WHY BEING BOLD IN OUR GENERATION IS VERY HARD – PART ONE

Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest. Jos 1:9  

This is a preamble, I hope, to a blog I intend to do on the topics of courage and fear…especially with regard to our Christian faith and discipleship. I don’t know where it will take me…but it is a journey I am just beginning right now. Please welcome and take a walk with me…

It is not easy to be bold in our time. Too many issues are usually at play in our busy lives these days that for a man to be a true man is a tricky undertaking.

First there is the issue of culture and how society expects ‘an African’ man (or woman) to behave. In short the conflict between modernity and old customs is a real one. We may think it is a conflict which dates to the days of colonialism, when it came, and what it left us with (their God and ways versus our gods and our ways)… but it dates far back to the first conflict in the Garden when Satan showed up and made our first parents wiser than their Maker had – or so they thought. And that was the first lie we believed.

They got wiser it is true but that wisdom has also brought us more tears than mirth. ‘They soon forgat his works; they waited not for his counsel: But lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, and tempted God in the desert. And he gave them their request; but sent leanness into their soul’ (Psa 106:13-15).  

The second lie I think was when we invented a short cut to reach heaven by our own merit. In truth though it was a long shot – which soon we abandoned anyway because no one could understand one another (while in truth it was after God came down himself to look and wonder at the deviousness and ingratitude of us mankind!). After that everyone left to their own homes and ancestors and then tribes were born… I think the third lie was that we had invented our own tribes as well.

But after that the lies just went on increasing.

‘Lo, this only have I found,’ groaned the king turned Preacher, “that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions’ (Ecc 7:29).

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But today the accent is chiefly on ‘My life, My choice’. And there are all sorts of social groups advocating for the rights of their ‘choice’ – such as gay and lesbian rights, Children rights, Women rights, Men rights, Atheist rights, Religious rights, Labour rights, Gun rights, People living in marginalized areas rights, Anarchy rights, and the list goes on and on! Our famed Enlightenment has sometimes left us looking like…!

And so it is hard these days for a man to be a true man. The debate what is truth and what is a lie is still raging I am afraid…

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So how was it during the days of the famed chivalries and stoicism ages? These were true men. But at what cost did they achieve their supremacies and greatness? Remember WWW 1 and 2 were basically wars of egos and who was more a man than the others. But all wars – including civil ones or tribal had first and foremost to do with the question of egos…And where egos have taken precedence there is usually a great dearth of sober thinking as we all know…

But let us debate these questions as we go on.

HopeisnotAshamed