Beyond 30 !
As life continues, the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, we never stop learning, we never stop singing and the Bible never stops being alive.
To this end, “Beyond 30” has been created as a monument to record the faithfulness of God as He continues to add years to my life till He calls me home.
On the 13th of December every year, a Life Verse, a Life Lesson and a Life Hymn will be added to reflect, as concisely, that year’s experience. This will be a challenge as there will definitely be more than one lesson, Bible Verse or Hymn that has been a blessing that year.
Prayers should never cease; therefore, please ‘Say A Prayer’ again and again as often as you will visit Faithful30.
Thank you.
Year 32 (2023)
Life Verse 32: Proverbs 18:24
“A man with many friends may lose them. But there is a friend who is more faithful than a brother.”
Reason: “…there is a friend who is more faithful/who sticks closer/who stays closer (depending on the version) than a brother.”
I read/ am reading a few books this year but one of them had me undone — it wasn’t my Bible ☹️, please have mercy, Lord.
Nevertheless, the words of the book could have only come under the unmistakable inspiration of the Holy Spirit because those words were spirit and life to my soul. I wept, paused, wept, highlighted, wept again, read again, wept again, read even more slowly and wept even more deeply.
Couldn’t believe what I read because it was truth. It must have been the same joy the Samaritan woman at the well (what’s her name, Lord?) in John 4 felt when she left her treasured water pot and ran back to the village to tell her people, “Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did…“ (John 4:29).
In the same vein, as I read these words in this book, I ran to WhatsApp to send a message to my Friend which I now copy and paste as sent:
“ O* good evening…*I havent read any message you sent…. Just came on WhatsApp in tears. Completely undone, O…. I don’t know what to type or what to even say…. Fingers are shaking and don’t know where to start from…. I’m not trying to get you worried at all. Please don’t be…. I will take a breather and come back…O…O…O…Oh God…Please don’t be worried at all please.”
* The name which was written fully in the actual messages sent has been abbreviated to O to protect my shy mouse’s privacy.
* The ellipsis (…) signify the separation of each message as sent on WhatsApp.
So, I began by sending the above set of messages and truly needed a breather because I was truly undone. Here’s an excerpt from my mouse’s response to the messages:
“Eunice! Oh my goodness. I’m so sorry. I was in a meeting and away from my phone…So sad to hear this Eunice! What’s happened? …Oh okay. Will let you take the breather. I’ll be praying in the interim until you get back …. Please let me know if I can help in anyway. Praying certainly here. Also here to speak, pray together, or if there’s an immediate action I can help with please. Here for you spiritually, mentally, emotionally, financially, honestly whatever the case may be. Love you so much! God will never leave you! & He is near through this too.”
After a while, I came back to continue sending the following message:
“You know by now, that I have been reading C.S Lewis’ The Four Loves that has been in my library for over 3 years.
If I read this book 3 year ago, it would have been a fantastic book. One of my best reads ever, but I am reading it now, at this season and I am not reading a great book. The words I am reading are spirit and life. They are piercing to the dividing asunder of my soul and spirit, my joints and marrow and are discerning my thoughts and heart.
It can only mean one thing — this book came from heaven. The author of this is book is God and C.S Lewis was the amanuensis for this purpose.
I don’t even remember what triggered me reading it at this season but I am now on the Chapter on friendship.
I had been reading and reading and wowd upon wowd upon wowd.
As I read, I was highlighting along the way and I didn’t want to spoil your read for you but it came to a point where I was like, nah! I MUST share these with O.
I started taking pictures of some of the highlights to share with you, planning to explain my thoughts behind some but just mostly share the others with you.
If I read this book this time last year, it would have been a great book. I would have wondered what it felt like to have a friend but I was reading it now and it was just multiple confirmations – not “What would it be like to have a friend?” Or “God, can You please send a friend of Your own choosing and design?” But confirmations of. “I have a friend! I have a friend! I have a friend!”
I will share some of these highlights…”
After sending the above message, I went on to share different highlights from the book explaining my thoughts behind them. Indeed, it was joy unspeakable.
The name of the book? The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis, specifically the chapter on Friendship. Available on Amazon here.
Life Hymn 32: On Christian Friendship
Christian Friendship is better expressed in the word, “Fellowship.”
The difference between mere friendship and christian friendship (fellowship) is the higher plane the latter reaches.
Mere friendship may end at the parties declaring and lavishing their love, loyalty, liberality and all the other lovely Ls to their souls’ satisfaction but the constant climax of fellowship is that it redounds to the glory of God.
