Today I received 2 packages in the mail. I had been eagerly awaiting them, and kept asking mum if they had arrived. Today she finally checked the mail, and today, I finally came down to see her! As soon as I got home, I tore into the packages.
In 40 hours of travelling, I consumed $28 worth of bottled water. No, I did not drink THAT much water. Instead, I consumed water purchased at a premium. It is disgusting to me, to think that I could consume the same for less than $1 if it was from the case I most recently purchased. An excess $27 went toward the luxuries of airport-purchased and room-service-delivered water.
Now, I did not pay for this, as I was not travelling for myself but for work. The truth is it is hard to be cost efficient when travelling, but to think of all those profits made on my 40 hours' worth "special" water . . .I drank my 4 litres of premium waters while 7500 children died due to lack of clean water. According to some figures I found during a google search, $28 could also be spent to provide 10 years of clean water to 3 people, not 2 days for one person!
I am so disenchanted with the ways of this world. Our pleasure and luxury blinds us.
I could teach you how to kill without choking, stabbing or shooting.
Just walk past someone who's dying and do this
And it's funny--I'm stuck instructing this tough class but I just passed
I was not the good Samaritan--I was the priest who just passed
Who can't understand why he's only washing his hands after taking his blood bath but
But here's the lesson:
Death is the equivalent to life when life is unmentioned.
So scratch the strife and the tension
You might as well pull them to the side, look them in the eye, and tell them, "I want you to die."
And if they're struggling and desperate for a word of life to survive,
Just keep your mouth closed--now that's homicide
Most Christians are so eager to open their mouths to bless me,
But when I'm struggling with sin, they hold the truth back and
pat me on the back gently, and tell me something sweet,
cuz they don't want to offend me
At that point it was so necessary for me to repent
see, I was driving on grace while my tank was on empty
why only bash violence when silence is so deadly?
And Scripture says our tongues hold the power of life and death
And that helps, but couldn't we use our powers to bring life to someone else?
if we just think it but never speak it, then death will volunteer itself
Shhh don't mention it. Shhhh just roll with it
Shhhhh it's the generation of hush
Hush mode-ism. And it's ruining us
you can trust that people are thinsting for the living water
so why are we so busy sweating bullets
trying to keep it a secret that they're sure to be dry. . .Bones
In this valley we are all Ezekiels
God needs us to speak to his people
Shall they live? I don't know
Cuz honestly, if I'm not speaking life into you, I'm killing you
I see some of you are feeling the same type of conviction I'm feeling too
Cuz if I had an adjective to describe the type of killers we've become, it would be serial
And I'm serious, just look at us
Even in our personal lives, we've hidden behind our lies so many times
that our hearts have a hard time convincing our minds that everything is fine,
so because of our pride, we keep our lips sealed, and pretend that we're mimes
not knowing that our audience is potentially blind
But my God speaks Braille, and it's only difficult
If you can't see what He did for you
So I don't care what they did to you, know how much it gets to you
regardless of who disrespected, rejected, or neglected you, slept with you
and sexually transmitted disease infected you
no matter who, what ,when, where, why or how they spiritually or physically molested you
raped you, betrayed you, spit in your face just to show you how much they hate you
despite what they did against you,
if you take two seconds and think about how you've offended God,
it should make you understand how much you deserve death just as much as they do
so if they hurt you, let them know, speak forgiveness, let it go,
cuz my brethren you should know holding a grudge is the same as holding a gun
with the intention of having someone resting in peace
why do you think they say, speak now or forever hold your click-click peace?
