Public Opinions

Sometimes in life, when you seek too many opinions from people, you never get to make any bold decision! And most times too, when you need others’ opinion, you never get it until after a decision is made and then their “expert opinions” on your decision (actions) come flying in torrents. “Oh, you should have done it like this or that, or you should have gone this other way”, etc., will always be the feedback from your critics, who funny enough, just sit and wait to offer their criticism only after an action is taken.

The spirit of unhealthy criticism seems to have gotten into many of us, and all we know and do lately, is turn ourselves into “social commentators” who just sit and talk (commenting) all day on other people’s life choices, especially all over the media platforms. Whenever news gets into our ears or our social media feeds, of people around us who are striving in life and daily putting themselves out there to make ends meet – often on the back of many critical personal decisions – we quickly zoom into our default criticism mode and make unwholesome comments about them. If only we are putting in the works ourselves, that could be cool, but no, we always forget we have so many decisions to make about our own lives that we ourselves are not even courageous enough to make. Sadly, instead of lifting people up with inspiring opinions, we instead specialize only in pointing out other’s faults, denigrating them or hating on them. This is becoming the growing trend with this new generation of ours, especially on social media platforms.

This unwholesome trend is making social media no longer fun for a lot of people. It is no longer a place for the faint hearted, but those who can grow the toughest skin to all manner of criticism, abuse or cyber bully. It is now a place where even a post with the most innocent of intentions can place you in deep waters of cyber bully which can cripple your very existence.

Funny enough, most of the people we always find expedient to criticize for making what to us are ‘wrong choices’, as if that is our paid job, are the ones not just sitting down like us, trying to act all clean and angelic. Rather, they are at least doing something with their life, they are the ones putting their hands to the plow and trying out what works or will not work for them, learning valuable lessons and making future improvements. One day, they are the ones that will grow to become resilient influencers and world game changers. On the contrary, it is we, the critics, who now call ourselves “social media commentators”, who will remain at the same place with apparently nothing better to do with our lives, other than offering vitriolic criticism.

Perhaps, the most talked about people are always people who are doing something and trying to get somewhere. Critics will always remain to talk down achievers, but may themselves not be achievers. Very few achievers seem to waste time talking down others.

Well, criticism in itself is not a bad thing, but it must be constructive. Otherwise, it is only damaging and never builds a person up. People struggle to turn out good when they constantly hear negative words thrown at them. Try that on your child or spouse and see how they turn out. Words carry power and our words must always be measured, even if we want to criticize. Negative environments are just so caustic, and we must do all that we can to avoid them – at least, for our own mental health.

©Mark Gadogbe, 2020

Featured Image Credit: Instagram | @adina_thembi

https://instagram.com/adina_thembi?igshid=okjw7q120usi

Your righteousness can be sinful…

Your righteousness can be sinful and your salvation questionable…if it blinds you to the gospel of grace, when it makes you feel exalted above all, when it gives you no patience for the sinner, when it makes you feel it is for you that Christ came and not the worst of sinners, when it makes you forget that it is God himself who works in us both to will and to do His good pleasure and that of our own we can do no good thing.

The posture of some Christians on social media is sometimes worrisome as a lot of people’s activities or contents are loaded with unnecessary arguments, labelling and putting people down. I do feel mostly that nobody gets saved by what seems like insults, judgments and castigations on social media, especially when people express opposing views to our Christian posts or messages. In many cases, it perhaps makes us no different from the people throwing stones at the biblical woman caught in adultery.

It is not here (social media) that we are coming to differentiate between what is morally wrong and morally right…it is mostly common knowledge. Nonetheless, if that has to be done, it must be done with a lot of tactfulness. To the best of my knowledge, people don’t become good when all you do is constantly hammer their wrongs in their face; they become worse. If you like, try that approach on your child and see how they turn out.

It doesn’t mean a Christian should never point out people’s wrongs, but there’s always a good way to do that; the approach matters sometimes more than the message. It is always important to remember that it is by grace that some of us even turned out good. We must always acknowledge the grace of God in our lives because sitting on social media, loading our timelines with Bible verses and acting all clean and righteous is not what is at stake. Fact is, when someone’s sin or actions bothers you more than your own and instead of working on you, you will rather judge and castigate them, you have a problem! It’s like today’s Christians are more interested in pointing out sinners than even praying for them so God does His own work in them. We just like to let people see they are the bad nuts and we are the good ones, I guess.

