Joyce told me how she grew up in a family where her father was never present. She said she never knew him or saw him, and she was told that he passed away when she was still too young to can remember anything. This apparently led her to experiencing a life that was not the kind that any kid would appreciate have. To top it all off even the house they were living in did not belong to her mother, it was a "family house" as they are known in township lingo and all the homeless relatives had the right to find shelter in it. She witnessed how her mother single handedly struggled to make ends meet, and how the only male figures; her uncles also did not have much time for a kid who was not their biological offspring. As we spoke I could pick up that she had a deep rooted resentment for men. This put me at the crossroads of whether I should give up or try harder to convince her to give us a chance since we both came from dis-functional families. At this I must say that in my heart I felt much drawn to her than before. I knew it in my heart that I could be that man who can make both Joyce and my mother to believe that there are still better men in this world . But as to how I hoped to pull off this one, only God knew. I had no idea at all as to how I would embark on the task. Well, the truth about Joyce's father was that he was alive and well all this time, but she only met him on the afternoon after her mother's funeral, and this was 17 years after we got married.

First I wish to indicate that I'm not a marriage counselor at all. therefore I'm not too sure if this disqualifies me from speaking on the subject, Especially trying to speak to others about it at this level. But I'm trying to convince myself that being a product of a broken marriage myself yet having succeeded in remaining committed to the same woman for 28 years should at least give me an audience with my peers and those who are younger than myself in marriage. Having said that I also wish to indicate that I will not be able to speak on the whole matter all at once in this article. I will speak a little each day until I have said all I can.

A CALL TO CONTENTMENT
Most people think that a call to contentment by God is a way of keeping us mum and depriving us of our freedom to question God about situations and the things that we don’t like. I wish to highlight that I was not taught contentment by the Church but by my parents. In our family you never complained just for the sake of doing so, we were taught to make sure that our grievances were legitimate or else you got an hour long lecture for ‘taking things for granted’. More than this affecting us negatively it helped us to view things in a more realistic and Godly manner, and unlike most kids we grew up more appreciative than negative. As I mentioned in one of my previous articles; my family was more on the average side of life, not very poor but definitely not rich either. We grew up knowing and acknowledging that it took a lot of efforts from our parents’ side to keep us the children alive. How I wish that today’s generation could just realize that too.

I THINK THAT PROSPERITY SHOULD BE VIEWED IN A RELATIVE WAY

Please note that what I’m sharing with you in this article should not be viewed in a doctrinal manner at all. But it should be done so just as another opinion, which is based on my personal understanding and the practice of the scriptures, and the results that I saw when combining the two.
The subject of prosperity and poverty is often a very confusing one. More especially confusing because every time the issue is addressed one finds himself with a fresh or new view about it and all these come as a result of different speakers or writers bringing ‘new’ revelations that leave many more confused and often poorer than they were before. In my case I only became aware that our family was defined as poor or ‘under privileged’ when I came into contact with kids who came from families that were better off than ours.

I have always been challenged by how people approach God. They seem to forget a number of things that are actually very critical in our search for reality, meaning, and prosperity. One thing that must forever stick out in our search for God is that, God owns every thing and this is a ‘life fact’ and not a ‘Christian fact’. Our search for every thing else in this life must therefore be preceded by an honest, full hearted search for a meaningful relationship with Him. I come from a family that always conscientised us about Godliness, the fear and respect for God, and that His invisibility did not in any way suggest that He was non existent.

Our First Gift Was For Our Liberation – Part 2
That evening we parted with our very first gift that made a significant difference in our lives. Significant in the sense that it left us without the only means of transport in the family but it also left us so excited that we finally obeyed God. We believed in our hearts that one day we were going to look back and make reference to that day with regards to material breakthroughs. When I told this young man that we have decided to give him our car he was so surprised and did not believe it but we assured him that we were sure that it was the most perfect move we made up to that point in our lives.

