Open Your Mouth Only At A Time Of Need

The saddest recurring moment of the life of a less fortunate and desperate man is when people keep questioning him about the intensity of hardship which has plagued all his opportunities and leaving him decapacitated in this economic turmoil! More grievously when his cohorts may not have seen the sterling efforts he has copiously endeavoured to make the hardship malleable, but all they had harboured is that he prefers being an idle civilian in this blistering city, awaiting manna and quails to fall from heaven like it rained whoopingly to the Israelites then! When an economy is crippled and riddled to the tunes of widening the gap betwixt the poor and the rich, and if you breed below the hierarchy of a good standardized life, you are being stratified! High class people and middle levelled income earners are grouped as cash cows and stars. In the eyes of the people, those of us struggling to keep our head above water are considered as dogs and nuisance, culled from the supplier preferencing matrix which is inversely proportional to the word stratification.

It has become a societal trend of some self-acclaimed counsellors in the communities we do find ourselves in whose specialty is to question by taunting how less instrumental or influential we are in the society because we are not assorted together with those who drive flashy cars around, flaunts the pictures of the futuristic mansions they had built and sleeping in the arms of voluptuous women! So they rather pester us that when at all are we going to make it in life; they just open their mouth at the wrong time and badger us with the wrong questions and this rather infirm us! Anyway, they have forgotten that words of encouragement are a spirit to the human soul! It is very factual that men hardly cry but there are some words which make them completely wounded for life! However, Martin Luther king rightly said: "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter". So instead of being rueful about nature and the tiff from your colleagues, it pays to go the extra mile and do what Napoleon could not do. You must be self-motivating and godly, and welcome the spirit of entrepreneurship into your life by taking advantage of the least opportunity that may fly across your nose! Also, pray and follow your prayers with more efforts; for God would not do by miracle what you ought to do by responsibility.

Simply put, nothing is difficult for God, supposedly he wants to open your path for you and remove the impediments. Stumbling block would be there and that is nature, but one ought to remember that there is nothing like a smooth mountain in this world. Before you will climb to the top of a mountain, you would have to cross thorny branches of trees and reptiles as well. Hardships are inextricable in the life of an oligarch, they have suffered and struggled hard before they had gotten to the zenith now. The obvious books have motivated us to despair not and by doing so, all incendiary comments from people who would consciously jab an innocent mind get debunked. “And Allah will provide for him from sources he never could imagine, whoever puts his trust in Allah, and then He will suffice him. Verily, Allah will accomplish his purpose, indeed Allah has set a measure for all things” [Qur'an 65:3]. This verse should invigorate us that the Almighty knows our plight and at the right time He would answer us!

Economic turmoil is mostly immitigable but to fight tooth and nail until success is met has its own bearings in an individual’s eyes who is inspired and has promised himself to survive albeit any pull-him-down comments he may be disincentive with! Ideally, in any tempestuous moment, we have to look at those that by the grace of God we are a bit fortunate than them. If you always compare yourself with people in a higher position than you, without mincing words, you would always perceive your abilities us paper tiger and would not give honour and adoration to God! Abraham Attah had never dreamt about the life which God had bestowed on him today. The biggest he could have ever dreamt of could have been something better but not to this extent. Looking at him, I hope it has become conspicuous that the grace of God can locate anybody He chooses.

And have you perchance seen anyone who has sown apples and reaped coconuts in return before? Even Kumawood cannot produce such a movie, trust me! Being affluent in this world does not necessarily mean that you would be rich on the day of reckoning and vice versa. For us, we are firmed in His revealed book which has left nothing unanswered, that is why we have now understood why even Prophets of God underwent severe torture from their own confidants. So, we must be glued to Qur’an 94.4-6 which hindsight the triumphant end of all goodly people: “And have We not raised your fame. Verily, for every difficulty comes ease, and indeed, along with every hardship is relief”. But for those who always torpedo desperate and unfortunate people by parrying words of discouragements against them, mind you; words of encouragement are a trillion times spectacular than disparaging comments. If you do not have a solution, then do not accentuate the privileges you have gotten in the presence of the less fortunate! And ensure that you would only spew inspiring words to cool down an already palpitating heart. Its essence has been entangled in the wise saying of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh): “I will guarantee Paradise for him who safeguards what is between his jaws from frivolities”.

Abdur Rahman Odoi Anum Pobee

[[email protected]]