Category: Faith

CHECKMATE: The Military Tactic … II

31.01.2019

Author katiem

There will always be those who have not peeped into your vision but will speak on it as though they authored it. The ones that have never been privy to the master potter’s blueprint of your dream but esteem themselves as the expert in your field.

They dial, and set forth from their dwellings, in a guise to sympathise and encourage, but like a ferocious wolf in sheep’s clothing, when they console, they point fingers, attack, engage in acts designed to mutilate the core of your countenance and override the potter’s settings. They whisper “facts” about your circumstance but within the whisper, lay a hiss of venom designed to poison your dream. They hiss and spittle and injudiciously speculate that your impediment is aroused by karma and the sins of your past, or the deficiency of a masculine prayer life, or inability to break the generational curse.

We see this with Job’s friends who set out to console him but in the end, blamed him for his predicament. Zophar said to Job “…if you devote your heart to Him (God) and stretch out your hands to Him, if you put away the sin that is in your hand and allow no evil to dwell in your tent, then, free of fault, you will lift up your face; you will stand firm and without fear” (Job 11:13–15). Job’s friends clearly spoke on things that were beyond their wisdom. But they were empowered to speak and override the settings to obscure God’s plans for Job, by Job himself, who also spoke before he fully understood the potter’s plan.  Job may have initially confronted the adversity with confidence, refusing to blame God for his adversity (Job 2), but one page later and the next several chapters forward, he began to speak prematurely and bleakly about his position.

We may not understand where we are and why things are as they appear to be, but there is wisdom in trusting that there is a potter directing us. An artisan who constantly remains at work, shaping our future such that it becomes brighter than we could ever fashioned for ourselves (Psalm 121:3–5; Jeremiah 18:3–7). Only the potter, the master architect knows the end from the beginning. When we speak from our current but temporary position, we speak as the fool that concludes the end of the book, having only read to page twenty-eight of a hundred.

Our location and position are never a surprise to God. He already knows the whole story. And hence, when Job and his friends spoke prematurely about matters which they had no knowledge of, God spoke and said, “Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone—while the morning stars sang together and all the angels[a] shouted for joy?” (Job 38:1–7; see also Job 40:2).

Waiting may be painful, but the end will leave you in reverence of the mysteries of the timekeeper. While waiting, do not allow those that do not understand the ways of God, nor His perfect plan for your life, to vocalise their opinions such that they echo and bind louder than His voice. The dilettantes will always be there. With no expertise, they will take one look at your situation, see the stone chosen by the master builder, and reject it without knowing the building with which the master builder chose it for (Matthew 21:42).

Just like Job, you may be exposed and where he was, or like Joseph, you may be waiting twenty-two years for the dream to come to pass, but do not despair. As with both Job and Joseph, God knows your exact position, and He knows how your story will end (Proverbs 20:24; Isaiah 46:10). It will be magnificent! Your situation now is the stone that looks counterproductive but will become the cornerstone of marvel to all those who see the power of God at work in you when the design is complete (Matthew 21:42). If you keep silent and trust that the master builder has a perfect plan for your life, you will come out on the other side as Job and Joseph did; simply triumphant! (Job 42 and Genesis 41–47).

©Katie Mliswa and MomentsbyKatie.M, 2019.

PERFECTION: The Insatiable Corpse … II

03.12.2018

Author katiem

The greatest botch story that continues to be written, is that of a megacosm pursuing the corpse of perfection. In this pursuit, scars are created in places where there were previously no scars, and holes dug in places where there were previously no holes until there is nothing to dig into but the void. And the voidness reverberates the sound of the unattained and insatiable pursuit of perfection.

These man-made scars and holes become the breeding ground for concoctions of confusion, identity crisis, and despondency. What if in the pursuit of perfection we discerned that perfection is imperfection, just as the nail and pierced scars of Jesus illuminate His perfect imperfection (John 20:19–29)?

Through mankind’s pursuit for physical perfection, the discovery of cosmetic surgery is much acclaimed, but if the surgery is used to conceal our voidness, then the surgery is akin to a band-aid on a broken arm. Like that band-aid on a broken arm, a covering of a broken soul will never appease the aliment it covers. And so in this pursuit of complete perfection, it becomes the pursuit of psychosis; having attained perfection and yet still pursuing the perfect illusion.

