SAMSON 3

WELCOMING ADDRESS

Hello and welcome here.

Again

This is the third part and we explore futher on the major themes the character of Samson shows us.

Let’s ride in…

CANON BALL

Some time had passed and Samson decided to visit his bride. His plan was to spend time intimately with her since he had left in anger the previous time.

When he arrived and requested for his wife, her father told him that she was now someone else’s wife and it was no other person than the man that had been his bestman. Instead her father offered her younger sister and this infuriated Samson.

He caught three hundred foxes and tied their tails before torching it with fire and setting them loose into the plantations of the Philistines.

When they realised the damage that had been done and connected the dots to Samson’s ex father-in-law, they retaliated by killing the man and his daughter. Then they searched for Samson to also kill him.

Samson had begun his journey back home when he met his people who told him that he was being looked for. Samson agreed to surrender as long as they did not hurt him themselves.

However, when he was confronted by the aggravated Philistines, he had an unexplainable rush of might come on him and using the jawbone of a donkey, he killed about a thousand men.

He was thirsty and tired by the time the fight wss over and he cried out in desperation “God will you allow me to do after this great victory?”

God then created water from the ground around Samson from which he drank from.

He named the place Enhakkore.

He judged Israel for 20 years.

(Story culled from Judges 15. Read chapter for more context).

FIREBALL AND THE JAWBONE

At this point, Samson could be termed as the man with unbridled passion. He had strength but it was not under control.

Power should come with control.

God is God because only He can control the power He holds and that is where His character of being just comes in.

Samson was oblivious. He was a passionate man but lacked wisdom to guide his passion. The wife he had left had been given out and in his passionate fury he turned on the same people who had insisted on coats.

Passion without wisdom will yield haphazard results

He had not thought of the consequences of his actions and this led to the demise of the woman he had wanted to marry.

Another interesting thing to note is that despite being a leader of his people, yet they could not identify or associate with the display of strength he showed. Samson was unable to connect with his people in a way that could direct their focus on the source of his strength.

Using the bone of a dead animal under the supernatural strenght endowed from God, he prevailed over a thousand men.

With God, we will always have victory.

Sometimes, like Samson we are able to trust God for big things but not for simple things. If God was able to deliver Samson with a jaw bone then was it water he could not provide?

Sometimes, what kills our faith in God are the seemingly small things

Samson was a superficial man with a great gift. He knew the purpose of his gift but it was mainly directed towards his personal goals.

Our depth with God will always depend on our ability to take responsibility.

We should take responsibility for the position, and gift God gives us. Only then can we maximize them.

God will do His part, will you do yours?

SUMMARY

LIFE APPLICATION

Knowing what to do with our lives is a big question that we are faced with answering because it determines the decisions we take and affects our life long path.

Purpose is discovered daily but what we do with these discoveries matter more than knowing them.

Abuse is inevitable if we do not understand a purpose of a thing.

REFLECTIONS

  • What are the little things in your life testing your faith in God?
  • Have you been abusing your life?
  • What have you taken responsibility for?
  • Have you lost focus?

Thank you for being here.

Kindly share this post.

See you in the next part.

Stay safe and God bless.

Blogster 3: The Future

PREAMBLE

Welcome to the last part of this year’s edition of the blogster series.

If this is the first time you are reading, then the previous parts culminate to this post.

Also, there are podcasts attached to highlight the theme more.

Let’s ride in…

THE FUTURE

Do you know what your future holds?

Do you know?

The future is always ahead and as we come nearer to it, it gets broader.

The future is always ahead

The future is the dream we yearn to be in.

But do you we have an idea of what is in our future? Do we have a picture or a glimpse of it?

Have you gotten a revelation of what your future looks like?

Jesus had risen and the hope of the disciples had been revived, however, Jesus was not stopping there. There was a purpose for the hope He had revived and that hope was for a future that the disciples were to participate in.

The future of the disciples were to be the flaming torches that burned the world with the love of Christ. They were to take the message of Christ, the message of hope to all the corners of the world.

