I reviewed my life and journey so far and decided that no matter what, I’m going to wrap up 2018 in thankfulness. God has been undeniably good. I’ve been privileged to enjoy the status of being rich, in position to go wherever I wanted and acquire whatever I desired but I learned from my dad that a wise person does not wear their riches so people can tell. Instead modesty and sharing our abundance with the less privileged are virtues worth living by. My mum taught that it is good to enjoy whatever riches we have with others and responsibility means not allowing our enjoyment become a burden or bother to others. I also learned from my heavenly Father to be thankful for the abundant blessings that come from Him, to care and to share, and to not be ruled by any. In all, I learned modesty and I lived it the best I can.

I love good things but without realizing it, I had formed the habit of spending on others rather than spending on me. The result is that I use some real cheap stuff because they are functional, don’t attract unnecessary attention, and frees up more funds to indulge in my charity works. I remember my favorite phone was this cheap Nokia with torchlight. Everybody hated it but me! Whenever I pulled it out, everyone around exchanged that embarrassing look that I act like I don’t notice. It saved me from fake relationships I didn’t need because they either concluded I wasn’t really as rich or I was too stingy to be of any benefit to them.

After I made an amazing presentation at a high level meeting years back, a young man wouldn’t let me be. He wanted my contact by all means. He had this jazzy phone, ready to take my number. When I pulled mine, his face fell and he never called or bothered me again. I also recall one time colleagues had a meeting: to get Glory a befitting phone! They were embarrassed by what I’m so proud about and they were determined to do something since nothing said or done gets through to me. I walked into the meeting and told them the truth: if you really cared about me, buy me a house in this highbrow area which I can’t afford, not a phone that I can. That meeting ended right there and nobody said anything about my phone again, at least not to my face.

When peoples’ phones were being stolen from their desks, drawers and purses, nobody touched mine. If I forgot it anywhere which happened all the time, they’d find me and return it because nobody else, even the cleaners used that kind of phone. It was no good and of no value to anyone else but me. I enjoyed watching the reactions until my sister put a stop to it and got me the latest iPhone at the time.

I was sad to be saddled with something so pricey that I now have to worry about but God said to accept it and say, “Thank you,” and nothing more. It took a while but my phone-attitude changed and I adjusted. A friend blessed me with this expensive iPad, “I know you’ll never buy this for yourself. Instead, you’ll give the money away so I had to get it for you. You need it for all your writings.” I said thanks but I was sad, “What am I going to do with this now?” It’s too expensive. For years, it lay there unused but over time, that iPad became my mobile office especially in managing my website. Few days ago, my sister changed my phone again to the latest iPhone available. Her comment is, “You deserve more but you’ll never go for it so here it is.” When I told my friends, they said exactly the same thing – that was touching.

According to family and friends, I am one of the most intelligent, most educated, and most technically challenged engineers that walked planet earth. For me, all I need is to receive, send and post messages and calls, yet God blesses me with more than I think I truly need. If He takes care of little flowers in the field that are here today and gone tomorrow, and of the things we don’t feel bothered about, how much more the things that are uppermost in our hearts? Thinking through these events, I see a trend: as I stayed focused and took care of others with what I had, God used others to take care of the things I didn’t even think I needed. I wish I can extend this to every area of my life in 2019: to focus on what God wants of me and let Him use whoever He pleases to meet my needs. I hope I can. I pray I do. And I pray that you too can.

Glory!