Sometimes the pursuit of perfection is a disguise for insecurity… the feeling of never being good enough and always coveting to be like someone, or something else. We have the right to do as we will, but if the pursuit is impelled by the need to disguise an insecurity, we should remember that we are exactly what God created us to be – wonderfully and fearfully made, known, perfectly formed and set apart before we were even formed in the womb of our mothers (Psalm 139; Jeremiah 5:1).

 

We were made without defect and error and made perfectly imperfect. In our pursuit for complete perfection, the pursuit becomes a magnifying mirror for all imperfection. And we end up unsatisfied with that which we would have been satisfied with, but for the magnifying glass. In pursuing perfection, we end up with half-baked and shattered dreams because our focus is on the flaws and challenges instead of on the possibilities and outcomes.

Jesus retained His scars to comfort us and give us confidence and peace in the knowledge that imperfection is perfection. Thus when He appeared before the disciples following His resurrection, the first thing He said to them was “peace be with you,” and immediately He showed them His scars (John 20:19). The scars were used to assure the disciples of His authenticity and to transfuse boldness within them to carry out the tasks ahead.

Sometimes our scars are the emblem of our authenticity – for the journey that we have travelled and the challenges we have overcome. The scars become our victory spoils and apparatuses that connect us to others that have scars, and to encourage those that still suffer from fresh wounds.

It is no coincidence that the first words of Jesus to the disciples spoke of peace and immediately followed by the display of His scars. I believe Jesus did this so that we could receive the revelation of the beauty of His perfect imperfections, and once we understand this, we too will have peace and a greater appreciation for the perfect imperfections of life.

©Katie Mliswa and MomentsbyKatie.M, 2018.

PERFECTION: The Insatiable Corpse …I

Author katiem

It butchers bodies and strangles souls. Embezzles time and disintegrates families. Swindles dreams and advances procrastination. Inculcates fear and sedates productivity. Inoculates stress and distorts objectives. This is the pursuit of perfection… the pursuit of a faultless and unblemished state, free from defect and error. Or rather, the pursuit of the unicorn; the illusion of a perfect and peaceful phantom beast.

In this pursuit, a mass is created, analogous to a robot prototype, simulating the perfect apotheosis, yet is devoid of expression. It has us chasing a mirage, only to come up empty, and then chase again in litany, until time and breath fade… such is this pursuit. But the question remains, what is perfection? And why do we feel obliged to strive for it?

For the longest time, I hated scars. And eminently, I hated the visible scars of Jesus – the nail marks in His hands and pierce marks on His side (John 20:19–29). Why I thought to myself, should God leave Jesus with scars when God is omnipotent? Surely He could have given Jesus a new and perfect body, and perhaps even one made of gold! Why would He not do this when we, as mere mortal beings, are promised new and heavenly bodies as described in Revelation 21:1–5 and 2 Corinthians 5:1–5:

For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is destroyed (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God Himself and not by human hands. We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing… we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life … (2 Corinthians 5:1–5).

 

The question plagued me until I finally got the revelation of the John 20:19–29. When I received this revelation, I began to grasp the veracious meanings of perfection. Sometimes perfection is imperfection. That which should be ugly, but for the alluring tale told by the scars of imperfection, is rendered perfectly imperfect. The alluring tales of the scars of the perfect imperfection is such that:

 Once was a Man that loved and freely gave His life to save those that did not love Him, now the scars of His sacrifice corroborate to tell of His endless love, in ways in which words never could equate.
 Because of the skeletons of our past, we should not ‘be’, (here, where we are, doing what we are doing, achieving what we are achieving, etc.) but the scars from our past certify our determination and the grace of God in ways in which words of our testimony could never parallel.
 Our work and words may not be conventional, but their unconventional scars speak a poetry to which convention never could.
 I should be like you, but the scars of my quirkiness tell of a brand that cannot be replicated.

Sometimes, true perfection is simply blemished perfection. Whether we seek perfection in our home, profession, social, or love life – we should know that sometimes, true perfection is the miracle of imperfection.

©Katie Mliswa and MomentsbyKatie.M, 2018.

IMAGINATION: Escaping The System…

30.10.2018

Author katiem

We are only limited as far as we can dream. But can only dream as far as we can imagine. And can only imagine as far as we can escape reality. For what the eye sees, the brain can imagine. But what the brain imagines, conjures what the eye sees. What if there is more than what the eye can see? And what if the eye can only see as far as our surroundings?

