Category: Lifestyle

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.

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.

ROAD EMPIRES: The Story Behind …

06.10.2018

Author katiem

The dream – building empires, and bequeathing legacies, did not become a reality through the wide road of shortcuts. It is one founded on the long trail of perseverance, hard work, consistency, and patience. Without this trail, the trajectory of the journey remains undeveloped, and when the journey is without form, the value of the spoils are diminished and wasted.

To know what we have, and truly appreciate it, we must go through the full odyssey. When God wanted the Israelites to know and appreciate His rescue of them, He did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter and easier (Exodus 13:17). But rather, He led them on a longer and more arduous route, around by the desert road toward the Red Sea (Exodus 13:18). To fully recognise where we are and how we got here, we must first understand the trajectory of the journey. We only settle for the bondage of the past when we fail to comprehend the cost of our freedom today. The shortest road is often permeated with traps designed to make our past experiences more attractive than the journey ahead. All the while, notwithstanding, the journey behind us is marked with graves, including one bearing our name upon it.

When the battle is long, and the road back short, the temptation to retreat and settle in the illusions of yesterday is great. If God had not caused the Israelites to travel the long road, the Israelites would have retreated to their comfort zone at the first sign of trouble. Some theologians estimate that the Israelites had only been travelling for about thirty-eight days, covering a distance of approximately 160km, when they were confronted with adversity and cried for their illusions of the past saying, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!” (Exodus 14:11–12). Additionally, in Exodus 16:3 they grumbled, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”

Isn’t it remarkable, when faced with temporary setbacks, how the narrative is often idealised to a time that never existed? Such as the Israelites did when recalling a delusional time when they “sat around pots of meat and ate all the food they wanted!” The true narrative was one of a people that were worked ruthlessly, under harsh and bitter labour, to the point that they groaned in their slavery and cried out for help! (Exodus 1:13–14 and 2:23). Just as with the Israelites, God does not want us to retreat into a fabricated narrative, residing in the bondage of the past. It is for this reason that God took the Israelites through the long road, knowing that they would want to change their minds and seek to return to Egypt to die as slaves (Exodus 13:18). With God, there is always a reason for the road He sets us to journey upon.

Sometimes we are taken on the long road to purge bad habits and discard our unnecessary and excess luggage. We see this with the Israelites, who could not move forward until they were “circumcised, purified and without the cynics” (Joshua 5:2–6). The long road is designed to cleanse us of that which will hinder our success in the future. The apothegm says that the best things in life are worth fighting for. And so it is that the longest road will always be worth the journey, for it will uncover wonders and mysteries which those on the short road will never encounter. In times when the follower looks for shortcuts from the discomforts of growth, and which promise a quick exit, the leader will always look for the long road; to explore treasures, find new mysteries, and collect spoils on the peregrination to the mountaintop.

The shortcut will always be wide and glutted with underachievers, nondreamers and limited mentality thinkers. But the narrow and long road, with an imperceptible number of people, will always command the audacious and atomic; those ready for battle, armed with a defiance to be different, and scented with greatness. The Book of Matthew 7:13 warns against looking for shortcuts in life and says, “Enter through the narrow gate for wide is the gate and broad the way leading to destruction, and many are those entering through it.”

The true secret to success is this: faith in God combined with a brew of perseverance, hard work, consistency, patience, the ability to be different and to travel the distance, even when almost everyone else around quits or condems the road we have chosen.

©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.

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.

ANXIETY: And the chaos of tomorrow…

21.01.2018

Author katiem

At some point in our lives, we may have heard the phrase, ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’, and yet many of us we try to master our future in one day. With haste and no precision, we take a thousand steps into our future and then find ourselves unnerved by the vastness of the dream.

It is true, that only a fool brags about not planning ahead (Proverbs 13:16), but we also need to be wise enough to understand the right time to slow down and take a thousand steps back, if necessary, in order to re-calibrate our focus.

There’s a reason why God does not show us our entire journey to the mountain top. He knows that if He showed us the entire journey, we would either purposely or subconsciously speak or take actions against the steps which we are required to take to get to where we are meant to be. Just like Joseph, God knows that if He had shown him what he would face before becoming governor, Joseph would have talked himself out of following the dream – being anxious over the horror of the pit, the humiliation in slavery, the accusations in the palace, and the pain and loneliness of the prison cell, before the arrival to the throne (Genesis 37; 39–48).

To protect us, God only shows us a glimpse of what is yet to come — that one day we will be triumphant as the head and not the tail; with the sun, moon and stars bowing before us (Deuteronomy 28:13; Genesis 37).

God will get us to where we need to be and only asks that we trust in His plans for us. There will be times when we will be required to march on covering vast ground, and other times when the wisest thing to do, will be to retreat and focus on surviving today’s battle alone. There will be times to set goals and envision the future, and other times to sit back and take each day as it comes.

When the time comes to take a thousand steps back and focus on ‘today’ alone, rest in the Word and in knowing that Jesus has already gone into your future to establish the peace which you will experience in the chaos of tomorrow. And when the chaos of tomorrow tries to steal your peace of today, remember the encouragement from Jesus, “…do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6:34). The emphasis is not that we should not plan for tomorrow, but that we should not be anxious about things that are not in our control, for worrying about them will not add a single hour to our lives (Matthew 6:27). But instead, we should cast our anxieties and burdens to Him who has control over them (Psalm 55:22; Matthew 11:28-29; Philippians 4:6-7).

