Lionspot Magazine

FAKE IT 'TIL YOU MAKE IT

In 2019, Notre Dame de Paris, a French heritage site and one of Catholic Church's most treasured and historic edifices got burnt. The fire destroyed iconic artworks that were, at worst, priceless. Within a week of the incident, more than a billion dollars was raised for the restoration of the Cathedral dedicated to the honor of the Virgin Mary.

The speed at which the money was raised elicited the astonishing indignation of Africans who made sure to use their Chinese-made phones to criticize, in English and French languages, the West for responding in a snap to restore a “building” (and no life was lost in the fire incident) but would take ages to donate money for us to combat female anopheles mosquitoes and plasmodium parasites (I could have just written malaria).

Personally, I don't understand why Africans feel we have the right to tell individuals of the West how and on what to spend their money. I know most of us just view the Notre Dame as another Canaan Land or Dunamis Auditorium or just another Catholic parish.

It is not. It's history in concrete.

But let's even imagine that it is a mere building in Paris. Humans spend and relate with what or who they consider valuable, now how more valuable are Africans to Westerners than their place of worship? Asides the fact that proximity, history, etc, makes Notre Dame, more than a sick African child, more likely to get money from Western donors, know the truth that generally, people only want to relate with people or things they will benefit from.

People, generally, are more likely to help that person who doesn't really look like he needs that help but they will help him anyway because he looks like one that may help them when their turn comes. That's human nature.

The USA, by the grace of God, is the richest country on Earth, yet, it borrows the most and lenders queue to lend them more. Somalia can't get such help. Cottage industries and SMEs struggle to obtain loans from Nigerian banks but those same banks would lend Capital Oil and Dangote billions of Naira.

“But it makes economic and financial sense”, you are tempted to say. Say it, it actually does. USA is more likely to pay back than Somalia, so is Ifeanyi Ubah likely to pay back than one tech guy at Yaba. But newsflash! It's easier to get your money back from a poor man than from a rich man. Banks always call upon us lawyers to help them get their loans or collaterals from small borrowers but the big guns hold on to their billions and even go to the Senate with it.

These situations apply to your relationship with people around you. If people perceive you as a liability, they run away from you. If you emit negative energy, people will avoid you. If you don't look like who they can be proud of, people won't roll with you.

If you don't have people, how can you be successful?
Money, wealth, and power are people.
People are money, wealth, and power.

How do you then get people to invite you to their homes, parties, to meet their parents, friends, family, and be in their circle? Or how do you even get people to come to your own circle, party, home, etc?

Now, rich people don't move with poor people. Poor people don't like fellow poor people.
For people to roll with you, you have to be successful or look successful or behave successful (you can replace "successful" with "rich". This is because money is the most objective metric measure of success). So, What are the characteristics of successful people? Positivity, smiles, high spirits, brightness, colour, happiness, etc.

How do people assess whether you possess such qualities? First impression!
What is the metric measure of first impression? Appearance. Your outfit.

Without you speaking, that's the only thing they can judge you with. Beyond that, they could judge you with your car, house, neighborhood, school, etc.
Now try as much as possible to look rich at the most affordable rate. It is an art. Do this in such a way that you do not appear like you are doing it. Subtlety is the greatest form of art.

In "Annie", Quvenzhane Wallis asked Jamie Foxx what would she do if the world didn’t play her any cards at all. “Bluff” he replied. So you may ask, what if you don't have money at all to look rich. Bluff with your smiles. You are in pains, I know, I am sorry but wear those smiles. You feel burdened, act positive. Dance. You may not be happy but look happy. It will get people to you. They would want to know why and they'd like to share in your happiness. No one wants to share sadness. We have our own demons already.

When they ask, positively tell them you need help in a manner they'd be happy to help. People are strange, aren't they? Positively tell them you are sad; positively tell them whatever. But first things first, let them get attracted to you. Stay positive. Look positive until your life really becomes positive.

- Obi Emeka

YOUR OWN SAUL IS NOT PAUL (The Miracle of Saint Paul)

You know they say “money can’t buy you happiness”. That statement, no matter how true it is will always sound like dust from the mouth of a poor man. However, if a rich man says it, it would seem like a statement of a sage. You would contemplate it for a moment. Whether you will accept it or not is another matter altogether.
This is what Jesus did with Saul of Tarsus (present day Türkiye), the Jew with Greek education and Roman citizenship who was a fanatic Pharisee.

When Jesus picked His disciples, he picked mostly illiterates & poor men. The reason is not far-fetched. Without spiritual coercion, He couldn’t have gotten rich & educated people. No well-placed individual would follow Jesus around. The rich young man exemplified this when he refused to give up his possessions to follow Jesus that made Jesus say it’d be hard for rich people to make heaven. Jesus himself was poor and I doubt he was educated beyond reading the scriptures day and night.

