Home Oh Sweet Home!

Our comfort and peace should first begin at Home. If their is a rift at home then we are really in bad shape.To destabilize any man or woman or child you destabilize his/her home! Yet it is here that we are spending our least time.  No wonder our society has become unstable and with many anti-peace/social behavior. God initiates our recovery process by bidding us to return home. He created us to grow in the context of a home, where the right moral values and godly character can be forged.

You may not have a perfect home but the real home is the ideal place for balanced growth. It’s the place where we are born, grow and eventually discover our purpose, pursue it and prosper. The normal home is a wellspring of understanding, love, joy, peace and security. At home, saints or tyrants are made. Seeds that determine our future are planted. The support we need to become all God wanted us to be, we find it at home. Without support from home, it is very difficult to make it in life. Every successful person has a place he/she calls home. The family is Gods established institution for growth, where our tender lives can be nurtured. Orphanages or children’s homes are good but imperfect substitutes that our society provides for those who do not have a place they can call home. They are beacons of hope to the homeless child.

For many of us we should feel greatly honored and privileged to have a place we can call home. Imperfect as it may be, that home is the place God has given you, please value and give it your best. The home gives preserves and restores our identity. We can trace who we really are back to our home. As the saying goes, charity begins at home. At home, we acquire the values we carry into our adult life. Abandoning our home can adversely affect our identity because we cut off the influence from other family members and the result is usually a change in behavior and value system. When you run away from home you withdraw from the cover and protection that is available at home, and there away from home are exposed to severe attacks from the world. Many end up becoming rascals caught up in moral ills and other social sins. They become social misfits engaging in crime and other delinquent behaviors. This applies to the young as well as the old.

The prodigal son in the gospel of Luke 15:11-22 is a perfect example of what may happen when we abandon our homes. He lost not only his money but his identity and honor. what was abominable when he was at home became easily welcome.He lost his senses and abandoned himself to a new, foreign and despicable lifestyle which was taking him down towards a total moral collapse. Luckily he regained his lost senses. He called to mind and acknowledged the caring, loving nature of his dad. He came to his right mind and said,
… ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! ‘I will arise and go to my father…..” He also rehearsed what to say. “... ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.’” This son acknowledged that he was in the wrong. By acknowledging his mistake, he was ready to be received back with forgiveness.

He did not think it too late to go back. he went home rehearsing that line ready to give his confession so he can be received back but this time with high level of humility. He didn't want to be a son, he wanted to be a servant. It was enough for him to have a room over his head. he didnt care any more how fat His fathers bank account was, all he wanted was to be at home, be accepted and receive forgiveness.

Things that cause people to fight and separate are worthless if you have no one to tap you on the shoulder and tell you that you matter. if we loose these things and regain our relationships then we have got the best. we should not wait for that moment when we hit the rock bottom, we can get back and make it easier for our children/relatives/friends to receive us.

Hey!!! lets go back home and make things.....

By the way let me post this fast so I can also get home (although my family have traveled).

The Goal is Peace, My Fellow Kenyans

            When you speak peace to your neighbor, friends and to your country men you speak the language of God. The 85^th psalm is known for its message of peace and reconciliation. It should be considered in conflict resolution, reconciliation and transformation. Verse ten states that “10 Mercy and truth have met together; Righteousness (justice) and peace have kissed.”

I am suggesting that we begin fresh negotiations as those run by a Mr. Koffi Annan. I propose that on one side we have Mercy and Truth and the other Justice and Peace. The rules at the negotiation table require one person speak at a time. Mercy and Truth a long time buddies. Truth speaks because he knows mercy will listen and act accordingly. Justice and Peace are identical twins. They are distinct as individual yet they have one origin. They walk and work together.

Truth looks back at the bungled elections, the intense moments as every Kenyan was glued to their TV screens watching live images of our supposed leaders misbehaving or is it behaving in public. Truth shows people bleeding, women and men crying, police officers strut the street in battle gear. Truth shows you the billows of smoke rising high into the sky coming from what was once someone’s house, a church, a shop etc. Truth shows you the face of men and women looting a supermarket carrying things too heavy for one person to carry. A road filled with big stones, mothers carrying children moving but going nowhere in particular. Truth shows you camps of FDP’s (forcefully displaced person’s). Truth adds the note: not yet resettled. As truth speaks there is quietness, seething anger, tears and cry for justice.

Mercy looks on and listens as truth speaks. A tear or two shed. Mercy says, Hii inchi tumeinjenga kwa muda mrefu kwanini tunataka kuiharibu kwa siku moja (this nation we have built it for a long time. Why do we want to destroy it in a day). Mercy is soft spoken. She looks at the wrong done and pleads for pardon. She points at the need for forgiveness. She says forgive them they didn’t know what they were doing. Forgiveness is good to heal the wounds and mend the rift caused between people neighbors, communities. Mercy argues that we have a future to live together and for that future to be secure we have to move together having put the past where it belongs in our past. She is willing to embrace the neighbor who killed her husband, wife; son daughter burned the house and possessed her land. She is not coaxed to do this but feels it’s the right thing to do. Her heart says that life cannot be lived in bitterness, anger and animosity. She is concerned if she allows these things to fester in her heart she will soon be compelled by emotions to consider retaliation. The pain is too much to keep hidden in her heart, the scars too painful to look at.

