Why I write

I write to inform, to share in the joys of living, and to promote quality living.

My philosophy in life

Live to the fullest possible, remember the LORD while you can, and lift someone up.

My upbringing

My mother and father were born-again Christians, loving parents who provided in every way possible for my upbringing and invested in my education. When I was getting married both stood by us and showed us they cared. The greatest inheritance I received from my dad was a good education.

My favorite thought

It is only a matter of time, we shall be out of this world and in the presence of God. It is written, it must be true. There are myriads of witnesses, it must be very serious. Therefore, if I have to lose anything let it be the things of this world rather than eternity with God.

Regret in life


I wish I accepted Jesus earlier and learned about the love of God I now know. The only way I would have known was if I had people who challenged me to believe the way I now know how to. I wish I had people who taught me to pray and fast and to be disciplined in my prayer life throughout my life.

Philosophy of faith


I believe there is only one pillar or anchor in the Christian faith: Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who lived and died at Calvary. His blood atones for my sins. His forgiveness is acceptable to God for my salvation. I believe He is coming soon to complete His plan of salvation and for the entire Universe.


Accepting Jesus as personal Savior is the only way to receive pardon for sin. Without Jesus man is lost without any possibility of another savior.

I like to think of 4 pillars to support growth in the Christian faith:

a. Prayer: in all seasons to pray and where necessary pray and fast
b. Study of God's Word in a regular and systematic way
c. Fellowship (Gathering together in the name of The Lord)
d. Witnessing: Giving our testimony to others about what Jesus has done for us.

The Priesthood of believers

I believe all believers are priests unto the LORD Jesus Christ. The anointing of His word rests on every true believer to lead others to Christ. Within the body of Christ are apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. There are numerous gifts and offices ordained for the extension of His Kingdom on earth.

Holy Spirit Baptism necessary

Baptism in the Holy Spirit is necessary for power to witness and power to serve.

http://www.chaava.com

Standing firm

What is possibly common between the battlefront, behind the prison wall, and facing the executioner's axe? Nothing. Not so quickly!

The late Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat who was assassinated on October 6, 1981 famously said there are three places a man comes face to face with himself, at the battlefront, as shells are landing, loud bangs all around, and the sound of bullets passing, when a man is locked up behind bars without any hope of coming out, and when a man faces the executioner's axe.

I have never been to war. I have never been locked up and I have never faced the executioner's axe. However, I have come face to face with myself at another battlefront, been locked up in another prison, and faced the executioner's axe in the spiritual realm. I count myself fortunate to be alive today and to claim a personal salvation that cannot be taken from me. This is the subject I dwell on in this memo: coming face to face with myself and the change in my life.

At many points along my path of growing up, I faced myself in small ways, what I might call minor encounters of self. The time I went for a burial, while listening to the raw emotions of mourners, and hearing the message of the preacher by the grave side. The visualization of a dead body in a casket enhanced the immediacy of self-experience. Seeing a body whose essential self was departed spoke deeply to my innermost being, the mystery of death as a harbinger of many tales to the soul.

What it really means to come face-to-face with myself

To come face-to-face with myself means entering a moment in time when I am deeply aware of my short-comings and my need for someone reliable, bigger, stronger, able, and willing to help me. It might also be described as seeing the person I truly am in what might be a mirror of sorts. Deep inside my inner person this is a moment of conflict when the tectonic plates of my being shift and energy is transferred all over the place causing physical, emotional, and spiritual disequilibrium within my being.

Sometimes the help I need is to last for a short time only, and other times I need big help to sustain me through this life and into eternity. Coming to my senses or coming to myself means more or less the same thing. It is a moment of possibilities and decisions. It is also the opportune time to make life decisions.

I am often aware of the good-will that surrounds me. I am conscious of good men and women around me on whom I can call when I am in need. I am also aware of men's limitations and unwillingness if not inability to stand with me for prolonged periods. The minuscule shifts are not always what I need. The big shift is what I often need.

