Hi Jean.

Hey D, how are you

Great, you?

I’m really good

Can we do lunch?

Do I get to pick where we eat?

Sure, but it is my treat.

Why?

Why not?

Surely there is a reason you want to but me lunch.

Not really…I just want to touch base

Why?

Jean, when did you become suspicious?

When people started calling me out of the blue after five years to buy me lunch.

Hahahhaha…you are funny. I want to celebrate some key milestones with you that’s why.

Why me? Don’t you have family to do it with?

I do and I have but I sense I need to celebrate with you

That sounds so spooky.

Ok, pray about it and when you are ready and comfortable to have a meal with me, I will be waiting

You know it could take a year or more right?

I know but I will still be waiting.

Oh you are one patient brother.

Yes I am…catch you later mrembo (beautiful)

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Hey D?

Jean…what a surprise, how are you?

I’m good.

What’s going on?

Well, I wanted to take you up on your lunch offer

Eight months later?

Yup, you said whenever I am ready you will be waiting and now I am

Ok, when?

Today?

You push a hard bargain

Well, I figured if I gave you short notice it will be easier for you to say no

Sorry, but I am actually on leave…thirty minutes at Al Italia

Can we do it this side of my hood?

Unfortunately that will mean I will not make it

Ok…can we push it?

You’re not getting out of this one girl…what is the problem?

I don’t have enough fuel for a round trip

Do you have enough to get here?

Yes I do.

Then come and the rest will sort itself out. Now you have twenty minutes to go

Who is counting?

Me! Can I ask a question?

Sure.

Why did you run for so long?

Personal reasons!

That doesn’t count

Why?

You have never been shy and we have been friends too long for that to be a valid answer

Well, life has been really hard and I needed to figure things out.

Hard? Why?

Well, the finances have been slow coming and I haven’t known what to do about it so I kept a low profile

Really? Did you ask for help?

From who?

Family, friends, acquaintances…the list is endless

Well not for me it is very short…in fact non-existent

Why?

How do I start asking people for help? I will look like a basket case with all my education

Are you working?

Yes…all the more reason to be able to support myself.

So why are you struggling?

Because my job doesn’t pay as well as I would need it to

How lavish is your lifestyle?

Not at all actually…very simple maybe even bare bones.

So why wouldn’t you ask for help?

Why would I ask for help? Is the more appropriate question. If I remember right, God has promised to supply all my needs according to His riches in glory.

He has!

So He knows what I need and He will supply it. if he hasn’t supplied it yet he has a reason and a plan or I need to do without…it is simple.

I disagree.

Why?

If one of us has…all of us have.

Now that sounds like the kind of rhetoric I hear from my village and there are many people who will do nothing just because their brother, father or uncle has made it in life. Sorry, I don’t believe in that.

It is a biblical principle!

Yeah, yeah!

And yes it has been taken out of context before but it is still real.

Are you telling me that we should live like the church in Acts? Buying and selling, giving to each other as needed & instructed by God?

How else would the world that we are believers? Scripture says that they will know we are followers of Christ by our love. Our love should propel us to seek God on who is who to us, what are their needs and how do we meet their needs?

So to put your statement in context, you asked God who I am to you, what I need and how you should meet my needs?

Hahahaaha…when you say it like that it sounds strange. However, yes, something like that

What did he tell you?

That you need to know that He loves you.

Now you are being funny.

Not at all…how far are you?

In the parking at Al Italia.

How long have you been here?

Just arrived and waiting for a parking

I have just walked out of the building can you see me?

Yes I can

He gestures to the guard and immediately a parking sign is moved and I have a parking.

Boy oh boy, you have influence like no other.

You can say I am blessed can’t you?

She gets out of the car as he comes to meet her

I am fine how are you? D pulls Jean into a hug…Girl I have missed you

Me too…I have missed me

You never stop do you?

Stop what?

Goofing around.

It makes life interesting…so you were saying that God told you I need love

Yes…you need to understand that His love is supreme and eternal and you don’t have to earn it

I don’t?

Of course not. For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only begotten son that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. Scripture also says that, He gives sleep to those he loves. The same scripture says, Ask and you will receive, seek and you shall find, know and the door shall be opened to you.

The same bible says that he will give me the desires of my heart and he hasn’t done that for me

The first part of that verse says that we must abide in him and then he will give us the desire of our hearts…there is a way to the desires

What is the way?

When we abide in him, his desires become our desires and there is no way He can deny Himself so our desires are met.

Uhu…tell me about it!

When we abide in Him like Abraham did, He provides solutions in the strangest ways like He did with lamb at the sacrifice on Mt. Moreh. When Samson had sinned and had his eyes gouged out, God gave him strength one more time to wipe out the enemy and in the day he killed more men that day than ever before. Was it a bloodbath? Yes. was it justifiable? To God it was because they had oppressed His people for long enough. The same God in love allowed the Israelites to go into captivity in Egypt and later in Babylon because they had sinned yet at the appointed time He sent rescue and the people left captivity rich.

There are so many contradictions right there.

I know yet He is and always will be a God of love

So back to today…

Ok…

What does, “If one of us has, we all have” mean and look like?

It means that I hold onto all that I have loosely so that if God says I give it to someone I will simply hand it over and expect God to do a new thing and provide somehow.

Doesn’t that seem a little dense for educated people?

It takes even greater faith for educated people because we have been taught cause and effect, every action has an equal and opposite reaction…it takes a lot more to open your hand and allow God to make the choice He need to make in us.

Is it really possible to live that way?

Sure! Ask you dad.

My dad?

Yes…you dad. He lives by this very principle and has never lacked what he needs for life.

So why are we here?

So that God can remind you that He loves you and hasn’t forgotten you even as the road in your life has been tremendously hard.

He loves me?

Yes he does.

How does He show His love on a daily basis yet I lack so much?

It is different for everyone and today is just a reminder that you need to remember how He speaks to you and find out that these aren’t the only ways he speaks.

He loves me totally and completely

Yes He does and He uses His children to share this love around in the most unexpected ways…look to Him and He will let you know what He is up to

 

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He loves you totally and completely…do you know that? Do you believe it without a shadow of a doubt despite, in spite of and regardless of the current situation in your life?