I may be right or wrong but I never maintain that I speak truth; I speak my mind on issues. It’s the recipients of what I say, write, publish, etc. that are the judge of whether it is truth (makes sense) for them or not. That’s why I don’t go about forcing my opinion on others for them to accept it as the truth, and if they don’t, they become the enemy. No, God alone is true and I’m not a Pastor so I don’t lay claim to “speaking the mind of God” and forcing His will on people. I’m focusing on living my Christian life the way I know best.

Social media is a great place to evangelize and spread the message of the gospel but we must never lose sight of our approach and conduct in achieving that aim so we don’t look self-righteous. We surely can build each other up, but we can’t force our truth on people and make enemies out of the very people we are sending the gospel to. And we can’t be hypocritical either, keeping our timelines flooded with scriptures just to look good outside while our real lives are questionable.

©Mark Gadogbe, 2020

Never argue with your Pastor

It is very easy these days to find a lot of Bible verses and passages being misrepresented or taken out of context by modern day Charismatic Preachers who attach a lot of gimmicks and “gymnastics” to their preaching just to excite the crowd. And a lot of unsuspecting members just follow everything that comes out of a Preacher’s mouth as the undiluted truth from God without any effort of exercising personal discernment.

We follow blindly especially in these days of social media craze that most men of God are now more concerned with amassing a large following than preaching the right messages. Sadly, if you’re in a Church that you don’t follow your Pastor / Preacher on social media or share their posts, you’re seen and treated more as not a friend of the Church or man of God. Our attachment and focus is more now towards the men of God and promoting them than Christ Himself or living lives that reflect Christ. They are gradually leading and defining our lives more than God (Christ); we now so easily do things to please them rather than Christ…thinking by pleasing them we are by extension pleasing God in all cases.

And the disposition of some of the men of God is so amazing that you wonder exactly enters people when they have been “called by God”. Because you have the opportunity of a congregation to preach to as a servant of God, you think everybody else in the congregation doesn’t know anything. You think you’re the only one endowed with the right kind of heavenly knowledge and should always be right. The church setting sometimes surprises me because one person shares a message and everybody is expected to agree with it…no questions asked. Take the message, swallow it hook, line and sinker and if you have a problem with it, go argue with your Bible…and not the one disseminating it. Express too much opposing views and you’ll be tagged not matured in Christ or asked where your “Doctor of Theology Degree” is. 😂

Back in the days when question and answer times were allowed during teaching services, you still are not allowed to make arguments that puts the “All-knowing Preacher” in a position of not having all the facts after all. When all else fails, they will ask you “do you argue with your Boss at your work place”? Well, then you can’t argue with a “man of God” or object to anything he does because they hear direct from God and you don’t. Just like the secular Bosses…they are always right. Spiritual Bosses…so cool 😎.

I hope they hold our hands and take us to Heaven instead of we working out our own salvation. 😊

©Mark Gadogbe (McApple), 2019

Our child Arya shall survive your fears

Of all the children in the world whose beautiful pictures get shared on the internet or social media or even make it onto invitation cards and dps, it is my own that you fear for that something bad or evil will happen to? I don’t care whoever you are, but you must be ashamed of yourselves to even think that of any child anywhere in the world. 

It’s unsettling to start with that you are even thinking the worse will happen to an innocent child and not rather praying that she will live and succeed in life irrespective of your supposed “wrong and immature decisions” of the parents. What has bewitched our brains in this part of the world to always be so backward thinking and so superstitious? And the way we go about it (the approach) as if it is our exclusive right as media or moral watchdogs to tell people what to do or not to do is so disgusting to say the least sometimes (please you won’t go to Hell for your failure to do certain things if that’s your push 😂). This is not a personal attack but I’ve had far too many “morally upright” folks trying to force their way into my personal life and business and I feel it’s right to share a few sentiments of my own. 

Truth is that we don’t assume everyone feels the same way about social media and what gets on it — and you don’t approach this sometimes very sensitive issue as if your rules are better than those of others because the honest truth is that it all comes down to personal preferences or choices. 