When ruled by the eye, we live controlled by a system – one designed to keep us in the system, in a state of dependency. One where the thought of expanding never crosses our mind, and the thought of living a life that is more than paycheck to paycheck, an alien concept. A system where we are only fed enough to sustain us and keep us coming back and building empires for others, while our foundations remain impoverished.

In the system, our palates are watered down to accept what is before us. But what if there is more? What if the size of our imagination determines the size of our palate and the size of our palate, the extent of our hunger for more? When we lack imagination, even when there is more, we remain chained in the shackles of our mind and continue to create only what has been rationalised in the past. Take for instance the Israelites, they were used to depending on the Egyptian system and rationalised food. So, when God provided manna for them and told them to take as much as they needed, we are told that some gathered much, but there were those that still gathered only a little (Exodus 16:16–17).

How can we hunger for more when all our lives we have been told that what is before us is all there is to gather? How can we imagine when we have never truly seen? But what if there is one in whose image we are made? One in whom all creative power lies and is the intelligent design and creative source that can cause us to dream and create far beyond our wildest imagination? Of Him who says our eyes have not seen, our ears not heard, nor any human mind conceived, the things which He has in store for those who love Him (1 Corinthians 2:9).

If we remove God from the box which we have encased Him in, we will find that there is more to be had. The creative source can do exceedingly, abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to His power that is a work within us (Ephesians 3:20–21). At the heart of the creative source’s plans for our lives, is such that we would become lenders, not borrowers, the head, not the tail; always the top dog and never the bottom dog (Deuteronomy 28:1 –13). What if there is more to be had, and the amount to be had simply dependant on the size of our imagination and our creative source? We all want more, but are we hungry enough, motivated enough, to dare to dream, imagine and hunt like a starving lion?

God’s desire for our lives is that we would increase our imagination and stretch wide without holding back (Isaiah 54:2–3). There is more to be had than that which we have seen and that which has already been done. When the Israelites saw the manna for the first time, they said: “What is it?” For they did not know what it was [they had not seen it before]” (Exodus 16:15). The Israelites might have thought that manna was the best that God had for them, but after the crossing of the Jordan river and the Passover, God had them eat something which they had not eaten before (Exodus 5:11– 2).

There is more to be had for those that are hungry for more and desperate for a change. There is more to be had for those who dare to dream bigger and wider than their eyes have seen or their minds have yet imagined. There is more to be had for those who believe in the bounty of God’s promises.

©Katie Mliswa and MomentsbyKatie.M, 2018.

HUNTER: The Curse of …

12.10.2018

Author katiem

The pidgin idiom says, “monkey see, monkey do.” And yet there are times when the monkey does not see, but it finds itself doing, without reason or understanding; following some apparition which compels it to act. Why are there times when it feels as though there is a force pushing us towards the direction and actions of the very things that we do not want to do?

In times gone by, when you were younger; you may have hated that dad never paid attention to you, or maybe how he abandoned you, was an alcoholic, a womaniser, or sometimes an abuser. Maybe you hated how your mum was always depressed, or never worked, or never helped you when you needed her, or never stayed with dad or any man. Or maybe you hated that dad and mum gave up before you had the ability to hatch and form your own shell. They were supposed to nurture and protect you until you developed your own shell, becoming your own person. But they gave up and left you raw without an identity.

But despite how much you hated them, here you are, an older version and shell-less soul of the person you aspired to be when you were younger. In your grown state, because you were not given the opportunity to form fully, you find yourself in dad and mum’s image, despite telling yourself that you would never be like them. The worst part is, that maybe you don’t even realise that you are wearing their image. Or if you do realise it, you don’t know how you ended up here; in their shoes. These very shoes that you vouched never to wear, and now in the light of the shoes, you look just like what you so hated.

The apostle Paul put it eloquently when he said, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate, I do. …I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. …I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing… Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. …but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me” (Romans 7:15-24).

 

The answer may seem complicated, but we only complicate those things which we do not wish to understand. Sometimes ignorance may seem better than knowledge and lies prettier than the truth, but in the end, they all lead to destruction. The apostle Paul’s affliction is one bore by all humanity, for we were all born sinners. In Romans 5:12 it is said, “Therefore, just as through one man’s sin entered into the world, and death through sin, so death spread to all men, because all sinned …”. This shared human affliction is explained in Psalm 51:5, the odds appear to be against us because we were brought forth in iniquity.