The big one

Life can thrust us into the middle of the ring where the spotlight falls squarely upon us: at the battle-front, when incarcerated, dying on the hospital bed, or on the execution board. It matters less where it happens, the effect is the same. The place was a classroom. The chains were spiritual bondage, the executioner was a man standing firm on His word and my moment had arrived. I was at the altar and the executioner's axe was raised high in readiness to strike. When the axe fell, it tore the chains off, leaving none to bind me.

I do not always know what I need although I can always tell you what I want and how I want it to look like. That is how it was that 24th day of October 1979 when I came face to face with myself. The surprise is that when I came face to face with myself I was confronted with my need. Along with my need all my wants would be satisfied. Perhaps that explains the significance of the last wishes of a dying man. Many things in life are important, but only one thing is really necessary, and the dying man knows what that is for himself. In that moment I realized I needed a personal savior. He had to be concerned for me, able, willing to help and remain with me to see me through many trials along the way.

When a man comes face to face with self, something happens. There is a paradigm shift in the deep inner self. Part of this is because our nature is deeply flawed. Body, soul, and spirit, the figurative crust, mantle, and inner core of our nature are not in perfect harmony, neither are they totally synchronized. From time to time seismic shifts happen and energy flows throughout the system causing us discomfort and disequilibrium. We, in turn, do everything we can to reach and maintain equilibrium. Perfection on earth is a fallacy. However, resolving the crisis of self harmonizes the system and synchronizes the flow of energy so that it is no longer disruptive and instead becomes positively productive. Perfection through God's Righteousness is not a fallacy. We become perfect in Him.

The biggest question any man can ever face alive is Will you accept Jesus as your personal Savior and Lord? Every other conflict is subordinate. Only when we truly know Jesus can we know how to resolve all other conflicts we shall find ourselves in.

How do we come face to face with ourselves? Is this something desirable?

Looking in the mirror

When I stand in front of my mirror I see my image. I do not in reality come face-to-face with myself. There are two mirrors spoken of in existence. The mirror on the wall and the mirror of God's word. The mirror of God's word is different and truly helps us to face ourselves. However, to be able to use it requires skill and knowledge only gained through experience of the One who gave it to man in the first place. So, I will skip the Word of God for another moment in our discourse.

I walked into the house of mirrors in South London many years ago. There were large and small mirrors, mirrors that distorted my image to look short and fat, and a mirror that made me look weird by twisting parts of my face. We have to be very careful the mirror we use; only the Word of God tells us the absolute truth about ourselves. Other mirrors can make us appear more handsome or ugly than we really are.

Beware the picture about yourself. The enemy will take a picture of you, photo-shop it until it is perfectly what you want to see and then tell you that is who you are. God's Word is different. He tells us who we really are.

Conflict

Conflict is the child of many forces within our human flaws; it works within our innermost being bringing us the possibility of facing ourselves. I say possibility because two additional elements are necessary to complete the requirements to face ourselves, sobriety and honesty. We must be sober and honest to ourselves to fully grasp and acknowledge our poor state in a conflict of the inner being.

We must be sober and intentional to grasp the true state of our fallen nature and the help available to pull us through.

Daily conflicts within ourselves can help us keep on course. I speak to those who have resolved the biggest conflict of them all. It is far too easy to take a new trajectory by a shift of the compass within. All we have to do is ignore the promptings of the inner conflicts.

The Word of God

This is the only Book in the world that reads our minds and tells us who we truly are. By devoting time to study the Word of God we are putting ourselves where we can continually grow in knowledge and wisdom by facing ourselves daily. Not only does the Word show us who we are, it shows us what is possible, Who God is, and what He can do for us.

Someone once said, The journey of a thousand miles starts out with a single step. So also it is with learning to walk with the Living God. We have to take one day at a time; the first step, and then the next, and soon we learn to run. We learn to know who really loves us.

The story of the young man in Luke 15 is a perfect example in mind. In verse 17 of this amazing story, Jesus told the listeners, the young man who went away from home to a strange land finally "came to himself" or to his senses. When that happened, he formed a strategy and made a plan to return home.

