Life Comes With No Guarantees or Warranties

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 I remember in my growing up years, that my father used to talk to all his children every 5 am of the morning Monday to Saturday (with my Mother in attendance) after which we would proceed to the Family Altar for the morning devotion.

On Sunday mornings, they would ensure that we were dressed up for Church service and actually take us by hand to the Church.

After the service, my Father used to conduct a kind of "test" to see who actually listened and got the message from the service - he would ask us for instance "what was the topic of the Pulpit Talk?" or where was the first reading taken from? e.t.c.

Those actions of my Father, though irritating at that time, but actually formed the bedrock upon which most of us his Children grew up and prepared us to face the future without fear.

That goes to confirm what the Bible says "Train up a Child in the way that he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it" -- Proverbs 22: 6

This may therefore suggest that there is a guarantee in life that if you do A B C, then X Y Z would be the outcome or that if you choose to go left, definitely you would not encounter any road blocks.

But that is very far from the truth and the truth is that in life, there are no guarantees or warranties.

There is no guarantee that the child who was raised in a home such as my Father's would not deviate from the path set before him or her?

There is no guarantee that all the principles, lessons and wisdom poured into the children when they were growing up would stick with them all through their adult lives?

And all these are because, we are all INDIVIDUALS and as the children make their way through life, they not only drop some of the things they learnt at home which to them appear depressive or out of fashion but also pick up other habits/characters that they see most of their peers involved in. Because they do not want to be the only sheep amongst the goats, they prefer to blend to be goats too just to flow or tag along with their peers.

After all we have heard of Children born to Pastors and Bishops who are way out of the Christian life that their parents struggled hard to impart in them when they were growing up.

This therefore means that while growing up may be limiting for the fear of Parents, being grown up is a sesame street event where everyone is "free" to decide which path to tread.

We are obsessed with the culture of getting ahead and ensuring a win.

We have little tolerance for failure.  We want guarantees on everything – purchases, programs, etc.  

We want a 100% money-back guarantee that this will work.  “If you can’t guarantee the weight-loss program, I’m not trying it.”  “If you can’t guarantee that I will get a job on the first interview by using your training program, I am not even giving it an attempt.”  

We want guarantees on EVERYTHING – including raising our children to make wise decisions.

I have seen it happen several times, individuals have refused to get involved in programs that ordinarily should benefit them because they did not get any guarantees that such programs would work.

And because they did not get any guarantees they did not take part  not remembering that the life we live is predicated on seasons and times, happenstances and ordinances which may not be clear to us.

Sometimes even when guarantees are given, they fall short of expectations and make people lose confidence and some even suffer from broken hearts.

It is therefore important to know that while there are no guarantees or warranties in life, we can always put FAITH in all out DOUBTS, that way we can be GUARANTEED of life transforming actions.

Dr. Jerry - the First: JP

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