Before they could begin the future, they had to wait until the Holy Spirit empowered them for the mission that was in their future.

They could not go into their future by themselves because that future was one curated by God.

This brings me to ask: Who is planning your future?

Who?

Planning for the future is as imporant as getting into the future but then how do we prepare for it?

How?

God who gives us the dream of what our future looks like is able to guide us into it. However, if you don’t have an idea of what your future looks like, then you have to ask God.

God what does my future look like?

For those of us that are good at making plans for our lives, it will take extra patience to be patient and still seek God’s will for our lives. It is two sides of the coin, we cannot sit and fold our arms doing nothing, however we cannot plan our lives better than God.

We do this by surrendering our future to God.

God who holds our future knows how best it is for us to arrive into that future.

God knows how to bring us into our future.

If you are like me, then you did agree that:

However, God is true and sure. He is faithful to the end. Amen.


There is a podcast version, listen here:

Click image to listen

Thank you for being here.

This is the end of Blogster 3.

Feel free to share your comments and share this post with others as well.

Posters used in this series were curated by me. I did not create the elements but I was able to tweak them to suite the message I wanted to pass across. I hope they pleased your eyes as they please mine.

Until next post, stay safe and God bless.

#W.O.L.A.P

TRYING TOO HARD

Preamble

I thought I would not write one but I ended up doing so.

So this post is here and has become alive.

Let’s ride in….

Wait

I did not write this topic on my topic list. It jumped some topics to exist. I told myself to hold off any blog post until another time. Blog posts have been quite irregular in the last two months. I miss sharing.

Okay, let’s ride back in

OKAY, FACE REALITY

Photo by Andreea Ch on Pexels.com

It is quite early in the morning and I am up doing another review of my life.

Recently, I have been practicing good sleep not sleeping too late. I have been sleeping earlier than I chronically used to.

In this my usual review, I do a mental breakdown of my progress as an individual and as usual many of my loopholes stare at me unapolegectically.

I analyze my finished not so finshed projects, unfinished projects, future projects and projects that are still in the dream world.

The title of this heading says FACE REALITY

Dreaming is good if it has plans backing it….

o. R. A

Facing reality meant that I realized that whatever superpower I thought I had, my loopholes were a problem.

Facing reality meant that I had to remind myself that I had no-one to blame for my life and I needed to take my life as mine and be responsible for it.

Facing reality meant I had to prepare myself mentally to believe that I have what it takes.

Facing reality meant that I had to continue some learning I had started and add some new ones.

Facing reality meant that I had to be grateful.

What does facing reality mean to you?

TOO MANY OPTIONS

Photo by Jill Burrow on Pexels.com

Still in this mental review, I admitted that I had opened too many accounts and still opening more.

Why?

Exploration. Exploration caused it.

In the last few years, I have done many experiements and in the process had be present on different platforms. Many did not work out and I had to close the accounts and some of them led me to others and in the process I learnt some few things.

In this process of experimenting, I was able to begin the discovery of what was feasible for me and my projects and this helped me to deactivate what did not suite me and keep some that may serve a future purpose.

2018 was a year of more experimentation and as I reflect on that year, I realize that some of my experimentation yielded good results for which I should be grateful for.

I am still discovering and this has made me open new accounts and hopeful will have some unique experiences too.

TOO MANY INFLUX

Photo by Natalie on Pexels.com

As a creative who loves to be neo, my mind is heavily influxed with ideas. Some of the areas that have been consistently notorious include:

Writing. Art and Design and Food.

Writing being top on the list. I have many topics piled up to develop and yet more keep pouring in but I have to remind myself that I have to complete an older task before moving to the next content.

With that being said, I really do look forward to sharing some philosophical works soon.

Satire. Non-fiction. Maybe Poetry. Okay, fiction too

OPPORTUNITIES

Photo by spemone on Pexels.com

Recently, I piled up some works on my Goggle docs that I thought I would give in response to an opportunity thay was opened but on further introspect, I changed my mind and stopped the process.

