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For starters, Jesus Christ is not coming back anytime soon. At least not now. How do I know that?

First, Jesus Christ will come as a thief in the night. Unannounced. We won’t be prepared for His second coming. He will take us all by surprise (1 Thessalonians 5:2; Revelation 16:15).

Second, Jesus Christ himself does not know when He will be coming back to town. Only His Father, God Almighty, knows (Matthew 24:36). If Jesus Christ does not know. How can we know?

Third, the mark of the beast and the rise of the antichrist is after the rapture have taken place. Not before. Please let the Book of Revelation enlighten you. And for all I know, rapture have not taken place. Yet. And finally,

Because I know a man. A future president of the United States. For two full terms in office.* And he is yet to be appointed. For all I know he is a nobody right now. So, calm down folks.

When I read on WhatsApp and online the sheer amount of postulations crazy people and the lazy minds that subscribe to their craziness spread, I wonder what our world would’ve looked like if Twitter, Facebook, and WhatsApp were around at the twilight of 1999. When the new millennium was about to be ushered in and everybody was expecting the world to come to an end. Mehn. The one that surprises me the most is when people I consider enlightened, both in their secular professions and in spiritual matters, by themselves becomes agents of dispersion of these conspiracy nonsenses.

Hey, I am not unmindful that corona virus is a bad thing and have changed our world the way we knew it. And I am not in any way diminishing its impact, especially economic, on the average joe. But our world has been going through these evolutions and comes back from it. The Spanish flu, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention killed an estimated 50 million people globally. And Jesus Christ didn’t break out through the gates of Heaven. Regular flu, according to the World Health Organization, kills between 290,000 to 650,000 people worldwide on a yearly basis. And the mark of the beast has not been unleashed. So far corona virus has killed about 53,000 people globally. The number will increase, of course, before it dissipates. In some countries of the world, like in China where it originated, its wave has actually peaked and dissipated. I suspect, after the cloud clears, that global deaths from this corona virus may just as well equal the number of global deaths from seasonal flu as given by the World Health Organization. If the data from China is correct.

I do not know what actually caused it. Whether it came from bats that Chinese people were eating – can somebody tell the Chinese to stop eating all these crazy animals – or whether it was a bioweapon that leaked from the Chinese bioweapon laboratory in Wuhan. Because China has its largest bioweapon lab in Wuhan. But when the cloud clears, we will know. I cannot lay claim to information I am not privy to. But this I know, people in countries like our own where this virus is still in its wake should follow the guidelines of their respective health agencies to mitigate the spread of the virus. And eventually get it out of our lives. These are things we have the power to do. Besides that, we should use our time in quarantine to love on our friends and family. Sleep more. De-stress. Watch some good movies. And catch up on books we have been putting away for some time now.

If Jesus Christ is coming tomorrow, if the mark of the beast is to be unleashed, and if the time for the antichrist to be enthroned has come, believe me, they are all God’s program. And just like the corona virus, none of us will have the power or the means to affect it. So why not enjoy your family and friends while you can. The only singular thing you have the power to do and stop wasting time postulating craziness and wasting your mental energy on things you have no power to affect?

 

*Disclaimer. God, Jesus Christ, or the Holy Spirit didn’t tell me this last point, “as the Trinity are currently in the business of telling people stuff.” Just something I know.

 

It started like any other day. It had an extraordinary ending. On that fateful day, the first day of December 2001, and about 6pm in the evening, Nigeria local time, a friend of mine rode me on my dad’s bicycle to the pharmacy. We call it ‘chemist store’ in Nigeria.

Unlike in the United States where you can buy certain medicines over the counter but majority by prescription only, and where only trained medical professionals can dispense or administer medicines to you; in Nigeria, everything is bought over the counter. You do not need a prescription. In as much as you can pay for it, you can get whatever dosage you want for any medicine or combination of medicines. And you do not need to be a medical professional to open your own chemist store or administer medicines to customers. Folks who could not afford to go to a doctor can walk into a chemist and describe their symptoms to the chemist and he or she can prescribe medicines to them based on the information they gave to him or her. If they (the chemist) decide the customer needs a shot, they can as well decide the dosage of the shots they want to administer to the patient. The expertise of a chemist on the subject of medicine is gotten, not from going to school, but from apprenticing for an already established chemist. This apprenticeship can last from six months (for those that already have family money to fund their startup), to six years (for those who do not have family money to fund their store but based on the contract they signed with their master, hope that by the end of the six years, the master will give them enough capital to start their own business).

Now, that Saturday, December 1, 2001, was my fourth day visiting the chemist store for treatment. The chemist has been injecting me with the antibiotic crystal penicillin through my bottom for the past three consecutive days.