His apostles were men that had little to lose. In fact, their lives found meaning in following Jesus and they were certain of bread and wine. They saw Jesus perform food miracles and they were even accused of excessive enjoyment unlike John the Baptist and his followers. That is Jesus “bu onye mme mme.” While Jesus might have been fearless and willing to speak to anyone, when he died, a problem arose. His disciples were quite unfit for the big game.

1. They were poor and despised by people.
2. They were uneducated.
3. They were nationalistic Jewish men who believed the gospel was meant for Jews alone (to be fair to them, Jesus taught them this but also showed it could be made available to gentiles. But the one Jesus didn’t touch was circumcision. Hence, they strongly believed you had to be Jew by birth or circumcision to receive salvation.) and
4. They were timorous.

The disciples were so afraid & shy they didn’t know how to preach the gospel. Jesus had to tell them not to worry that the Holy Spirit would endow them with what to say (you can call Holy Spirit the first ChatGPT).
But Jesus needed salvation to go global. He needed everyone to get the gospel. Peter wasn’t the one for the job, nor John, James and the rest. He looked around and found the perfect fit - Saul of Tarsus. Saul was from a prominent home.

He couldn’t have gotten Greek education (it’s like the Ivy League plus Oxon education of their time), became a lawyer, procured Roman citizenship if he was a poor man. If you think education is expensive today, it was 100,000 times more expensive then. So, consider Saul the son of Aliko Dangote.
He was a persecutor of Christians. He hated them. He was a very vocal man and respected for his intelligence and that was the man Jesus blinded on the way to Damascus.

Facing a life of blindness and having seen Jesus in action for himself, Saul got converted and became Paul. He brought to Christianity the same fervor with which he practiced as a Pharisee. He was prolific in writing and with his logical reasoning gotten from his education and natural intelligence, he introduced principles that we still abide with today in Christianity. The most pivotal being circumcision. He argued that you didn’t need to be circumcised to receive the gospel.

He said Abraham was called righteous before he was circumcised and he was referred to as the Father of Righteousness.
Paul’s stance was met with vigorous opposition but the gentiles were happy with him (I would have been too. I can still hear my brother cry when he was circumcised as a baby in our sitting room. Imagine how it would be for an adult. Wasn’t that how the sons of Jacob murdered Shechem and his people?)

With the triumph of Paul’s unimpeachable argument which was nested in the holy bosom of Abraham (which Jew would argue with Abraham?), the gospel became available to all. With Paul’s Roman citizenship, he could travel anywhere and was protected from random Jewish persecution. His connections and wealth brought the gospel to halls of the elites who must have said “have you heard that Dangote’s son is now of the new religion? What do they even preach?” They are interested now.

Whatever made a man forego wealth, being an SAN, dump his respected Pharisee position to become a fervent preacher of a new religion must be investigated. So you know, Christianity was so despised in the early days. They were called cannibals for claiming to eat the body of Christ. It was the religion of the lowliest of low people who found comfort of heavenly rest and wealth in Jesus’ preaching since they were failures on earth. But Paul was the PR they needed. He was the marketer.

The Pepsi advertisement campaigns of the late 80s and early 90s. Through his efforts, Christianity got to a woman called Flavia Julia Helena Augusta or simply Helena. She adopted Christianity as her religion but her son did not. How could he? He was one of the emperors of a divided Roman Empire, he was Constantine. But on his way to the battle that will give the whole of Roman Empire to him, he claimed he saw a vision of the cross. He won and made Christianity the religion of the Empire.

Overnight, Christians moved from caves to cathedrals, from the precipice of society to imperial palaces. Constantine rejected Jupiter and even Rome. Built his capital in Constantinople (present day Istanbul) and made it the capital of Christianity (hard to imagine now with all the minarets in the city now). When the Roman Empire was basically destroyed by the Germanic people, they could have dumped Christianity if they so wished, after all they were the pagans of the north) but they adopted it as well.

Several nations started taking it. Britannia did and the Roman-born Patrick, through some showmanship, brought it to the Irish who made him their patron saint. Others spread it with swords, gin, mirrors, clothes and guns.
Howsoever, after Christ, the other most important human miracle of Christianity was Saint Paul. Any other figure surely comes behind him. Even though in the kingdom of heaven, we don’t rate.

This is the point where like some pastors, I’m supposed to tell you that your Saul will become a Paul.
No. Sauls always remain Sauls.
God only forces people to change on special occasions.
Whoever or whatever is troubling you now, may God give you the strength to defeat it, bind it and cast it away from your life.
May peace and happiness be yours everlasting. Amen. 🙏🏾

HOW JOSEPH FOUND OUT THAT MARY WAS PREGNANT

When you think of Joseph, son of Jacob and the adopted father of Jesus of Nazareth, you will agree he is under-appreciated. Bible said Joseph found out that Mary was pregnant and because he was a righteous man, wanted to cast her away quietly.

It got me thinking. I’d imagine that those days sexual relations between an engaged couple were limited.
Mary’s pregnancy was definitely not visible. Was Joseph then counting her cycle? That would be such an intimate thing to do for one who, as the Bible implies, had no sexual relationship with Mary. Did Mary tell Joseph? I’m imagining how that discussion must have gone.

