Small Things Are Great

Do you have a favorite word in your life? A word that you maybe make use of daily without fail? Maybe it isn’t your favorite in that you chose to use it, but one that you always find yourself using. My personal favorite word is “hallelujah.” I love it for two reasons. One, the meaning behind it is “praise the Lord,” and secondly, it almost sounds like “hello” at the beginning. Most people who’ve ever called me know that I usually say hallelujah as a salutation instead of hello. It not only connects well with believers, but also tends to kickstart conversations on matters salvation with unbelievers. What’s your word? Recently I was reviewing the writings of Luke and I realized there’s a word he loved using. The word is “GREW.” Checking through his writings, I found that he uses the word 13 times, and 9 of those times, he uses it as a transitional word—from one thought to another, or from one part of the narrative to the next. It’s a word he uses to mark progression. In Luke, it’s about ...

My mind was taken back to my high school days— not the fun kind TBT. I remembered my first week in Form One, fresh out of a two-month holiday, suddenly dropped onto the hills of Masaku. Our school was perched up high, between Machakos and Wote Town. The view? Beautiful. But I only discovered the best view while in Form Two—because that view was only visible from those classroom windows. From there you could see the night lights of Machakos, Athiriver and Nairobi City at a distance. It was mesmerizing. 😎 Enough of nostalgic moments. Let's rewind to Form One, shall we? That first week was pure brutality. Every teacher who walked into class had either a pile of books or a prefect carrying them—and of course, many came armed with a cane. (Not all, but enough to make an impression.) This is not sugarcane BTW, but a cane that hits your character before hitting your body. 😁 The routine was simple: * Introduce themselves. * Announce their subject. * Dive straight into the lesson. It was ...

God Doesn’t Leave Gaps – A Reflection from the Book of Acts. We just concluded reading through the book of Acts in our fellowship, and this time, one truth stood out for me louder than the rest: God doesn’t leave gaps, and so we shouldn’t either. Acts 1 and 2 open with two significant replacements— Jesus ascends, and the Holy Spirit descends. Judas departs, and Matthias is appointed. God fills the gap He left with the Holy Spirit, while the apostles feel the weight of Judas’ absence and act: they propose, pray, and poll. (That’s a sermon for another day.) From there, the book of Acts becomes a beautiful dance of divine substitutions. When a saint dies, a sinner is saved. When someone turns away, someone else steps up. In fact, Saul's conversion might’ve been God’s way of saying, “Since the ones I sent won't go, I’ll raise one who lives to go.” Saul— a lover of travel and starter of chaos—was turned into Paul, who traveled and caused holy chaos in hell’s camp. This humbled me ...

Today I was reminded of something that ties beautifully to an earlier write-up on parenting — more specifically, spiritual parenting, or discipling our children in the Lord. I called it: “Don’t Be Like Your Parents” and you can read it here https://mapstage.blogspot.com/2025/02/dont-be-like-your-parents.html This is a build up on that and the prompt came from a powerful moment in Joshua 1:16–17. Then they answered Joshua, “ Whatever you have commanded us we will do, and wherever you send us we will go. Just as we fully obeyed Moses, so we will obey you. Only may the Lord your God be with you as he was with Moses. ” When I read that part — “Just as we fully obeyed Moses…” — I paused. My first thought was, " did they really fully obey Moses? ” I remembered how often Moses was frustrated by their rebellion. The Book of Numbers reads like a record of arguments, complaints, and outright disobedience. So how could they say this? Then it hit me. I was remembering the wrong generation and...

In one of my discipleship conversations this week, one lady mentioned she's currently reading the book of Kings—and naturally, Elijah came up. We had quite the exchange about this wild, fiery prophet of God. Now, Elijah is no ordinary figure in the biblical storyline. - For starters, his very name means "Yahweh is God" (El-iYah). - Secondly, his story strangely parallels key New Testament timelines—appearing during Jesus' transfiguration and being referenced by John the Baptist and others. People thought John was Elijah (John 1:21), and some even thought Jesus was Elijah returned (Matthew 16:14). - Thirdly, he never died —he was taken up in a whirlwind (2 Kings 2:11), which means there's a future moment when he may return and finally taste death (Revelation 11:3–12, referring to the two witnesses). Despite all these unique traits and heavenly accolades, James drops a bombshell. Ati... "Elijah was a man just like us." James 5:17 (NIV) Wait, what!? You mea...

1. Yesterday was a beautiful, wet-eyes kind of day as I caught up with some disciples of our Lord. 2. The best part was realizing they’re still keeping on in the journey of faith—hearing God’s voice and walking in repentance. 3. In one of our discussions, I was reminded of something crucial: the need to read the Bible while IGNORING CHAPTERS AND VERSES . 4. Instead, we should look out for thoughts  —Where does a thought begin? Where does it end? 5. You see, it would be quite odd to receive a heartfelt letter or email with random numbers inserted mid-sentence to indicate lines or paragraphs. 6. Like I was just doing with this write-up. 7. I'll stop now, but that’s essentially what happened to the Bible. The original writers of Scripture didn’t put in chapters and verses. That was added much later—by two well-meaning brothers. While helpful for reference, it also became a great undoing for many. Take Matthew 6:33 for instance. It’s one of the most quoted verses—but often taken out o...

"Do suicide people go to hell, heaven or in between?" That's how a friend started a conversation earlier this week. Long story short, thoughts of committing suicide had crossed their mind several times. They went on to state that "...I am just tired... Drowning really fast... The feeling is stronger everyday..." as we continued with the chat. This someone is a Christian and this is not an isolated case. Suicide is real and is taking lives daily in our world. Depression has been cited by WHO as the major contributor to the causes of suicide and the trend appears to be going up. Depression is no respecter of age, gender, education, wealth or health, and has gone to the extent of been referred to as the "common cold of mental health problems." It is the single largest contributor to global disability. You would think that Christians would be spared considering they have Christ. Nothing could be further from the truth. Many believers could not in the past ...