Practical Earthly Living With Heavenly Aspirations
“They asked Him to Leave3” and subsequent posts will be found on
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When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.
Luke 58
Before becoming a disciple, Peter experienced Jesus in a rare way. After a whole night roaming Lake Gennesaret looking for fish, he looked forward to a fully boring and cashless day. Then an itinerant Preacher asked to stay in their boat to speak to His listeners.
Isaiah 53:2,3 as well as Luke 4: 28-30 suggest that Jesus looked, at least, like an ordinary person without any specially identifying features. But He seemed like One to be obeyed so they allowed Him into their boat. After His engaging sermon, Jesus asked them to let down their nets for a catch of fish. Peter and his friends threw down their nets out of respect for their “Guest Preacher”. That set them up for a big shock-prise! Plenty of fish! The fishermen’s shock at their catch had to be mixed with their efforts to prevent their boat from sinking from the fish weight. They were forced to call on another boat to come to their aid. Even the two boats struggled to get ashore.
Peter suddenly realized that he was in the presence of a holy Man. One who could command fish out of their various daily pursuits under water, from all parts of Lake Gennesaret, and into a net. So he left his friends and humbly knelt before Jesus. Please leave me, he said, I don’t deserve to be in Your presence.
Jesus’ response to Peter was entirely unexpected though completely right. Don’t worry, henceforth, I will make you a fisher of men instead of fish.
When the owners of the swine at Gedaserenes lost their investments, they drove Jesus away. On the contrary, when Peter and his friends received a boost on their investments, Peter, still left the fortune to follow Jesus. This may startle you, but the Almighty recognises those who will honour Him and He honours them.
Experiences of Bible characters who had an opportunity to be in the presence of the Holy God includes a feeling of sinfulness, inadequacy, and weakness (Isaiah 6:1-7; Daniel 10:1-11; 15-19). In the same way, Peter felt sinful or inadequate before the Son of God. But God cannot just be happy with man’s humbling feelings before Him, so in each situation, reassurance, strengthening, and a solution is immediately provided. Just as God has done for Isaiah, Daniel, and Peter, He can do it for people today, who in His holy presence, acknowledge their sinfulness and weakness. He loves to bless and only finds satisfaction in being the solution to all our challenges. Let’s humbly but confidently approach God’s throne of grace for help with our inner or outer storms – wicked sins, crippling finances, shaky relationships, worsening academics, and spiritual ignorance, whatever. Just a sincere prayer to the Father up above will do it. He waits anxiously to cleanse, reset and restart… what do you say?
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And they began to pray him to depart out of their coasts.
Mark 5 17
For the first time in West Africa, a tumor was successfully removed from a 39-year-old Ghanaian policeman’s brain right here in May 2023[1]. He’d been sent to the psychiatric hospital because he saw things differently. For instance, seeing a goat as a piece of stone got him into problems. And they thought he was a psychiatric case for several years. When they realized the psychiatric drugs, – the tranquilizers, stabilizers, nebulizers, and other ‘lizers’ were not producing the desired effect, they decided on further tests at the Korle-bu Hospital Teaching Hospital. That’s when the doctors realized that it was a brain tumor! With that knowledge, they could solve the riddle.
The Mark 5 account of the demoniac in Gedaserens is the most engaging of all the accounts. According to Mark, Jesus had just come through calming a storm on the sea. Then there was another storm waiting on land. It is so with God’s children[2].
The demon-possessed man was not as fortunate as our policeman above. Those were the ancient days. He had broken his fetters on several occasions at the seashore. No tranquilizers or stabilizers in those days, my friend. And he suffered greatly. He had no human nor even animal rights to claim. So his humanity could be violated anyhow at anytime. But Jesus dealt with it!
I hope you invite Jesus, who calmed the external storm, on the sea, and also the internal storm, inside the demoniac, to calm every storm in your life.
Jesus calmed the storm in the man alright. However, when the investors saw their investment go down the cliff in the form of pigs, they asked Jesus to leave. He had become a threat to their financial fortunes. Interestingly, Deuteronomy 8:18 tells us that it is God who enables us to get wealthy!
Please leave our coast, they said.
There were several things they could have considered. For instance, their troubler, the madman was now in his right mind; this Holy Man could heal their sick and raise their dead; He would teach them the right principles to life; He could forgive them their sins and grant them eternal life.
