MOVING FOR HIGHER THINGS

I have always been amazed at how I view the world, at what opportunities I have had and all of the sudden dropped them down or even thrown them straight at the wind. I have always wondered why the world never sees things the way I see them. Perhaps it is the fact that they are not me (a plausible argument this really is). Perhaps it is the fact that when they see me doing things they get irated (which is another plausible argument). The problem is that people can never realise I cannot be them as long as we have different visions. The world may be my place for habitation, but may not be the place I am destined for.

One of the hard issues I have had to deal with over the years is keeping my sexual purity. I will not say I have succeeded the way I would really want it to be. I have erred many times, which has caused me a lot of heartache knowing that I let my God and myself down. I have viewed pornography and it almost destroyed the person in me. I had to reach points where I felt it was enough and had to move for the higher things. I think back years ago when I decided to give my life to Christ and how I played with the initial years of my saved life. I refused to believe that certain things in my lifestyle had to be dealt a blow. I just settled for the earthly and believed I could always get back to God and be back on track (Talk of taking God for granted).

I write this because I cannot hide the sexual development dilemma I was in for years. I cannot hide the fact that it shaped me into a person that always looked at life in a twisted way. There is a person in us that hides and never shows up till it's too late. God has ha favour on me over the years and shown me that life just cannot be taken for granted especially when His Son is about to come back. There are people who never know the dark side of me and think I am a model. There are times I have sat in my room and wondered if I am really being the person God designed me to be. That is the dilemma of living in a world when everyone thinks that you should follow them yet you know that that is not the kind of life that you should live.

Life with Christ guarantees one two things: the fat that theyw ill go to heaven and the fat that they have to work for the person that saved them. This means that we have to live the life God has purposed for us. we need to be open with people about who we are because our mission is out to the world. We go through a lot of temptations and yes, God understand that we are part of the world, but He also expects us to do the right things and not follow the tide.

One of the toughest choices I made when I got saved was to leave the earthly things and move for the higher things, the nobler, the sublime. I felt I needed to get where God wanted me to get. I sang the songs I learnt and because of my love for poetry and song, I got inot the habit of thinking really strongly about what I read and listened to. I thought I had my way out. For years I battled with issues about sexual perversion (yes, few people have known about it). I have had to be cautious when talking about issues regarding sexuality and only keep to myself what I think is not relevant for the moment. But, life in one way or anohter catches up with us. The life you've been living becomes burdensome all of a sudden. All of a sudden there is this unfulfilled personality in you. All of a sudden you want satisfaction, which certainly is before you but you do not know how to get there. There is the desire to reach the things of God, but there is the carnal side pulling you and you are alomst torn apart. That is what happened to me. I had to make a decision to either stay saved or quit what I professed.

I think of characters like Job and how they decided to reject the world's demands. Job's wife asks him to curse God and die, just because he has suffered a lot. i love Job's answer because it not only examines the character of his wife but also shows him as a person with rational thinking, one in authority when it comes to issues that affect him and his life. He simply says we cannot thank God for the good things and forget Him when all goes wrong. That is how hard a stance Job took. It is one way of saying He had determined his destiny and there was no way He was going to fail Job, not the God he knew at least. Job rejected the demands of his wife because he saw the picture beyond the present. He felt this was just an earthly struggle that he had to go through and at the end, he knew he had a crown of life for persevering. He did not let the circumstance grant him a grouchy face. He instead decided this circumstance must let him relaise that sometimes we just cannot understand God.

Through life's decisions, at leats over the years, I have learnt one thing. God has never been hard to decipher. His voice is as clear as the air. His word is as simple as simplicity. He has created things that are beyond our imagination, yet He still loves us anyway despite the complexity of the universe. I am always amazed at the calmness of the seas, at the beauty of birds' melodies, at the greenness of leaves and trees, at the composition mechanisms of life. Beneath all these, God wants us to see that life is actually better than what we see. The picture is just the beginning.

As we move on in life, we slowly become aware of the fact that we just cannot be part of the crowd. if we are going to be different, we are going to have to be like Job who saw the plague he suffered as a means of getting better. We have to be like Joseph who saw that prison just could not kill his spirit of determination. We have to be like Paul who despite hoardes of suffering held on to the best gift God had granted him. We have to be like Abraham who merely saw stars and yet in them saw a promise of God. We have to be like David who saw the opportunity to prove to Israel that God could still save them. We have to be like Jesus, who though God decided to step down on earth and become like one of us so we could have a chance to get to heaven.

Looking onto the bigger picture creates the best opportunities in our service to God. I had to let go of carnal things before becoming a better person. I cannot say I am perfect (that would be blasphemy and taking the place of God.) But, I can alos say he's brought me from so far I cannot even remember. The things in the past may be gone, but they always knock at my door. I have a choice to keep them out or to let them in. The past haunts me many a time. I have the choice to believe what it tells me or to tell it to be damned. That is what life offers us. Our choice for higher things not only lets us get closer to the mind of God but actually lets us realise that we can be better people if only we can submit to His will.

Think about your life. Do you think you have accomplished what God wants you to do? Do still wallow in the past and what life and carnality has to offer you? Do you ever want to have a refined mind that God dwells in? Do you want to get God's will and purpose for your life? All you need to do is to reach for the higher things, reach for that which God has destined for you, reach for His will and purpose for your life and above all, be ready to suastain the things that he has taught you. It is a tough world, God understands it, but He certainly will bring us through.

If life has had challenges for you and you have had to choose between carnality and Godliness, would you choose what is higher?