives. Unfortunately, I do not have enough space to outline each of the points raised by the preacher but I hope, in a way, that this message will help you (as it helped me) see certain things in a different light.