Live.....Life......Leave

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I was reading about the life of Albert Einstein the other day and I was shocked to know that after he died , His brain was removed and preserved by the pathologist in an attempt to know what made him so unique, intelligent and such a genius. He was the theoretical physicist who developed one of the two pillars of the modern day physics.

A popular phrase we hear often is to “Live full and die empty”. It’s a popular admonition for people to fulfil their purpose and not to die loaded. There is even a book by Rick Godwin by that title.  So I gave it a deeper thought and wonder how true this just might be. A baby comes into this world naked with both hands clenched; warm body, tiny feet, weeny fingers, loud cries with a tiny voice. Oh what beautiful and innocent souls they are. Fast forward a couple of 70 years and there lays the man; stone cold, hands totally open, eyes shut, naked. Yes absolutely naked as the body is being prepared for burial. The baby has nothing at birth except its fragile body and the dead person as he departs has nothing on him save the same naked howbeit grown body. 

We have nothing as we are birthed we have nothing as we depart. Arrive in a naked beautiful body, leave in a wrinkled old one. All we can remember about such a person; all that matters about every individual is the gap in between those two moments- the years in the life and the life in those years.  In those years are compressed moments of growing, learning and giving back. A baby eats daily; on milk growing thereby and moves on to the stage of being weaned. Knowledge acquisition starts by schooling and then the process of giving back to the world starts. But before I take you any further, let me remind you that life is orchestrated in such a manner that God by Divine providence makes available all we need in between those years. We don’t get to choose our parents. He entrusts us into the hand of some woman and man somewhere. Whether rich or poor, black or white, palace or village everything everybody needs to succeed in life is made available in some amazing manner.

The Maker has set out what we need to accomplish. He has embedded us with gifts and talents, there is a blueprint for all of us, there is a book written about us all. Our likes and dislikes right from childhood are pointers to what gifts He has put inside of us. Have you noticed some babies who love the sound of music? When the baby is crying and you start to sing or play some kind of music, the baby stops to cry, stares at you and tries to get the source of the music. Mine is one of such amazing gift and blessing. You see some children who all they want to do is draw and paint. Some at such early age sing beautifully. You see leadership abilities in some in the way they coordinate their peers even at age 2!

Okay we learn, we grow, we absorb knowledge through what we see and hear; For what reason? To give back to our world. The reason everyone needs to identify why they are here so they can live out the reason why they have been sent.A story strikes me in the bible and I can’t just stop pondering on the encounter.

Elisha, a renowned man of God had gotten a double portion of the anointing on His Master Elijah and he went about doing some really amazing acts under the influence of the unction he had received. Needless to say he did so much with this endowment: Through him Naaman the influential but leprous soldier was healed, the Shunnamite woman who had no son received a son and the same son was raised to life after he died through the ministry of Elisha. He crossed the sea; bread was multiplied through His ministry, there was the miraculous multiplication of oil and so on.  I could count distinctly about 14 miracles Elijah who was his mentor did in his lifetime and Elisha his servant by reason of the double portion transference did about 28 miracles (I know there are more). Every story in the bible is written for a purpose and without mincing words, we truly ought to revere this word of God . Only eternity will reveal whether he maximized his gifting or not, but he served his generation and God.  He lived a life sold out to God as he went about serving his generation.

Then something happened; as expected for everybody as the dawn of a new day, death came calling on his door and oh... this anointed and great man of God died. Yes he died.  Death is the end of discussion from everyone. Naked I have come and naked will I go just as Job said. All the wealth, the property, the gold, the cars, the gifts and talents all do not belong to a dead man after all, there is a transference. Then Elisha died. And so it happened that a fracas had happened in the town, some people were on their way to bury a young man who had also died.

2^nd Kings 13: 20

Then Elisha died, and they buried him. And the raiding bands from Moab invaded the land in the spring of the year. 21So it was, as they were burying a man, that suddenly they spied a band of raiders; and they put the man in the tomb of Elisha; and when the man was let down and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived and stood on his feet..

A dead person had been erroneously (divinely orchestrated I would say) thrown in to the tomb of the dead Elisha and only God knows for how many days he was dead. He had finished his course and was gone but something amazing happened. Virtue was still in that body, power was still flowing, the gifts and talents were still speaking. Oh how much I now agree that people are buried with so much of their talents and gifts underutilized  Elisha served and there were yet more of power flowing through his dead body that he saved a life from residue anointing.  The guy would have been buried and gone for life but someone’s residue anointing raised him from death. Now let me ask a question I have been pondering on... Was Elisha’s tomb not sealed or covered? It apparently was not because the man’s body actually touched his bones. I guess God allowed it so we may learn a lesson from it.

Friends, many have gone to the grave with many books unwritten, many songs unsung. Talents worth trillions of dollars lie fallow in the ground and unfortunately they are lost forever. I hear of bandits going to the cemetery to steal jewellery worn on dead people. Alas, they are stealing the wrong things. The most important things in there can never be retrieved. Let’s glean from this. The world has too many needs for us to keep enriching graveyards and cemetery. In the world are hurting people from generation to generation. Why don’t we use these gifting to bring relief to our world rather than empowering the graveyards, a place where no one has need of them? We brought nothing and we would go with nothing .That tells me we have nothing of our own. Oh yes, the cars, houses, jewelleries, children are all on loan for us to be a blessing to our generation. They shall be returned and the cycle will continue.

Have you ever wondered where your first car is? The present car you are riding won’t be with you forever, it will change hands. Title deeds of houses and properties change from year to year, decade to decade and century to century. Your children will grow up and get married. You have built the biggest of houses, bravo; you won’t sleep in two places at a time. How many children would want to live with their parents when they get married and start having children? Everyone is learning to be uninhibited and acquire their own wealth.  They travel far away to make something good out of their lives as well. No one can lay permanent claim to ANYTHING in this world. Not at all!  If that is the case then, we cannot afford to live carelessly. We must make use of what He has put inside of us. Matthew 25: 14 says “For the kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling to a far country, who called his own servants and delivered his goods to them. 15And to one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, to each according to his own ability; and immediately he went on a journey. 

None is devoid of gifts and talents. God is not unjust. He’s too perfect and He works out the affairs of every individual with such great dexterity. He has orchestrated even before your existence your continent, race, country, your parents and all. David in Psalm 139 verse 13-16 says:

Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in my mother's womb. I thank you, High God—you're breath taking! Body and soul, I am marvellously made! I worship in adoration—what a creation! You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something. Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you, the days of my life all prepared before I'd even lived one day.

 Acknowledge what He has given to you and trade with it no matter how small you think it is. Write that poem, that book, sing that son, reach out to that person. . He won’t listen to your excuses on the day of reckoning. Just keep giving and pouring out to your generation. That oil will not stop flowing until you stop giving.

When we all give our best, we make the world a better place and eternity would be grateful we ever existed…..selah