The impacts of 2020 and COVID will stay with us forever.
Sometimes we need to take people literally at their word. Not infer a metaphor, not assume an implication. But take them at face value.
The 2020 experience.
For a year that appeared on the horizon promising to take our breath away, it looks like we misread the memo. Not to be a naysayer, pessimist or any such thing, the year has literally attacked our breathing system - individually, corporately and collectively. This attack for mankind's lungs would eventually crystallize in George Floyd's gruesome murder, instigating the worldwide "I can't breathe" campaign.
Our world has suddenly become a smaller, largely scarier, and more delicate place to live in. On the whole, this has impacted us to the very core of our beings and our unified race. And its impact won't leave in a hurry. Family life, faith, work, existence and socialization will feel the ripple effects forever.
I compiled a list of things that may never go back to the way they were.
Parties and condensed areas. It's the age of Zoom weddings and Instagram Live Introductions. Would you have assumed that there would be such a time as this? Parties are still currently outlawed in most parts of the world, marketplaces are running on shifts, people are observing strict physical and social distancing. What a time to be alive. Even when this is over, the consciousness for personal space will stay etched in our consciousness.
Social places [eateries, restaurants, clubs and parks, cinemas]. Get your food and leave! You may eat in your car or drive all the way home if you can wait, but the government and food vendors are saying: please love us from a distance, we'll do the same. That love waxing cold isn't sure to get warm anytime soon. Netflix and similar subscription-based movie screening and streaming are the future. Football viewing centres will suffer reduced patronage as wave after wave of the virus continues. Even after we find a cure, I'd rather just enjoy home-screening, thank you very much.
The Finance Industry. Cash transactions will slowly bite more bullets. Fintech is the future of banking. Technology is the future of virtually anything, anyway. But in particular, more transactions will move to digital, non-cash, tech-based forms. The prudent banker needs to take the time to garner as much knowledge in this field as possible because it's almost fully buffered. During the strictest periods of the lockdown, we realised how little one needed cash for things that really mattered. Online ordering, subscriptions, ticketing and e-wallets ensured that we were all safe behind our phone and computer screens while the virus ravaged and rummaged outside.
Worship centres and rigid religious idiosyncrasies. Three months now, we've all been barred from going to religious places. Churches, mosques and other religious centres where it seemed like physical attendance was the only way to worship have found ways to keep the faith and spiritual consciousness unhindered and on point. I personally have had to review a lot of idiosyncrasies I had regarding a myriad of issues, and although I haven't lost my faith [I am a practising Christian], I have realised how flimsy, lightweight some of the rigid beliefs and approaches I had were. A lot has changed in me, as I'm sure they have in many. God isn't a figment of our imagination, neither a product of our rigid and unbending "if you don't believe what I believe you're doomed" approach. Faith is extremely personal, and although our experiences do influence others, they should by no means be the lens by which we grade their morality, holiness or uprightness.
Real estate. This is a big deal - particularly commercial real estate. Working from home has become a darling phrase during these times; perhaps only beaten to second place by 'Coronavirus or COVID-19'. Employers who were originally adamant, unwilling to even consider the possibility of remote work, are now clutching the concept very close to their chests. It took only a few weeks of COVID-19's merciless punches to humble them. Costs are being cut, cut, cut. This can only mean that even when we leave these dangerous times, employers need no external data - they know that over 80% of work they've always compelled physical presence for can be done remotely. Still sure you need that intended million dollar commercial real estate project? Think again.
Did I miss out on any?
Please let me know in the comments.
And don't forget to share.
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Indulgence isn't Cure.
Indulgence isn't Cure.
"...better is one with self-control than one who takes a city." - Proverbs 16.32
A boy makes his first earnings from some manual job, remembers the trouble at home, and heads for a bar. He finds a dark, quiet corner and orders some bottles of beer. When he's spotted and asked what he's doing there, he responds "wiping away my worries."
If you've ever battled some addiction, any addiction, you know that most people get into the addictive habit as a temporary getaway from depression or trials. Hard to imagine deliberately walking head-on onto a train-track and giving yourself over to inevitable destruction. But no addiction ever introduced itself as a foe.
Addictions mask themselves in borrowed, fake, misleading clothing. Your hand finds the bottle and you pour it down because it offers some temporary relief from your present predicament. It numbs the current pain and shuts your mind completely off.