There is a probability, the content I started to create would be shared on this platform or on another platform where I volunteer for free. I am still navigating my decision in line with what God wants me to do.

See, a creative like me seeks for opportunities and sometimes we do not know how to look.

If there were spectacles for them, maybe I would ask the doctor to add it to the lens i am currently wearing.

Knowing how to seach for oportunities is important.

Knowing how to access them is also important.

Knowing how to prepare is important.

Getting recognized crowns the process.

Value is relevant when it can be accessed

o. R. A

Sometimes, opportunities come at a price.

Sometimes, the price is expensive.

Sometimes, opportunities are fought for.

Turtle ninja?

TRUST IN THE LORD

This verse came to my heart before I starting writing this post.

This is not the first time I have written on a theme like this and I am not promising it would be the last.

In the midst of analysing and sorting out, I needed to remind myself to see from God’s perspective and trust His guidance.

This verse makes a lot of sense:

Proverbs 19:21  There are many devices in a man's heart; nevertheless the counsel of the LORD, that shall stand. (KJV)

There is nothing wrong with planning your life out and creating a goal you desire to achieve at certain points, however as a Christian, it is the counsel of the LORD that preceeds our decisions.

So, maybe you are like me who feels like you are trying too hard, this post is a reminder that you have a partner (that is me) and if you feel I do not understand, someone reading this post does.

If you are that someone let us know in the comment section below

NO NEW DESIGN FOR THIS POST

So, I make almost all my designs for every posts except for when I get pictures from pixel (rare occasions). I intentionally make all my covers (at least since 2019/2019) and posters because I want the uniqueness it adds and because I love it.

However, because I am typing this post in the middle of the morning and I am tired and I do not want to create any new design, this post has no new design.

However (again), I believe you still enjoyed reading this post.

ACCOMPAINMENTS

I mentioned earlier about books. I have a store where my ebooks can be purchased. The previous platfrom is still under review and a new space was created months ago. I made that announcement in the BOOK section of this blog.

All the books including the free books are there. The changes to the older platform did not affect the free downloads on this blog ( meaning the free downloads are still available in the BOOKS SECTION)

The second accompainment would be my podcast platform. A topic on IMPACT was shared earlier this month.

N.B Podcast page on this blog is still patent as per active.

CONCLUSION

I thought I would not write a post but I finally did.

Okay, bye.

Until next time I share a post,

Stay safe and God bless.

#daughterofabba

T r y i n g T o o H a r d

Deeperlook

Hard Times

Preamble

Welcome to the preamble. A space where I ramble before the post is started.

So today, I would like to tell you that this post ursurped others. It literally jumped the queue.

But in actual sense, this is good for me because it means I have more posts to share.

These Times

We are in a particular season and this season we are in is very crucial.

This is not the first time that the world is in this season and to be fair, some parts of the world has been experiencing these kinds of seasons.

What seasons am I talking about?

I am talking about hard times.

Hard Times

Hard times is a season when there is lack, hunger, suffering, death, pain, disappointment and the likes.

It is a time of drought and famine.

A time of hunger and thirst.

You see, this scenario is very frequent in the Bible and as a replay, the atmosphere is charged with questions and pain.

Where is God?

Economies are crashing. Stock market is crumbling. Currencies are weakening. Businesses are failing.

These hard times

Covid-19 is threatening. Jobs are scanty. Purses are empty. Fields are dry.

These hard times.

I found myself in a transport vehicle and for a long distance that it travelled, I was the only passenger.

I could feel the driver’s frustration as he tried to call out to passengers were not willing to board his vehicle mainly because if cost or because they were not going towards his direction.

This was not so in the past. Passengers were supposed to be waiting for him.

After a long drive, passengers were found but they were going to pay half the amount because they were closer to the final destination of the bus.

The air was dry, people were few, in the past it was not so

These times….

