Life, they say, is full of ups and downs. This does not necessarily mean problems, difficulties, or otherwise. It could translate to a turning point for the better with the former position being a good one still. Well, I did not mean that that was generally what my case here is about yet.
I can remember vividly that I was fresh out of secondary school and had done the necessary exams needed to be done. I was just like a normal young school leaver who did not yet know what life was - more than just school. Yes, it was during one of those times one of my brothers was around because they were in tertiary institutions then.
That fateful day early in the morning, my brother started playing some songs on his phone and later changed it to a lengthy recorded message. I thought it was just one of those motivational speakers but I got to see that it was somewhat a sermon. I did not really pay much attention to it until nightfall. My brother was playing this thing again and there I was just lying on the bed pressing my button phone. You could hear the way those buttons sounded repeatedly. Yes, like a typewriter! 🤣
At a point, I got tired of the pressing and got myself ready to sleep but it was not coming yet. So, I just kind of drifted my sense of hearing to the message playing from my brother’s phone in the other room. I listened with rapt attention. You know, it was better at night due to the calm atmosphere. Man! I could hear this man speaking sense, in fact too much of it. The more I heard, the more I wanted more and more. I stood up to go ask for the name of the speaker but my brother was fast asleep so I just postponed that till the next day. And it did not even occur to me to pick up the phone and try to check. Oh, I remember I was not used to touch-screen phones like nowadays.😉
The speaker mentioned a lot of things. One of them was what you may have known me for. Trying to learn from anything, everything around me. He said do not get to a new place and begin to talk or barge around aimlessly. Basically, he meant no matter what you know, keep quiet and learn from those talking and the atmosphere.
Besides, remember I said it was a sermon, he emphasized that an average human who is old enough to know right from the left should try and look back. Look back and check the history of your generation (or those you have known) or in a state or territory. You must see some kind of trend if you look critically. Now, be sure whether you want or rebuke the pattern you see. At this point, using my mind I scanned through the lives of people, families, and my hometown then. Here I realized there is more to life than what it seems to look like.
Basically, these two form the basis of the understanding I have grown to have be it physically or spiritually. Or should I say that were the two major things I got hold of before sleep got a hold of me? Lest I forget, I asked my brother the next day for the speaker’s name. It was Apostle Joshua Selman. Funnily enough, I never got the title of that audio till today hence the reason I could not state the name for reference's sake. But since then, I have checked out a lot of messages from that great man and they continually reshaped my ideologies.
For me, this does not seem like one thing but a bunch of things – words molded together to mold me. Those two things started a (nuclear) chain of reactions, that is, more enlightenment to most of the things I know today!
This is my entry for the Hive Learners W14 edition 2. You can check it out here.