Pancake from The Royal Kitchen Part 1

"Jesus is Our Everlasting Hope" A poem by Kindergarten 1- FNCA End of 20...

THE COCKTAILS OF LIFE

If you have guested at my house, or just passed through, and you have privileged us with the honor of sharing a meal with us, we do always try to wash down the meal with fruit juice for a drink. And I’ve been told I make really great juice (blowing my own trumpet). Matter of fact, this year I want to venture into availing you with this juice; watch the space and be ready to place those orders. And I can promise the damage to your wallet will be so minimal that you won’t even feel it.

I’ve been asked many times about the recipes (fruit portions) that I use, then I go on to point out the fruits I’ve blended to squeeze out the cocktail. When am asked about what quantities however, I do struggle with explaining myself because I don’t seem to be intentional about the quantities when am making the juice. It’s like asking my grandmother how many grams of salt she puts in the source, no, she just scoops the salt from the salt tin and then the finger tips and the eyes do the math. Well, enough with the mambo jumbo, too much praise normally slides into flattery.

In the juice making process, I’ve scooped out some life lessons that I would love to share. I’ve noticed that if we allow ourselves the serenity that God offers as we trust Him in our daily struggles and endeavors, regardless of the circumstances, every simple activity gets to be inspirational. Even simple activities like making juice. May be that’s what the apostle Paul meant when he admonished the saints that, “in everything you do, work as If you are serving Christ not man.” Enough said, what’s the juice lesson here?

As long as you are born of a woman, life will give you a cocktail of both good and bad times. Without doubt, you will taste the bitter drink of loneliness, sorrow, grief, pain, disease, death of a loved one and much more. In the cocktail juice of life however, there will be sweet flavors of happiness, good friends, wonderful memories, accomplishments, the joy of children and so forth. And for the most part, you don’t even get to choose the mix; life might serve you a career breakthrough mixed with a rebellious child, or wonderful memories mixed with loneliness, or good and loyal friends mixed with the loss of a loved one. Life serves and your job is to drink.

With the wisdom that comes with age, I’ve learnt to leave the “whys” for most cocktails to be asked in the afterlife. However, with the belches from sweet cocktails and drunken stupors from the bitter servings, I am compelled to leave a few of the ‘Whys’ that won’t leave me alone. Some I’ve experienced others I’ve observed. You might disagree with some perhaps, well, these are my whys. Feel free to add yours and if you can, offer answers to some of my "whys" if not all. But if i can add a tip, the questions are meant to stimulate reflection.

§  Why do criticisms come much easier and faster than compliments?

§  Why mistakes are so easily remembered than achievements?

§  Why do lies spread so much faster than the truth?

§  Why is it easier to spend money than to earn it?

§  Why do good plans seem to evaporate as soon as money comes in?

§  Why is it easier to give good advice than follow it yourself?

§  Why does it come easy to see the wrong in others than our own wrongs?

§  Why is it easier to gain weight than lose it?

§  Why do most Ugandans respect foreigners more than their own people?

§  Why are Africans or Blacks considered second class citizens by the rest of the world?

§  Why is that idiot rich and I am not?

§  Why do most of us think that wealth and honesty can’t co-exist peacefully?

§  Why is it hard to break old habits and build new ones?

I WANT MY CARROTS NOW

Raising a child is a very intricate, challenging and rewarding process. And as am slowly discovering, a journey full of beautiful lessons as well. For a woman, the journey begins right after conception all the way to…well, a life time. About the latest addition to our family, he’s just about to walk. And it’s so exciting to see him beam with pride when he makes his fifteen seconds stand. He’s so proud of himself more than we are proud of him. Another amazing addition to his expeditions is food. He’s been on it for three months now and I can tell he’s enjoying one of the unrivaled pleasures that life allows to human beings; the taste of food. I don’t think a goat goes out there and is wowed by the taste of shrubs like I get floored with the taste of  my home made pineapple fried rice. And for my son, he just loves picking out slices of carrots from my meal plate. I don’t know if it’s the bright orange color of the carrots that draws him, or their tender slippery taste in the mouth, all I know is that he loves the carrots. No matter how satisfied he is, when it’s my meal time, he comes running to scout for those orange misfits littered all over my food.

As you can imagine, most times the food is hot, well, too hot for him. But all he wants is his carrots. So it turns into a scuffle where I try to explain to him that I need to cool it to the temperature his inexperienced mouth can handle, and he’s not allowing any of it (he’s 10 months by the way). To drive the lesson home, I allow him to taste the hot carrot and he immediately gets it. Then he grudgingly allows to wait for me to pick them out and feed him one at a time, by blow cooling each pick. And so harmony is restored as things get to settle, I can now take my meal in peace as he also munches on his carrot one blowing at a time.