Because of one man’s sin, Adam and Eve, a curse was born. A curse whose strength for destruction, for the generations, is as strong as death. And whose jealousy for our likeness in God, is as cruel as the grave. This curse is never satisfied. It hungers as the grave, the barren womb, and land which is never satisfied with water, and as fire which never says, ‘Enough’(Proverbs 30:15-16). Since the inception of this curse, it hunts and chases down generation after generation, for a father’s sins, to the third, and even, the fourth generation (Exodus 34:7).

But the answer to the why remains simple: because in our fallen state, the curse remains hereditary, triggering the known and unknown. Monkey see, monkey do, and sometimes, monkey don’t see, but monkey still does. In the biblical world, this is known as a generational curse – the passed down ties to imperfections and spiritual wrongdoings from parents, placed upon ancestors unwillingly. The discussion to this is lengthy, but the solution is simple: one man!

The One who died a gruesome death to take up our sins and those of our fathers and ancestors, including all the generational curses. This man is Jesus. To this man, Galatians 3:1–14 says, “But Christ [Jesus] has rescued us from the curse … When He was hung on the cross, He took upon Himself the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.’” When we enter into relationship with Jesus, His blood washes and purifies us from all sins and curses. 1 John 4:15–16 says, “If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so, we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love, lives in God, and God in them.”

Generational curses cannot be overcome by mere willpower or luck, but only by the blood of Jesus and Him abiding within us. When Jesus lives in us, anything that tries to harm us must first go through Him. But because Jesus has already conquered sin, the grave, the forces and curses that may be; nothing can harm us; “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31). If you are sick and tired of doing the same thing repeatedly and want it to stop with you, then it is time to give it to Jesus. It is time to not only see, but do. As it has been said, “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and yet expecting different results.” Let us make a new choice in Him.

©Katie Mliswa and MomentsbyKatie.M, 2018.

MEMORIES: When The Suitcase explodes …

01.10.2018

Author katiem

When the suitcase is exploding with memories, it is easy to hoard, obsess and become haunted by the memories of an idealised past that was almost perfect. But for the suitcase that remains in the hallway; in the misty cloud of almost. Engulfed in the effulgent light of the wormhole passage, our memories become short-circuited, into a foggy distortion as to their true nature. It is within the distortion of the wormhole, that a memory gap and error is created, anent to the narrative for the suitcase in the hallway. In the fog and distortion of yesterday, a wormhole of dependency to travel back into our memories is constructed. In this wormhole, moving backward in time, we lose sight of the miracles arriving within our today.

Reversing through time within our thoughts, we move against the gravity of life and the clock, not realising that we are only stealing from our future. The events that led to the suitcase in the hallway occurred because they were not supposed to be in our story of today. As paraphrased, in 1 John 2:19, if they went from you, then they did not really belong to you. For if they had belonged to you, then they would have remained with you; but their going showed that they did not belong to you. Hoarding our past memories puts an injunction on the greater things that God has in store for us. The closing of the door leads us to that which we could never dream for ourselves. Isaiah 22:22 says “…When God opens doors, no one will be able to close them; when He closes doors, no one will be able to open them.” Simply put, if the door closes, God has a better door that He plans to open, one which we cannot even begin to fathom.

The paradigm of Sodom and Gomorrah, a city anchored in sin, whose inhabitants were bent on harming Lot, the nephew of Abraham, and his family, illustrates this idea of our distortion of the memories we hold within our suitcases. The city said to Lot, “Get out of our way … This fellow came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to play the judge! We’ll treat you worse than them.” And, bringing pressure upon Lot, “moved forward to break down his door” (Genesis 19:9). Yet, because of the clouded past recollections Lot had of a perfect town, he and his family remained loyal to it, even in the face of such a septic environment.

 

Our memories are not always as accurate as they seem in the misty cloud of the wormhole. Lot’s relationship with the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah was harmful and needed to be destroyed. God went as far as to send His angels to save Lot and his family from this toxic environment and relationship with the town, but despite being warned of the dangers of remaining within this poisonous environment, Lot and family did not want to leave. They were comfortable in this environment.