Henri J.M. Nouwen in his book the Return of the prodigal son has this to say, "I am a prodigal son every time I search for unconditional love where it cannot be found. As long as I keep running about asking, "do you love me? Do you really love me" I give all power to the voices of the world and put myself in bondage because the world is filled with "ifs." It says, "Yes, I love you if you are good looking, intelligent, and wealthy. I love you if you have a good education, job, and good connections. These 'ifs' enslave me. p 38-39

The purpose of this inner conflict is to bring us into a more perfect harmony with our Creator's will for us.

Dreams that stay

This dream kept repeating. Day after day, after another day, and after yet another day, the exact same dream kept coming to me while I slept. I remembered every detail vividly as if I lived in the moments. 16 years later the dream began to unfold. Like a seed that germinates and a flowers that unfolds, the fulfillment is in the place and time purposed for it.

The year was 1996, the place, Eastern Cape, South Africa. I had a dream as I slept in the night. It was a lovely dream, very beautiful indeed. I was in school, more accurately, in college. I sat in a lovely environment where I learned. When class was over I took my books and started off as if to go to my residence, then I woke up.

I wrote my dream in a journal that went missing on one of our many relocations, however, I remember the details as if it was yesterday. The school was a colorful place, and beautiful environment. Believing it was a one night dream I lingered on it for a while, wishing indeed, I could go to school.

I have always desired to study. As a 5 year old I followed my dad to school. I sat in the pupils' chair when he was teaching his class and drew or wrote on pieces of paper he gave me to scribble on. I grew up with this amazing depth of interest for the written word. I longed to be able to read for myself. I remember the day I was finally able to read for myself. I spent the whole day going over the words I mastered. I wrote them again and again until I was too tired to write, and fell asleep.

I grew up with few hobbies. Making music was one of those. Writing and reading were the most cherished of the gifts I received from the Creator. Whereas people will speak about the writer's block, I always have something to write, even when I don't really know what I want to say, I always have something to write. Why should I not have something to write? Unlike the spoken word, the written word exists at the tip of the pen. It is there, you only have to put that pen to paper and let go.

It is rare for dreams and hobbies to cross paths. When they do, it is amazing the joy this provokes within the heart. Dreaming of doing something you really love to do is very much like drinking the refrigerated water on a hot day, or walking with the love of your heart. It is exhilarating. Many wake up from sounds and sights of dreams, and some too there are who live in their joyful hobbies, who work in the field of their dreams. Few there are who experience the joy of dreaming and experiencing the fullest joy of spiritual fulfillment this experience brings. Dreams are spiritual.

If dreams were not spiritual what else would they truly be? When a man is asleep, the Creator makes it possible for the inner person to arise and go to places unknown to the man that walks by day. Such places are too glorious to disclose, too real to be untrue. Such then are dreams, not mere clouds of the sleeping mind but the reality that escapes the waking soul. When we dream, we live. When we awake we sleep to the true reality.

I wanted to go back to school, to learn, to teach, and to learn some more. My life took a different path than the one I truly longed for. Deaths in the family meant I had to work more, and earn more to be able to support kids left by their parents. As far as it was humanly possible, I gave my energy to be a pillar for their support.

I was in South Africa, far displaced from home. I put away my thoughts of going to school and focused on working. The passion for books was never further than the pen in my hand at any point in my life. However, the place and time did not match, nor did the opportunity present itself in such a fashion as to be recognized in that day in 1996 in Whittlesea.

Day after day, after another day, and then another, I had the same dream: I went into a classroom, sat at my desk, learned, wrote, read, submitted my work, left the classroom, walked through the flower garden paths, and woke up. I could not remember seeing any of my teachers, neither could I figure out the subjects or lessons I was covering. However, I went through the same experience in this heavenly place. There was no fanfare, no choirs of angels singing grand heavenly music, no preachers, just simply school, University to be perfectly clear, and the flower gardens and waking up in a bed in South Africa.

