As a lot of my friends may already know, my messages and SMS most times end with “Dare to be great!” Now for all those who really want to make an impact, I want to drop a few lines for you about the real great ones.
The Real Ones………..
They are not just men of knowledge but men of wisdom
They are not just men of belief but men of faith
They are not just men of charisma but men of character
They don’t just have blood in their veins but have love in their blood
They are not those who haven’t messed up but those who know that God is still in the business of turning GREAT-MESS into GREATNESS!
They are those who know that it takes DARING and not FEARING to make a difference
They are those who really understand the scriptures which says “vanity upon vanity all is vanity”
They are those who have paid or are willing to pay a price for a prize with their tears, sweat and blood.
They are those who know that accomplishments are not tangible, only rewards for accomplishments are.
They are those who would rather be hungry free men than to be well fed slaves
They know that humility is not just a fertilizer to the seed of greatness, but is also a gardener to the germinated seed (the tree itself).
They NEVER want to be successful without Value!
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Thursday, June 18, 2009
SIPS OF COURAGE
This is an excerpt from the fifth chapter of my book BREAK THAT HABIT. Habits which often take the form of mistakes whenever the consequences pop-up is something that we all have a share of. The problem with bad habits isn't the fact that we picked them up but the fact that we remain in them. This is why i felt i should share a bit of the book from the chapter titled BOLDNESS. I hope you will find it useful and apply to yourself as the case may be. Enjoy the reading.
According to Longman dictionary of contemporary English, courage is the quality of being brave when you are in danger or in a difficult situation. Courage is a very popular word so I won’t be using my cherished ink writing on courage as it has often been used. I will be writing on courage as it concerns our decisions to break certain bad habits in our lives. If you have ever seen a drug addict in a rehabilitation center with his intake being cut down, you will find out that breaking core bad habits is a very difficult situation. A lot of times when we attempt breaking certain bad habits we get discouraged by how deep we are in the habit. We just don’t think it is possible to come out of it. We tend to be like a mountain climber who looks at the height of the mountain and sit at the foot of it discouraged! I guess we must have heard that when there is a hill climb, waiting doesn’t make it smaller. We need to be determined! This is the reason why I want to drop some sips of courage with you while trying to break some of your bad habits and I do hope that you would really take a sip.
1. When you decide to quit ‘alcoholism’ and your friends come around luring you back into it, be courageous to say no!
2. If you find yourself in the midst of drug addicts after your decision to quit, be courageous to walk away!
3. Be courageous not to turn around to take a second look when a pretty girl (may be on skimpy clothes) walks pass you if you have decided to stop being promiscuous!
4. Summon courage to denounce your cult membership once you have resolved to quit the game!
5. You need courage not to dip hands into money that doesn’t belong to you! Courage to stop stealing! Courage to stop embezzling public funds! Courage to stop looting! Courage to return people’s lost items that you found!
6. Be courageous to walk out of that brothel and the pimps once you’ve decided to say bye-bye to prostitution!
7. As a preacher, be courageous not to let the increasing membership and finance of your ministry to divert you from the commission of winning souls!
8. You must be courageous to hold yourself from reacting negatively when others offend you! Courage to forgive!
9. Be courageous to let your parents know of that pregnancy rather than to abort that child that could become a great source of joy to you tomorrow! COURAGE!
10. Summon courage to break away permanently from that evil means of making money!
11. The future isn’t just a place you are going, but a place you are creating. COURAGE to create a better future!
A lot of times we’ve made decisions to break bad habits but we failed to stand by our decision because the decision lacked courage. Courage is what sustains the decision. With these sips of courage blended with our decision, there are a whole lot of things we can still accomplish in life. It is never too late to start nurturing our seed of greatness. Will you take some sips of courage with me today?
According to Longman dictionary of contemporary English, courage is the quality of being brave when you are in danger or in a difficult situation. Courage is a very popular word so I won’t be using my cherished ink writing on courage as it has often been used. I will be writing on courage as it concerns our decisions to break certain bad habits in our lives. If you have ever seen a drug addict in a rehabilitation center with his intake being cut down, you will find out that breaking core bad habits is a very difficult situation. A lot of times when we attempt breaking certain bad habits we get discouraged by how deep we are in the habit. We just don’t think it is possible to come out of it. We tend to be like a mountain climber who looks at the height of the mountain and sit at the foot of it discouraged! I guess we must have heard that when there is a hill climb, waiting doesn’t make it smaller. We need to be determined! This is the reason why I want to drop some sips of courage with you while trying to break some of your bad habits and I do hope that you would really take a sip.