The only problem is - as soon as the effects of the alcohol wear off, your eyes and mind wake up, and you realise that the problem sat right there waiting patiently. Then it taps you and reminds you it's going nowhere. Ignored problems don't go anywhere. Drag them to God, and let Him deal accordingly with them.
Indulgence isn't Cure.
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Should the -ember months scare you?
Should the -ember months scare you?
I believe in the Scriptures.
I believe in symbolism.
And in the spiritual significance of numbers.
But, sentiments and unscriptural apprehensions must be treated as what they are. Many cultures have their respective superstitions and practices passed down over the years. In rare circumstances, some of these superstitions step above their peers and enter the world stage - especially in respect of matters such as time which is a common phenomenon to us all.
There is nothing extraordinarily eerie to the months, save the anxiety they have come to attract.
Time is a constantly revolving wheel, switching between the past, present, and future.
There's as much trouble in the world in the 'ember' months as in January and August. And as much glory and beauty in September as in April.
Our fears have added horns to these times and made figures out of shadows.
It can change. We can change.
God is in all days, eternally good and perpetually protective. His love doesn't go on vacation once the Calendar flips to September.
Stay prayerful.
Stay hopeful.
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You need help.
Everybody needs help.
Too often, we fall into the trap of a lone man ranger ideology. Somebody hurts us, betrays our trust, reveals some confidential information to a third party, or crushes our expectations to our face. We clench our fists, fume through the ears, and mentally delete them from our list of favourite people - before going ahead to block and mute them everywhere.
But, bitter as it may sound, we cannot always go it alone.
The fingers on our hands are proof that solitude and self-aggrandizement, when not monitored, can be dangerous. We were made for company. An unchecked, wild-west, I-need-nobody mentality is both dangerous and senseless
God has angels who do His biddings.
Jesus was as divine as the other members of the Godhead, and as human, as the work required, yet He had help. All through His ministry, He constantly made calls to Heaven's powerhouse.
Moses had help, Samuel did, Peter did, Paul did.
You do, and will.
Praying is a common, worthy Helpline process.
So is talking to a good friend, a mentor, a role model.
And whenever you're too preoccupied, arrogant or ignorant to seek help, when a helper reaches out, competently and genuinely, jump at it.
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The Incubator Experience: Pregnancy
Pregnancy.
Wherever your affiliation lies - creation or evolution, everybody agrees that pregnancy is central to the peopling of the world, and the advancement of our race as a sentient being. From time immemorial, we have studied it, sought to understand its stages, its object and implication.
It is the 9-month incubator experience that forms the bones, elements, features and traits of human beings. The biological state by which a woman carries her young until they are ready to be born. The bulge in a woman's stomach area signifying new life and an explosion of joy.
Animals carry their young too. But for different durations. Elephants are pregnant for 22 months. Some sharks can be pregnant for 3-and-a-half years.
Men carry pregnancies too. Just not of human young, but of ideas, dreams and aspirations. And women can be pregnant with more than human young. Whether carrying pregnancies for days, weeks, months or years, everybody hopes to someday birth the manifestation of their biggest dreams.
Are you the 'young' in life's womb?
If so, are you ready to face the world?
Conversely, are you pregnant with dreams?
Are they ready for the world?
Timing is crucial.
Have a safe birth to your pregnancy.
Read Eccle. 11.5
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Great ideas start out looking silly.
Great ideas start out looking silly.
And so do their proponents.
For as long as the flood existed only in Noah's mind, he looked stupid. While he chiseled, hammered, nailed things into place, it appeared like he was high on something.
Absurdity has some affiliation with greatness. Great people don't pursue commonplace things. Great events defy the normal, usurp the ordinary, challenge the natural.
And while you build by day,
And preach an impending change by night,
You look foolish...
...until the first raindrop.
Prov. 22.29
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Disqualified by credentials
Disqualified by credentials.
Lacking in some respect.
Not good enough.
Short by a few inches.
Ever applied to a job vacancy even though your qualifications were clearly insufficient? We all have. If the economic implication of unemployment isn't traumatic enough, placing stringent conditions [experience, minimum degree, grade, gender, location] worsens things.
Thankfully, God doesn't treat us the same.
All He generously offers, everybody can obtain.
No one is disqualified from applying.
