BE ENCOURAGED – Hope Is Always Alive! Part 1.

By Femi Akinpelu Joseph

Good day and compliments of the seasons to you, ladies and gentlemen! I think it’s that time of the year again when people begin to live a miserable and despicable life of unnecessary rush – trying to meet up with some unscripted and unwritten laws of societal demands and “end of the year” expectations.

Please, work hard, pray, strategize, plan and take wise decisions; but don’t kill yourself in the process of trying to “show” certain persons that you too “have arrived” and prove to them that “God don bless you too”! It really, is not needed. There is no place where it was written that you MUST buy that car, that phone, travel or do that wedding by force this year. Be encouraged; see, if you didn’t do it this month or next month, you will do even more in the next 3 or 4 months. God who is the surest provider, and the orchestrator of every life event and happening remains always the same. He is not going anywhere – you are the one that is thinking that He’s always in a haste, just like you. He does not ever move or shake, because He already got you planned out and covered! So, keep your hope alive, and never give up. But, SLOW IT DOWN!

A lot of times, we must have set certain deadlines and ultimatums for ourselves on exactly when to achieve what – but when that doesn’t work or happen as planned, we get so discouraged and begin to feel sad. We then allow a life of gloom to set in, and the devil would now take an advantage of that and begin to play games on your mind. In case you didn’t know, he is a master at that – he would literally knock down your psychology and in turn, win your soul to himself. You naturally become a prey to the evil one when you are desperate for things, because he would cause you to commit a big error.

I always do encourage myself by the life history of many of the past and present notable achievers in the world. It is interesting that there is a common trend they all follow. Study the life of Jesus Christ, Abraham, Moses, Joseph, Hanah, and Jacob in the bible. And also, let’s check out the likes of Mandela, George Weah, C. Ronaldo, Tyler Perry, Ben Carson, Colonel Sanders (KFC founder), to mention just a few. These guys all had it tough and rough; they worked steadily and waited patiently, but at the set time, THEY MADE IT!

And personally, my life as a whole has also always been a constant inspiration, in its own, to me. How do I mean?

I didn’t finish High School until I was 19. I didn’t have any notable love relationship experience until 22. I only bought my first bicycle at 27. I could only start my B.Sc. programme at age 28. I didn’t have a University degree until I turned 31. I never could drive a car until 33. I didn’t own a personal car until 35! Quite a peculiar experience, right? That is a very interesting life, I must tell you.

Now, let’s put aside those seemingly challenging experiences above – and focus on a more positive side of my life. May be someone would pick themselves up and be encouraged. I started singing in my church’s adult Choir at age 10, I wrote my first song and performed it twice at age 21, I have lived as an independent adult since age 21. I started doing business at age 23. I debuted as a national newspaper writer and reporter at 31. I became a publisher at age 34. And, many more attainments to come – I’m a project and work-in-progress.

This is how I see life and I simply live by this rule: “let no one hasten your life so much that you now become a slave of everybody (from running around after recognition), or a nuisance (criminal) to the society just because you are chasing after fast money. 

And, NEVER EVER develop a high BP because of anybody. Stress or worry yourself over nothing – Philippians 4:6-7. Don’t listen to those (life coaches) who always do condemn and would claim that it is because you’re not working hard enough, that’s why you are still where you are now. It is not always true – there is a time for everyone. Focus always on those POSITIVE things in your life that are visible enough for an everyday celebration. Look deeply, just as I’ve highlighted few of mine, earlier. You will surely always see light at end of the tunnel, no matter how long and dark it appears. 

THERE IS SO MUCH HOPE. THE FUTURE IS BRIGHT.

Be patient, that dream will still come alive if you don’t give up. Be encouraged!

God bless you.

#ThereIsHope #Believe #YouWillMakeIt #BeHappyAlways #BeEncouraged

BEING NOT NORM-al: (Living To Kick Out Bad Norms), Part 3

By Femi Akinpelu Joseph

#HOW_CAN_YOU_BE_NORMAL?