Our First Gift Was For Our Liberation From Possessions
In the book of Matthew Jesus said something that will forever be my motivation for giving. I believe that without the words of my master I would still be languishing in poverty like most people. Here Jesus speaks about three things and they are; the Heart, The treasure and some place. ‘where your treasure is there your heart will be also’ Matthew 6:21 this simply tells us how much power possessions can have over people, but this scripture read in reverse also reveals the power of the heart; ‘where your heart is there your treasure will be also’ now it depends on how you read the scripture.

When my mother offered us her house we were very thankful to both her and to God for such grace, but we were young and had a desire like most guys of our age to live in a better area. This house was owned by my parents since 1956 and I was born in it, and so were both my kids. Not only was the house old but the area too was very ancient. It was in one of the three oldest townships in Soweto. But we were glad. We planned that we were going to use the house to be our ‘passport’ out of this township.

It was only after I had lost all my earthy possessions that my definition of success changed. Like most folks to me success was being able to accumulate both, the things that I needed and those that I did not need just in case life dealt me an unfair blow then I can have something to fall back on. At the age of 17 I joined the South African Police Force as it was called back then, and my first pay check was a whooping R85 per month! The year was 1976 and back then the salary I earned was roughly equivalent to about R4000 because a household of 4 could manage well on it. I did not spend much time in the police and by 1978 I resigned and worked for the city council at a Bottle store, and my salary was doubled.

One morning around four I woke up with something very strange happening to me. There was a voice coming out of my stomach reciting what I would later identify as Psalm 91. The part that remained with me for the rest of the day was the last verse which says: “with long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation.” KJV. And it was actually being said in the King James Version. This is the version I was introduced to when I became a Christian in 1983. This is verse 16 of Psalm 91. At first I thought that this voice was coming from somewhere else but on recognizing that it actually came from within my stomach I did not feel comfortable at all, especially because I did not even know its meaning. It went on from when I woke up and continued as I was preparing to go to work. This voice was far from being like mine it was sharp and very authoritative but peaceful at the same time. I went and fetched my Bible and as if someone told me where to open I went straight to Psalm 91 which I was seeing for the first time. This also was not natural. I read the Psalm line by line while the voice continued to recite it.

I have never been good at praying but looking back it seems like I have succeeded in conveying both my message and concerns to God through the ‘monologue’ that I engage in daily. The challenge that I had from day one was that I am introvert by nature. It’s such a great pity that most people don’t believe it. I also don’t like crowds. It’s truly amazing how I manage to speak to multitudes. My own interpretation of introvert is a person who gets more excited than everyone else but is unable to convince others to that effect. The first time I went to Church I saw a lot of both males and females who could have been my age praying and expressing themselves in the most admirable manner I have witnessed in my life up to that time. And to me that was what praying was all about.

If you’re ever going to trust in God make sure that you do it right first time. This will help you a lot in tackling all future challenges. Faith in God or believing in God, whichever way you chose to look at it must always be done right or else it does not work. When you do this, the very first thing you realize is how much you have been trusting in other things that took away all your ability to trust in the unseen God. First let me give you a background of where I come from then you will better understand these articles. In one of my previous posts I related how I belonged to a ‘gangster’ like group that gave me so much security that they had literally become my fortress in the township. During that era in the late seventies there were quite a lot of those both formal and informal criminal groups that you could not live without, that is if you really meant business with the township life. Some were simply for those needing to ‘just’ belong to a group and others were for those who were ‘more serious’ about belonging.

Every Bible reader has their favourite portion of scripture. I have mine too and my favourite, favourite has always been     1 Corinthians 15:46 which says; the spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. (NIV) But before I go on with this scripture allow me to say that I personally believe that the Bible was not written to Christians in the same way that the South African Constitution was not written to politicians and road signs are not there exclusively for car owners. The bible is a book about people for people and it was written by people who were inspired by the Holy Spirit. This kind of understanding will trigger in all of us that much needed faith to believe God for the impossible. The truth behind this belief only becomes a reality when we are faced with situations that only the Bible gives us hope about. There have been numerous cases of individuals who had reached the end of the road and relied only on what the bible had to offer them. And those individuals have broken through their challenges