I was sick but didn’t know the cause of my sickness. Because I was a little bit reckless sexually as a teenager, I was afraid my sickness was a result of sexually transmitted disease I might have contracted through my philandering. But I didn’t want to find that out by going for a blood work, so I gave the sickness a name. I told myself I was suffering from pneumonia and went to the chemist and asked for seven doses of crystal penicillin, one of the antibiotics for treating pneumonia in Nigeria. She obliged me. Because the antibiotics is administered one dose per day, the injection was spread for a seven-day period.

Because of the effect the needle has had on my bottom for the past three consecutive days of injections, I couldn’t sit down comfortably anymore, and to bend down to pick up something or to wash my feet became very difficult. So, on that fateful Day 4, I suggested to the chemist to inject the antibiotic through my vein rather than through my bottom. That medicine is not intravenous. It didn’t stop there. I had four dosages of that injection left. Because I did not want to return to the chemist store anymore, I also suggested to her that she put the remaining four dosages into one and inject me with all four at once. Being a quack, she did not pause for a moment to think about the grave consequences of my suggestion. She readily accepted the suggestion of a novice (which is what I was as far as the field of medicine was concerned) and injected me with a heavy overdose of crystal penicillin. The antibiotic was supposed to be a cure to my imagined ailment, however, it turned out to be a precipitant for my untimely death.

Continue reading “THIS IS MY TESTIMONY: HE SAVED ME; HE CAN SAVE YOU…”

I met a lady not too long ago. A very beautiful woman. Almost perfect in her beauty. She is well educated. She works for a Fortune 500 company. And she possesses the kind of physical appeal a guy would kill for. When I set my eyes on her for the first time, my heart stopped for a bit. I told myself that lucky is the guy that calls this woman his. So, I approached her. And we started talking. Small talk, America’s tradition. In the course of our conversation, I found out she does not have a man in her life. Rather she has a dog as her companion. I wondered why such a beautiful and accomplished woman does not have a man in her life. And I asked her why. Her response at the least stupefied me.

If fidelity is such a coveted virtue, and if a guy happen to be lucky enough to score, not just a very successful woman, but a beautiful one; one that does not see herself as all these, but one that is faithful to you and sees herself as someone in your life to ‘help’ you become your best; why then would a guy not treasure and show fidelity to such a gem? Why would such a guy throw away every potential good that could have materialized from such a relationship just for the transient thrill of dipping in a different bowl of pie that may not necessarily taste better?

By the way I am not suggesting that woman that are not beautiful, attractive, or have a successful career does not deserve fidelity in their relationship.

Continue reading “Love and Fidelity (Part II)”

Every mentally or psychologically healthy human being wants to love and to be equally loved back.

This love can be platonic. It can be filial. And it can be intimate, as when two opposite sex consummate this kind of love in an ‘intimate’ sexual relationship. And when this is so, it is always expected that both partners in this intimate sexual relationship should be faithful to each other and limit their sexual partners to just each other. In other words, they are expected to demonstrate fidelity to each other.

The world asks for fidelity in everything that we do.

When you are applying for a job and the recruiters see that you seldom stay in a job for a long period of time, they will be hesitant to hire you because they want you to show fidelity to their organization and stay for a long time. So, if your resume shows a lack of fidelity by you to your previous employers, you may not get the job you’re looking for. Recruiters desire fidelity.

If for any reason you sign apartment contract and for any reason you break the lease – meaning you did not stay through the terms of your lease agreement and did not follow the stipulated legal means to terminate the contract – you may not in the life of you get the chance to lease another apartment by yourself. Renters want fidelity. Fidelity (working for long years for an employee) to an employee is smiled upon.

If you have a car note or a mortgage, and maybe due to financial challenges, you are not able to make your monthly payments on time. It will get on your credit report. And that will be very bad for you as a consumer getting other services that requires fidelity to agreed-upon contractual terms. Woe betides you if your car gets repossessed or your home gets foreclosed. That on itself will make it a very difficult task for you to be able to get a car note or buy a new house again. Because those financial institutions that finance car notes and mortgage lenders desires fidelity.

That is to say, the world, both secular and religious, desires, and most of the times, demands fidelity. Fidelity at paying your rent on time, or for the payment of any other consumer services that you signed up to that its payments accrues on a monthly basis. Services such as phone, cable, internet, credit card, car note, mortgages, insurances and so forth. Fidelity to making these payments on time determines how easy or tough life can be for you as a consumer. Because with demonstrable fidelity to your obligations, which in the United States is embodied by a good credit score, life will be easy for a consumer and providers of consumer services will be courting such a consumer to market their services to him or her at a very discounted rate. Because such a person possesses quality character. But if you do not have a good credit score, which most of the times are caused by bad personal choices, but can also be caused by vicissitudes of life, you are in for a tough run in life.