you know sometimes we can be like old TVs
with antennae that can't receive signals from above so they shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
but God wants you to transmit that big picture with love
so don't let fear remote control you
cuz no matter how much static is in your view on Christ's station,
it's never cute to be mute in volume
so I dare you to be different, cuz by faith I've made a decision
that even if I was somehow placed in a prison
feet tied up, hands cuffed, face duct-taped up,
I would summon my faith in the Christ who saved us
through the manifestations of my heart's meditations,
I'd initiate communicate with my brain and
translate that information to my nerves and my veins,
sending words to my epidermis surface in case my lips couldn't release my statements,
I'd nod, twitch, and wiggle and wink you towards salvation
The spirit of pride--every spirit of pride or lack of boldness, I destroy it in the name of Jesus
You are now granted freedom to life--and not just to have it, but to speak it
Just allow God to breathe it, your CPR is needed
so if anyone is ever seeking for life, through the power of your words
I pray and I wish that I never see anyone go shhhhhhh
Cuz Christ took lashes of the whip--and I'm not talking the regular whip
The kind of whip that when inflicted, causes the flesh to rip and compels you to go --
So you never have to go shhh
And now that we know that God has chosen that our spiritual reproductive organs be manifested
by our words through our lips when we're speaking supernaturally we're conceiving by our words
through our lips
so how can life continue to exist when my sisters keep them closed and my brothers keep them zipped?
so for the sake of life I beg you to open your mouth and speak
tags: ezekiel azonwu silence is deadly lyrics words p4cm lyricist lounge
As if there is anyone who does not know, I sponsor a Compassion kid. His name is Tamirat, and he lives in Ethiopia. He is about my age (just 3 months younger). The cool thing about Compassion is they do not just ask for your money and leave you in the dark. They want you to know about their programs, to know about the child you sponsor, and about his/her culture. I wanted to know about Ethiopian culture and have a reference of things to talk about. In reading Compassion's info about Ethiopia, and with a quick visit to Wikipedia, I learned some new things about Ethiopia:
Their new year is September 11, my birthday :)
Amharic, a semitic language, is the official language
Addis Ababa is the capital
Ethiopian cuisine does not have pork because of religious influence
Ethiopian cities are largely at high elevations, many higher than Colorado Springs (>6000ft), where Compassion's headquarters are.
Ethiopia is one of the oldest countries in the world
All of these are off the top of my head.
I learned about Africa in 7th grade--a full 9 years ago. Of course, I remember very little, even about the Congo, which I wrote a report on. But Compassion, by way of their blog and other media, has really helped to get me out of my American box. In 7th grade, Mrs. Whitmire was teaching us geography and history, but a middle school World History class does not teach the true state of the world. I am so much more educated in reality by Compassion. I love knowledge; I love information--I have been called a walking concordance, a walking dictionary, and a walking encyclopedia. And yet, I do not watch the news (seriously, I do not have TV, and only read news on Facebook). I believe I know more about the state of the world than your average American. The world is getting smaller, and it would seem we would be more aware of what is going on, yet I am astounded by the level of ignorance my peers have (and that I used to have).
I would be interested to see what other people learned about their kid's country--comment below if you have anything cool that you learned
It was at the Lyricist Lounge 3, hosted by P4CM, that my need to speak life was realised.
I gained some understanding that night, and while my fickle heart still finds ways to force emotion upon me, I know better.
When someone does something against you, it hurts. When they are an intimate friend, it does not just hurt, but it kills. It kills something inside of you. Things can never be the same. How do you forgive the one who repeatedly spit in your face? Not by your own power, that is for sure. I am afraid to say I forgive, because I still feel the hatred sometimes. Forgiveness is final, and my attempts have been anything but. It is not to be based on the recipient, but I feel so unforgiving when they are so unlovable. Quite a dilemma I have. One thing, though, I can say--I try.
"regardless of who disrespected, rejected, or neglected you, slept with you. . .spiritually or physically molested you. . .despite what they did against you, if you take two seconds and think about how you've offended God, it should make you understand how much you deserve death just as much as they do. . .so if they hurt you, let them know, speak forgiveness, let it go, cuz my brethren you should know holding a grudge is the same as holding a gun." ::ezekiel azonwu::
