The Struggle

Knowing the next steps did not make it any easier, I knew, I knew with a calmness and peace only He could give. Knowing came much quickly than I envisaged. Having to choose between two loves rubbed on me the wrong way. I love law, I choose law, fell out and then fell back in love with it, I love admin, it comes natural to me. After months of combining same, I had not pictured a future of one without the other. But I knew, having to choose which one, i would let go of somewhat.

Yet I struggled, oh how I struggled, why did I not embrace it? My thoughts… I firmly believed (do not ask me how and why), that there was a conspiracy to frustrate me (No, that’s truly how I saw it). Life had been good, beautiful and dandy, my birth month the prior year brought one too many needless clashes. Some days I mused, if I only understood why? Our paths were different.

I spoke to myself, “you are not your chosen field” that’s not you! An expression perhaps, but certainly not you. My emotions where a roller coaster, up one day, deeply suspicious and distrustful the next. Knowing the clouds of suspicion and distrust blinded my view did not help. Through dimmed eyes to guard my soul, I nit-picked every word and action. Questions flowed within me, ‘if the one you trust, trusts them, surely you can, right? But still…

The Word was my source of stability and sanity, no room for negative emotions, my watchword to not throw petty parties. One thing I did learn, pettiness is not cool and an unacceptable response for a messenger. Surely my Mirror never was petty.

Daily I battled, the dying the flesh was in moments. God’s view point kept me from losing it. I hung on to His word, for I knew therein only I found sanity. My medium of expression thinned, my dance on the fringe of explosion widened. This was not the plan. Did I have a right to feel betrayed? I mean, God had showed me the path to walk, why fight the vessels used to prompt the way to go? But I fought.
My body language roared rage, did I doubt God? No! Was His will desirable? Very much so. Yet there was in me that which fought what I perceived to be the forceful taking away of all I had chosen without conscience. A part was willingly, yet another was poised for battle.

So, pride had to die, flesh had to be put under, all other voices silenced, in the place of study and communion. It has been a journey, I am not fully there yet but the struggle is less than a few months back.

© 9th July, 2018

What Path Do You Walk In?

There is no one path that fits all. What is right for Mr A is not absolute right for Misters B, C, D or Z. every path is fitted for purpose, every purpose determines the path.

That a path is popular does not mean it is meant for you. The fact that a path is popular does not mean it is not meant for you. However, the reason you are on earth, determines the path wherein you are to walk.

Culture, religious affiliation, background are not the determining factors of the path you should walk. The purpose of God according to election concerning you is the determining factor.

Everyone is walking a particular path is not your ‘yardstick’. In the matter of your path, purpose determines what is right or wrong.

© 17th of June 2017

Words & Wisdom

In His words and wisdom
There’s safety, health and many years
Listen and obey His plea
For His principles He honours always

In His words and wisdom
There’s guidance for each day and situation
Let them lead you He says
For therein lies the protection you need

In His words and wisdom
There’s sight and light for every circumstance
Get it and guard it He advises
Then shall your path be straight and clear

In His words and wisdom
There’s all we need to know Him better
Know it and live it out always
For therein is our faith grown and His will revealed.

© 5th June 2016

Willing Clones

He’ll show us the way He works
So we can live the way we’re made

The phrases “let God use you” and “don’t let the devil use you” are regular responses to people’s behaviour we don’t appreciate or as a warning as to their next move, where I live.

Daily there are so many things and people trying to conform me into who they think I should be. Dress this way they instruct, act like this, on a constant it seems everyone somehow thinks they have the best version of me and so work to tailor me accordingly.

I get to remind me just as often – let only God use you, no one else should get that right. The only one I should be like, is the One who shed His blood for me, adopted me and called me by His name.

So I judge myself using His word and Spirit as measuring sticks. Did I represent His blue print? Did my choice please Him? Somewhere along life journey, I realised being a clone was okay. A okay as long as I was a clone of God, I am sure willing. My willingness ensures I spend time with Him, how else can I be like Him if not by investing my time in Him. It is a constant struggle, this is not one of those patterns that flow over time, never quite understood why.