Genesis 19:16–17 says that they hesitated leaving to the point that the angels had to grab their hands and lead them safely out of the city saying, “Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!” However, even being dragged from Sodom and Gomorrah by angels, Lot and his family remained so blinded by their past memories that they could not even imagine living far from them. Thus Lot said to the angels, “Look, here is a town near enough to run to, and it is small. Let me flee to it…” (Genesis 19:20). Lot held on so tight to his clouded memories of the past that he left the suitcase in the hallway, doing himself, his family and his future, no favours.

The commandment was simple, “Don’t look back!” Your future is not in your past. Your future is in your tomorrow. And your tomorrow is where God has promised that He has great plans for you (Jeremiah 29:11). When we cling to the past and look back, we lose sight of the great future God has for us and risk turning into a pillar of salt just as Lot’s wife did when she looked back (Genesis 19:26).

The problem is not about letting go of the memories in the suitcase, but rather, moving forward and creating new memories; moving the suitcase out of the hallway and in line with our future path. Don’t be held captive to your past. We must trust that God always has better in store for us, for His plans cannot be thwarted by anyone’s departure from our story.

©Katie Mliswa and MomentsbyKatie.M, 2018.

ENTITLED: Gen I Want It…

17.06.2018

Author katiem

Never has there been a generation like ours. A generation that feels entitled “to have” and “have it right now”. The aftermath is a generation of kings and queens fallen subject to their wants and desires – only to cascade so low that we are but a generation of servants who are constitutionally masters. The Wise Book of Proverbs poetically describes our generation with the apothegm of the earth’s lamentation to the inanity of the servant and the master saga:

…there are three things that are too much for even the earth to bear, and under four it shakes its foundations —
when a servant becomes king,
when a fool gets rich,
when a whore is voted “woman of the year”,
when a “girlfriend” replaces a faithful wife (Proverbs 30:21–23).

The Proverb condemns not servants from becoming kings but rather, the emphasis pivots on the quantum entanglement that when the servant becomes king, then the king has become servant. Nor does the Proverb condemn the fool from getting rich, but rather, the fool that gets rich, is the fool that is getting poorer, for the fool has not mastered the ingenuity of maintaining wealth. The fool that becomes wealthy is homologous to the prodigal son that felt entitled (Luke 15: 11–32) and demanded and demanded “to have right now”. When the fool yielded to his desires, he gave to the world his crown and triggered the role reversal in which he became the servant that was constitutionally king. And the world, that should have been serving him, (Genesis 1:28) unconstitutionally became his master.

Like the prodigal son and the fool, our entitled generation is only concerned with the physical and what the eye can see right now. Everything unseen and unknown is assigned, a lie. The downfall continues until we are a people voting the whore, the woman of the year; the wife, the unconstitutional courtesan mistress; and the concubine, the unconstitutional wife. In the absurdity, we jauntily jump ship to mix the same ingredients and hope for different results.

Our generation remains entitled and blinded by the ‘wants’ that, like the prodigal son and the Mighty Sampson, we do not realise that what we want and what we demand is cancerous to our souls. Samson said to his parents “…now get her for me as my wife“(Judges 14:2–3). And the prodigal son said to his father, “…I want right now what’s coming to me” (Luke 15:11–12). We all know the outcomes of their desires…

 

Sampson was chained and imprisoned by his desires and addictions. His wants ultimately brought him to his death. The prodigal son found himself undisciplined and dissipated, having surrendered to his desires, and when he had given all of himself to the world, “he began to hurt.” He found that he could no longer fill the void in his heart with the pleasures of life and ultimately, found that those pleasures only brought more pain than he could have imagined. In fact, the prodigal son’s wants brought him so low that he sold his identity from king to servant and was assigned to work in the fields and slop with the pigs (Luke 15:12–16).

And yet, this is our generation; selling our crowns and identity to slop with the pigs and live lives less than what God intends for us. We live lives slopping in desires for meaningless things instead of seeking the eternal things. A generation that is ever seeing but never perceiving, ever hearing but never understanding (Mark 4:12), blinded by our wants and driven only by our desires. Even though there have been many who have gone before us who have binged on their wants. Like King Solomon, who once lived subject to his desires and said to himself “Let’s go for it—experiment with pleasure, have a good time!” He ultimately found that it was nothing but smoke and that everything, in the end, was meaningless without God (Ecclesiastes 2).