Earlier today, a discussion ensued between me and few of my colleagues during the office devotion, and it caused a little argument. It was question of “what does it mean to have a good name?”; after reading from Ecclesiastes Chapter 7. Another question was raised, and it hinged on “is it actually everybody that desires a good name?” This issue was deliberated on and was argued back and forth. Some said everybody wants to have a good name but they somehow, have just been helpless, and thereby do not know how to live right. And so, it is not totally the fault of people with questionable characters that they do not exhibit noble traits!

Another group argued that everybody truly knows the right thing to do, but they only do not place much value on their integrity or reputation as an individual. The priority of such people is to just do anything possible (including joining a cult, and killing innocent people) in order to acquire some power; to cheat and enrich themselves; to defraud, to kidnap and rob and then accrue wealth illegally! That (acquisition of power) is their priority – not having a good name. In the process, I learned again, that people do what they do based on what and where, their values lie – it is based on their personal inner conscience, not necessarily on what majority or the society perceives to be right. Wow!

Hnnnnn. That is so incredible.

That is that – those everyday general norm-al people reasoning!
My take on this issue again is, if the word of God is trusted enough to be capable of passing instructions to all humans on what is acceptable, then that should be what it should be!
Ecclesiastes 7:1 says “A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one's birth.” - Proverbs 22:1 also corroborates that, when it says “A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold.”

At least, for those who are normal, (and NOT NORM-al, or NORM-ER), we should be able to agree with God’s commands on who or what is normal or abnormal.

As we approach the brand-new month of November in few hours, let us take a look at & ponder on few of those things that NORM-al (general) people do as we try to see how we can make necessary changes and turn on a new leaf.

Check at just few of the NORM-al people’s trends on the LIST, below…

*If you only greet those who have plenty money – or respond to only greetings from such people alone – you are not normal.

*If you still try to laugh with everybody all the time, and agree with them even when they are wrong and you ought to correct them, but you failed; because you want favour from them, then you are not normal.

*If you see me on a day when I’m just simply dressed and you ignored me, but the day I put on expensive wears like a ‘celebrity’, you start shinning your teeth at me, you are not normal.

*If you are trying to achieve something (especially money-making) just so that people can recognize you and then start worshipping you, then you are not normal.

THE LIST IS LONG, but let’s end it here.

Shun the life of norms. Try to be real. I know that ‘nobody holy pass’... but still endeavor to live well and earn yourself a good name (lasting reputation). Make a change. Live more nobly.

God bless you.

Have a happy and fruitful new month, ahead!!!

BEING NOT NORM-al: (Living To Kick Out Bad Norms), Part 2

By Femi Akinpelu Joseph

#Are_You_Normal?

NORM-al PEOPLE, as I always refer them to be - or those (majority of) people you understand to always follow norms; the popular and conventional lifestyle, live most of their lives in pretence and deceit. The real normal people don't pretend; they don't fake it; they don't try to impress people by being pretencious. They are just themselves and they make positive impacts in an unusual way. You will never make any notable impact on others when you live your life consistently in pretence and by faking things up! Believe me, this I know by practice and through careful study. Are you still faking some things in your lives? Then you are not normal, you only follow the norm.

Let's do a quick check on what the scriptures says in Ephesians 6:5-9, it says, "Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; with good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men: knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free. And, ye masters, do the same things unto them. And, ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him".

Keywords from this scriptures - NOT WITH EYE SERVICE. NOT AS MENPLEASERS. But AS UNTO GOD. With GOODWILL. With FEAR and TREMBLING. FROM THE HEART, With SINGLENESS OF YOUR HEART. NEITHER IS THERE RESPECT OF PERSONS!

That was God's command to us, not mine, not your pastor's, not that of your boss. So, next time before you embark on any decision, assignment, service or project, ask yourself, am I doing this thing to be seen, respected, or rated serious? - or just for what it should be; *simply as unto God! Norm-al (general majority) people that do norms usually feign many things, including love.. what a trajedy! This category of people are really not normal, but in this world they are deemed to be the norm-al ones, because they do and follow after the worldly NORMS. Ó màá şe o (what a pity)!

