International Eagles of Nigeria: a blog to motivate Nigerians aboard to start giving back will be launched in March 2014. Please, if you are a Nigerian aboard or in Nigeria, I need your help. I need more creative young minds to join for more impact. We can do this! Our Country needs us.
If you are interested please, email [email protected]
Someone once told me “I was about to curse you out.”
Immediately, I thought “so?”
This person made it sound like a threat.
Seriously people, what do you lose when someone curses you out?
NOTHING!!!
Throwing the “f-bomb” or whatever word bomb you choose doesn’t affect me.
No part of my body is affected.
I don’t need to rush to the hospital because you dropped your “f-bomb” or any other word bomb you choose for me.
I have ABSOLUTELY nothing to lose, if you curse me out.
I am not insulted by your ignorance.
I don’t understand why people make it a big deal when someone curses them out?
You have nothing to lose and they are cursing you out because they are hurt. They try to use their words to hurt you back to appease their pain.
Agreed, words are powerful but..
No man’s word is more powerful than God’s words over my life because the word of God is quick and powerful and it’s sharper than any two-edged sword (Hebrew 4:12).
Plus, you can’t curse whom God has already blessed (Numbers 23:8).
“No weapon formed against me shall prosper. And every tongue that rises up against me in judgment will and shall be condemned.” (Isaiah 54:17).
Jason Njoku is the CEO of Irokotv and founder of Nollywoodlove on YouTube.
Here are my notes from his Tedx Speech..
“People fear failure but what they really fear is the shame associated with failure.
Embracing failure allows you to be completely free from the fear of taking risk.
There’s a point that if you keep on failing nothing matters anymore.
Emotional Capital is similar to money. You make a deposit every time you fail and get back up again. With emotional capital you are unshackled by what people expect from you.
The more we have an open discussion about failure, the more we accept failure as culture and the more people can spend time trying and taking risk.
What’s the worst that can happen? You fail but there’s tomorrow.
Everyone has a challenge to overcome. Failure is ok.”
Dear God,
I just got off from work. No, I am not as tired as I thought I would after working two shifts back to back.
You know why I volunteered myself to do overtime.
I thank you for the miracle you are about to give me tomorrow. I can’t write everything I want to say to you on here because I am posting this one on my blog.
I am getting sleepy now.
No, I wouldn’t sleep yet still done talking to you.
Lord, please help me to love you more than my dreams, goals, visions, etc.
Help me to draw closer to you.
It’s crazy, I used to make more time for you in college with a busier schedule than I do now.
I know my time with you is priceless.
You are the essence of my life.
Let this heart only beat for you, oh God!
I am not done yet, but I am stopping here for the blog.
********
I got this creative idea from the book I am reading now.
Have you ever thought about starting a journal where you only write to God?
Try it!
We feel embarrassed because we are scared of what people think about us.
So you climbed the stairs and fell. What is the big deal if people see you falling?
Yes people will definitely laugh.
Would I laugh?
If you didn’t get hurt, I would laugh too.
Get up, laugh it off and keep on going.
There’s no need to be embarrassed.
You didn’t fall on purpose.
There are some people who try to embarrass themselves on purpose for attention.
It didn’t happen on purpose. Again, laugh it off and keep on going.
The truth is nobody wants to look stupid in front of people.
At some point in your life, you will look stupid.
You might say things the wrong way.
People get embarrassed over a lot of things.
Note: Everybody is prone to mistakes. We are not all perfect.
The bible says “the fear of man is a trap” (Proverbs 29:25).
If people weren’t there to see you falling, you wouldn’t feel embarrassed thus, it shouldn’t matter.
God’s opinion matters because he is God.
Your spouse’s opinion is important.
Your boss opinion is important because she or he pays you.
We can’t please people.
Stop being afraid of people!!
Laugh it off and Move on with your Life!
Whenever I post pictures of my family on social media, the responses are always fun. The most common are, “Your son is so handsome!” or “What a beautiful family!” But one of the other common responses is, “Is your wife white?” People ask me at shows sometimes too. The answer is yes. My wife is a mix of Hungarian, Italian, and Polish—which to most people just means yes, she’s white. This is irrelevant to some, but shocking or even disappointing to others. I don’t think anyone should be shocked or disappointed by interracial marriages, but I still wanted to talk about why I married outside my “race.