In his book of memoirs, Ecclesiastes, King Solomon stated, “Everything I wanted I took—I never said no to myself. I gave in to every impulse…. I sucked the marrow of pleasure out of every task—my reward to myself for a hard day’s work!” (Ecclesiastes 2:10). But in the end he concluded that it was all meaningless without God and but a chasing after the wind, saying, “remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, I find no pleasure in them” (Ecclesiastes 12:1).

The moral of story? As so eloquently stated by an unknown author, “Life is full of lessons. We are free to make the choices, but we are not free from the consequences of those choices.” So as we catch ourselves feeling entitled to our desires, wants and things, let us also remind ourselves of their inevitable consequences.

©Katie Mliswa and MomentsbyKatie.M, 2018.

BUT: The Season Between …

29.05.2018

Author katiem

We all have seasons when nothing we touch flourishes, when everything we touch dries up. In those seasons, the fruit of our talent and labour appears to be barren. In those seasons, we are like Manoah’s wife “…barren and childless, ‘but’” (Judges 13:2–3). But, God would have us know that a “but” is soon following our barren winters.

Until God speaks, the waves and the wind in an attempt to intimidate, can beat their chest, huff and puff and threaten to sink our boats in order to burglarise (Jeremiah 29:11) the dream that God placed in our hearts. But at God’s voice, the very wind and object that tried to drown us and kidnap our dream will run out of breath and not only fade, but ex post facto to the fury of the tempest, we will find that the tempest in its huffing and puffing, served only to propel us into our destiny.

The season between the sentence and before the “coma” and “but” is a very important season. It is in that season that we may believe the enemy is winning, but when we arrive to the finish line, we will conceive that our win was planned all along. Just as Samson’s mother was told not to drink or eat anything unclean in her season (Judges 13:4), we will find our season of barrenness was but training and consecration for our next level blessing.


Soon there will be a ridiculous contrast in our disposition. The very thing that we thought was destroying us, will bring us into a laughing spell over the goodness and faithfulness of God. Out of our barrenness will be the birth of joy and laughter, that we will not be able to contain to ourselves, but as with Sarah, everyone who hears of our miracle and triumph will laugh uncontrollably with us; in great joy over God’s power (Genesis 21:6). God is about to appear in our situation, and when He appears, the “coma” and the “but” will appear too.

Take heart and know that there is a “but” at the end of your troubles. Our dreams will be fulfilled because no good thing will God withhold from us and His word will not fall to the ground. He swears this by Himself for there is no one higher to swear to, but to Him (Isaiah 55:1; Hebrews 6:13).

Get ready! For the one who shut up the seas behind doors (Job 38:8) is about to speak to our situation and when He speaks, the tempest that dared to beat its chest at us, will run out of breath and fade away. Get ready! For just as the Lord did for Samson’s parents, God is about to blow our minds and do amazing things while we watch in awe (Judges 13:19).

©Katie Mliswa and MomentsbyKatie.M, 2018.

EXPOSED: Who You Expose Your …

24.05.2018

Author katiem

Not everyone with whom we expose our hearts to is worthy. There is a throne on our hearts and for that reason, it is for our own good to be selective with whom we open up and bare our hearts. Because our warring is not against flesh and blood (Ephesians 6:12), Some people are nefariously placed on our paths with the desideratum of luring and distracting us from pursuing our dreams and thereby derailing us from our destinies.

These people, colloquially, are analogous to spiritual prostitutes. Spiritual prostitutes whose only motive is to seduce, steal and destroy. Just like Delilah and the prostitute in Gaza, whose primary role was to seduce Samson in an attempt to destroy his destiny (Judges 16), these people appear in our lives to seduce us away from our dreams and sabotage our destinies. “The one who unites his soul with a prostitute becomes one with her…” (1 Corinthians 6:16). While this scripture refers to sexual encounters, metaphorically, it can be used to describe the union of souls in the baring of their souls to one other.

In order to seduce Samson from his destiny, Delilah played on his heart, nagging and taunting him saying, “how can you say, ‘I love you,’ when you won’t confide in me?” (Judges 16:15). Eventually, Samson let his guard down and exposed his heart and soul to her. And as he gave it all over to her, she lead him like a lamb to slaughter. Even the wise Book of Proverbs advises us to be weary of certain people with persuasive words who seek to seduce with their smooth talk in order to lead us astray. It says those who fall prey to the seduction will be “…like an ox going to the slaughter, like a deer stepping into a noose till an arrow pierces his liver, like a bird darting into a snare, little knowing it will cost him his life” (Proverbs 7:21–23). And so was the fate of the mighty Samson before God intervened one last time.