Have you ever tried working for the U.S. Government? The Q&A alone, besides your education background or work experience, will show you that fidelity is a coveted and widely appreciated quality to possess. It is a virtue.

To be continued…….

The 116^th Congress has just been instituted. Nancy Pelosi is back at the speaker’s seat, and the institution of the presidency is no longer venerated.

The state of our union is not that strong. America is as divided as has never been witnessed since the civil war. And politics has been reduced to a game of pettiness. There are literally no statesmen left in Washington to inspire leadership and mobilize their side and significant number of willing members from the other side of the aisle to come together and work out a compromise for national good. The federal government shutdown has entered its 14^th day. There is no end in sight.

Democrats may not give in on President Trump’s demands because giving in on the demands of the president for a $5bn for a border wall does not sit well with majority of party faithfuls. They consider the wall immoral. The president being an egomaniac and goaded by his base may not shift grounds because shifting grounds means losing part of his base who will consider him weak for shifting grounds. And there is no one in the ranks of the republican party to encourage him to compromise since they see compromise on the wall as the demise of their party. Then comes the question of what is leadership and why is the president in the White House and members of Congress in office if they cannot do the job the American people sent them to Washington to do?

Continue reading “The State of America”

Democrats are apologists. Period. And contemporary Democrats don’t have balls. Period.

Please do not stop reading. Stay with me. I’ll convince you.

The last time I checked, every Democrat that has been embroiled in one scandal or the other, for the past 8 years, has acquiesced to pressures to resign their position. And resign they did. Republicans? Naaaaaaaaaaaa.

When the lid blew on former Governor Mark Sanford’s love trip to Argentina, typically there were calls for him to resign as governor of South Carolina. Did he? For where? Typical unapologetic republican, he not only sat out his term as governor, he is now a congressman in the US House of Representative. Remember the “You Lie!” asshole? The guy that shouted down on President Obama during his first SOTU speech in 2009? There were calls for him to resign too. Did he? Of course, not. The Texas Agriculture commissioner in one of his tweets during the general election campaign called Secretary Clinton the C word. And he’s still using the platform our tax money provides to peddle fake news, sexism, and bigotry. When the C word made national news, he wasn’t forced out. He’s still in office. Should I continue? Talk about LePage, the character that occupies the Governor’s Mansion in Maine. With all the filth that come out of the guy’s mouth, you would expect him to bow to political pressures and resign. No. He’s a republican. They are unapologetically what they are and no one can make them pay a political price for what they do and say. But you cant say that about Democrats. Apologists.

Donald Trump was the only presidential candidate in modern history that did not release his tax returns during the general election. And Democrats allowed that to fly. If he were to be a Democrat, Republicans would not allow that to happen. They would peddle the most horrifying conspiracy theory about the reason he didn’t want America to see his tax returns until he is forced to release them. They would say he is a major financier of ISIS, they would say he is the patron of KKK, they would say he is involved with funding lone wolf terrorists in the homeland, they would say he is involved in child sex trafficking, they would say he is a satanist and a major financier of the church of satan. They would peddle every conceivable lie and cook up every imaginable conspiracy theory and dump those shit on a daily basis on Fox News, until he is forced to release his tax returns. But Democrats doesn’t play dirty politics. They play selense. And look at the result! Poor ignorant Democrats.

When President Obama was elected in 2008, he was the first person of African descent to be elected to the Office of the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States of America. But he will not be the last. He’s just a forerunner to better presidents of African origin.

Continue reading “11 vs 37”

By John Hope Bryant

Let me be immediately clear. While I am talking about all losers, I am mostly and primarily talking about the loser within you. Me too.   There is a loser, within all of us.

I saw this great scene in a movie recently. An otherwise great person, just always whining and complaining about almost everything. How ‘everything is crap.’ And then, the killer follow-on line just nails it —

“People need to give this destructive voice in their head ‘a name,’ and then tell it — to go kiss off.”

Well, they didn’t say ‘kiss off,’ but you get the point. This is the LinkedIn-friendly version.

The reality is, we all have these destructive voices going off almost constantly in our heads, in one way or another. And so….

If I don’t like me, it is hard for me to like you.

If I don’t respect me, it is hard for me to respect you.

If I don’t feel good about me, it is hard for me to feel good about you.

If I don’t love me, I don’t have a clue how to love you.

And here is the big one — if I don’t have a purpose in your life, I’m going to make your life a living hell.

Continue reading “Time to Tell the Losers to Kiss Off”