Below are few Tips On - Being REAL & NORMAL: Don't act nice, be nice. Don't look or sound righteous, be it. Never act smart, be smart. Don't feign love or be expressing abstract verbal love, but love, indeed. Don't just look serious, especially when being observed, better get serious! Don't fake being Christian, be a true Christian. Don't ever give because others are, and you don't want to be singled out, see, if it's not from your heart - just keep it! Don't sound intelligent, be really intelligent. Don't mingle with people just for you to be noticed & loved, do it for you to show love and care for them.

Philipians 4:8 - Be real. Be nice. Be good. Be correct. But please, don't do NORMS. NORM-al people are not normal!

Are you normal? God bless you.

#BeNormal #KickOutNorms #BeReal #StopAllPretences #DONTBENORMa

BEING NOT NORM-AL: (Living To Kick Out Bad Norms), Part 1

By Femi Akinpelu Joseph

Happy new year 2019, AND Happy raining season!!! 🌧

To the glory of God, this month's series on "Being Not NORMal" kicks off today! 😊

But, before we discuss further, we need to take a quick look at some Bible heroes and historic achievers who defied the routine boring lifestyle of being normal (being like everybody), and chose to stand out; and in turn made great impacts in their lifetime.

These are - Our Lord and Saviour JESUS CHRIST, Father Abraham, Noah, Joseph, Moses, David, Solomon, Stephen, Rahab, Elijah, Samuel -- Daniel, Meshack, Shedrack, Abednego, Joshua, Nehemiah, Esther, Paul, Jacob, Zaccheus, Prophet Nathan, Mary Madgalene, The boy with 5 loaves & 2 fish, Joseph the Arimathea, John The Baptist.

Fela Kuti, Nelson Mandela, Deji Adeleke, Gani Fawehinmi, Mother Theresa, Jerry Rawlings, Mary Slessor, Wright brothers, Michael Jackson, Martin Luther King, Bob Marley and Ben Carson, just to mention a few!

Pondering on the mindset, belief system, lifestyle and attainments of these guys -- you will see that they possess a common feature - these ones stand to be AUDACIOUS, DAUNTLESS, FEARLESS, BRAVE, HEROIC, GUTSY, DIFFERENT. In today's world, I would say, they were not NORMal!

Are you norm-al? 🤔🤔

Be good. Be real. Be tight. Be wild. But do not live in norms, always!

#BeExtraordinary #NormIsBoring #KickOutEvilNorms #ConformingIsSick #BeReal #MakeAnImpact #BeNotNormal

Real Madrid have confirmed the sale of Ronaldo to Juventus for €105m

Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo is set to join Juventus, the Spanish club have confirmed.

It is understood a deal worth £105m has been reached between the two clubs that will see the 33-year-old Portuguese end a 10-year stay at the Bernabeu.

Ronaldo won four Champions Leagues at Real but had a turbulent relationship with president Florentino Perez.

“For Real Madrid Cristiano Ronaldo will always be one of our great symbols,” said a club statement.

“Real Madrid wants to express its gratitude to a player who has proved to be the best in the world and who has marked one of the brightest times in the history of our club and world football.

“Real Madrid will always be your home.”

He is now set to be unveiled as the Italian club’s record signing, eclipsing the £75.3m they paid for Gonzalo Higuain.

Ronaldo joined Real from Manchester United for £80m in 2009 and scored a club-record 451 goals and won the Ballon D’Or – awarded to the world’s best footballer – in 2008, 2013, 2014, 2016 and 2017.

He has helped them win the Champions League in four of the past five seasons, scoring in the 2014 and 2017 finals.

However, despite their dominance in Europe’s premier club competition, Real struggled domestically, finishing 17 points behind champions Barcelona last season.

Real are keen on reshaping their team under new manager Julen Lopetegui and the 33-time La Liga winners have also been linked with a move for Paris St-Germain’s 26-year-old Brazil forward Neymar.

Credit : BBC

Update: Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg now World’s Third Richest Man

According to online news portal, Today.ng, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is now the third richest man in the world, overtaking Warren Buffett on Bloomberg’s list of the world’s richest people.