At first I was happy to dream such a lovely dream knowing full well there was no way I could fulfill the dream or live in its reality. It became like a drug a person takes to be high. I was on no drugs. My drugs were prayers to the Living God. I always valued working as a prayer warrior. My prayers never ceased to ascend to Heaven.

My excitement turned to despair as I tried to figure out why this dream was recurring in my present life. It was happening at a time I was completely unable to do anything to help myself live in its fulfillment. Do philosophers not say God helps those who help themselves? Is it not some preachers' doctrine that we have to help God by doing our part to fulfill His calling on our lives?

My countenance turned from excitement to despair, to hopelessness, as my thoughts finally internalized the dire impossibility of my dream. When I saw the exact same dream the tenth time in three weeks, I knew it was a very serious statement indeed. But I was totally dull to fully know what to do.

What do you do when you receive what you believe to be a revelation three or four times? Do you not make the move towards its fulfillment? If you dream of winning a jackpot four times with a set of numbers, do you not go over and buy those numbers and enter the contest? If you dream of a girl so many times and you are a young man ready to engage, do you not proceed to launch your manifesto?

Fulfillment is of God

My situation was very complicated and difficult. I was living hand-to-mouth, check to next check. I was far from any college and employed in a very busy laboratory. I could not get away from work, neither could I enroll in a distance education college. Besides, I had lost the will to go to school. I had the feeling you get when someone tells you how good fasting is to get you closer to God, if you have no inclination to get closer to God. Those are the times of great dissonance when nothing makes sense, even those beautiful things that come your way pass you by like trash - not interested whatsoever.

I poured my heart out to the Living God. At first, as I said, in sheer excitement, celebrating and asking the LORD to show me the college to enroll and to put it in my heart to desire to go. When that did not stop the dreams or pacify my turbulent heart I pleaded for direction from the Living God, "Help me Lord, show me what to do," I prayed. When that all seemed to bounce and my worries piled up on top of each other it was time to fast.

I slept on the bare floor and pleaded with God to spare me from the pain of seeing what I could not own, and experiencing in dreams what I could never be in this life. I was aware at all times though, that the dream was not a mere show of prophetic power of His Spirit, I knew it was a real speech from God's heart to mine. Finally, one night, I resolved to be still and to simply listen and say nothing. That is what I did.

The dream stopped, for a very long season. The next time I experienced the same dream was more of a reminder friend to friend, of a promise. I learned that sometimes God just wants to be a friend, to share a little secret, a thought. Then, as at no other time, He is really saying, "It is not in your hands to work this plan out; it is not about you, it is about the One who died at Calvary."

If we live by His word which says, "Seek first His Kingdom and Righteousness and all these things will be added to you," (Mt 6: 33), so it will be. In His time, He makes all things beautiful.

Fourteen years later, in a different place, and very different circumstances, God meets with friend as if to say, "I am still here to fulfill my word to you."

Through there are storms of life, trials, and temptations along the way, He kept my dream alive. Although it lay dormant for a decade, it lived in the bottom of the heart. One day, on a dark and stormy night in June 2010, I enrolled in college. If there was a wrong time to enroll in a program June 10th was it.

Unemployed, wife very sick, feeling alone, far away from home, facing certain loss of home, and everything I owned, at that point in my life I found the strength and path to follow the dream that lay dormant for decades. To say God was in the storm with me is an understatement. He sat in there and waited upon me.

Jesus knows how much I love writing and reading. He gave me the perfect dream many years ago, enabling me to live the life of a student, life I loved so much. Jesus knows too that above all else He is my true love. Should doubts linger on the horizons of my faith I know that I can go back by the route of fasting to the source of all my spiritual strength and inspiration, to be re-energized and go on my way to give Him the Praise.

There is yet a higher ground just ahead. When this life is done, I will ask in heaven to continue as a student, to learn all there is to learn about Him. I will sit at the feet of my savior with others who truly search for His appearing and together we shall write assignments and debate the issues of the blood He shed on the Place of the Skull.