Yes, we lavish our love on each other but as we begin to do so, no sooner do we realise that what we share, the deep, genuine, disinterested love we mutually hold, could only have come from a higher Source. Such friendship is a city not made with hands, it is “a city which has foundations, whose Architect and Builder is God” (Hebrews 11:10); because of this, we can love freely, cease from envy and competition knowing that this foundation is unshakable — a truly everlasting bond that will reign perfectly through all eternity; (nevertheless, satan, will still strike. he will still move about like a roaring lion seeking for fellowships to devour. boo, satan! boo!).
C.S Lewis in his phenomenal chapter on Friendship accurately describes it thus:
“But in Friendship, being free of all that, we think we have chosen our peers. In reality, a few years’ difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another, posting to different regiments, the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting—any of these chances might have kept us apart. But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking, no chances. A secret Master of the Ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,” can truly say to every group of Christian friends “You have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another.” The Friendship is not a reward for our discrimination and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each the beauties of all the others. They are no greater than the beauties of a thousand other men; by Friendship God opens our eyes to them. They are, like all beauties, derived from Him, and then, in a good Friendship, increased by Him through the Friendship itself, so that it is His instrument for creating as well as for revealing.”
As a continuation to the WhatsApp messages I sent to O as shared in the ‘Life Verse 32’ section above, this was the final part:
“O, you are glory, great glory! Yet I know this is just a shadow of things to come whether in this life but certainly in the next. I can’t even fathom it. You came and the abstract concept of soulmate, which C.S Lewis, meaning the same thing, calls Kindred Souls at different places in the book. It is real. It is possible. If it were no so, I would have told you but it is real. It is God!
Told you how I came across friend the other day in my devotional and just reading the word friend and then this.
On a lighter note, now wondering if to save the reading of the Eros Chapter till the season. Lol.
Happy to just bask in all of this.
I’m not even done with the chapter. Will just take this whole experience so far in and meditate on the Wonder that is God who has mercy on whom He will have mercy and works everything according to the counsel of His own will. That He will look at me and decide that He is choosing O to be this one’s friend. God’s mercy is not only great but also embarrassing.
The song for this moment right now is My Heart Sings by William McDowell- dedicated to God and also an allusion to the gift that is you.
What can I do but pour out this gift of a friendship as an offering unto the great Creator, extraordinary Strategist and impossibility Specialist. When shall I see this God? (the song, “The Stand” Hallal Music version fits in here).
Oh O, “I love you” just doesn’t seem enough.
THANK YOU, JESUS.”
“…thanks be to God for His indescribable Gift” (2 Corinthians 9:15). “
BLEST BE THE TIE THAT BINDS
Writer: John Fawcett (1782)
1. Blest be the tie that binds
our hearts in Christian love;
the fellowship of kindred minds
is like to that above.
2. Before our Father’s throne
we pour our ardent prayers;
our fears, our hopes, our aims are one,
our comforts and our cares.
3. We share our mutual woes,
our mutual burdens bear,
and often for each other flows
the sympathizing tear.
4. When we are called to part,
it gives us inward pain;
but we shall still be joined in heart,
and hope to meet again.
5. This glorious hope revives
our courage by the way;
while each in expectation lives
and waits to see the day.
6. From sorrow, toil, and pain,
and sin, we shall be free;
and perfect love and friendship reign
through all eternity.
*Bonus Bridge by Hallal Music:
And when the storms of life are raging
When the blowing cold winds blind
In His strength the storms will weather
Through the clouds the sun will shine
We will walk this road together
Till the day our journey finds
Our home beyond the river
Blest be the tie that binds
Our sweet home beyond the river
Blest be the tie that binds.
This is my promise to you, O. I. I.
I love you dearly .
*”Lyrics That Speak” highlighted in bold.
Life Lesson 32
THE CONCEPT OF SOULMATES IS REAL
…if it were not so, I would have told you but I have seen, touched and experienced this so I tell you that there is such a thing as a soul mate.
I refer to my soulmate as my soulmate when referring to the person in conversations without feeling any awkwardness in the term. The hearer on the other hand, is usually the one who gets iffy or raises brows at the term. At best, they translate it to mean I speak of a man — perhaps, a potential husband.
No surprises there because as we do with every hallowed thing, we have desecrated the concept of soulmate to mean that contemptible concept of lust “love” that happens between male and female.
Soulmates can be either same or opposite sexes. The basic and truest meaning of a soulmate is one whose innermost being is made up of the same as another. This consists of our choices, desires, hopes, fears, comforts, aspirations, tastes, concerns, beliefs, interests, joys, faith and as many things as may not necessarily be seen and touched.
We may look as different as black and white on the outside, even with different personalities (as my soulmate and I are) but on the inside we are one and the same.