I have always maintained that life is freedom and it is plain stupid sometimes to want people to live their life the way you live yours. The fact that you are uncomfortable with something does not mean everybody should be uncomfortable with it. The fact that you decide as your personal lifestyle to do or not do something does not mean it should become the universally accepted rule of life or yardstick for judging moral conduct. 

Always do what makes you happy

You see eh, this year 2018 eh, I don’t want to take any nonsense from anybody. You see, we are not dumb not to know that we’re not the first to be parents and neither will we be the last. It was not you that told us whether it was right or wrong to get married at whatever age we decided to…it was not you that made the choice of a partner for us, neither was it you that financed it even at the time that we both had no gainful employment. It was not you that made the decision for us about not having a child whilst married and still in school and rather wait until now. And if God has blessed us now with a child, we are accountable only to Him. 

Having this child has been entirely our personal decision and every decision we make regarding this child throughout her life on earth will be our sole prerogative or responsibility. In this part of our world, we talk too much and want to express opinions about everything that involves the life of another…whatever we think gives us that right to, I don’t know. What’s even more sad is that we appear only more interested in killing people’s joy or pushing negativities.

You see, everybody in my family or life that has known me very well knows that it is not today that I am going to play very nice to uninvited opinions that don’t have any grounded basis but are merely sentimental and based on individual preferences. Say I’m proud or whatever, I have never cared and won’t start to care now. There are boundaries and we need to always respect them – I don’t know why people don’t know that. 

Whatever anybody decides to do with their child is none of my business; so, I don’t go about telling people whether they are treating their child right or wrong…when it borders on documented legal or cultural violations, the laws of the land will take action. So, you can put him/her in a dustbin I don’t care and you can wait until they are 18 years to be able to give you their legal consent before you feed them, bath them, clothe them, allow them to shit on you, take them out to public places, beg them to take a picture of them or show them to the world, I don’t care. It’s your problem if you want to get your child to consent before you do anything that relates to that child – you might as well keep them in your womb until they attain the legal age of 18 or get them talking the minute they are born. 

It’s entirely your problem if you want to hide your child from the whole world because there are too many evil eyes – you might as well keep them only within the four walls of your room and not take them to the hospital, school, market square, city centre, and even church (because there are evil people in church too that will want to sap the life out of your child 😂). It’s your problem if you are too afraid that because the internet never forgets and your child didn’t give his/her consent before you posted a beautiful picture of them or news of their birth, they will grow up to chance upon it and probably hate you for life or sue you. Need I ask here also, what’s the difference between not using or sharing a picture of a newborn on social media and waiting until they are 1 year or above…what consent does a 1 year or 5 years child give or waiting until they are that age means the enemies out there can’t kill them anymore? You see why your preference is simply your preference? 

You don’t have to rub your personal fears on anybody and try to make it the morally upright rule or “matured way of doing things”. Let me remain immature in my personal decisions and life choices – as long as you’re not the one feeding me, I don’t care about your “maturity titles”.

Everything you decide to do in life as an adult is your personal choice and based on your fears or experiences of life. I agree not everybody has had a positive experience in life based on their background and the families they are coming from (or the spirits that are chasing them in life) but there are no rules in life that says that your personal fears has to be my fears or your personal choices should be mine as well and that it’s wrong if I do not do what you do. 

We decided exclusively whether it was right or wrong to inform anybody we were expecting a child and when exactly we should, that we had put to bed, that we were naming and dedicating the child, that you are welcome to visit or not…and by extension only we will ultimately decide whether you have any part to play in the life of the child or not. When we don’t give you that exclusive right, you don’t take it because you are whoever…at best, you play a spectator role. 😂 As for being happy for us or not, we have no control over it…it’s entirely your choice. 😜

(PS: These are just personal rumblings)

©Mark Gadogbe (McApple), 2018

MY WIFE, MY INSPIRATION

My wife said something yesterday:

“Your willingness to learn and unlearn things helps your marriage to work. The learning is easy; the hard work is in unlearning a habit or an attitude that you have grown up with”.

I said in my mind, wow how beautiful! You can’t surely coexist with someone by forcing on them your way of life, your upbringing. 

