So when your mum invited you back home, you reconnected with one of your cousins who was a different because his love for God was evident and he was real???? How?

Simple! His love for God was evident …he was real.

Explain real?

He knew I was into the club scene and he knew how much I spoke out against Christianity yet he still sat with me and chatted. He never dropped hints about my life and the way I was lost. He never took sides when we argued, he never pointed fingers…he was my friend like he had always been

What did he do?

He asked questions.

Really…Asked Questions?

Yes.

What kinds of questions did he ask?

Simple ones! I would be on edge about something and he would ask how the anger I was harbouring was affecting my ability to be productive and useful to those around me. It was always a simple question.

Any examples?

How does being mad with God make your life easier? So you think all Christians are fake, aren’t you applying a blanket assessment just like you accuse them of doing to you? What is the real issue you have with Christians? If you were one would you be any different?

What?!!

Oh sure. So I changed tact. I begun asking him about his faith and Christian walk. Was he happy? Was it as fulfilling as he hoped? Has he seen the hand of God? How did he know he was on the right track? What would he do different? Where did he want to be in the next few years? What was he working on?

Were his answers satisfactory?

Nope!!!

Why?

He was on a totally different tangent

What do you mean?

He lived his life differently. He didn’t judge, he shared all he had and he was just real.

Did you join him overnight?

Of course not! I wanted to prove I was immune to his wiles. I didn’t want to be influenced by him.

Did it work?

Not really, I realised that it wasn’t me rather it was God at work.

So it was gradual?

Well, not really, a few weeks later I woke up one day and knew that I needed to know this God who had changed the heart of this my mad cousin so drastically.

How do you explain it?

The only thing I can think about is when the disciples or is it apostles received the power of the Holy Spirit. It was so clear to those around them that they were changed and different in an instant so the people thought they were drunk early in the morning. Now think about my cousin who was all over the place doing all sorts of mad things and then suddenly he was different.

Was the turnabout total and without challenge?

Not at all, it took a while to deal with the past but one day it hit me that I had to make the choice to be different and live by it

So it is a choice?

It always is…you choose to follow Christ, you accept his life and you choose to align with him.

Sounds too simple

Trust me it isn’t that simple

What do you mean?

You were raised to think for yourself and do what you know is right

Sure!

However, your frame of reference is culture

No, it is the church more often than not

Yes, but it is church culture…we don’t do this or that? we don’t go here or there. We only pray this way. This is what we do every year…it is a series of works or acts that people see

Surely that is it right?

Absolutely not!

Eish….explain!

We are raised to think a certain way but when we encounter God for real he challenges all our thought processes and asks us to live our lives by faith and in total trust to him. When you must choose to lay down your own opinions and align with his spoken and confirmed word to you is when you discover the depth of the choice you must make. The choice is to follow Christ to the end of yourself and then further so that it is indeed no longer you that lives but Christ that lives in you. Where the truth of Christ at work in you is visible by the way your life is daily transformed and nothing of the material things of this world appeals anymore.

Wow! Speechless…