 She looks intently at Truth and wants to know whether every wrong has been admitted. Her brother Justice winks at her. “Don’t be naïve,” he tries to whispers. “You have been deeply wronged. The people who did this to you must be brought to book. Their must be a restitution of what you lost. Your property was destroyed, your relatives killed, look at your self living like a stranger in your own land. You can’t leave these people walk scot free.”

 Mercy is confused. She is torn into two. Do I forgive and forget or go forth to retaliate? She Looks at the truth at her side and stares straight into the face of justice and groaningly ponders her next move. She hears a whisper, “don’t be vague go to Hague” it plays in her mind for sometime.

She closes her eyes to focus her mind and heart and when she opens them Peace is staring at her from the other side of the table. He speaks in a more reconciliatory tone. He acknowledges that the truth must be told, however difficult and painful it is. He looks mercy into the eyes and says “you are right you have to be strong, your heart must remain tender because they took away what they cannot give back to you. It is not weakness and irrational to forgive. Extent you hand and great your enemy. This will ensure that I (Peace) am preserved but you must not ignore justice. Every action has consequences. To satisfy Justice you cannot remove these consequences because if you do again my life (peace) is threatened.

At the negotiation table the truth has been said and faced, mercy has been given a chance, justice has been given and peace upheld. Let’s not look for easy solutions it’s a balancing act.

 I will hear what God the LORD will speak,  For He will speak peace To His people and to His saints; But let them not turn back to folly.  Surely His salvation is near to those who fear Him, That glory may dwell in our land.  Mercy and truth have met together; Righteousness and peace have kissed.   Truth shall spring out of the earth, And righteousness shall look down from heaven.  Yes, the LORD will give what is good; And our land will yield its increase.

The Leaders Most Precious Asset

This age has been described as the age of fear. Fear of the known and of the unknown. People are afraid of terrorism, incurable diseases (swine flu, Bird flu, HIV/aids, TB), failure in life and economic recession. The Standard Newspaper recently carried this quote on its opinion section; “what shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and then there is a recession.”

(Mel Brooks- a comedian)

The above quote is a paraphrase of Jesus’ saying:

“For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Mt 16:26 NKJV)

In our context we can paraphrase it farther; “what will it benefit a politician if he gains political power and then there is The Hague?” Though this should be taken with some sense of humor it is important to reflect the course that we take in life. Reflect on what our values in life are. According to Jesus there are things we hold dear in life that if critically considered should never be our first priority. Fame, money and power should never take the center stage in our lives, because they are not permanent. You can lose all these in a minute. What is happening in the Arab world can be summarized in one line “power is not permanent, though you exercise it for years one day you will lose it.”

We are most deceived if we fall for the glamour of power/fame and money and join in search for them without considering the higher goal or responsibility for which power/fame and money are given. Jesus seeks to bring our search into the true perspective. If we seek money and power as an end in itself we will end up as a disappointment or disappointed. We will learn when it’s too late that it is not enough to be rich or powerful, you need to be so the right way and for the right reasons.

Greed for money and power drive people into corruption and even violence to protect their loot. If greed consume leaders they may go to the next level where they either structure corruption or violence to make sure their interests are covered. Great nations and companies fall because those in positions of power are only interested in themselves. They ignore any wise counsel and exclude those that disagree with them to make sure there desires are met.

Why do leaders cling to power until they are removed by force or end up undoing the good they had done? Countries’, Political Parties’, Societies’ and even churches’ constitutions are changed not on matters of principle, national/public or kingdom interest but to favor an individual who is power hungry. It is self deception to think ourselves indispensable and if this be our mentality we are headed for a big crash. We major on minors and minor on majors, our lives becomes a disarray of mixed priorities. We look smart but are as Jesus said foolish (Luke12:13-21) and when called upon to answer the most important call—of eternal significance—we are found wanting.

Jesus second question carries a lot of weight, “what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” When Jesus spoke thus to his disciples he wanted to stretch their perspective from one that is myopic to one that sees far, one that has its priorities right. He wanted them to see the ultimate so that they won’t be enslaved by the immediate.

His message was that the disciples were not to worry about the same things that worry other people. If the greatness of a man as someone has said is determined by the course he lives for and the price he is willing to pay to achieve it, then the disciples were indeed very great people. They were carriers of a great deposit more than all the gold that could ever be mined on earth. Their message had the ability to turn men away from hell to a life of eternal bliss in heaven. They had to commit fully to this course in order to help humanity not be ensnared by the temporary things of this world, things that we see and enjoy which have no value for eternity.

 Like the true north, Jesus focuses our compass so that he can empower us to say no to the minor things and yes to the major ones, say no to the temporal in order to embrace the eternal. Without Jesus and an eschatological perspective men are caught up by the web of their own greed that greatly hinders their potential and service to fellow man. They will spend their entire life running on empty and without an exit plan. When they finally find the door marked exit, they are shocked by it because they were never prepared for it.

Jesus teachings are quite relevant today. People who have succeeded as leaders and who have brought significant difference to their own people are those that came into leadership to serve people not to gain something or prove themselves. They did whatever they did knowing that their time was limited. They had an exit plan and wanted to exit honorably. They surrounded themselves with honorable people and crafted honorable policies to establish and not to destroy. They left a good legacy because they were willing to give nothing in exchange for their integrity because integrity is the only thing that we can carry with us beyond this life. They knew it before they got into leadership and they practiced and retained it beyond their tenure because to them integrity was too expensive to trade it for anything else. Integrity was their very life.