(PS: Still learning from my wife in marriage. She’s a storehouse of wisdom but she never talks on the “open market” 😜. If you want to know what she knows, you will always have to put her on the spot. Otherwise, you wait until I bring it to you. I’m the one that blogs the stuff and spreads it on social media. So I’m the one that gets called funny little annoying names too. But nothing spoil because sometimes I take the glory 😂🙈)

Nudity abounds in a society of lost morals

These pictures were circulated recently on social media and I’m like “why”? Why would my wife expose herself stark naked to the whole world? What will be the motivation? Money? Or you have to do it before people can be taught to appreciate their own bodies? What is posing nude for charity…what kind of charity is that? Sometimes I don’t get the message…except it is to lure people into unholy passions or for worldly fame. 

South African celebrity’s social media photo posing nude for charity

And then again I said to myself, “possibly they are not married because I can’t seem to wonder if any responsible married woman will do that just for the sake of trying to educate a section of society”. Or possibly, times have changed and we must just learn to cope with it? 😟

Photo posted on social media by Ghanaian actress

I know by including these pictures in my post, some will say I am contributing to it’s spread and indirectly helping their agenda. That’s a very fair point, I admit, but I feel obliged to so that my readers can really appreciate (or picture) what this post is addressing. So, my apologies to those who are offended by them. I am too, but had to do this last post on this issue. 

Seriously, the nudist culture (or nudism) is growing at a very fast pace and not only is it becoming a normal trend but it is being embraced or championed by even the very elite of society. I don’t have a problem with nakedness because I see myself and my wife naked every day. 😂 But, if exposing oneself stark naked on the cover of magazines and social media platforms is the only best way a dignified woman can see her beauty or embrace her sexuality or better appreciate her feminine figure, or even do some charitable work for society, then something fundamental is wrong somewhere. 

Yes, something perhaps is seriously going wrong in the minds of nudists. But maybe it’s not really their fault. Maybe it’s a human right movement problem…and the increasing pressure to accept just everything and anything as a person’s fundamental human right. Maybe it’s the mainstream media’s fault or society’s fault. When you’re well clothed, the media says nothing, not even the word “descent” is used to describe you. But when you’re nude, they say “hot and sexy body“, “gorgeous looks“, I mean all these nice descriptors. Who wouldn’t feel encouraged with these phrases? Who wouldn’t want to “break the internet” with some nudes since that’s all it is: a challenge, or competition, or a simple case of women empowerment or human rights/freedom, and nothing about questionable morals. 

With ideologies like this being pushed, what then is right and what then is wrong?

But reality is that, every man knows how a feminine figure looks like and there’s nothing else you can teach us when you expose yourselves like that, other than causing a surge in our sexual appetites and lusts. Or are men denying that the female figure is beautiful that’s why you are giving us “lessons” on appreciating the female figure through the naked displays? And for the men who do that too, are women in denial of the beauty of the male figure? 

The human body is a beautiful work of art, we know. Our stark naked portraits are gorgeous, we admit, but why not we hang them in your bedrooms? We don’t have to invite others to admire our nakedness or pay for it…I guess that’s what prostitutes do? So, how different are you then from a prostitute when you do that? Yet you feel insulted when per chance folks choose to drop the fact that you’re educated and decide to rather call you a prostitute 😂. You call that hate speech and not embracing one’s sexuality? 

How different is a learned or scholarly person who is a nudist by choice or for monetary gain from a prostitute? Isn’t there a thin line between those two? 

How can marriages and the moral fibre of society last when our young folks emulate these unmarried celebrity figures and soak in their lifestyles? Aren’t we already seeing signs of a breaking society with the rate at which our young girls who should be in school focusing on their studies are busy jumping on the nudity bandwagon and taking nude pictures of themselves, recording sex videos and sharing on social media as well as stripping on Facebook live?

Sadly, since society practically “hails” the educated adults doing it, we’re left with very little moral grounds to condemn the young ones who learn the same wrongs from the same adults they see as “role models”. When an adult who is supposed to know better does something wrong and is being praised for it and left justified, what lessons are there for the young ones not to thread the same paths? 

Nevertheless, the internet they say does not forget. One day your sons or daughters will grow and be mocked in school/community by their colleagues that their mother is a prostitute or they have their mother’s nude pictures or masturbate to their mother’s nude sexy pictures. I hope you conscientize or prepare their minds for that looming future and pray suicide does not become their option when they can’t overcome the shame of facing you in the face to report their abuses to you. 