©Katie Mliswa and MomentsbyKatie.M, 2018.

TIME: The sixth hour of darkness…

03.12.2017

Author katiem

When the story of your life is not adding up, the wheels are falling off, and your now does not match your vision – how do you get your now to line up with your destiny? They say to have a little hope when the storm is pouring cats and dogs on your life and pounding you with its brutal force… but what is hope? How can you contain hope when every day is like yesterday and yesterday is the nightmare that won’t stop stalking you? Hope is said to be an expectation or desire that events will turn out for the best, but how can you hold on when you’ve been doing so, and the only thing you seem to be left holding on to is the darkness? When darkness came over the land, He cried, “my God, my God, why have you forsaken?”…

This is the Man who had hope in the garden and even said, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from Me; yet not my will, but Yours be done.” Never once did He cry “God why hast thou forgiven.” In the garden, when the darkness crept in, He held on more tightly to the light and prayed even more earnestly that His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground (Luke 22:44). The first hour on the cross, He smiled. He could see the purpose and end result. The second hour, He meditated. He needed to focus on the end result. The third hour, He prayed. He needed to readjust His grip.

The fourth hour, He encouraged Himself. He reminded Himself of the promises and the destiny that He saw before the first hour. The fifth, He wiggled a little…But at the very last hour, the sixth hour, He couldn’t hold on anymore and cried the cry! If Jesus couldn’t see past the fifth hour when He was in flesh, how can we possibly see past the fifth hour? How can we be expected to see beyond mountain before us? We can’t. And that’s why Jesus had to die the way He did.

Day one, it was dark and He died. Day two, there was no hope. But on day three, He rose and brought with Him the keys to death and took the power from Satan. When He rose, He became the hope that never fails. Hope is Jesus. He was forsaken so that we would never feel forsaken if we call on Jesus. Hope is Jesus, knowing that the same Spirit power of God that raised Jesus from the dead, lives in us. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, He will give life to our mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within us.

For even when Jesus was in the flesh, God gave Him angels to minister to Him and He felt better. And when He died, God personally saw to it that we would have a hope in Him, who would rise to be unshakable. Hope is Jesus, that your situation may be dead today with no hope that it will revive tomorrow, but the third is coming…So knowing what we know about the One who died on the cross for us, we don’t have to go through the first two days as though we don’t know how the movie will end.

Hope is Jesus, who went before us into the darkness in order to reverse our ending so that it would favour us. Jesus has already played out the final ending of your story. You’re just on day one; day three is coming.

©Katie Mliswa and MomentsbyKatie.M, 2017.

 

POWER: Knowing who you are…

26.11.2017

Author katiem

When you know your name, you will never find yourself responding to someone else’s name. And the name that you respond to, is the name that you take on.If they call you stupid and you respond to the name, you will find yourself doing stupid things. If they call you clever and you respond to the name, you will find yourself doing clever things – creating and innovating.

When you know who are you are, you will not take in or let what others call you shape your destiny. If they call you by a name unknown to you, do not answer. That is why Jesus said “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand…” (John 10:27-28). When you know who you are and what your destiny is, you will not respond to the enemy’s call and lies. When you know what your purpose is, you will not conform to the majority nor do things merely to please the crowd. They were gathered to stone Jesus because of who He claimed to be and tried to intimidate Him into accepting a name that was not His. They said to Him, “We are not stoning you for any good work,” they replied, “but for blasphemy, because of you, a mere man, claim to be God” (John 10:33).

They wanted Him to accept that He was a mere man, and if He had accepted because of His circumstance, He would have acted as a mere man, thereby becoming what they wanted Him to be. He confused them because He was not like them yet looked like them. He spoke like them yet did not sound like them. He did not fit into their mould and they could see that He was different, so they tried to make Him believe that He was not different. Jesus knew this and replied, “…why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’? Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, which you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father” (John 10:37-39).

If you answer to a name that is not yours, the enemy wins.  If you answer to the lies, they gain a hold of you. If you conform to their ways to fit in, you miss out or delay your destiny. They call you by a name not yours knowing the power within you, and the name they call you by is their only weapon to try to subdue you to live a less than life. You are more powerful than you know, and your destiny will leave a mark that you once walked this earth. And so it was for Jesus when He stood strong, “…They said, “Though John never performed a sign, all that John said about this man was true.” And in that place, many believed in Jesus.” (John 10:41-42).

Even with Samson, when he was chained to a pillar with a crowd gathered to be entertained and they chanted, “Bring out Samson to entertain us” (Judges 16:25), he knew that though he was in chains, he was not weak and he was not defeated. Samson did not answer for a moment, but answered to his destiny! And so he had the last laugh over his enemies. Do not answer to “Mara” because of the season you’re in. Naomi in Ruth 1:20 said “”Don’t call me Naomi,” she told them. “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter”, but when she asked to be called Mara, she did not know that only three chapters later, she would be living in a palace and her name would be remembered forever. Do not answer to a name, not yours. Do not answer to a destiny not assigned to you. Do not answer to a temporary name given to you, reflecting only you temporarily season.

Though you have fallen, yet will you rise. Though you sit in darkness, yet will the Lord light a lamp unto your feet to guide your footsteps until you reach your destiny.

©Katie Mliswa and MomentsbyKatie.M, 2017.