jubilant music
Woke up to the sound of full-surround sound playing inside me. It had beats, voice, all the accompaniments. The replica of the soul-stirring jubilant music, real strong acclaim of God's highness, distinctiveness and person that pervaded the space the previous Sunday morning service. My next move was to get off bed, clear my nose and ease off the discomfort that roused me in the first place. Then I joined the ongoing chorus.
Ughghgh! It was terrible. My voice was croaky, jumpy, fading. A tone-sensitive person will throw up at the sound that came out my throat. To think that was an attempt to resonate with the internal sound. That's how people translate their intention into reality most of the time. Imagine the invention of the TV. Those folks must have 'seen' the sound and picture of today's high definition TV systems. But when after untiring tries, their work turned out a squaky black-white moving scenes, they turned out their work to benefit humanity.
The folks that I pity often in this oft-repeated nightmare of efforts to transit from pictures and visions to real-world acts are programmers and software developers. After wringling, unending wristling of minds, you see an output that leaves you wondering whether that was the result of all that lines of code.
I want to say that, like the classic Thomas Edison light-bulb tales have been used to illustrate a million times, that the distance from conception to actualisation is covered with practice. Try again. Repeat the process. Each time it gets better. In product development, poetry and music or any work of innovation persistence makes the difference.
You have heard the sound play in your head, perceived the reality with your heart. You know its impact and beauty enhances. And though what is produced is a far-cry from the intention its not time to stop but to believe in what you heard and sensed.
Right initiative
Twelve hours. That was all the time I had to make up my mind to begin on a job I had already accepted. The issue was whether it was the right job for me. For instruction, I searched within me for what the great icons did at their own critical junctures. That journey of discovery showed a common trait among them.
David showed up when the great Samuel acting on divine instruction requested that he should be called in from the field where he was tending sheep. Not a great job considering that all his brothers needn’t be summoned from the field. It seems as if he was doing a task nobody wanted. Not only did David observe that his brothers’ abandonment of the family business (probably to hired hands) is not good he took action by staying behind.
Another set of brothers behaved normally but Joseph considered their lifestyle unacceptable and reported the same to their Dad. He had a different mindset but didn’t stop at that. So real was his different set of values and way of seeing the world to him that he acted based on it. When that didn’t pay off, since it got him into trouble which led to his enslavement, he should have changed his approach to life. Not Joseph, he went ahead to gladly take on steward roles as a slave and later prisoner-slave.
Most times we don’t choose what happens to us but Daniel like any other human being had the freedom to respond to his situation. He purposed in himself that the God of Israel is still God even in Babylon. That belief made him to take an action: refuse to eat idol food. He went ahead to take on various positions in the system of his day. He was special adviser to the government, top bureaucrat, chief analyst and an astounding statesman.
Each of their stories began when they acted in their own context. It didn’t matter what that context was – prosperity, bad job, sickness or happiness. Their histories began when God saw a reaction from within them to what was around them. They reflected what was inside by taking a right initiative in response to how they see and think. So, think all you will (and that’s important) but nothing changes until you make a move.
Maybe it’s not the right job for me but it gives me a context to act. Its what I do after that will count.
U 2
The same goes for you. What you do after this invitation I offer. On behalf of the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s son to whom he has given all that exists, I invite you to receive God’s gift of freedom to live to the full. That ONLY happens when you live in conscious relationship with Jesus – the giver of life. Start by saying, “I receive you, Jesus.”
First day @ Standard Alliance Insurance
I had written out a workpath for the period I'll be at this job. So, when I arrived the Ajose Adeogun, V.I. head office of Standard Alliance Insurance Plc I was armed with a plan. Plus, no detour was going to sidetrack me since I had made provision for those other forces that assail every intention.
First thing, I was taken along to a weekly meeting that review and preview activities in the organisation. Being at that meeting was a major orientation as the basics of how the company carries on, key people and attitudes showed clearly. I felt being among forward-looking, positive people seeing the MD easily mix serious talk with good-natured humour amidst intelligent analysis of facts and figures.
Believe it or not, listening to the confidence and optimism of Bode Akinboye (that's MD) I was not only willing to work for (with?) him but also support the company in the on-going consolidation in the Nigerian insurance industry. Having had a trained ear for the stock market from my former employer, SBA Research, I scented a good deal from the insider information about the proposed share offer of Standard Alliance.
It came time for my introduction to the meeting as a new staff. The microphone was handed me to say a word. Maybe I stuttered but after my name I told them my picture is to allign the company's statistics unit with best practices for similar function anywhere. A young lady, Chioma, welcomed me on behalf of the company.
I had plenty papers signed with Human Capital before I had a desk assigned to me and got browsing right-away. Objective: What do great companies do with statistics, how do they go about obtaining and applying data for their benefit and profit. Had some food eaten up in my stomach doing that before my departmental head (Risk Management Group) came around to say it's good I look at some of the files that happen to be on the desk to help give some dea of the goings-on in the department.
Before long, lunch time came and went without incident in the company's canteen. Back at my desk and not exactly grasping the contents of the files dealing with insurance transaction I kept
