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The Ultimate revelation - Contacting the lost Passion
"Above love, above everything, give me truth”
- Apoola Temitope
There exists a greater revelation than all that is known to man, which, if come by, changes him for the rest of his life. He needs not make extra inputs to his convictions anymore because he had encountered something more tangible than even resolutions. He does what is right not only because he proposes it or because it is towful but also because there seem to be no other way. He has a quiet mind devoid of the rumblings of the vague truths and the greatest revelation known to even immortals. He enjoys every moment, knowing fully well that life is not just a cycle of uncertain events. He is closer to God, so recognizes His presence in everything. When he gazes at the open fields and the gardens, he sees the nature of God typified. He does not trust wholly in men and so he is freed from the grief of disappointment. He finds it easy to forgive because he understands how mischievous even the most upright person could be. He is happy because he does not have to wonder why the righteous suffers and the unrighteous prosper. This is the truth of human essence; the state of existence where he had received the revelation of God.
The innate longing of man is to achieve perfection in what he is passionate about. Problem arises though from his inability to ascertain what his true passion is. The flesh makes him to think it is money, pleasure, power and the likes. The hedonist might love to experience the most intense pleasure possible, the moralist to become a role model and the spiritualist might fantasize about ruling the most expensive nation and the Aesthete would dream of building a wall of beauty and round himself. A group of young people, once asked about what makes them happiest gave different answers. One said it is the view of the rising sun in the dawn and the other, a rainbow over the mountain. A larger survey would have recorded answers such as ‘the sound of music’ or a “baby’s cry”.
What is the most fascinating experience they have ever had?
‘Falling in love’ some teenagers would say. A number of people would admit it is speaking with a screen star or a ‘holiday in one of the pacific islands’.
We care for different things but we might be shocked to discover how little we really do in ‘true’ circumstances. The young lady who said she feels happiest looking at the rising daystar will discover in no time how uninteresting the rising sun could be if she takes time to look at it every morning. The mother who feels happy when she hears her baby’s voice will be dismayed to note that her baby’s cry could constitute nuisance to her, in special situations. Couples in love will find out how difficult it is to forgive or forget their unfaithful partners. Everyone is out to see how much pain or dissatisfaction his or her passion could bring. Vanity! Says the wise
king of Jerusalem. All is vanity!
What is it that a man can do and be free from condemnation and pain?
A school of thought advocates that man needs to be free from fear to enjoy the fundamental essence of his existence. These set of scholars are not totally wrong after all. An encounter with God exhumes fear ‘for God has not given us the spirit of fear but of sound mind’. The fearful man is far away from the person God wants him to be. He is originally intended to fear only God, the source of life and all inspirations above all things. Proponents of indiscriminate fearlessness have missed it in this and they have lost life that they seek to preserve already. The altruistic man who believes in helping his fellow human might just get tired of his good acts one day. He would see how unworthy even the most needy man is. Sensual pleasure, as preached by the Hedonists is too ephemeral and inquorate even when it falls within the tightest conferment of moral rules. Unfaithful pleasure also leads to diseases, hence sadness and it is a sin in itself. The approach that knowledge is ultimate is wanting in that knowledge brings even greater misery.
“Whenever I discuss with an elite’, a man once said ‘I conclude that happiness is no longer a possibility but when I talk to my gardener I am convinced of the opposite”.
The world seems to be filled with morbid facts for all the things that men love have come to hunt them. They have lost contact with the true nature of God and what they see isn’t God but His shadow or something entirely different.
CONTACT LOST, LOVE LOST
A twelve year old had his Lead Guitar seized because of his poor grades in Mathematics. He got the treasure of his life on his twenty-fifth birthday; his father returned the guitar to him!
‘He could have done exploits with his first love over the years’ ye thought. He grinned moodily as his old favorite songs came to his mind.
‘He could have been a better person playing the guitar and he wouldn’t have lost an eye to Boxing’.
Man’s first love as reflected in the Bible is to fellowship with God and behold His glory ceaselessly. This is the original and true passion of humanity that is masked by flesh. Just as the boy illustrated above was deprived of the guitar, mankind is deprived of this divine privilege. He is left to seek after false passions because he had lost contact with his true self that is the image of god. When he shall reunite with the truth he is bound to either jubilate or regret. The poor boy fictionalized here could not jubilate because he had lost an eye to false passion. The poignancy he suffers is intensified as he remembers his favorite song just as the unrighteous will feel pain when they hear the song of redemption of the saved.
Ye expelled from the Garden of Eden
Think and repent now
Come into the mansion of light
The mansions of love
Where Jesus indeed reigneth
Before the throne of Father
Let sinners come to repentance
Reject not the call (CCC Hym 205 v. 3)
All sinners should be repentant
For that great day, a trembling day
The Angels will blow their trumpets
Earth and heaven shall be rolled away
Oceans will all seize to exist
And all the dead will resurrect
Some with happiness exceeding
Others with great afflictions
Sinners will really tremble on that day (CCC Hymn 176 v. 3)
THE ULTIMATE REVELATION
The Bible did not record that Stephen enjoined some kind of heavenly anesthesia that helped him not to feel the pains of the stones thrown to him by the anti-Christ. Stephen was disinterested in their stones because he was absorbed in the revelation he was having at that moment. Samuel Bilehou Oschoffa was happy eating honey and drinking from the rivers for months because the glory he was beholding was entrancing. He could do what he would not ordinarily do because of the level of faith the revelation of god brings.
In one of his accounts of this near Eden experience in the Benonise wilderness, he said he was not afraid but basked in the glory of God.
When we contact the revelation of God we become more and more like what God wants us to be. It is then that we are genuinely born again!
October
2005
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Apoola
Temitope |
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