1. When you decide to quit ‘alcoholism’ and your friends come around luring you back into it, be courageous to say no!
2. If you find yourself in the midst of drug addicts after your decision to quit, be courageous to walk away!
3. Be courageous not to turn around to take a second look when a pretty girl (may be on skimpy clothes) walks pass you if you have decided to stop being promiscuous!
4. Summon courage to denounce your cult membership once you have resolved to quit the game!
5. You need courage not to dip hands into money that doesn’t belong to you! Courage to stop stealing! Courage to stop embezzling public funds! Courage to stop looting! Courage to return people’s lost items that you found!
6. Be courageous to walk out of that brothel and the pimps once you’ve decided to say bye-bye to prostitution!
7. As a preacher, be courageous not to let the increasing membership and finance of your ministry to divert you from the commission of winning souls!
8. You must be courageous to hold yourself from reacting negatively when others offend you! Courage to forgive!
9. Be courageous to let your parents know of that pregnancy rather than to abort that child that could become a great source of joy to you tomorrow! COURAGE!
10. Summon courage to break away permanently from that evil means of making money!
11. The future isn’t just a place you are going, but a place you are creating. COURAGE to create a better future!
A lot of times we’ve made decisions to break bad habits but we failed to stand by our decision because the decision lacked courage. Courage is what sustains the decision. With these sips of courage blended with our decision, there are a whole lot of things we can still accomplish in life. It is never too late to start nurturing our seed of greatness. Will you take some sips of courage with me today?
Friday, May 1, 2009
LOVE & SEXUALITY
Love is a word that has gained so much popularity in the world. It is a word that cuts across so many facets of life but I will be discussing love as it concerns relationships. The manner in which love is being professed these days seems to me as though it is like money that can be deposited into or withdrawn from a bank account at anytime one pleases. There are a lot of persons who once claimed to have fallen in love and are no longer in love today, this leaves me wondering what then happened to all those relationships? We were no longer in love we may say. This statement then provokes the question; was the feeling we were having actually love? If it was love, why then did it end? Wise King Solomon stated in songs of Solomon 8:7 that, “many waters cannot quench love, nor can the floods drown it”. This scripture makes me think that too often the word love which is supposed to be unconditional has been misrepresented with lust (sexual attraction).
One major reason why our world today experiences the proliferation of infidelity and unfaithfulness in relationships is because, most times when a guy tells a lady that he loves her, he is actually consciously (or *unconsciously*) referring to sexuality and not the lady in person! A guy sees many girls walk pass him but once he sets his eyes on a particular girl with body features that are attractive to him (sex appeal), he goes after her and within a week he is so in love! The love he professes is out of libido and not love of the heart and that is why the act of having sex is called “love making”, it is ‘Eros’ which means sexual love. A man/woman in an ‘Eros’ affair, is very likely to have external relationships with persons whose sex appeal surpasses that of their present partner.
Napoleon Hill once wrote, “love affairs not blessed with the eternal affinity of love properly balanced and proportioned with sex cannot be happy ones and seldom endures”. This implies that the feelings existing between a man and a woman must be true love before sexuality can be introduced. Now, for persons who are not married it isn’t advisable for sex to be a part of the relationship because, you aren’t even sure if your partner will end up your spouse! Having pre-marital sex will depreciate your value to your spouse in the future & it will be worse if your spouse’s value had also depreciated. This is one reason why husbands/wives treat their wives/husbands with little or no respect instead of adoring them when the marriage properly begins because, after the wedding comes the marriage! They’ve lost a major percentage of their sexual integrity to persons who weren’t their spouse!
Many young people, who are involved in sexual relationships, keep it secret from their parents and guardians because they know it isn’t right (unfortunately many parents don’t take time to teach us about sexuality, it is like an abomination talking about it & so we tend to embark on an adventure of ‘sexual discovery’ which is one cause of our being trapped in pre-marital sex). Most young men who have pre-marital sex with girls feel very uncomfortable seeing other guys come around their own sisters. They want their sisters’ value to be intact while they are depreciating the value of other young ladies! Like Napoleon also wrote, “when love, romance, and the proper understanding of the emotion and function of sex abide, there is no disharmony between two ‘married’ people”. This goes to say that of course, sex is an ‘almost unavoidable’ necessity but for legal and recognized relationships which is basically marriage.