C.S Lewis uses the term, “Kindred Souls” which eventually leads to friendship to express this concept of a soulmate and gives an explanation here:
“Friendship arises out of mere Companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share and which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique treasure (or burden). The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, “What? You too? I thought I was the only one.”
… It is when two such persons discover one another, when, whether with immense difficulties and semi-articulate fumblings or with what would seem to us amazing and elliptical speed, they share their vision – it is then that Friendship is born. And instantly they stand together in an immense solitude.”
Frankly, all believers should be soul mates as Jesus earnestly desires and prayed:
”I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me” (John 17:20-23). ”
”Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples” (John 13:35). ”
Alas! Please have mercy on Your church, Lord.
Year 31 (2022)
Life Verse 31: Psalm 73:28
“But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign LORD my refuge; I will tell of all your deeds”
Reason: “But as for me…”
We live in a world system where anything goes. People make decisions by culture’s default rather than from personal conviction after careful thought and consideration. Those who have opposing views on some of these societal norms are considered weird and in some cases, ‘cancelled.’
Regardless, for the Christian, despite societal norms and expectations, we must have our personal, “but as for me…”
In the Psalmist’s time when he penned this, many had left God, many had turned their backs – “gone a whoring” from God, the unrighteous where prospering and even mocked God. The psalmist felt that he had wasted his time serving God and pursuing righteousness until he carried out a deep reflection and consideration of the end of these wicked ones i.e. those without God and finally came to the conclusion that even if everyone departed from God, “but as for me…”
His “but as for me…” was not that rebellious kind of individuality that creeps up in an attempt to be ‘different’ but his resolve was simple and straightforward, “….it is good to be near God.”
He was clear that the world could do their thing and follow their own path but for him, what was good for him was to be near God.
For me, Eunice, it is good for me to be near God.
There are times when it may seem pointless denying oneself different things when fellow Christians are indulging and still ‘blessed,’ following the world’s way and still have ‘thriving’ ministries, still God’s ‘favourite;’ ….so why don’t you calm down?
Because, for me, Eunice, it is good for me to near God – whatever that may seem like to the rest of the world.
It is very easy to tell when I have been abiding in Christ and when I have not. Only one of them is good for me and for everyone else.
It is good, not just for me but for those around me, those I interact with, those I work with and good for the world that I am near God for without Him, I can do nothing and outside of Him, I’m a terror to myself and to everyone else.
I have tried different paths and been near different things but what is good for me, Eunice Pauline, is to be near the God who has redeemed me and saved my soul.
Life Hymn 31: On a Faithful God
According to Apple Music Replay, a service that captures your year in music and gives you an annual report (perks of being born in December), I had 17,616 minutes of music on the app and my top listen and anthem of 2022 was a brilliant song which just moves my heart every time.
Turns out the title is “Faithful God” which was was not intentional in trying to keep with a theme. We could call it a confirmation that the faithfulness of God is truly my favourite attribute of His.
FAITHFUL GOD
Writer: Galkin Evangelistic Hymn (2012).
If I call, will You come
When I cry, do You hear
I believe every tear
Is caught up by a faithful God
So I will cry until You come
Cast my cares into Your arms
I can’t see past this storm
But I’m counting on a faithful God
CHORUS:
Faithful God
You hold my life secure
All my days are Yours
I believe
My God is like a fire defending me
Faithfully
I believe You still heal,
And demons still bow;
I’m convinced there is power,
In trusting in a faithful God.
So I will praise ’till You appear,
And set Your foot upon this shore;
I declare that every foe,
Is subject to my faithful God
BRIDGE:
I know that You are mine
And I am Yours, I am Yours
I know Your faithfulness
It will endure, it will endure.
*” Lyrics That Speak” highlighted in bold.
Life Lesson 31
THEREFORE, LET HIM WHO THINKS HE STANDS TAKE HEED LEST HE FALL.
(1 Corinthians 10:12)
I learnt this one quite early on in the year. Another version says “if you think you are standing strong, be careful not to fall.”
As long as we remain in this garment of flesh, we must realise our dire need for constant dependence upon God. When we have those mountain top experiences, we can be tempted to think we are strong and ready to take on the world but our ever active, ever working enemy, satan, who goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom to destroy will only laugh at our ridiculousness.
We do best not to play with fire. Fire will always burn. The strength to stay away from fire doesn’t come from us but from God.
God helps us resist temptation by helping us:
1) Recognise the people and situations that give you trouble.
2) Run from anything you know is wrong.
3) Choose to do only what is right.
4) Pray for God’s help.
5) Seek friends or church leaders who love God and can offer help when you are tempted.
Running from a tempting situation is your first step on the way to victory (see 2 Timothy 2:22).
(5 points above taken from the NLT Life Application Bible commentary on 1 Corinthians 10:13).