Find for me anyone who can proudly flash their Identity Card photo from ten years ago and you have found for me one in a million. It seemed as if every camera had the specific instruction to plant some 'bad' features and make the person look their very worst. I am inclined to guess that the default settings on the camera were: 1.)well combed hair equals a mad-man's one-of-those-days hairdo; 2)the eyes equals exact replica of those used in the horror movies; and 3) make variations with whatever else can be distorted. Such is the story of the early Identity Card photos.
But for some of us the story went beyond Identity cards; it pierced through to the IDENTITY. I simply did not have an identity. Well i did have one; one which i did not want to associate with anyway. Back then, i looked at myself and said behold a majestic ball of nothing, a grasshopper among the giants, a waste from the scum of the earth, a voice carried about in the raging wind, a sharp eye cast about in a dark tunnel, a pair of eager feet treading on a path leading to a place called nowhere. If one wanted a clear definition of doom, gloom, despair, filth; all they had to do was read the story of my life. That was my identity. But thank God for Past Tense.....and thank God too that a sentence can start with the word "but" and still be perfect English.
At this point i thank God that old identities have an expiry date; more so that the expiry date for my identity came and naturally i was only too eager to get rid of the stinking identity, throw it to the dogs, walk ahead and burn them bridges behind me. Just to make sure that even if i so happened to want to return there was no possible way that could happen - at all. So i visited the place where the new identities are issued. I expected the typical long, draining and boring ques, being transferred from one office to the next, only to be turned down because some document is missing - or that one did not qualify, even for such a flimsy reason as that one's village of origin was not in the file. With this process, anything goes. But NO, that was not the experience. It was all different; surprisingly so. Though millions came in at the same time to the same office, there was always room for each one and for one more, even a billion more! It was easy; as easy as a mere confession. Yes that alone sufficed -confessing with my mouth and believing in my heart the risen Lord Jesus. That was the very beginning of my getting a new identity; one which, a century later i am very sure that i will still produce it without hesitation and claim as my own with no trace of shame.
2 Corinthians 5:17
Romans 10:8-10
Mathew 11:28
2bcntd.....
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