Forget "deep" concepts of salvation, faith, repentance, forgiveness, holiness and speaking in tongues.
Think about rain, sunshine, love, joy, nature, the oceans, water, air and the splendour of new birth. All freely given.
Disqualified by credentials.
Saved by Grace.
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Who did Jesus come for?
Contrary to belief, or sentimental unfounded 'truths', Jesus didn't come for Christians. He came for the world - the entire present 7billion+ of us, the millions of departed souls, and a thousand future generations. The amazing underlying concept of the Christian faith is the depth and height of God's love. It goes to the lowest lows, and reaches the heighest heights.
Jesus came for the world. He looked down longingly with love at a lost world, going after its own lusts, trying rather hard, yet getting nowhere.
And interestingly, whenever the word 'world' is used, it represents a wide array of lumped-together elements. Not just the good, but the bad, the ugly, the detestable, the destructive. Not just the pleasant, but the unpleasant.
Bible hugging, Scripture rapping, cross flaunting...don't cut it. Jesus didn't die just for the churchy and spiritual, the law-abiding, and the moral loyalists. If you could glance quickly at His 'To Save' list, you would find rapists, thugs, wife-beaters, commercial sex workers, cultists, thieving politicians, arrogant businessmen, terrorists, child molesters, and the common sinner.
He came for a world of Muslims, Buddhists, Judaists, Hindus, atheists, agnostics...and well, of course, Christians.
Your name's on His list.
Your religious bias and spiritual sentiments are immaterial.
He came for you!
John 3.16
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The future is simply history being played backwards.
The future is simply history being played backwards.
Here's some mystery to boggle your mind today. God wasn't just in the past and isn't just in the present. He's also in the future. He's already in 2040 looking over His shoulder to see how well we are catching up with our scientific, technological, psychological and economic baby steps. Once in a while, he lifts humanity's legs, opens a door wide, drops some astronomical discovery...and must laugh when we suddenly scramble over the drawing board, cancelling equations, revisiting theories, discovering things.
Think about it this way. Birds perch unperturbed, unharmed, confidently on electric, naked lines without being electrocuted. Whether you believe in billions and millions of years of evolution [I'll humour you], or in the Biblical Young Earth Age of only thousands of years, birds arrived waaaaaaaaay before electricity was discovered, before the first poles and wires were manufactured. Birds don't get shocked when they sit on electrical wires because they aren't good conductors of electricity. In short, when God created them, He had their safety in mind. Wouldnt it be a mess to have to recall the birds after electricity was discovered, and have to configure them to new realities?
God was watching out for them, from scratch. Think on that. In terms of yourself.
He wrote a script, ushered in all its actors, produced and directed it, published it, then rewound back to the start, crossed His legs and pushed "play".
We will never surprise Him.
He's the boss.
Our present is His past.
Mind-boggling.
Read Isaiah 57.15
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How will you fare?
How will you fare?
How will I fare?
Have you ever explored the 'Download your Facebook data' option?
You will be shocked what you'll find.
Apart from the obvious contents you see daily [friends, messages, stories], you can see every request you ever got or sent, every like, comment, photo upload, tags, pokes, videos, responses, ads viewed. You can even see every search you ever conducted.
How does that make you feel?
Think about it. How much data you've released, posted to the world. Is it all joy and goodness?
Data rules our world. It is lucrative business. Every company worth its salt is going after data like a pack of hungry hyenas. For simple reason - to sell better, they must understand the demography and character of their prospective buyers. What better place to find out this information than the internet? Websites install cookies on your phone - track your buying habits, your preferred shoe colour, your dress style, your favourite movie characters - and soon, ads tailored to those exact topics are pushed your way.
Recruiters now turn to private investigation before reaching employment decisions. Companies have been known to thwart recruitment based on what they find. Like being haunted down by the ghosts of your past, posts of yesteryears can be dug up and used against you. 'The internet never forgets' they say. Celebrities have lost awards, suffered humiliation, passed through humiliation, based on seemingly harmless posts they made before.
Now imagine life generally.
If it's true [and we know it is] that every thoughtless deed, idle word, abuse, secret action, you ever did is stored somewhere, and may someday be used to determine your future...
...how will you fare? How do we survive it?
If there were some delete option possible for our acts of the past, most of us would frequent it. But is there?
READ: Matthew 12. 36-37; Luke 8.17
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