All around the world, political tension increases day by day. Hope in the governemnt has died. People no longer trust the news because most of them are politically inclined. Seperation based on skin colour is repeating itself openly. People are forfeiting their faith to fit into the culture. Conspiracy theories keep erupting…

At the end of the day, where is the hope to continue?

There is a clause…

As I sat in church, encouraged by the message that was shared, this verse popped into my heart and it fits perfectly into this topic.

Regardless of the season, there is always a remnant.

Those who will choose to believe God against all odds.

Those that have radical faith irrespective of the current situation.

They are those who know GOD.

They understand and treasure their relationship with God and on that premise they will do exploits.

Halleluyah!

Faith is tough but it is real and tangible.

Faith works and to know God is to have faith in Him and trust Him.

Regardless..

2 Kings 3:17  For thus saith the LORD, Ye shall not see wind, neither shall ye see rain; yet that valley shall be filled with water, that ye may drink, both ye, and your cattle, and your beasts. (KJV)

We may not see the evidence of what we hope for but because we trust God, we will experience refreshing even in famine and drought.

I will confess that I have so many expectations. I have a huge list of all the things I think I need and want. I have many dreams, I dream everyday. I have hopes and aspirations. I have goals I want to reach.

And sometimes, I am overwhelmed by my inability to attain some of these things. I wonder how I will achieve them and when I will achieve them.

In the process of these thoughts, I wonder if possibility is reasonable but…..

God has continuously encouraged me to focus on Him and on that which I have.

In this process, I am learning to trust God and also be grateful for every small goal I reach and milestone I attain.

If you feel hopeless sometimes, your feelings are valid but please do not remain there.

Just continue to know GOD.

Addition

Check the Podcast page to listen to the new episode.

THE SIFTING 1 and THE SIFTING 2 compliments this post.

Conclusion

I think this will become the newly added heading to my posts.

Thank you for reading through. These words are a blessing to me and God always uses another person to encourage me when I am super down, therefore they are meant to encourage you as well.

Like, share and comment. If you are new, subscribe to be up to date.

All arts used in this post were created by me.

I may share the main art work in the future and if you are intrested in my type of art, check my Art Page to see what type of art I create. Reach out via my Contact page for more enquires.

Stay safe and God bless.

#daughterofabba

WHEN IS GOD’S TIME?

Preamble

Welcome to another feature on Deeperlook. This post was scheduled for last year but it is best shared now. This topic was a question raised in regards waiting on God and as I was pondering on the topic, I was led in my heart to let someone else write it.

She is someone I know personally and her posts on Facebook usually coincided with thoughts God was sharing in my heart. I also love her usage of personal (day to day) events to share the word of God.

I was initially impatient as I really wanted to share this topic at the time I had planned but she on the other hand was meticulous to take her time and at the end, it was well done.

Before I take more time, let me introduce our guest writer today 👏👏

She is a young medical doctor who writes for the glory of God.

Dr Iye

IYE ABEL

It takes patience to wait. Ever had to wait for days for the results of an important assessment you took to be released? Your heart races. You’re anxious. There is an adrenal rush. Your bowels and bladder suddenly become hyperactive until you’re sure you made it. 

So, it is in the spiritual school of waiting. However, as opposed to the anxiety experienced in waiting, the Holy Spirit helps us to wait in calmness.

Truth be told, no one knows when God’s time is. Except in cases where He decides to reveal it before hand. 

Our attitude in the waiting is more important than the rewards for it. 

Whilst one cannot categorically predict God’s timing on life’s issues, it is imperative to look out for signs that herald the arrival of your anticipated blessing.

For example, a pregnant woman knows she would give birth after nine months. She tells everyone who cares to listen that a baby is on its way as her protruding tummy is an evidence to that.

Just as the pregnant woman never forgets that she is pregnant all because the baby is not yet in sight, we are not to forget God’s word concerning issues of life even in times when its fulfilment seems far.

Point one:

Expect

When God gives you a promise, wait in expectation.