Aren’t we adults just about the same with what we need from our “parent” God? We pester him with our wants (carrots). We just want our carrots, and we want them now. We want that career move now, we want that spouse now, we want the financial break through now, we want that corner office now, we want the success now. We don’t care if it’s hot, we are convinced we are ready. And the fact that we want it is all that matters.

Perhaps the delay is because he’s been explaining that the carrot is still hot; You won’t be able to handle the pressures that come with that new job you want as yet, you are not ready for marriage and the obligations that come with it, if the success you envision was to come now, it would quickly get into your head, thus stealthily slipping in pride, arrogance, and bad leadership altogether. Perhaps God is been trying to say, “The carrot is still hot.” If you were listening more attentively to His voice, he might be saying be patient and watch me cool it down for you.

Do not focus too much on that corner office or that position, focus more on investing in yourself, desire to know more, empower yourself, go for that post graduate, enroll for that leadership course, and gather the guts to finally approach that amazing soul you’ve been eyeing as a mentor. Then when you least expect it, that move will come when you are tending to the sheep; if you are familiar with the anointing of the shepherd boy David as the next king of Israel (1 Samuel 16:1 -13. Too much worried about age, or meeting the right person? I’d rather you focus more on being the right person. If you keep doing the right thing day in day out, God will hold his end of the bargain.

Am not saying these are the most important accomplishments in life, all am saying is, if you focus on doing the right things, by Gods providence  and sovereignty he will  order your footsteps, preparing good works in advance, and making all things work together for good. Of course, somethings won’t make sense until we cross to eternity, but in the meantime, be the best you can be by God’s grace that He richly provides for us. Don’t push God to the point of him allowing you to have your way, the “carrot” will burn more than your mouth.

Shalom

MY TURBULENT SOUL

The past serves me no inspiration,

The present offers me doubts and confusion,

The future promises me a hope as far as the horizon,

The only near sound seems to be that of my emotions.

Peace and comfort I only find when I scribble my reflections,

Only after enduring loneliness and meditation,

Transitioning to prayer and petition,

Chin pointed up, arms stretched high in adoration.

Finally sieving out the mental lies and deception,

Reminding myself that I am on a journey of sanctification,

The Holy Spirit slowly continuing the work of perfection,

A work that began in faith and regeneration,

Standing firm on the assurance of my salvation,

Having played no penny on the price of my redemption,

Only by God’s grace will this journey come to completion,

For I was chosen through divine election.

How come nobody talked to me about “The Process?”

That the Journey I am on will be ruthless,

Like a hot spring, my soul will be restless,

That before I inspire I have to regress!

Dying to self for self-effort is useless.

That we all carry HIS treasure in clay vessels.

Time and time again we will crush in failure and weakness.

That we will be preyed by darkness and sadness,

Our souls still desiring to be selfish and rebellious.

Choosing to impress than to witness.

Taking pride in our sacrifice instead of obedience,

Pursuing a journey of self-gratification instead of making disciples,

Before long, we come crushing down from our delusional towers,

Only for His grace to take us back at the foot of the cross,

In self-abandonment, we call on His name to save us,

Faithful as always, He answers us from his throne in the heavens.

Shalom

THE ORANGE FREEBIE.

There’s this washing detergent that wraps a gift inside the detergent pack (the big sized one) to encourage people to consume more of this product. This time around it was an orange plastic cup (see picture below) concealed in the pack under the detergent power. It wasn’t exactly a captivating gift but we decided to keep it never the less and resorted to use it for scooping boiled water to brush our teeth. Sometimes I find myself using it for drinking water for my morning water rituals.

The story with this cup goes like this; having been inside the washing detergent for so long, it took on the smell of this powder to the extent that no matter how many times we’ve washed it, the smell can never go away. We’ve had it for 4 months now, but trust me; it smells of washing detergent almost as bad as the first day we got it, but for some reason we can’t get rid of it (free things!)

In my early morning water ritual, I sub consciously picked it (the freebie) from the utensils rack in my half asleep half-awake stupor, poured the drinking water and yuck, the smell of detergent hit my nose, it was as if that I was drinking from a wash basin. And being half a sleep I opened my eyes to be sure that I actually wasn’t drinking from a basin, (I’ve never understood why I drink water with my eyes closed). The reflex thing to do in this case is to retract the cup and examine the contents there in, but I was caught midair by the shrieking voice of my mother (voices in my head), ‘finish that water, its filtered and clean, pouring it is wastage of food,’ (is water food?). Anyhow, the voice is real and persistent, that voice that makes me feel guilty for pouring left overs even in my adult life, that voice that can’t stand any wastage. (Thinking about it, have you ever wondered why in the story of Jesus in the book of the apostle John the sixth chapter feeding thousands, he insisted that the left overs are collected so that there wouldn’t be any wastage John 6:12? I mean, this dude had just fed five thousand people excluding the number of women and children with just two fish and five loaves of bread!) With the ‘voice’ I had to persevere with the smell and force the water down my throat till I emptied the orange cup. On the last mouthful gulp, that’s when an amazing analogy came to mind, hence reason for this write up. So the story doesn’t end with the orange freebie and my mother’s voice from child hood that refuses to go away, that would not be worth the OTT TAX.