But they said, Please leave.
To them, their investments were more important than eternal life. Today, people would rather ask Jesus to please leave than to listen to Him and be honest, and hardworking. Please leave they would say so they can cheat on their spouses even behind the computer with porn. Please leave Lord, don’t be looking over my shoulder. They would say Jesus should leave because they are tired of trying to live godly lives. They would rather He left, so He doesn’t remind them that they have an obligation to worship God according to the truths they have gotten, according to their conscience.
Take a good look in the mirror. Say this to the person staring back at you, “Why have you asked Jesus to leave?” “Didn’t it occur to you that He loves you and is still willing to help you all the way if only you would allow it?”
Life or eternity? Which do you prefer? Choose wisely.
Please shoot off your comments below and I will gladly respond. Blessings!
[1] https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/First-awake-brain-surgery-in-West-Africa-conducted-at-Ridge-Hospital-on-patriotic-police-officer-1775903#:~:text=The%20awake%20brain%20surgery%20was,a%20tumour%20in%20his%20brain.
[2] https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1307&context=jams
This is one of my favorite spots in Ghana. This bush is very lush, verdant, evergreen round the year. It’s located in a tiny town on the Accra-Kumasi road. The calming, lovely green takes me back to a time in my life when I was hopelessly trudging on with life. Mostly everything around me was rolling on smoothly.
But inside was a gargantuan cauldron brimming with issues of my life. And I had no answers to give myself or anyone who cared enough to ask.
At 19, I could not see how my life was going to be in a few years and that scared the hell out of my young heart.
God’s word was what gave me hope that tomorrow was green. This favorite spot always reminds me that God’s thoughts are higher than mine(Isaiah 55:9); He’s loved me with an everlasting love(Jeremiah 31:3); that He contends for me(Isaiah 49:25); and that He thinks well about those who obey Him(Jeremiah 29:11-13). Take a look…
1. Asampete,
When I met you, yes you.
Your Permed hair
Lingered gently between my heartbeats
I saw your eyes peeping at me even when I was
Alone in my room.
No glasses were needed then.
Your sight is so sharp they split
My schemes bare
And you unknot the things I have hidden
Behind my smiles.
2. When we first met,
I could hardly scrape my eyes from those finely chiselled columns
Carrying you around.
Your legs are fetching as life’s finest sunrise.
3. You gracefully teetered on the
Verge of our merge.
Now your dimpled leg
Speaks tomes
A concave record of all you have brooked for me.
4. You tilt your head and
My cosmos feelers it, swaying
In your direction.
You’re my problem now.
My life is cocooned
In a fiercely tethered faithfulness.
Diana Ameley’s oracle
Sits comfortable pulsing, thriving
I saw me forcing my heart through your
Naturally curved fingernails
While I begged you to interpret the words,
“Fragile, handle with care”
5. Now silver heartlery clatters around life trays
Two gold orbs silently.
The last flower was billed to show up on the date
That our meandering browsing came full circle.
With that our factory ran out.
The silver stares still.
We still see flashing pure angels bantering with drawn
Swords
While immense beads of favour parachute on our shingles
– April 15, 2023
The requital morning yanked
Six hairs from my
Flared nostrils.
Carefully, I doled out generous helpings of
Angry snaps
To three members
Of my family. They also whipped
Through our home, torching other family members’ faces,
Singeing their angry ears.
By then the morning was airborne.
By eight-thirty,
The house could breathe a lonely
Sigh.
My angry heart clung to my brain.
And everyone who
Came close, lifted their tails, and fled.
Lonely, huddled, and crouching
I snapped at everyone who needed my help or duty.
Until I shook out of my reverie.
Then I scrambled up to watch.
Embers
Everywhere. They glared at me from
Desks and foreheads
Daring me to approach—on pain of emotional death
I defied death.
And dangled a dainty apology to the
Innocent civilians
Emotionally brutalized and battered.
Sneak a peek,
Said the Holy Spirit.
Soak up the anger and let it rest.
In the bosom of the Father. He is able to
Help you pick up the
Pieces of the hearts broken in your heatwave. Man’s nature’s
Remaker General
Is still in active business.
Today we focus on people who are making a difference in their communities with the service they provide.