“Honey, I’m pregnant but I promise you, no man touched me. It was an Angel of God.”
“Angel? As in Obadiah that lives by the fishermen quarters or Nehemiah anya 4:30? Which of them is the Angel? I see the way they look at you”.

Because Mary is still a woman, she must have done what women would do - cry and deflect and accuse Joseph of emotional distress.

“Honey, what you are saying is not fair. What you are doing is wrong. You are accusing me! You don’t trust me! After all these years? After all I have done for you? Helping you pick the best nails for that stool you made for Cornelius”.
“Ah! Is he the one? The Roman centurion? It makes sense now”.
“No! No! I’m telling you it’s the Angel?!”
“Did you drink?”

A very apt question because Mary was so sure her son could turn water to wine which makes me believe the Mother of God must have known a thing or two about fermented grapes.

“No! You are breaking my heart! Joseph, I love you. You know I love you. You know I will never lie to you.”
“Then tell me why you would lie with another man and call him an angel?!”
“Ah! You will blaspheme o! Joe please. I’m begging you. Hear me out.”
“Oya. Talk.”
“Drop the hammer first.” Joseph dropped it. “You know how our ancestor, Jacob, was asleep at Penuel and fought the Angel in his vision but when he woke up he realized that his thigh had been injured…”
“Ah! This woman! You are now Jacob?”
“Joseph let me finish bikozienu”
“Finish what? Madam Jacob. Ok. Jacob fought, did you fight? Instead you opened your…ah I can’t even think. At least Jacob asked that he be blessed. Did you even ask that Angel to bring customers to me? Did you even ask for any blessing? Instead you got pregnant!”
“Joe!”
“Ok. When did this “fight” happen? Did you tell me? How come you are telling me now? You are afraid it will start to show? You want me to pretend it’s mine? Tell your mother she won’t succeed!”
“Joe believe me. I didn’t do anything wrong. It was the Angel. He said the boy would be a blessing! Believe me!”
“A boy?! Ah! Mary! Ok. No problem. What will happen is this. I won’t tell anyone before they say you are not just pregnant but crazy. But I won’t accept responsibility for something I didn’t do.”

Then that night, the Angel appeared to Joseph and told him to accept the baby. And he did. That decision is remarkable. Some might say it’s easy, “after all wasn’t he spoken to by an angel?” It was in his dream!
What if he just dismissed it as a nightmare planted in his head by Mary’s puzzling account of her pregnancy? What if he just plainly doubted? After all, Zechariah, John the Baptist’s father, who’s supposed to be an oracle of God doubted Him and was struck dumb until John’s birth. How then did you take it as a given that Joseph BenJacob of Nazareth, a hustling carpenter would be a ready believer of some nocturnal vision? The ones you’ve seen, how many have you believed and acted on? Not just flimsy acts but very significant steps that would confound any rational person.

My theory is this - I think it’s unsettled whether we really act of our own free will or that God programs and compels us to act to fit His grand scheme. Sometimes, I think that when some of us refuse to act as He wants, he shifts us aside and bestows the obligation on another.

Question is does he bestow our suffering on another as quickly as it seems our “blessings” are bestowed on others?

Sorry for that little digression. So, sometimes, God makes a show of compelling us like he did with Jonah and Paul and even Pharaoh. Maybe he does that when there’s no other to take our place. Was that what he did with Joe? Because look at this. God didn’t want just about any man to be Jesus’ apparent father. No. He wanted a man from King David. A royal blood. Anyone could claim Abraham or Isaac or Jacob. The whole of Israel came from them. But David? Nah. That was special and he was a king. So Jesus needed that royalty to compensate for the poor background he must come from. People don’t listen to poor people so you have to have some pedestal to stand on. Royalty was to be Jesus’s and of course, his power to put liquor sellers out of business to the joy & happiness of his dear mother (Mary saved a lot of money not buying Champagne).

So God needed a man who was
1. Poor
2. Righteous and well behaved (imagine someone like Speed Darlington as our Savior’s father); and
3. From the lineage of King David.

These requirements aren’t easy. A stubborn refusal from Joseph might have complicated issues but he agreed. Let’s imagine God didn’t compel him. Let’s imagine Joe really thought and agreed, it implies these

1. He is a righteous man with implicit belief and trust in God.
2. More than his trust in God is that he trusted Mary; and
3. More than he trusted Mary was that he loved Mary.

And Mary, I will assume, made those possible. He accepted Mary and didn’t sleep with her, so as not to create confusion as to whose seed made Jesus, until he was born. God said the child should be called Emmanuel but Joseph named him Jesus meaning the Lord Saves I.e our Savior.

Ask yourself in your personal relationships, are you trustworthy and do you love whom you are with to do “stupid” things for them.
And as per our relationships with God, when he speaks, can we hear? Do we know how to listen? I don’t know how it’s done but I ask for all of us, to receive the grace so that we may hear and we may act, to the glory of His name. Amen.

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