The decision to marry someone from a different ethnic background wasn’t a tough one for me. I never sat down and wrote out a pros and cons list. Though if I did, the fact that my wife has never seen an episode of “Martin” would be in the con category. But honestly, I didn’t agonize over it or seek counsel about whether it was OK. I was convinced that she was the woman for me to marry, even though she wasn’t black.
Some would never consider marrying someone who wasn’t the same ethnicity as them, so let me tell you why I did.
Expectations
To be honest, I always expected to marry a black woman. I found women of all backgrounds beautiful, but black girls were my “preference.” But when I arrived on my college campus in 2006, I wasn’t looking for a wife at all. I just wanted to grow in my faith and get a good education. My first album had just come out, so I had plenty of other things to focus on. But as I met people at the school, a sophomore named Jessica really caught my attention and we became friends.
We ran in the same circles and we ended up joining the same church, so we saw each other a lot. And the more I got to know her, the more I was drawn to her. She really loved Jesus and she had this childlike willingness to do whatever He asked. Her compassion for needy people challenged me and she had a humble heart that responded to the Word. Over that first year, I watched her sacrifice countless hours of her time serving at our church. On top of all of that, I loved being around her. Our conversation, whether serious or silly, always flowed with ease. So I eventually started to ask myself, “Should I marry this girl?”
Preferences
Jessica didn’t look like I expected my future wife to look, but honestly that didn’t matter to me. Don’t get me wrong, I thought she was beautiful from the first time I met her. And I was never opposed to marrying a white girl. I just didn’t think I would. But as I grew in my faith and my heart changed, my preferences started changing too. My main preference was that my wife be godly, and Jessica was. So I wifed her.
Never for a moment did I feel like I was settling. It feels more like settling to overlook a godly woman merely because of her ethnicity. I never wanted to value my preferences for a wife over what I needed in a wife.
There’s nothing necessarily wrong with having preferences, but we have to hold them with an open hand. I know some people who overlook a potential godly spouse because they don’t fit some random preference. Some of our preferences really don’t matter that much. Some of our preferences may even be foolish, so we have to submit all of them to Scripture.
When you and your spouse are in the middle of conflict, skin tone doesn’t matter. Body type and social status seem insignificant. You want them to be godly and humble. And as my wife and I begin to raise our first child, I couldn’t be more grateful for her. She’s an amazing mom and a godly influence on my son—neither of which have anything to do with her ethnic background. It’s OK to want things in a spouse, but we have to submit our desires to what God wants for us in a spouse. What I wanted and needed most was a godly partner, and that’s exactly what God provided.
I recently watched a Ted talk by Cobhams Asuquo. He spoke about the gift of blindness.
Here are some of the things I learnt from his Ted talk.
1. Do not excuse failure for any reason on any account.
2. Failure will come the same way it comes; we have to see to it that it goes.
3. Excusing failure by blaming it on a systematic flaw, we miss the opportunity to scale through the seemingly insurmountable obstacles to elevate ourselves and elevate others.
4. Learn to trust even for no reason. Trust has no expiration date.
5. Sight sometimes is a distraction. On your way to your destination what you see can be a big distraction.
6. Learn to be blind not literally in order to be focused.
Click here to watch this Ted talk.
I love Ted talks. Please look out for more Ted talks reviews on my blog.
Thank you!
What do you think?
“Critics say negative things about your dreams because they gave up on their dreams a long time ago.”-9jagirl4real
Two weeks ago, I got really sick to the point that I had to get out of work for 2 days. I barely get sick, it doesn’t happen; however, I was really sick. After only two days of resting, I had to go back to work. When I got back, I still felt miserable and it affected my work performance .The last few days at work after I got back, my manager was on my case about everything. In the last six months, he really didn’t complain but after I got back he complained about everything.
As he reprimanded for the terrible job I was doing, the holy spirit also reprimanded me. The holy said something interesting, he said “if you are not a good steward over this job, how do you expect me to give you another?” What the holy spirit said cut deeper than my manager’s words.
God can’t be mocked because he is no respecter of person. How do I expect God to give me another job when I am not faithful to the one he gave me now? This blog post is for you and me. We have to be faithful with the little God gives us to do. Yes, I shouldn’t be working where I am working now, but I still have to be faithful with the job I have now. I don’t know where you are. Don’t ask God for promotion until you are faithful where you are. God will never go against his word for anyone. He can’t bless us with anything better until we do our best where we are.