Thus, daily I drag me to Him, the more I learn the better a clone I become, the more I become who I have been created to be. In this process I understand it’s a bit by bit walk, day to day. For each pull I get to become what people think or the social media creates, I resist big time and stay in Him to whom I rise and fall.

A willing clone I pray to always be.

© 30th May, 2016.

As He is – We Are

As my pastor gave the word in the course of service this Sunday morning, he shared on the healing nature of Christ. He spoke of the fact that there is no record of Christ ever being ill and same with His disciples. That by virtue of His healing nature, He Christ’s body and garment healed people with infirmities –case to note the woman with the issue of blood. Thus, he opined that Christ was full of a healing nature and if Christ was to have sat on a chair, it is most likely all who would have sat there afterwards would have gotten healed of whatever ailed them.

“That is how we all are to be”, was the insight I got. Christ’s life was a show of the life that God desires all of His children to have. Look at the disciples who after Pentecost oozed healing, so much that handkerchiefs placed on them and then on the ill were a contact for healing. It is written as He is, as we are in the world. Thus as He has a healing nature so do we also.

Remember God has given unto us all that pertains into life and godliness. It is for us by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to live in the centre of God’s will to allow the full manifestation of who we are to show forth.
For greater works than Christ did we have been commissioned to do, this is fully achievable when we live a life totally surrendered to Christ.

© 1st June, 2014.

PS: In the wake of the man with Ebola in Lagos (who has since died) I would love that we who say we are Christ do not go about this in fear, neither live as ignorant people. Know also for certain there is nothing too hard for God, no ailment His broken body has not already healed. Ebola or no Ebola. If we are Christ, then we too have the healing nature of Christ. Walk in this consciousness.

Ours or His

Early in life, I realised that I had a stubborn trait. I liked to do what I liked to do. As long as I liked it, it was ok. Then I got to know the Lord…hmm, accepting His way over mine was war! The fact that He is Omnipresence and thus everywhere was not important. It was not my idea, so no would have to do. His way held so many pleasant stuff…but it seemed to ask that I cede control of my plans, choices to His. Yea, of course I was and still am not bound to accept His.

My way did work…yea you know about it right…for a while your own idea was best, it got you the results you wanted, that there always seemed something lacking just does not add up though. Yet He had asked us to take His yoke for it is light…ha! Yoke…light.

To take means, suggest that we have given away what we had to make room to receive. To take His is to join John the Baptist in His cry…more of You and less of me; to whisper or shout thy will not mine. For in His we experience truly and deeply life in abundance…the righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.

So over the course of my years I’ve willingly said His, sometimes I have grudging said His after following my way to a dead end. Either ways, I must say, I look back and I am sure glad I did. . .

What is your choice for main course? Yours or His?

Copyright Itse Tosan 2013

His Not Mine

I have dreams of what my bright future contains. I sure do have dreams…aspirations of the things am to engage in, in this life. Some of the career paths “seem” to clash…not even I can reconcile them.

There are days that am sure I want it all…yes, I want the beautiful legal practice besides litigation, the HR portfolio, the modeling contract, the radio host slots, the editor job of a teen and/or women magazine, the songwriter renown. Yea all!

Am not sure if I’d truly get to fit these roles…all of them, but through it all I want His Will to be given full expression in my life. There are days I muse, thinking “suppose” one day I get a good modeling contract on my terms and I hear “do you love me more than these?” what my response would be…it is a thought. Yea a thought that can be my reality someday.

As much as i have dreams, so many of them, I never want them more than giving His will full expression… this desire too has a bit of “scare” in it. I never can tell what giving it full expression may entail.

So i lay it all before Him…dreams, expectations, possibilities which ever nomenclature fits best and say I do want but your will takes precedence.

….’Yet not as I will, but as You will’. Matthew 26:39b

© Itse Tosan 9th February 2012