A pregnant woman can tell that the baby inside her is growing because her belly grows bigger by the day. Soon, she begins to perceive her baby moving inside her. That is another pointer to the viability of the child.

Now when God gives a promise, He is not always hasty to give out the details. 

He dishes them out in bits, most times, after gauging our response to His preceding instructions.

Our role is to walk by faith and take to His instructions as we await the fulfilment of His promise. 

We soon discover that we are pruned in the process and our lives are never the same.

God continues to speak to us even after giving a promise. 

This shows that His word concerning that issue is still valid.

And even when He does not speak, He is still speaking. 
Point two:

Keep in touch

With God.

Mid-pregnancy she goes for antenatal checkup, takes routine medications and keeps fit during pregnancy. The nurses counsel her on the need to exercise, and heeds to their counsel.

Work

You are not allowed to be lazy on an issue God promised you. There are forces to contend with God’s plan for your life. God is not a magician.

God’s promise calls for real work.

At nine months, she knows that her delivery time is close despite how uncertain she is about the date. She knows that before delivery, there would be labour which is characterized by pains. And until the day this happens, she remains pregnant.

Watch

For victory signs.

A lot of people have missed out on their seasons of breakthrough because they were careless to look out for the signs therein. The Holy Spirit prompts and quickens us to the reality of the arrival of our long awaited blessings. Only those who align to Him would be sensitive enough to know what time the promised blessing arrives. This is why it is utterly unwise to leave God out on the journey.

Resist the temptation to run faster than God for He alone knows the exact time His promise to you would be relevant. 

Hold on to God’s word and never discredit it no matter how long it takes to realise your anticipated blessing.

God is faithful. He can be trusted.

King David once wrote “Wait on the Lord, be of good courage and He shall strengthen your heart. Wait, I say on the Lord.’ (Psalm 27:14)

Amen


Thank you so much for contributing, these words are timely and inspired. Thank you for allowing God to use you to share these words.

You can connect with her on Facebook via her name Iye Abel.

Your ability to assess her will depend on if your request is accepted.

End note

Have you heard these words: God’s time is the best?

Have you pondered to ask when is this time which is the best?

If God’s time is the best, it means that God’s calculation of time is different from ours.

How can I get the watch or the clock or the….

Patience is a theme God has intentionally been teaching me for a while and at times when I feel I am patient enough, I would face situations that would show me big loopholes I still need to cover up.

Waiting on God’s promises is hard but I am learning personally that God’s promises includes the process to the promise.

It is a full package: The Waiting and the Outcome.

God does not leave any stone unturned, He loves to do His work perfectly because He is a perfect God in all His holiness.

In the process, we shed off.

I shed off. I am shedding off

And if this process of shedding off is ignored or rejected then full enjoyment of the promise would be hindered.

Another great kindness from God is that He is a good reminder. I have enjoyed this kindness many times in my life.

God does not give us a promise and leave us hanging.

He always gives us reminders

These reminders come when we get distracted, discouraged or confused.

You can call them confirmations

These reminders can come in any form and you will know because they will remind you of God’s promises to you.

The distance between waiting and the fulfillment of the promise depends on our ability to be ready.

And like Abraham who waited on God’s promise even though he got distracted and discouraged at some point, he was able to see the fulfillment of God’s promise to Him.

And like David, the forgotten shepherd boy who had to wait for 13 years until the promise of God was fullfilled.

And for Simon and Anna who waited until their ripe old age when they finally experienced the fulfillment of the promise of God from ages past in the form of baby Jesus.

So also, we will experience the fulfillment of God’s promise to us if we remain in God and jealously guard our relationship with God.

And when you get tired, run to God who gave you that promise and recieve grace to wait well.

Isaiah 40:29-31  He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.
 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:
 But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. (KJV)

Amen.

If you have not recieved a personal promise from God concerning your life, ask for it.

The answer will come.

If this post blessed you, you can do your part by liking, commenting and sharing.

If you are new, you can subscribe to keep up.

Your comments are welcomed.

#daughterofabba

By O. R. A