I have seen glimpses of the dream that was recurring nearly two decades ago. The glimpses I see are the tail-end, the fulfillment, a reminder of God's faithfulness, that no matter what happens if we fix our eyes on Jesus, He will see us through the storm and keep alive the dream that is dormant because it will not go away until it is fulfilled.

Mirriam, strange as fiction

My mother saw her first. She entered the house through the kitchen door, found her way behind the bag of mealie-meal where two small stones, the size of a chicken-egg were already placed side by side. There, behind the bag she coiled herself and seemed to go to sleep, if snakes really sleep. Mirriam, if I may be allowed to call her that, made no effort to hide herself, coming in at about two feet long, from prying eyes.

I was 12, and I remember vivdly the first time I saw Mirriam in the courtyard, by my mother's kitchen. Chickens and their little ones ran away from her, and People - our African hunting dog - gave way, barking ungracefully while trudging off, tail up, eyes on Mirriam.

I was getting ready to go on the attack with a big stick. My mother heard the commotion, came out and saw the snake and told me, "This one is harmless. All it wants is to go inside the house and make itself comfortable." She seemed completely at ease with the snake while it searched for a path into the house. The door was already open as it usually was at this hour of day anyway. I watched helplessly as Mirriam pulled herself up and through the doorway into the house, disappearing behind the 50 kilogram bag of mealie-meal. There were two bags; she chose a position near the one that was closer to the corner.

In this place there were poisonous and dangerous snakes, and as far as I was concerned, every snake was dangerous and a target for killing. Mother calmed my nerves a little. Mirriam was very different, and I wanted an explanation that would satisfy me. So, a few days later, when the immediate drama was over and still, my curiosity at its peak, I found the moment with mother and asked her about the snake.

"Mommy," I said in a deliberately soft voice, "about the snake. How did you know that snake would not bite; and mommy, why did you let it into the house?" I waited.

My mother was cutting delele for supper, sitting outside the kitchen, a hut situated 20 yards from the main house. It was a beautiful Autumn day. The sun was softly playing behind light clouds giving us just enough warmth while keeping the air cool and the breeze gently going.

"I grew up in the hills of Nadongo." That is how she started, pausing just long enough for my mind to wander to those mysterious hills where my family visited during school holidays, once every four years. Although the journey to Nadongo took only a day, it was a very complicated affair to go on holiday and more so the means to travel there.

"I was my father's favorite girl, being the last born. Whenever he took his axe to go out into the hills he asked if I wanted to follow. Often I said, yes, and took my cisuwo and followed him." She seemed to long for those days when her father still lived. But he died when I was much younger, I could not even remember how he looked. I paid attention to every word my mother spoke. My interest in the snake was no less intense when she seemed to meander to the hills and to her forest walks with her father.

One day, while my mother and her dad were in the forest she found some mushroom spread out on the ground like a large carpet of grey. She exclaimed aloud upon seeing such a bush of mushroom. How on earth was she going to carry all of that mushroom with her little cisuwo? While she gave her thought to this good problem, my mother says she saw her father retreating towards her, his eyes fixed on an object directly in front of him, all the while walking backwards towards her.

"When my father got to where I was standing, a little over ten yards, he stretched out his hands, grabbed me by my right hand, the nearest hand to his, and started to run with me, towards home. We were not too far from the village, just behind the second hill as you travel from the village in the Eastern direction. There were no paths in that place, there were only bushes that grew taller in some places. Elephant grasses were very tall during this time of year and we had to avoid going directly through them unless absolutely necessary.

"It was no use running as we might hurt ourselves. As we slowed down I could tell that my father was very shaken by what he saw or heard out there which I did not see or hear."

Slowly as they approached home the old man opened his mouth in conversation, only that it had nothing to do with what he saw. The mystery would remain veiled for several weeks until one day when mother started to attend school. The old man did not ask the daughter to accompany him into the bush as if to say he was afraid the same thing might happen which happened on that mysterious day.