Modesty is Godly, beautiful and rewarding

That being said, this one fact remains true: Responsible men don’t marry makeup or nakedness, they marry destiny. Let your body, breasts or vagina be the most beautiful on display on earth, a man will outgrow it. The only future or destiny he’ll see with you is a potential porn star in waiting. Perhaps today it means nothing, but his reputation in future will decide your place in his life. Where you put your self worth is how you will be valued and how lasting that value will be. 

God save His people! And I hope this blesses somebody?
“This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.  If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth” – 1 John 1:5‭-‬6 KJV

“In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother” – 1 John 3:10 KJV

©Mark Gadogbe (McApple), 2017

Marriage & Personal Development Author 

​Marriage and compliments

I recently learned that women forget. She must hear the wedding vow eight times a day. And your husband nine times. Men forget even faster.

Compliments have the power to change lives. Compliment your partner with a text message or face to face. 
Compliment your spouse when others can hear it too. That is even more powerful because it makes your partner feel prouder and more special. Social media is a powerful tool for that, use it. Post a picture occasionally, write some nice words about him/her and post it. 

Public adoration or expression of compliments should not be limited to only once in a year special days or occasions like birthdays and anniversaries. With every simple act of compliment you reap a million in benefits…your love tank never dries. When in doubt, look out Proverbs 18:21. 
©Mark Gadogbe (McApple), 2017

Marriage & Personal Development Author 

​Dear sexy young lady,

We know your body is sexy and your breasts very appealing and arousing. But, if you care to know, all it takes for a breast to sag is one baby…with all due respect to mothers. So, you can keep bombarding us with all those sexy breasts and naked bodies for all we care. 
It won’t be long and marriage will happen, and then the babies will come…then we will thirst for those pictures of you, those very ones that you refuse to wear brassieres and just expose the “things” like that, and those full body unclad ones that show your smooth wrinkle-free and stretch-marks-free bellies, thighs and butts; and we will see if they will still trickle in 😂. 

Especially when we know you can’t afford like the celebrity role models you are copying “left right front back center”, the silicone implants or the average surgeon’s fees associated with breast augmentation, which is about $3,700, not including anesthesia, surgical facility fees, breast implants, and other expenses. 

But don’t worry if you don’t want to stop showing us your sweet sexy body and “private parts”. We will enjoy the sights, cheer you on and make you feel like we love you and would marry you. And if we are lucky, you will give yourself to us to sleep with as many times as we want, and all the while making you feel under the impression that we’re dating you for marriage. 
But when we are really ready for marriage, we know what we are looking for. We are looking for, and to marry women whose interest is in managing the home and not in showcasing their bodies all over the place. We judge your maturity and your being a “marriage material” by that “high standard”. You of course attract us with the boobs, the butts, and bikini things you constantly throw into our face all over the social media space; but that only attracts and gets our lust and sex cravings super up there. Unfortunately for you, it’s never enough when we are in for the serious business of marriage and lifelong relationship. Our wives can open their legs to us, give us free access to their bodies, and do all the things we see you throw out there…and still offer us a million more value added service. You see your life? 😂😜 

But even if you decide you will never marry, how long will you show your stuffs and we won’t eventually get tired of it? 5 years? 10 years? Lol. Those same appealing and appetizing breasts you are flaunting and letting loose today will surely sag tomorrow and become unappealing to the same people that cheered you on and gave you a million likes on social media. Even if they won’t sag through childbirth, they will by the natural process of ageing. Why, you won’t age? It’s only succulent now, but it won’t be forever…every man knows that. 😂  

And whether you like it or not your stretch marks and loose skin will surely come one day. Nature will always have it’s way. 

Worse scenario, we will move on to the younger likes of you. And you will know you have expired and wasted your youthfulness. 
Sex sells, sure! And fame through indecent exposure is good too, no worries. But marriage and raising a family is more valuable and fulfilling. Ask any man. No matter how beautiful and sexy you are, when that reality hits you, you will wonder why all those men left your sexy and beautiful self to marry those less beautiful than you.  

All the best! 😂

©Mark Gadogbe (McApple), 2017

Marriage & Personal Development Author