When there is greatness in our lives, the enemy will use any means necessary to distract and derail us from our destinies. With the exploitation of the spiritual prostitute, though we may not see it with the naked eye, once placed before the magnifying glass, their assignment to distract and derail manifests as broken hearts, depression, anxiety, or disorders. Once this manifests, our character and personality is altered such that we lose sight of who we are and do things that are far from who we know ourselves to be. When this happens, the enemy’s spell of distraction and derailment has command over us and our souls are in union with the enemy.

The enemy knows the power of the heart and if he can make the heart suffocate, he knows that it will be difficult for us to focus on God’s plans for us today and for our futures. Because in the throes of pain, it often feels as though the world is ending and the pain will never cease. It is for this reason that God saw it fit to emphasise that “above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” (Proverbs 4:23).

Through the use of pain, the spiritual prostitute designs the plan to have us vacate Jesus from the throne of our hearts, thereby leaving it vacant and exposed to worry, despair and everything else that is not of God’s plan for our futures. Make no mistake, there is a throne on our hearts, but as to who seats on it, is entirely up to us, for Ephesians 3:17 says, “…Christ will make His home in your hearts as you trust in Him.”

©Katie Mliswa and MomentsbyKatie.M, 2018.

COMPARISON: And The Unfair Advantage…

14.05.2018

Author katiem

When we compare ourselves to others, we make the mistake of believing that we are just like everyone else. When we compare our situation to the next person’s, we do ourselves a disservice in believing that our journeys’ are the same. In the same way that Jesus never performed two miracles the same, no two people are the same and we are not all on the same journey.

The worst thing we can do, is compare our situation to the next person’s. Just because we believe something to be fact, does not qualify our fears. And therefore, just because someone we know got dismissed, does not mean we will be next. And just because someone we know did not receive their miracle, does not mean the same will happen to us. We must have the mindset to know and believe that we are different, because we are different. God created us uniquely, each with our own set of fingerprints and DNA that cannot match that of anyone else’s.

While we may exhibit similar features and traits, even as twins, God created us to be different. Your nexus with God, within the parameters of your relinquished power to Him, dictates your future. You are different because God calls to you, and promises if you return that call, to give you wealth that you never dreamed of. “I will give you hidden treasures, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the LORD, the God of Israel, who summons you by name” (Isaiah 45:3).

He also said that He will give you unfair and unmerited favour because of your relationship with Him, and by that, He will take from your enemies to give to you. “…I will extend peace to you like a river, and the wealth of nations like a flooding stream…” (Isaiah 66:12; Isaiah 60:5).

So when others are being struck down and dismissed, the blood covenant between Jesus and your heart (made by you surrendering your heart to Him), just as God’s blood covenant with the Israelites that protected and left them unharmed on account of the blood on their doorframes (Exodus 12:23 and 36), will ensure that you remain unharmed. When it is not coming to pass, not working out, and drying up for others, it will come to pass and overflow in your territory, “the blessing of the Lord brings wealth, without painful toil for it” (Proverbs 10:22). And when chaos hunts them down, peace will be summoned to shield you, “for a thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you” (Psalms 91:7).

But should it happen that a door that you thought ought to have remained opened, closes, remember that when God is Lord over your life, only He allows the doors to close. And in the event that a door should close, then He allowed it because He has better in store for you, “… I have opened a door for you that no one can close” (Revelations 3:8; Isaiah 22:22).

If you believe this, then no harm will come to you. But if you believe you are like everyone else, then the same fate that befalls them, will befall you. Put another way, if you believe that your blessings come from man, then man has the power to take them away. But if you believe that your blessings come from God, then no man can take them away unless God wills it, “For the LORD Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart Him? His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?” (Isaiah 14:27).

It is all about a shift in perspective. Do not give power to the wrong energy. Grant power to God, and in turn, He will ensure that your destiny is one that will be favourably disposed. A destiny that will transition from ordinary to superordinary, from mediocre to unmerited favour.

©Katie Mliswa and MomentsbyKatie.M, 2018.