However, young people should understand that the love being professed every now and then isn’t of the heart but of sex. Relationships are good for us all because they play a vital role in our emotional well-being but they should be built on true love instead of sex. A song writer once asked, “What’s love got to do with it (sex)?” I say if you want to know whether what you are having is true love, withdraw romance & sex from the relationship. If this happens, you will find out that a lot of persons won’t be able to stay in the relationship any longer. They would rather look for new partners that will grant them their sexual desires. The question then is, what about the love we have for our parents, brothers, sisters, friends, and so on, do we have sex or romance with them for us to love them? Certainly not! So why can’t we be in relationships without sex? Truth is, at some point in time based on individuals anyway, we tend to have the urge for sex especially those of us that have been sexually active, but we have to learn how to control our libido. Sometimes you feel ‘cold’ and you need some tender loving care (caressing), well some say they can do that without having sex, but why start what you won’t finish? Bodily romance and caressing has the ultimate goal of sex ‘most’ times (from the angle of the males because we are more libidinous)!
Abstinence I know isn’t easy, but we all know that nothing good comes easy; we have to endure the ‘cold’ to enjoy the ‘gold’. If we can do this, then even when we will be getting married, we are sure that it is out of love and not out of sexual excitement (since marriage now happens to be the escape route from pre-marital sex although I believe that if one gets married to avoid pre-marital sex, then the problem of adultery may most likely come knocking).
Also, you will never know how deep you went until you want to quit or you are faced with a dire repercussion. However, it doesn’t matter how deep we are in illicit sex, what really matters is, do we want to remain in it & keep putting up defenses thereby gambling our future (loss of value, HIV/AIDS which we get scared of going to do a test, falling short of God’s glory & remaining down, etc) or we want to start a conscious process of retracing our steps thereby re-instating our sexual integrity (RETURN TO INNOCENCE!)? I advice we opt for the latter.
Lastly, in as much as we need relationships to help promote our emotional well-being, they are not meant to overshadow the presence of God in our lives. Our relationships should be pleasant to HIM!
Kind Regards
Maple Dappa T >>>MADA re-defined<<<
~~~VIEWING THE END FROM NOW***
Hmm….. na wa o ………………..
That is the response of most of us, when we receive news of the demise of someone, especially someone whom we are close to. Weeping and wailing when someone that is dear to us die is something that is inevitable just as death itself. The trail of tears that rolls down the cheek is a necessary means of expressing our grief. The greatest solace we can ever get after our grief, are the good deeds of the deceased while alive. It doesn’t really matter, what relationship we had or how close we were. What matters is the positive impact which the deceased made in our lives.
Amongst all those whom we’ve lost at one point in time or the other, there are those whom we will forever keep a memory of, while all others have been forgotten since after our period of grief. It is an inevitable fact that we all will die someday. So, it is of great necessity that we endeavor to live a life that matters because; it is the fortitude which those who will be left bereaved will forever need to bear the loss.
Someone who lives an irrelevant lifestyle will end up causing his friends and family what I call ‘double grief’. Firstly, they will be grieved by the person’s demise and secondly, they will be grieved by the shame which the irrelevant lifestyle of the deceased will bring upon them.
We all hope for long life, but the precious gift of living a long life is not a guarantee to anyone. There were so many who had faith and were very prayerful but their lives were still cut short unexpectedly. That they died doesn’t imply God didn’t love them or we are more holy than they were. However, no matter how long we live, it is still a brief lifetime. So, it will be wise if we choose to live a life that matters.
Many times, people have talked about writing their names on the sands of time but, that is easy to be washed away. It will be better for us to write our names in the history book of humanity (by writing it on the minds of people both within our reach and far from our reach). We must strive to live the kind of life that will earn us the respect of intelligent people.
One sad thing that can happen to any man even after his death is, his biography being filled with lies (things he wasn’t & those he didn’t do). Sighs will be flying all over the funeral arena from guests during the reading of the biography! Read a brief story about the saddest funeral I have ever heard of, written by Rev. Robert H. Schuller. He says;
“The saddest funeral I ever conducted as a pastor was for a wealthy man who had not a single mourner at his funeral. His three adult sons lived in the community but did not attend. I have never had an experience like it before or since. Only the mortician and I were there! When I asked for an explanation, the funeral director said, “All he wanted was to make more money and acquire selfish toys. He didn’t have time for his children. He had no time for his wife. He had no time or money to share with the church or the social charities. He hit it lucky in the stock market! But he died an extremely sick and lonely man. In fact the doctors say his loneliness brought on his early death!”