The analogy was about how it’s just the same with the temptations that we face as we go through life, the pleasantries the devil offers us; that job offer that comes with un ethical and immoral compromises to be made ; may be bending the truth about your work experience, or giving in to the boss’ request for a lunch time hide away to get that promotion, or may be a kick back to get that contract, a bribe to that official to push your paper work, no matter what it is,  isn’t it just like the freebie cup and the detergent smell, the ‘evil ‘smell never goes away. No matter the success, or break through that came with the compromise, other people might not see it, but you will always know because the smell never goes away. You should ask the corrupt official who built that fancy mansion from the money he swindled; the walls are always reminding him, if not they will, sooner or later, even if it means at their last hour. So no matter how enticing the enemy offers in a reward for disobedience, trust me it will always turn out as a cheap freebie that comes with a constant smell to always remind you where it came from.

Well, you might be asking, have you not seen how tough it is in this country to do things the right way? To get a contract you have to reserve a kick back, to get a job, there a compromises about the truth that need to be made before any reasonable job can be acquired, to get any free public service, you have to pay for it. Without a doubt, it seems to be getting harder and harder to do right and stand by the truth in the Uganda of today. And all around us are examples of people that seem to be prospering out of dishonest means, however on closer look there seems to be a great out pouring of God’s grace to those that choose to stand firm, holding on to the truth as they know it. Men and women who refuse to give up, who would rather say no to a job offer than offer their bodies, individuals that won’t accept to offer that contract to the losing bidder….. However, I should importantly add that the great resolve and commitment to doing right, Is not usually out of these individuals’ strenuous moral striving, no it’s not their self-effort and cleaner than thou crusade. They are not foolish enough to believe that they can complete with their own effort what was begun by God. They are not strong enough or smart enough to resist the sophistication of these men and evil that they meet daily, they have put their trust in the one who began it all; God the author of our salvation, who snatched them out of the very evil life that we mentioned here, they responded to His message of saving faith. They believed in the gracious offer of reconciliation through Christ who offered himself as a sacrifice for all our sins. And God’s plan is that we all experience this message of forgiveness, reconciliation, redemption and right living and service.

So are you a Christian wrestling with the inner turmoil of your inability to obey what you know to be the truth? Is doing the right thing and standing against evil too overwhelming of late? Then remember where it all began, your first love, and let that love take you back at the foot of the cross, where all groaning and helplessness is poured out in sincerity with no shame. Go to that place of self-abandonment again into the able hands of your savior, call upon His name and He will surely come to your rescue. Don’t give in, don’t give up.

Are you a man or woman of the “world” who is completely sold out to the ways of the world? What we regard as a dishonest way of life, is normal life to you, a life of no guilt or remorse, no shame or conviction whatsoever about the so called wrong living, then you are way much emptier and lost than you will ever think or imagine. Your destination is eternal separation from your creator and eternal damnation in hell and torment. However, the call is out for you today as well. The one who gave up his life for you on the cross invites you; He is knocking at the door of your heart. Listen to his still small tender voice today while the call is still out, and if you open the door of your heart, he will come in and forgive all your sins, cleanse you and wash you with his blood, he will then replace your stony heart with a heart that is tender and obedient to His word. Come just as you are wrenched and sinful, and He won’t reject your step of faith, come, just come! Just as you are! Jesus will receive you in His wide open arms!

Shalom.

DO NOT QUIT

DO NOT QUIT

Don’t quit,

For every responsibility,

For every task,

There is a reason for your appointment.

For every journey you start

So you must complete.

Quitting is a sign of irresponsibility

A sign of weakness.

                                                                               Do not quit

Do not give up

Do not surrender

Do not run away

Quitting kills dreams

Quitting kills ambitions

Quitting kills your mission.

Do not quit

Face your challenges

Face the storm

Face the hurdles

Sail through

Sailing through will give you strength

Sailing through will nurture you

Sailing through will make you strong

Do not Quit.

The battlefield is not for the weak.

Success is not for the weak and uncommitted

Strong and Committed you will succeed.