In Your Quiet Moment - Do You Think About Your Life

By Pastor Alfred Massaquoi

Introduction

Think about  - it necessary sometimes

You may be wondering what kind of question is this writer insinuating: 'In my quiet moment do I think about my life? Is it all the time I must think about my life? Do I have anything to think about? My life is how I made it yesterday? What more again to think about life? My friend, give me a break!

You may be right because you're entitled to your opinion. However, non-cynics would say, 'But this writer has a point there - mustn't I think about my life? Isn't my life more important to God than anything? How do I live my life now in relationship with God?'

Certainly, we must think about our lives, moment by moment, especially so our lives are like bullets, where you direct the bullet, it's where it goes. That's the point! Positive analogy - a non-critic would say.  

About Reputation

At the outset, let's consider  our reputation to that of an expensive perfume. Why would you wear on an expensive perfume and forget to put on a good behavior?

In life, don't you and I know a good behavior is better than an expensive perfume in the sense that if one is of good reputation, like a sweet-smelling perfume, people smell it - people see you - people know or feel you - for you've become to them a sweet-smelling odour?

Oh my gosh! It's sucks - or its a filthy stench should we have a bad character, for people abhor criminal behavior. For instance, in some part of the world, though it's illegal, a thief or an armed robber, when apprehended by angry crowd are often lynched before the police arrived on the scene. Mob violence in this regard shows how disgusting being a thief or armed robbery is.

Another example: a woman is desperate to get a husband, so she does everything the church orders, like fervent and continuous prayers, regularity and constant tithe-paying and other donations and favors to the church, but she forgets to work on her character.

She cannot cook nor is she able  to do domestic chores to maintain a home; she's always busy on personal or work and church matters and hardly spend one hour with her husband; she's ungodly and does not respect, and she runs all over the place in marital unfaithfulness.

Thus, with this character, can this woman keep a healthy marriage? I guess, if you were that husband of hers you'd send her parking on the next available flight to her parents for consultation, wouldn't you?

Do you see why our character is very important in life that worth thinking about? Perhaps for you, you need not think about your life as respect thievery or marriage, but you ought to think about your character in other aspects in your life. 

Mourning Vs Banquet - the Wisdom

Why, wherefore, the day one dies is better than the day he is born, like the armed robber in the illustration above, he wasn't born and immediately began to arm rob. He chose to live his life an armed robber whether by nature or nurture. So, he "died by the sword" either by the hands of the angry mob or at firing squad by the government.

Thus, the day he died is better than the day he was born because at death we had lived our lives, be it good or bad revealed by our character, and people will talk - therefore, your good or bad reputation will finally be determined or ajudged by people after we die - for death being an ultimate end of life afterwards.

That's why it's better we go to the home where people mourn the dead than to where there is party because when we mourn the dead it reminds us the living that we'll die also since death awaits us all.

Why go to a banquet but you ignore the funeral home or the burial site, because sorrow is better than enjoyment; although you may be sadden, it sharpens our understanding about life - about ourselves - as to how we live our lives matters. For if we live a reckless life, Mr. Death stands at the door to sting you in the face to call you home, where the grave opens its mouth to swallow you up forever.

Accepting Counsel is Wise

Therefore, you're a fool if you think about pleasure all the time because wise person thinks about death and comforts himself all the time in the counsel of the wise. You're happy when the wise reprimands you, but sadden when the wicked sing and praise you to death. So, accept the counsel of the wise, but reject the company of fools, for when a fool "laughs it's like thorns crackling in a fire," which doesn't mean a thing.

Conversely, if a wise person cheats, he's acting like a fool, because if you take a bribe you discredit your reputation. Therefore, as the end justifies the means, equally, the end of something is better than it's beginning, as patience is better than pride.

Moreover, to harbor a grudge for someone is foolishness, so control your temper, and don't get angry at every trivial matter, and also, never make such stupid remark: why were things much better in the olden days? Don't let it escape you that everyone living must be wise as wisdom is better than inheritance and as much secured then wealth. Thus, wisdom keeps you safe from the dread of calamity. Yes, it's advantageous than knowledge.

Think of what God has done. Can anyone straighten out what God has made crooked, or can anyone find fault in any of God's creation? Becareful when things are fine for you, be happy, and when trouble strikes, remember that God sends both happiness and trouble; for you never know what is going to happen to you next.

Jehovah gives Wisdom - Be Balance

Although life is miserable, we're grateful to God we've seen everything God created within the limitation of our short life span to the fact of life that a good man may die while another man lives on even though the man living is evil. 

Hence, don't worry and kill yourself over being too good or too wise - same as, don't trust people too much and too less. Also, don't be too wicked or too foolish, either of them will kill you before you know it. Rather, avoid both extremes. Whereas, success and prosperity is a result of reverence for God. Why, because the fear of Jehovah is the beginning of wisdom in that wisdom does more for you than ten presidents can do for a city. Yet, there is no one on earth who does what is right all the time, and does not err.

Remember, if you listen all the time to what people say, don't be surprised one day you hear your house help insulting you - in that in gossip, she says bad things about you as you've said bad things about other people too.

Too much wisdom cannot discover what life truly means, for life is too deep and harder to understand than you think. Similarly, much devotion and study to find out wisdom, or to search for answers to many questions of life, you might end up learning  how wicked and foolish stupidity is.

Fear Woman than Death

We must meditate most time about life

 Furthermore, some say death is bitter - it's an unbeatable enemy, but something more bitter than death is woman, for the love she offers you will "catch you like a trap or like a net, and her arms around you will hold you like a chain."

Do you know how an animal is trapped in the bush? The animal goes for the thing it likes, but unknowingly, it's being led into a trap as lust for a woman is an entrapment because too much of one thing is good for nothing. However, the man who fears God can get away from the snare of a woman, while she catches a sex-crazed man in a bait. 

So, one respects one man in a thousand, but not one woman in a thousand, say wise King Solomon, for the lust or love for women has brought many kings and men of God to square zero. 

This suggests an answer to the most questions we ask today in life. And this is true, God made us plain and simple, but we've complicated our lives with many unsavory things all in the name of finding love or making ends meet. So, only a wise man knows how to live life, because his "wisdom makes him smile and his frowns disappears."

Finally, "no one can keep himself from dying or put off the day of his death. That is the battle we cannot escape; we cannot cheat our way out." (Ec. 7:1-29; 8:1,8)

Conclusion

From the foregoing, what then did you figure out about how rational it compels us to think about our lives moment by moment?

Realistically, when we think about life there are a whole range of things it behooves us to  think about, and paramount, is our reputation we learned is far better than an expensive perfume, which smells elegantly or gives out a foul smell, in the case of an offending character.

In consequence, at death our reputation is proven alluding to the fact of life that better is a man's death than his birth, or a man's end than his beginning reiterating another fact of life that the wise goes to the house of mourning than to the house of banquet. Sorrow is better than laughter because death reminds the living to be sober minded because one day we shall die.

No doubt, wisdom is better than silver and good, and it saves its owner from trouble, which has advantage over knowledge thus resoundingly correct, the fear of Jehovah gives wisdom, understanding and thinking abilities. 

In conclusion, if Jehovah and Christ are absent in our lives, life is worthless living. That's why in our quietude we must think about our lives - yes, how our relationship with God stands? Therefore, the above topic of this essay is justied. Thanks for reading.

Coyright @Alfred Massaquoi 2017

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