A lot of us may want to distant ourselves from this man’s lifestyle, but the truth is, he didn’t just get there, the ‘little’ things he neglected on a daily basis got him there! Let us realize that for everyday we live, we are writing our biography. More consciousness therefore needs to be put into the things we do & those we tend to neglect because, if we don’t, we could be writing a biography of lies while we are still alive!
Have you ever wondered why a statement of bank account is not stated in biographies? The cars the deceased drove, is it being stated? What about the houses he owned, the stocks/shares, the vacations he had, are they being stated? These are the things the entire world seems to be busy with and at the end we don’t want to include them in our tributes (We finally realize they were only accessories to an ultimate goal!) All we want to be stated is how life was made better for others through us & how we served God! What matters then is no longer the neighborhood in which we lived but how we lived with our neighbors! What matters then is not the vehicle we drove in but how many people we ‘transported’ to better places in life! What will matter then isn’t whether you studied at home or abroad but was the society any better because of you studied? What will matter isn’t whether you were a man of success but were you a man of value? Questions you have to answer for yourself!
We are all from different backgrounds and we all have different ambitions and this article is not to say whose ambitions are right or wrong, no! This is just to call our attention to the fact that through our daily activities on earth, we are already writing our biographies. What are we writing in there? Do we want it to be read? If no, then we need to make some adjustments and begin to live a life that matters.
To live a life that matters doesn’t happen by chance but, by choice. The time to live a life of relevance that will place a tribute on the lips of all those who knew us or heard about our good deeds, even long after we’ve passed away, is now! Ever since I picked up a pen and wrote what I would like my biography & tributes (Personal Mission Statement) to look like, I am not moved an inch by the happenings in the world, my heart seriously longs towards making those words I penned down becoming an undisputed reality after I pass on. Those words have the power of bringing me out from my mess each time I review them. They are my life guide!
I suggest you take out a few minutes in the early hours of the day and picture what you would like your biography/tribute to be, then assess yourself to see if your life activities are geared towards making it an undisputed reality! Don’t ignore this if you really want to live a life that matters!
God help us!
Maple Dappa T.
That is the response of most of us, when we receive news of the demise of someone, especially someone whom we are close to. Weeping and wailing when someone that is dear to us die is something that is inevitable just as death itself. The trail of tears that rolls down the cheek is a necessary means of expressing our grief. The greatest solace we can ever get after our grief, are the good deeds of the deceased while alive. It doesn’t really matter, what relationship we had or how close we were. What matters is the positive impact which the deceased made in our lives.
Amongst all those whom we’ve lost at one point in time or the other, there are those whom we will forever keep a memory of, while all others have been forgotten since after our period of grief. It is an inevitable fact that we all will die someday. So, it is of great necessity that we endeavor to live a life that matters because; it is the fortitude which those who will be left bereaved will forever need to bear the loss.
Someone who lives an irrelevant lifestyle will end up causing his friends and family what I call ‘double grief’. Firstly, they will be grieved by the person’s demise and secondly, they will be grieved by the shame which the irrelevant lifestyle of the deceased will bring upon them.
We all hope for long life, but the precious gift of living a long life is not a guarantee to anyone. There were so many who had faith and were very prayerful but their lives were still cut short unexpectedly. That they died doesn’t imply God didn’t love them or we are more holy than they were. However, no matter how long we live, it is still a brief lifetime. So, it will be wise if we choose to live a life that matters.
Many times, people have talked about writing their names on the sands of time but, that is easy to be washed away. It will be better for us to write our names in the history book of humanity (by writing it on the minds of people both within our reach and far from our reach). We must strive to live the kind of life that will earn us the respect of intelligent people.
One sad thing that can happen to any man even after his death is, his biography being filled with lies (things he wasn’t & those he didn’t do). Sighs will be flying all over the funeral arena from guests during the reading of the biography! Read a brief story about the saddest funeral I have ever heard of, written by Rev. Robert H. Schuller. He says;
“The saddest funeral I ever conducted as a pastor was for a wealthy man who had not a single mourner at his funeral. His three adult sons lived in the community but did not attend. I have never had an experience like it before or since. Only the mortician and I were there! When I asked for an explanation, the funeral director said, “All he wanted was to make more money and acquire selfish toys. He didn’t have time for his children. He had no time for his wife. He had no time or money to share with the church or the social charities. He hit it lucky in the stock market! But he died an extremely sick and lonely man. In fact the doctors say his loneliness brought on his early death!”
