ADULTHOOD

ARE YOU PREPARED FOR IT?

EDOKA PETER-PAUL

L

ife does not ask if you want to grow up or not. Growing up is not even a choice that you can make, it is an unavoidable progress that you must do all you can to flow with. It is either you are prepared for it or you will prepare in it-this however is more costly; because it is going to be about ‘falling’ and ‘raising’, but much of the ‘fallings’ can be avoided when you are prepared.

When you were born, your parents and the community made decisions for you in helping you to grow to what they felt was good for you. Bu at a point in time, when you have grown into an ADULT you will need to make every single decision concerning your life and what you feel is good for you-either you choose to be a ‘Good-Adult’ or a ‘Bad-Adult’, that decision lies heavily on whether or not you are prepared for the ADULTHOOD.

As an ADULT you should be concern about your life in general – family, health, finance, retirement and ultimately, eternity. Unless you deliberately put all these into consideration and work at them with total concentration, you will experience ‘SAD-ADULTHOOD’. Your ADULTHOOD would be in a state where you will reflect on your earlier days as a youth and regret most of the decisions you made that led you to where you are today.

Now that you are an ADULT, what is the state of your family life? Can you be sincere with yourself in saying your family is exactly what you wanted it to be when you were much younger? What about your health, can you say you are having a healthy body and living a healthy life?  Look at the financial state of your adult life, are you satisfy with the state of your finance, your investment, the future-financial security? Either you are working for someone or you are running your own company, one day soon, you will ‘retire’. What are you doing in preparation for that day when it comes – the day when you will not be able to do ‘anything’ for yourself? And ultimately, how prepared are you to meet your Maker, before whom you will have to give account of all your activities here on earth?

ADULTHOOD is the time for redirection and amendment-for those who are lucky to reach it. At this stage you are expected to redirect your ways and path and purposes in life, put your family in one piece and bring the members together in unity. I you have not made concrete plans for your retirement-day, and now you are retired and filling like you have lost it all; you should still hold on and make plans - that you are alive, means you still have a chance to make it right. It not too late for those who are still alive, it is too late and never possible for those who have given up hope of making things better for themselves and their generation.

You can cope with ADULTHOOD if you make the decision today to make things right in every aspect of your life. That you will retire soon is not a dead sentence; it is not the end of life to leave one state of life to assume another, infect, it is growth, its development and achievement. You are the only one who should decide how it will be for you – the end or another beginning. Make concrete plans towards your retirement by buying into the numerous retirement plans benefits we have in the country; talk to your financial adviser about your decision. Your health is as important as your wealth; infect the traditional saying has it that health is wealth. So, if you are conscious of the fact that you need good health to be alive and active, you will make positive effort to watch what you eat, drink and how you spend your time every day.

GET A MENTOR

… Have A Saint-Friend

EDOKA PETER-PAUL

O

ur existence on earth is temporal, but it should also be full of accomplishment; by doing what we can stand before the presence of God to give adequate and joyous report. Today, the Celebration of All Saints is a reminder that there is a state of life after here, that there is a better life outside this earthly one. And the good news is that, there are some persons who were here yesterday and today, they are there, living that glorious life that God has promised those who endure and persevere. They should be our MENTORS!

In the Book of Revelation 7:9, the Bible holds that there were enormous crowd , people from different tribe, nation, and language, and they stood before the throne of God and before the Lamb (Jesus) dressed in white robes and holding palm branches in their hands. These people will spend eternity in the presence of God, and there will be no more pain, no more tears, and no more dead. These people are the Saints we celebrate today. These people were human beings like you and I- male and female who passed through the trials and temptations of this world, but were patient and prayerful and positive about the Kingdom of God, that today, they are enjoying His presence, seeing Him face-to-face.

It’s true that we shall see God on the last day and be happy forever because Saint John wrote in his Third Letter (1 John 3:2-3) that when Christ appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He really is. But again, there is a demand of those who wishes to ‘see God’s face’, there is a task to carry out, there is a price to be paid. And the price is what we are all called and reminded this day to strive at paying it with our life every day. In verse 3 of that same chapter, Saint John states that, “Everyone who has this hope in Christ keeps himself pure, just as Christ is pure.

We should therefore be firm in our resolution to imitate those whose song are being sang today-because they strive at making themselves pure that is why they are standing in the presence of God, and that is why we are singing their praises today. We all desire to be where they are, we all wish to be among those with the glorious body, singing ‘Alleluia’ and praising God day and night for the rest of our lives-because, as the saying goes, ‘No matter the number of years you spend on earth, you will spend longer years when you die’; but the question now is: Where will you spend those ‘longer years’, with God or without God?’

The Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 5, Jesus gave us what I call, Map to True Happiness. Each verse starts with: “Happy are those who …” And now, to conclude this speech, I say to us all, Happy are those who go home and read that passage of the Bible and the live by it, for that people shall be among All Saints when the time is right.