Zuckerberg passed Buffett Friday as Facebook shares rose 2.4 percent, Bloomberg reported.

Above Zuckerberg were Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, in the No. 1 spot, and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

The daily rankings of the world’s 500 richest people listed in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index showed the top 3 remained the same Saturday.

Zuckerberg is now worth $81.6 billion, nearly $400 million more than Buffett, chairman of the Berkshire Hathaway investment group, rankings show.

Zuckerberg’s California-based social network business has more than 2 billion active monthly users.

The company’s stock has reached a record high despite ongoing scrutiny over its Cambridge Analytica data breach that leaked personal information of up to 87 million people, MarketWatch reported.

Zuckerberg has pledged to give away 99 percent of his Facebook stock away in his lifetime, his Bloomberg profile shows. Further, Zuckerberg has given $3.58 billion in stock sales away this year alone to a charity initiative he set up with his wife, Priscilla Chan, in 2015.

Buffett has donated about 290 million of his shares in Berkshire Hathaway to charities — an equivalent of about $50 billion.

Source: www.today.ng.

On Babies And Their Safe, Healthy Delivery: An Open Letter To All Mothers - By Caséy Amaefule

By Caséy Amaefule

A call has gone out to all Nigerian women, mothers and prospective mothers, to reconsider their choices of method  for child delivery, as elongated labour period could spell harm for the health of their babies. 

A facebook user and a medical doctor by the name Caséy Amaefule, wrote an article and shared it on his wall, where he highlighted factors responsible for health defects in babies, at birth. He, therefore, charged women to see handling of child delivery as a very serious matter, and which requires great attention.

The write-up, titled with the hashtags "Angry" and "Young Women Beware", is shared, below... Enjoy.

#Angry 

#Young_Women_Beware

"It breaks my heart each time I see little children who are brought to our neurology clinic here in UBTH because of speech difficulties, mental retardation, drooling of saliva, epilepsy and all other forms of seizures they are suffering because their parents, mothers especially, insisted on vaginal delivery when it was obvious it would not happen."

Every mother wants to put to bed like the legendary 'Hebrew women', but let me tell you, there's no shame in putting to bed via caesarean delivery (commonly called CS or operation).

"As a matter of fact, there are women - some of who could even be reading this post - who as it stands right now, even though they are not yet married, will never be delivered of any baby vaginally. It must be CS! Many have contracted pelvis (pelvis with smaller than expected diameters) or inadequate pelvis."

Beyond this, for fear of CS, some of you enroll with maternity homes with little or no knowledge of active management of labour (so you can save money) and then end up having a child who will be an OLODO for life due to prolonged labour and its sequelae.

The child I clerked yesterday was so bad that he was in KG 1 even though he was 8 YEARS OLD. Yet he kept coming last in his class in the same KG 1. He'd been having seizures since birth.

"The mother laboured for 3 days! Three frigging days! She didn't want CS because she's a 'Hebrew woman' and then following obstructed labour, baby had 3+ caput (swelling of the scalp) and extensive moulding of 3+ (inseparable overlap of the skull bones). The boy's head was so small that his occipitofrontal circumference (head size) was 43cm (as against 54-58cm). This means that his head size at 8 years was that of a 5- to 6-month-old child."

"Biko the brain stops developing when a child becomes 7 years old. That's when it attains adult size!"

"This boy didn't even cry after birth, later developed what doctors call hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy (HIE), a severe complication because the brain was starved of enough oxygen and blood as the head squeezed through the vagina during the prolonged labour."

The mother totally DAMAGED her son during labour and now the young man is paying for a sin he did not commit. He keeps drooling saliva and with the epilepsy, he will be on medications for life.

And he may never be a normal child.

"Please don't tell me that CS is costly, I know. But now ask yourself, if you were this boy's mother and had the opportunity to do it all over again, what would you do?"

Damage your son for life because of cost or pay the money and have a normal child who could be the next Albert Einstein or president of Nigeria?

"As a mother, you may never forgive yourself."


© Caséy Amaefule