A lot of us may want to distant ourselves from this man’s lifestyle, but the truth is, he didn’t just get there, the ‘little’ things he neglected on a daily basis got him there! Let us realize that for everyday we live, we are writing our biography. More consciousness therefore needs to be put into the things we do & those we tend to neglect because, if we don’t, we could be writing a biography of lies while we are still alive!
Have you ever wondered why a statement of bank account is not stated in biographies? The cars the deceased drove, is it being stated? What about the houses he owned, the stocks/shares, the vacations he had, are they being stated? These are the things the entire world seems to be busy with and at the end we don’t want to include them in our tributes (We finally realize they were only accessories to an ultimate goal!) All we want to be stated is how life was made better for others through us & how we served God! What matters then is no longer the neighborhood in which we lived but how we lived with our neighbors! What matters then is not the vehicle we drove in but how many people we ‘transported’ to better places in life! What will matter then isn’t whether you studied at home or abroad but was the society any better because of you studied? What will matter isn’t whether you were a man of success but were you a man of value? Questions you have to answer for yourself!
We are all from different backgrounds and we all have different ambitions and this article is not to say whose ambitions are right or wrong, no! This is just to call our attention to the fact that through our daily activities on earth, we are already writing our biographies. What are we writing in there? Do we want it to be read? If no, then we need to make some adjustments and begin to live a life that matters.
To live a life that matters doesn’t happen by chance but, by choice. The time to live a life of relevance that will place a tribute on the lips of all those who knew us or heard about our good deeds, even long after we’ve passed away, is now! Ever since I picked up a pen and wrote what I would like my biography & tributes (Personal Mission Statement) to look like, I am not moved an inch by the happenings in the world, my heart seriously longs towards making those words I penned down becoming an undisputed reality after I pass on. Those words have the power of bringing me out from my mess each time I review them. They are my life guide!
I suggest you take out a few minutes in the early hours of the day and picture what you would like your biography/tribute to be, then assess yourself to see if your life activities are geared towards making it an undisputed reality! Don’t ignore this if you really want to live a life that matters!
God help us!
Maple Dappa T.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
VICTIM OF A BROKEN HOME
Each time I get distressed about my ordeals as a product of separated parents, the title of James Thiongo Ngungi’s book; ‘weep not child’ becomes of a great solace to me. Growing up for me was a very awful experience. Waking up and getting ready for school, I ate my breakfast of beans and garri (grated & fried cassava) which was the most regular meal in our home – thank God I had something to eat most times. At school, it was embarrassing to hear my schoolmates talk about how lovely their parents were and I couldn’t talk because mine was only about my mother, my mother – thank God at least I had a parent. At the sound of the school bell for the day’s dismissal, my heart began to beat fast because it was time to retire to the benches which we joined together as our bed – thank God I had where to lay my head on. My mother was and is still a primary school teacher, so there was nothing to brag about before my schoolmates and playmates – thank God it’s a blessing to grow up under the auspices of a teacher. Our house was the school kitchen; there was no television, radio and such like – thank God we had a shelter. My mother, as a teacher catering for the needs of her only two sons without the support of their father or a husband, usually plucked mango and guava leaves and boiled it together with lemon grass for us to drink whenever we fell ill, since her small salary couldn’t be spent on hospital bills alone – thank God for herbal remedies. On the two different occasions that I went to my father’s house to spend my holidays, all I enjoyed was series of mal-treatment from my stepmother – thank God that unknowingly to her then, she succeeded in helping to make me who I am today. The only place I could constantly go to, to be a holidaymaker was the village where my maternal grandmother won’t cease from chastisement of me. At the village, there were no toys, biscuits, ice cream, etc – thank God for the opportunity to learn the ways of my tradition and for the wisdom that I gained from my grandma. I stayed with some of my relatives and I had some awful experiences as well – thank God for the knowledge of the fact that there is nothing as sweet as home. Though I wasn’t getting the things I wished for as a growing child; envy, self-pity and low self-esteem were never a part of me. I know I would be a great man – thank God for exposing me to the secret that I was the egg of an eagle that got hatched by a hen. A lot of people are very insensitive to the ordeals of people like me who are victims of a broken home; close family members and close friends who are supposed to serve as a source of solace are insensitive to my feelings – thank God for opening my eyes to the challenging truth that, my destiny is in my hands! Your case may be worse than mine; but, always know that ‘life is not what it makes of you but what you make of it’!
http://www.mapleshinx.blogspot.com
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