“It’s so easy to commit suicide”, these were the words Timi heard as he answered Bidemi’s call. “Hello, Bidemi hello” but the line goes dead. A frantic Timi dashes out of the office to find Bidemi, his mind racing and praying earnestly that there is an explanation for the seeming obvious. Poor Timi to receive such an unsettling call, the psychological trauma is best imagined. And Bidemi, what in the world would make a young woman willing to end her own life? What? Nigerians don’t commit suicide? Truth is, it is easy to commit suicide and a lot of us are dead already, even you.
We die when we fall for the temptation to give up – on God, life, love, hope, people. We refuse to fight and assume a posture of indifference. We think it’s safer not to get involved, to sit on the fence so we are not hurt. At first, we give the barest minimum because we want convenience, never stretching ourselves but after a while we become grey and numb, we cease to live and just exist so life spits us out. That’s the rule my dear, even God wants you to take a stand, either hot or cold but lukewarm is unacceptable – dead man walking!
Scary right? This is what the Satan sells to us!
We die when we fall for the temptation to be angry at God. So life has beaten you black and blue from the moment you took your first breath and God has never heard any prayer you made. You have been the victim and are angry and rightly so too! But seriously, be mad at God? You think Christ being nailed to the cross was wickedness? No, it was the purest form of Love. Do you realize that no matter what you go through, unless God okays it or you ask Him to leave you alone, Satan can’t touch your life? Ask Job. Someone said, if you think it’s your alarm that wakes you every morning, try placing it beside a corpse. I thought trials were meant to make you stronger and most importantly wiser yet you do the most foolish thing – be angry at God! Dead man walking!
We die when we fall into the temptation to believe we do not deserved to be cared for. We accept the lie that we are to live for others only and not ourselves. Boy meets girl, boy somehow doesn’t treat girl with much respect and value but sparks are flying all over the place so they get married and start a family. Somewhere along the way woman believes her sole purpose is to make hubby and children happy. Twenty – five years after with the most adorable family portrait; hubby is an accomplished man, a successful icon; children are stable with promising futures and mum? Dead and bitter woman walking!
We die when we fall into the temptation to compromise. You know that awkward feeling where you are the odd one out and obviously so, no one really wants to be in that position. So gradually we loosen up, lower the standard, tell ourselves that nearly is ‘close’ to the real deal and finally, we settle for too little. Good bye excellence, hello mediocre. We won’t stand for anything so we will fall for everything – dead people walking!
We die when we fall into the temptation to make excuses, to blame everyone and everything other than ourselves. It wasn’t me, the government didn’t do this, my father did that, it’s because I’m not American, more blame and excuses till we wake up and can’t account for 40 years of our lives! We suddenly realize we never got that degree, sweetheart moved on when we refused to ditch the nappy, our neighbour’s toddler is now running for governor and our classmates are enjoying retirement – dead and old man walking!
We die when we fall into the temptation to not number our days so we just live life as it comes, with no vision or plan. The bible says write the vision down and make it plain that he might run that reads it. A life without vision lacks passion, flavour, is typically bland. We even back it up with scripture sometimes “give us this day our daily bread”, “do not worry about tomorrow, tomorrow will take care of itself”, not in this context o! Everyone is born with a purpose so find purpose! Live for something else 15years as a receptionist, no salary increase, no promotion, no bonuses and definitely no retirement plan may just be around the corner after all, let tomorrow take care of itself – dead man walking!
Life or death? Choose Life!
The difference between us and Bidemi is that her body is on it’s way to 6 feet under where there is probably no redemption. We fall for the temptation to choose death over life because Satan hides from us what is really at stake so we think it is worth it. Death before our purpose is accomplished is NOT worth it! If only we could see through the eyes of Jehovah to see how special we are, important we are, incomplete the world is without us especially when we do not fulfill purpose. As 2012 wraps up, you might realize that you have been dead. Will you stay dead or will you rise and take another shot at living?
junechild 