Neatly packed, he hung it on a shelf,
Awaiting opportunity to really live;
Better times, more time, more money,
More skill, when stronger and smarter
So he went from day to years, awaiting
Then tired, he retired to times and things
Not any better, still not enough, feeling
Yet far from stronger and smarter.
Unknown to him, an imperfect world
Has no room for ideal: while he waited
Life moved on and left him behind
Too late he learned: time never gets better
It just goes on and on, ticking for the living
Not for those hanging and hoping, waiting
To get it all to do it all. In the measure
You deal what’s at hand, life deals back
From its treasures, answering seekers
Digging, ignoring waiters, hoping.

My brain was awake into the New Year and has been working actively. If current global conditions don’t tell you that something is amiss, I don’t know what else will. I have seen friends and colleagues lose their jobs and return home to nothing, for nobody knows how long. With the way things are going, many more are being asked to leave and it has left me with questions: what is the hope of mankind in times like this? What do you do when there is nothing else left to do and responsibilities remain? I believe in times of casting down, opportunities for lifting abound even more. That has prompted me to ask myself, “What do you really want in life? What do you want out of life? How much are you willing to give and to take for what you believe?

We all have dreams, if not now but at some point we were dreamers. We had dreams of who we wanted to be, what we wanted to do, how we wanted to live and where. Many dreams have been suffocated by quest for daily bread. In our battle for survival, we buried them in contentment with subsistence. Now times are turning and those meagre hand-downs are taken away, leaving us with nothing better as demand overwhelms the available. Observing these has left me with questions: curiosity is the key to answers.

We live in times when things go so fast that we are left feeling like we will never be able to catch up. Then we spend and are spent chasing our preferences only to be left still wanting, falling and feeling short. Everywhere we turn is taken and unoccupied territories appear to be infested by giants whom we have not enough courage to dare. How did heroes slay the giants of their times?

David didn’t require military expertise and amours to defeat Goliath. All he needed was everyday skills developed as a shepherd boy. He would have lost his life and jeopardized the nation of Israel if he attempted to face the giant with unproven weapons. Yet we want all the gadgets before we confront our giants. Engaging ordinary skill distinguished David as a global champion: traits formed when no one was watching, skills proven with no one applauding. They were his, a part of him not assumed or borrowed. We don’t need what we don’t have to become what we’ve been destined. We don’t need what we don’t yet have until we have exhausted what we already have. A simple pebble on drab catapult smote a fully clothed and adroitly armed giant – that’s cheap victory!

Jael didn’t need to borrow what she didn’t have in her house, to kill a commander who eluded warriors at the battle front. Common “tent knowledge” was all she employed to crush Sisera. Add a little wisdom to it and she could tell the difference between water and milk to a weary soldier. She remembered where the nail and hammer was in the house. In an ordinary tent, a woman, without weapons of war, finished a famous and ferocious captain- another cheap victory!

Bible is littered with those that accomplished much with little; Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Gideon, Jabez, Daniel, Meshach, Shedrach and Abednego among others. The apostles took Christ to the world without wheels, electronic gadgets and internet facilities. These people were not intimidated by their fears and unfair circumstances because they believed in the power of him who quickens the dead and calls those things that be not as though they were. They are reference points today because they chose to express simple, persistent and consistent faith in the sovereign God. They didn’t have what we have today yet accomplished remarkable feats despite their limitations. What excuses have we not to do greater works like Christ declared?

Stop looking for what you don’t have yet: what have you done so far with the ones you have? At judgment, God will not demand for what you did with what He didn’t give you. He will ask for the principal you were given and the profits that accrued. What’s the status of your heavenly account today? We are asking God for the heavens while our places on earth are yet to be occupied. Heaven is not an escape for the defeated. It is a place of rest and reward for the exhausted. May we live in truth and indeed and be received with, “Welcome home O good and faithful servant!”

Glory!