WHAT MANNER OF LOVE IS THIS?

So it’s 23:17… that same atrocious hour where the poultry is asleep yet gurgles chatters of temptation to feed… an hour that feeding would only amount to food poisoning, simply because the pot belongs to another… I sneak, peek, pause, cross the threshold of sanity as the mere thought of being caught on my tiptoes chills my numb skin under my thick clothes… still I tiptoe

I crawl into that old bungee bed, rumpled and wrongly dressed by the tossing of an impatient felinity… that same wretched bed that harbors the purrs of a kitty, a kitty already bought with a dowry of cowries… my motions smoothen out skin that’s African and powdery… once again I’m back in this pleasurable bed that tattoos guilt on my heart every time I embrace this decrepit nature of Adam!

In five minutes its wham bam… you can assume I am done… but really I am not done, for though the actions be forgone, the deeds stick like gum… there I lie staring at the ceiling but all I see is a gun, bullets of guilt sinking into my gut and try as I can I cannot text-coat this wall of dilemma with words of reasoning… I should have been warned of this food poisoning…

So I wallow in the graffiti of condemnation fast covering the heart with indelible sprays of stainless pain… each new can blinding my vision with a fresh burst of peppery pain… to scream would be insane, so I bottle up this juice of self-disdain… hoping I can return it to the dude that sold me the franchise, but he’s gone again, like every other time… gone again

Even though the raging tempest had been squelched in 5 minutes, the billows keep rolling the ink of a scribe at an eternal board meeting… it’s the Hades Group review of excellent deeds, to be published for sin stores… I guess the fate of a faithful servant is not always positive, at least not where the Hades Group is involved… so I await the sentence, knowing who the judge is, it’s bound to be negative… how does this pleasure bring so much painful treasures?

Then I hear it… the stripes, the grunts, the mockery, the slaps, the questions, the silence, the splash of vinegar, the regret, thorns sinking in flesh, veins snapping and arteries pulling, hammers on nails, nails through flesh and bones – three of them, melting sinews on wood, garment tearing, skin searing as the spear is disappearing while the heart is rupturing… in all of these I have a fair idea of what’s happening, but my recent acts wont just let me turn around… Until He whispers… “Hey”

Then I look behind me… and I see Him hanging on a cursed tree… eyes swollen, nose bruised, lips twisted, skin mangled, frame sagged, knees buckled, spirit broken, presence gone, sin clad, mission accomplished… He whispers again… “All for you… and I would do it all over again… I would”…

Tell me, what manner of love is this?

SHATTERED

“I must decrease and He must increase…”

There he stood watching Jesus “take his shine” and all he could say was that you could never really lay claims on anything except that which was given… given by the Giver of all gifts and the “Blesser”… the Source of all gifts!

There is every possibility that John The Baptist’s disciples had asked the question with a hint of sarcasm or contempt… the one that asked the question could have been one of those guys that rock the gospel because it is stylish or probably because it was in vogue and “his master” was the vendor. Those trick questions – “Master, isn’t that the same guy you just baptized some days ago? Why is He baptizing too? I thought the Baptism patent was registered in your name? Did He buy the franchise off you?

Apparently, Jesus was amassing a larger consumer base than John the Baptist for the baptism services; He must have developed a killing strategy to give him this decisive advantage… John’s services had suddenly gone out of style and Jesus was the new market leader… If John ever got jealous, his jealousy could have been rightly placed according to the world’s standard today, because today, everything is about competition.

From the reality TV shows we watch to the business strategies and even within church circles, someone is always trying to get ahead of the other and in the process doesn’t mind undermining the image of the other. Hatred breeds on the fertile ground of competition… but John the Baptists was not in a competition with Jesus, he had an apt understanding of what it meant to fulfill purpose…

As at the time Jesus showed up, John was done… He had simply begun ministry to pack up when Jesus began… there was no contest in that… it was what was written before he showed up… So he had to play the scripts…

And that is the fundamental problem… The script! How do you play to a script you don’t even know exists? Or even when you know, how do you play it out when you don’t even understand the script? The same reason we strife amongst ourselves… the script says “Purpose”, but your nature says “Self”… the script reminds you of the universal gain but nature reminds you of the personal benefits… the script is selfless but nature is… you know what!

As I write this my heart bleeds from the injuries of mental fetters… someone else gets the perks for a project I toiled for and my mind just cannot accept the unfairness of it! My mind juggernauts my spirit from all angles and there are no steel bars for defense… so I find the nearest escape route… relinquish authority, so I don’t hold on to my own detriment…

In my tears, John’s response surfaces “I must decrease and He must increase”… Wow! What a level of meekness… what was he thinking when he said that? Purpose… “if Jesus has started His ministry, it means, I have fulfilled my ministry”… John accepted that he had gotten to the peak of his career and it was time to move on, so he did… a level of maturity that I strive for…
John was not just broken, he was shattered… he had yielded his will unto God to mold it into anything God deemed fit!

So here I am, presenting my building for a demolishing Lord, crush me to powder and use your living water to make a malleable paste out of me… then resume the shaping process… anything you want me to be Lord… I will be… Not my will but yours be done (Sounds like Jesus in the Garden?)… Nothing more, Nothing Less, Nothing Else… Just your will!

Even if that means striving that some other man might take the glory, here I am to do your will according to what is written of me in the SCRIPTS! I know it’ll take a lot from me, Dad… But I am ready…