YOUR ROSES

Hello everybody, I hope you're feeling fine; hello everybody, I hope you're feeling, feeling, feeling, I hope you're feeling fine. 

Happy new month! And welcome to today's gist. 

First of all, let me apologize for not being here last week, I fell ill and was too weak to coherently gist with you so I decided that we should rest and ruminate on the gists we've been gisting so far, but I'm back, and well, so let's gist. 

I read a, Brooke St James, book titled 'Twenty One Roses' a little while ago and I learnt something that I've been ruminating on a bit and I thought to share today. 

In this book we meet this girl, Bailey, who was a thespian working with a theatre. One day the theatre she was working with put on a production and at the end of the show, she received a bouquet of 21 roses, a rare kind called Julietta which were her favourite. The flowers were so rare that everyone who saw them fell in love with them and wanted one. For everyone who asked her for a flower, she willingly obliged, not minding that with each flower she gave, she depleted her supply. By the time she was done, she had only 3 roses remaining, and I could tell that if three more people had asked her for flowers that evening, she would have gone home empty handed. 

But when she got home, she found a fresh bouquet of the same roses waiting for her. And now she had 24 roses instead of 3. She was surprised of course, but pleasantly so because she had just finished resigning herself to the fact that she only had 3 roses remaining and hoping that the person who gave the flowers to her didn't feel slighted by her actions. 

As I thought about what had happened, I was drawn, like she was, to compare this occurrence with what God does to us when we use the things He placed in our hands. 

You know one of the first instincts we have as humans is to hoard the resources we have, to mind our business and have every other person do the same, especially in the world we live in now with steady inflation. There's this niggling thought at the back of your mind that you should save what you have for the rainy days because they're surely coming. Sometimes when I find myself moved to help or do something, the first thing that comes to mind is all the other things I could be doing or preparing for that would be for my benefit instead of this thing I'm being led to do, and sometimes, I'll admit, I fall into the temptation to protect myself and my interest first.

 

But! That's not what God has called us to is it? No! He has called us to a life of generosity. He has called us to a life of reckless generosity, to give without thought to all the ways we could have used the resources for ourselves instead. 

Interestingly, God does not intend to leave us destitute, the cliche "givers never lack" is as true today as it was the day it was first stated; the more you give, the more God endows you with. My father told me when I was small that when God gives you little and He sees you using that little for His glory, He gives you even more because He knows He can trust you not to misuse what He has put in your hands. There's an analogy that I heard when I was younger that came to mind recently; someone said that when you see a tap that is consistently bringing forth water, it's never dry, but the tap that doesn't bring water, is extremely dry, from disuse; so if you want to continue to receive from God, the best way to do that is to give. Proverbs puts it like this: "Some people give freely and gain more; others refuse to give and end up with less." (Proverbs 11:24, ERV)

Is this limited to only finances, no! Whatever it is that God has placed in your hands, He placed it there for you to give to others, you're merely a pipeline through which God transfers blessing to His people, it was never intended for you to hoard. You were intended to be a conduit, not the terminal point of the blessings. 

I encourage you today to look at your life and all the abilities and resources that God has placed in you and for each one you discover or remember, determine that you will use it for God to be glorified in your life. This is going to take you unlearning the "me first" ideology that the world has subtly ingrained in us, and deciding to die to your flesh and desires continuously but I believe it's doable, for me and for you too. 

May God help us to be proper channels of His blessings to others and not to hoard the gifts He has so generously given to us. 

NLS HOT GIST: I know with all my excitement the last time we gisted, it sounded like we were given a holiday but that actually isn't the case. We were sent home for a three month attachment program called 'Externship'; for about six weeks, we're attached to Courts to learn how proceedings are conducted and then for another six weeks we're attached to Chambers to learn the practice of law, we're currently in week 2 of the court attachment and all I can say is that, things dey happen for this word wey we dey live; the matters people bring before courts that I've been hearing, both from my court and from colleagues in different places… God will need to help us as a species because wetin man dey do man no be here oo!

Well that is that about that as far as that is concerned, may God help us to be willing to give our roses out to the people who need them.

See you next week!

Love,

Achenyo.