"One day, in a most unusual move, my father asked me if I would go in the bush with him. I looked in his face, seeing he was serious, I accepted the invitation that I never thought I would get again. I was growing up and I knew I would not make a good companion for the old man on his bush walks much longer. I took a large cisuwo and we were soon off. As usual, he was carrying an axe in one hand and a long, sharp spear in the other. Walking with the old man gave me a sense of security; I knew I was more than safe. I had nothing to worry about."

"We did not go very far from the village. A little over the first hill as you come to the river Mangole, there, by the water he stopped and stooped as if to scoop some water for a drink. His spear and axe on the ground, he bent over the water, indicating that we were not in a hurry to move from there."

"While I sat by the side of the river I was afraid of the impese in the sands of this river, I avoided sitting on the ground while waiting for the old man to get ready to move on. But we were not moving on."

"Then," my mother said in a low stuttering voice, "then my father told me about the encounter he had that day. I sat transfixed by the river as I listened to my father's story of a Spirit that stood by his way that afternoon in the bush."

"What did he see?" I asked impatiently, my mind immersed in the story as if I was with them that day. I could see my mother was deep in thought as she narrated the rest of their story.

"A person stood in front of my father, directly in the path where he was going. Everything happened so quickly and yet in those flash moments he heard many things said that remained with him until many years later, the day he died." My mother said, content that his death brought a good end to some important matters. From the look on her face it was clear she did not count his death a conclusion but only a part of the long story which she was yet to tell me. I too was determined to hear the story to the end. One day it would be my turn to tell my story to my children.

"A real person appeared to my father, standing tall, much taller and bigger than two men put together. My father could tell that he was real because the grass where he stood was lying down as when a person stands on it." She said, relishing the past moments.

The Spirit said to my father, "Take your daughter to school. Her future is far from here. Her children will traverse the world to the place where strange people live."

Did anyone else know what I was hearing? I was in a privileged place to hear these things from my mother. My mother must have kept those words and thoughts for many years until her own children were grown up. 

"When that person disappeared, which happened in an instant, as in a flash of a moment, my father says he saw the largest snake he ever saw in his life. 'It was lying directly in my path, piled up high; I knew it was a python.' He said, 'That is when I started to back away as you saw me do,' my father told me." In the moments of fear much confusion came to his head. But he remembered the words very clearly for many years.

"A few days later, a snake came to claim a corner in the house where my father lived. It brought three stones, the size of chicken eggs, made a triangle with those stones, in the corner of the hut. That snake came and stayed in that place, going and coming at will for nearly three months. It would stay in its claimed place for a whole day at times bothering no one, and then it would go out. Nobody knew, let alone cared, where the snake came from, why it was there, or what purpose its visits fulfilled. There was no way to know whether or not it was satisfied by what it found in the home.

"Did you ever ask your father about the snake?" I asked mother.

"Yes indeed I did. I asked him why a snake would behave that way. He told me it was the Spirit who met him in the bush. I believed his explanation. Although very frightening to have a snake in your house, if the understanding is in your heart for mutual coexistence, there is no need to worry about it whatsoever."

"This brings me to the snake you saw the other day. You were much younger when I saw the snake the first time. I am just supposing it is the same one I saw two years ago." She was talking about Mirriam. My interest was revived. I wanted very much to know how a snake could come in the home and go out at will as Mirriam did.

"At first we feared that the snake was dangerous. Quickly I recognized its shape, color, and behavior. Unlike other snakes, when this one appeared it did not raise its head up in anger or fear. It was as if we knew each other. This snake, I felt, was coming home and it knew that. So, I opened the doors in the house and let it find the place it wanted. Sure enough, it entered the main house through the kitchen, where food is stored. There, under the most precious commodity in our house, it put its markers, three stones.

"Amazingly, this snake behaved in the exact same manner as the one I saw when I was much younger in my father's house. It brought round, smooth stones; I could not call them pebbles because they were rather large. I do not know how it carried the stones but one day you woke up and found it had three of them."