My fourth post in as many months, I suppose I do not yet have an audience out there This year has been one crazy year. I’ve had so much to do and so little time and money to do it.

I finally moved to an apartment on my own after leaving for years with a house mate. It took me two months of paying rent to a house that I’m not leaving in to realize that I actually have to move in. Then there is the issue of getting household stuff. Quite the expense, but not a big priority once you already have a bed, a cooker and a TV. The rest will come in slowly over the next months. I enjoy staying there now, actually look forward to getting home, a flat I can call MY ‘digz’. Having the liberty to just do things my own way is an amazing experience that I enjoying any time I spill something and I don’t have to clean up if I don’t want to.

Then I’ve had the personal challenge of acquiring a new skill. I am learning web design and programming and Linux administration. I told myself that I have to challenge my brain and not just be content with what I know to discharge my work duties. It’s been fun, studying without assignments or exams. And I’m actually surprised that I have the discipline to do this. But in all honesty the motivation is a friend of mine that is always trying our something new when I’m out partying and yet I’m supposed to compete with him intellectually.

I also challenged myself to be more productive at work and be a change agent in the way things are done, and to equip my workmates with whatever skill that I have to achieve the level of efficiency that I ‘might’ be having. Instead of complaining about what the company doesn’t do for me, I’ve changed my attitude to what I can do for the company.  I have therefore been organizing training beyond my job description and taking the time to help my workmates at all times.

I’ve also ‘gotten’ myself into long term relationship geared towards marriage. Relationships are work! Communication, interaction, dependency, love. All these require time and effort.

So yes, I’ve been busy, tired, and borderline stressed out. I wonder if this is how life should be. Always toiling and never having time to enjoy the fruits of your labor. I sure hope not! Maybe I should just take some time off and smell the flowers in the meadows, and forget all my worries for just that one day, and be in total bliss.

‘Come to me all who are tired and heavy laden, and I will give you rest Matthew 11:28 ‘

I have just completed the last of two tasks that I find, arguably, the most tiring and energy consuming of all. Writing application letters. I’m at the season in my life where I have the need to change my job. Not that I am not excited about my current job description, but I think being in one place for too long is unhealthy to career progression.

Writing application letters for me is an art and a science and therefore I spend a lot of time researching what the company wants, what it does, what the requirements for the position are, counter checking and modifying my resume, and finally reviewing sample application letters online. Then I get to the task of actually writing the letter. Every paragraph must be perfect in my eyes so I will write, and re-write until I feel that I have not sold myself short.

What makes the process even more tiring is the thought that my application might not even be considered for whatever reason, which has happened severally. And there is the thought that my application may be considered and I don’t have time to attend interviews. Or I might pass and have to leave my current place. All these thoughts leave my head is spinning, and I wonder whether it is actually worth the time and effort to complete that letter.

All in all, I strive and I finish and I mail. The rest I just have to believe that God will take care of. I trust that He has the master plan and if the application does or don’t go through; my hope still lies in God. This thought comforts me.

Pro 16: 9 In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determins his steps.

Every time a thought jumps into my head I just want to write it down and post it on this blog. But halfway through the writing, i stop and ask myself: Am I talking too much about myself? Is this Too Much Information?

Outside the ‘blogospere’ I am quite reserved, antisocial perhaps, introvert definitely. I never share any of my intimate thoughts with someone unless they are my very, very, very close friend, and then its is still very censored. But when writing, I tend to let it all go. I can reach into my very inner soul and pull out the deepest thought and express them in words that I ordinarily will not utter in the face of someone else.

Blogging, therefore, presents a unique challenge to me.  I am able to express whatever i want to, but then it will be exposed to millions around the globe. Is it really fair to share my thoughts with millions of strangers and not share them directly with the few that I interact with? Will this drive me more into being an introvert out there and only resolve to forming on-line relationships with faceless people only known by  their login handles?  

Should Jesus have been in this century, He would have delivered the sermon on the mount, then uploaded it to His blog I guess I should balance the need to express my self in writing with expressing myself verbally to the ones i love. Then can the message that I write be a true reflection of who i am as a person.

It has taken quite a while for me to decided what the content of my blogging will be. The only thing I have known for sure is that I have this desire to write; to write something about God, something for God and something with God.

Should I be preachy, should it just be a journal of my day to day experiences, should it be a bible study? Well at the end of it all I have decided to go with the flow, to write whatever is my heart at the moment.

Jizazfrik was inspired a long time ago by the song Jesus Freak by DC Talk which basically set to put some pride into being a christian by embracing a term that was often times used derogatorily. At the time I was fully involved in being a christian. I lived and breathed the word of God and sought to apply it in every aspect of my life. I readily identified with being one. I guess it was easy because all around me i had Christians to support me. I was very active in church, the Christan union and all things church related. All my relation were from the church.

But being the ‘real’ world has seen me go through challenges that indeed at best I had not prepared fore. In the workplace, being a ‘Saved’ christian is being part of a minority. And it can be quite drowning in that you are forced to hang around colleagues that do not share the same perspective as you in so many different subjects. And so you either have to be a lone voice, and therefore have people avoid you at lunch time, or agree with the conversation. This is the greatest challenge that i am having now. How to balance the Christian side of me, be light of Jesus and in the meanwhile maintain relationships with people who are not of the same christian view as I am.

I know that there is a balance to be met. It is my duty as a christian to be a light of the world and a salt of the earth. But I have to be careful not to alienate those whom I try to reach, neither should i dilute the gospel of truth.

To this goal to I start this new journey in Christianity. I want to re-equip myself with the gospel of truth. To remember exactly how it started and to know where I’m headed. To live an exemplary (does not mean perfect) christian life in the ‘real’ world so that I will teach by example what it means to be a ‘real’ christian.

Mat 5:13 Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men.