Fading Flowers

In August an anonymous follower on Instagram hello-d me but no conversation ensued. On 13th December he returned. He brought one of the photos from my timeline and asked if it was me! ‘But you got it from my timeline! Why ask thus?’ …

I confirmed that it was. The character said he was from Canada and immediately asked when I was to go to Canada. He didn’t even know where Uganda was. He just concluded; “It’s only 2000 dollars.” I told him that’s close to 7 million Ugandan shillings.

He still didn’t understand. He only said I was handsome.

I took it as an innocent compliment. He asked me whether I was married. Immediately, I scrapped the ‘innocence’ out the compliment.

The whole situation was giving – well, what you are thinking. He asked whether I was married before sending a salacious video of himself biting his lower lip. His left ear had a ring with a tiny cross dangling from it.

I lied that I had a girlfriend, but I wasn’t ready for marriage. I however asked him where he was going with all of that. He said he had been in a relationship but his boyfriend cheated on him.

Abeg… Not this now…

Before I’d embark on panicking, God warned me against blowing this out of proportion. Firstly, homosexuality, he said, is as a sin as unbelief, or whatever wrong thing you do dear reader, that no one sees you doing. ‘If ye be without sin, cast ye the first stone.’

Secondly, God reminded me that this is not the first time this kind of thing is happening. I’ve been an object of lust by both sexes. I always laugh, unbelievably, when I remember some two girls from church confess openly that I was their dream guy out of coercion by the preset teens. Now here approached another…

On some days, I am persuaded that I am fearfully and wonderfully made; and on a few others, I simply keep my mouth shut. For the charm seems to have gone up the ghost. Regardless, if the Bible says you are wonderfully made, it won’t change that truth whether or not you believe that you really are wonderfully made. Take it or leave it. But even if the clouds float all day, it will not change the establishment that the sun still rose and set somewhere above.

Honestly speaking, this guy from Canada – in my view – if we were set on a platform for a handsomeness contest, he should win as from his video, he was way cuter. So, I wondered why ‘he was stooping low.’ I am not saying I look that bad; that would be an insult to my maker. Perhaps the bottom fact was I didn’t want to be an object of lust for all these. The two girls from church I was begged to hug on separate occasions, just to grant that wish. But they coiled around me so tight like an anaconda that I had to push myself off to be free. They didn’t want to let go!

In my defense, even after replying with ‘I believe God takes His time on each one of us’ to his ‘I am handsome’ comment, God gave me what to respond with. I can’t recall if it was deep in the night, or if it was a vision. And I can’t recall if they were words, or a video, but I saw ‘fading flowers’.

I then remembered Isaiah saying ‘the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.’

I pondered on this, and what it had to do with this entire situation. God said that our emotions are like flowers. They grow and blossom into colorful petals, attracting bees to pollinate. But soon the pinks turn dull lavender. They wizen and fall while others sprout. A time comes and the flower no longer even exists, though another would have grown on the same tree. The grass can be bright green today, and then crunchy yellow, breaking under our feet in the dry season. It ceases to mesmerize you. Especially when winter comes along after spring.

Unstable and provincial are these creations, and so are our emotions and desires. I told the Canadian that I have flaws too!

Perhaps I’m going quite ahead of myself. Remember those definers of beauty and handsomeness for you in high school? Remember the epitomes of feminineness and masculinity? You do? Well, where are they now?

Lawrence was a light skinned young man a class ahead of me. In high school, he was regular with his pushups and pull ups. My God! His shoulders were sculpted. I felt unworthy beholding his face.

Guess what?

I saw Lawrence 10 years later a few days ago walking out a random street wearing a sleeveless shirt. And there was nothing admirable about him! The god seemed to have become man. I tried my level best to unbury the way I used to look to him, but alas! The wooden coffin seemed to have metamorphosed into a concrete one! And what power has my spade on tiny rocks married together! He was that flower: the flower that faded.

I’m certain you have fallen victim of such as well. It made you conclude, ‘you should not meet your heroes;’ for what your emotions fantasized about a random individual, or singer or actor, proved not to be authentic. Perhaps they put up a show of lies, like the super heroes of Shazam wore perfectly padded costumes to make them appear muscular. When you were naive, that evoked your emotions; and the moment you discovered the truth, you threw a glass at the TV.

Like Incredi-boy, you wished Mr. Incredible would see you and have you as his sidekick, but you discover that he likes riding alone, and it shattered your heart. Fading flowers! This has happened for other celebrities and idols. And it seems to me, that we are all in need of radical self-control.

I am not denying that I have not admired some other figures. Like Lawrence, I used to see Phil the same way. Perhaps it was my wild imagination. I saw him as Superman, and I was that dumb boy standing still when debris was falling from a collapsing sky scraper whom he covered, letting the debris crush him instead. But it’s superman! Indestructible! And out we emerged: without a single scratch, flying towards the sun.

Well, Phil is not that ripped or Herculean as I imagined or saw twelve years ago! It all gets disappointing – and we seem not to learn. For soon, we see another flower. ‘That guy seems to tick all the boxes’ and you just can’t wait for him to text you back or accept to go out with you.