O yes! They manufacture awesome fried fish guaranteed to make you ecstatic. We mostly don’t fry fish anymore at home, at my workplace, or even at church for programs. Their fish is clean, crispy, scrumptious, tasty, appetizing, and finger-licking. However, once you start, it’s a struggle to stop reaching for more.
My friends and I call or troop to the factory anytime there is even a suggestion of fried fish. I discovered Antie Adjeley’s Happy Yourself Fish Factory, through a close family friend, and it was an instant hit with me. Since then, everyone I have introduced or met there still buys from them. What keeps us going is their neatness, friendliness, and user-friendly prices.
We have patronized them for years. We have taken pictures sometimes. We’ll keep going there.
Their services include:
So where are you getting your fried fish this season? They are located at Amrahia, off the Dodowa Road.
Call them now on the numbers
+233 24 298 0881
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13 Now Hannah, she spake in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard: therefore Eli thought she had been drunken. 14 And Eli said unto her, How long wilt thou be drunken? put away thy wine from thee. 15 And Hannah answered and said, No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit:
1 Samuel 1:
Last week, the doctor jabbed at the test strips and lancets and queried, “What about these?” (Hospital Experience I: Caveat Emptor – Earthly Living in Heavenly Anticipation (elihasthots.net)
“I have diabetics in my family, so I check regularly,” Nana responded.
“I have been looking for the test strips for his particular machine for months without success. Your colleague doctor who first examined me indicated that she had the test strips that my machine uses. So I bought them from her, and that is why they’re on my bed. I am not diabetic, sir.” Nana was feeling the heat of anger in spite of the sickness.
While the doctors hurried to regain their composure, he rolled on.
“Also, I have not treated typhoid for a very long time. I cannot even remember the last time I did. Kindly correct your records.
After a moment’s total silence, one of them almost whispered, “Ok. We have taken note of this, sir.
“Thank you!” replied Nana.
At 8 pm, no food had been brought, so Nana slipped out of the ward. Still simmering with anger, he ambled past the gate and headed for the nearest eatery he could find. At that time of night, his options were desperately few. He eventually found one nice lady and her two kids in a decent-looking “check-check”* place closing shop.
She took one look at him with the contraption sticking out of his arm and immediately pulled out a chair. Fried rice and chicken would be ready in about twenty minutes. While waiting, he grabbed a piece of fried chicken and munched on it. She served the food with a smile, but Nana had misplaced his appetite. After two mouthfuls, he could not continue. The lady was hovering around, so she offered to pack it for him. Just then Nana’s wife’s call came through. She could not find him at the hospital! “Where are you?” she inquired.
The night nurses were dissatisfied with his behaviour. The scowl on one’s face made it all clear. They immediately sent him to the male ward. The ward seemed not to have been occupied for some time and needed cleaning. Later, Nana managed to settle into his bed, allowing his poor wife to go catch some sleep at home.
At about 7 a.m. Friday morning, his son came in with victuals and other stuff he had requested. He freshened comfortably and soon had more fluids dripping into his arm.
The doctor who did the nightshift was very respectful and kind. Obviously, he was treading carefully with this patient (Nana). But Nana was still concerned about getting the wrong information about him out of their system. The young doctor assured him that it was not the case. He avoided discussing what happened last night when he was taking over from the other doctor. So Nana decided to let sleeping dogs lie.
Later, more nurses came to check on him. Two of them came to ask him to evaluate their service. He mentioned the misinformation episode with the doctors the night before. The nurse apologized again and again. He assured him that it was not on their records. This nurse encouraged him to improve his exercise routine. They got to talking about living life as a Christian, a topic he really liked. With several bible verses, the nurse impressively discussed how he saw life as a Christian.
Our text above talks about how the priest, Eli (man of God who should know) assumed that a woman kneeling before God’s altar and silently mumbling was already drunk that morning.
The doctor (whose professional ethics precludes jumping to hasty conclusions) just assumed that Nana was diabetic simply because he had the test strips on his bed. I am glad that we serve a God who accurately assesses your and my situation. His understanding is limitless (Psalm 147:5). I certainly cannot hide anything from Him. And yet He loves me dearly. I learned a lot from this experience. Let me share with you:
Drop your own lessons and comments below and I will gladly respond. Blessings
*Check-check is the name given to Ghana’s version of a bistro or diner which serves fried rice and/or noodles at night.
Earthly Living in Heavenly Anticipation 