He does! You spend time. But his petals seem to drop one by one. And when he’s spent, another chrysanthemum or sunflower blooms; and off you gallop. Only to land another heartbreak.

Do you understand?

I told the Canadian I am that flower too. At first sight I’m all that. Until he discovers I’m always praying, or pursuing holiness, which is antagonistic to his desires. This was before he began quoting verses that encourage his sin: ‘while we were yet sinners He loved us’,…‘His mercy endures forever’ …

He was still determined to win me over, and I only stayed in the ring with the hope that perhaps God had planned this so that I’d teach him not to get things out of context, and to repent. The conversation faded when this character was feeling convicted. He stopped texting back regularly, and I do hope God got him somehow.

The fading flowers however are all around us. They are things we think we can’t live without; objects we think we need, yet we merely just want to appease our lust. Two categories fall here; the ones who know there will always be another flower, and the ones who understand the fate of all flowers. You can choose to continue pursuing what must not be until you run mad (going from; one flower to another, and another – one guy to another – one relationship to another); or you could learn from the first flowers and apply the wisdom: to suppress the emotions since the aesthetic ones in our eyes today lose their charm tomorrow, or to control our selves and turn a blind eye to reckless shopping.

This is but one level of identity or existence.

But there is also a realm of things that don’t fade. Isaiah mentioned one of the things that don’t; which is God’s word. Peter mentions that when one gets born again, they are reborn by God’s word. The Nicene creed says ‘the word became flesh’. That can happen again through you; and if it dwells in you bodily, then it makes you ‘stand forever’ in all aspects of standing. Standing against sin and envy. Standing against fading itself. . . etc. For if it wasn’t true, then how come Jesus hasn’t faded! Jesus was God you say? Okay, how about Peter or Paul or Moses? You doubt those too? How about Martin Luther King and Charles Spurgeon and Lewis and Billy Graham and John Wesley and Charles Wesley and Smith Wigglesworth?

Did the miracles they did fade? Don’t we still sing Charles’ Hark! The Herald Angels sing 300 years later?

The memory of the righteous is of everlasting remembrance, King Solomon said. Ever…lasting. The virtue of favor too will remain for them. And so, I understand now why Joseph was an object of lust to Mrs. Potiphar. And I may not do much with those that might ‘lust’ because of me. That won’t be on me howbeit, but on them. I can’t undo the ‘wonderfully made.’ Neither can you on yourself, for the same God made us.

But we can break the breeding ground for lust.

The lust of our eyes and flesh will always spring forth, even for me, a holy one. This knowledge however will stay the temptations and alluring. And when the next fancy figure crosses my eyes, I simply brush it off knowing the end of it all.

The third category are the stubborn ones; they will know the flowers fade, and to trick the system, they will find ways of trying to make them everlasting! Witchcraft! Witchcraft I say!

They will either turn a blind eye to the continuous fading theory, or look out for the land where green grass remains all year being not struck by heavy snow!

Somehow, they’ll try to bypass God’s decree that flowers indeed fade; and this stubbornness will drive them to build a paradise: Sodom and Gomorrah, where they can create artificial non-fading flowers, or irrigated grass. They might even ask, ‘how can we make the flowers like God’s word – unfading?’ But I think, though His word they were, were they meant to fade from the very beginning. Either that, or turn into fruit! Even they themselves knew what to be after being spoken into being.  

God might seek to drown these stubborn ones devising extensive ways – wait, He said He’d not do that again; – rain fire? But He loves them so much He sent His only son for them! What if they believe Him but still wallow in sin? Will He give them up to their desires, or send a Jonah like me to warn them to live right?

This article has gone way past I expected it too that like Jonah, I see no end to the obsessive stubbornness and that the people should just be given up on. But it was Jonah’s coming that Nineveh heard. Maybe sense will return and righteous shall reign when I simply stay the course and flee not the opposite direction by sea! Like Ezekiel, I’ll sound the alarm of warning, so that when judgement comes it won’t be my fault or charged against me that men didn’t hear any warning.

Second lastly, if we return to the vision God gave in response, the flowers will continue to bloom and fade, and bloom again and fade; representative of how diverse the temptations will be, or hyped up the emotions will get.

Let it be settled that their end will still be fading and withering, even if the cycle continues. And like practice makes perfect, I believe victory you’ll taste, when the course of perseverance and knowledge you stay. . .

But lastly, wisdom tells me that though a part of humans desire ‘new’ or a change sometimes, there’s a part of us that longs for constancy. People who ever change houses find their children very unhappy, for just as they’ve made friends with the new neighbors — ‘pack your bags’ they are told. The discomfort of having to change a best friend takes a toll too, and no wonder, some are so for years.

A sense of satisfaction — in fact satisfaction itself — comes from knowing something will be forever, or ‘until death does you and it apart’, but if death does, a grand void is created that aches your heart, and the idea to follow death becomes an option.

So what if you’d find a flower that can’t fade, or grass that won’t wither! This is when you apply allegory, like God does in parables. If His word will be forever — never fainting or waning, then I think it’s wise to make that our flower: our constant, so that when friends come and go, when humans disappoint, when close ones depart, we have one thing that will not only not leave us, but cross with us even when our bodies bite the dust.

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Isaiah 40:8 The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever.