Throughout last week, I was involved in the activities going on at Kibaga Seventh Day Adventist Church camp meeting. During this period, I made a resolve…to live or to die. I chose to live…Fast forward to today Sunday 31st-July-2016 at six in the morning, I fumbled with the radio next to my bed, searching for a station to listen to. My fingers stopped at a station…Family radio 316. I listened; entranced, warm, sweet joy bubbling within my heart to the soft sacred melodies oozing from the speakers…then there was a prayer…
“If you are listening to this prayer, raise your hand and pray with me,” said the announcer. I did not raise my hand because I was swathed and tucked deep within my warm blankets, but I said, “God I am not raising my hand, but I am praying too.”
Then the preacher said, “Say the words of this prayer after me…” I cannot remember the words of the whole prayer, but this sentence wrapped itself around my heart. “God, cleanse anything you don’t like in my life and show me the purpose for which you created me.”
On the previous evening, immediately after the camp meeting, I went to a shop and bought three sachets of coffee and three sticks of cigarettes. While I was doing this, the shop keeper, a lady who was in church asked me thus, “Tom, just a few minutes ago you stood before the congregation and pledged to offer your life to Jesus, now why are you buying cigarettes?”
I smiled and answered, “These three will be my last then I will quit for good.” Now, this is one delusion that Satan has used to keep me chained at his feet for all these years. Whenever I make a resolve to quit, I always tell myself, “Tom this is my last cigarette,” then I light up and puff away my life. But I have hardly ever managed to quit. The last cigarette always happens to be just a stop-gap measure; actually it is always the first in a fresh cloud of smoke. So last night I smoked two sticks and a cup of coffee. I preserved one stick for when I will wake up, telling myself as usual that, “and this will be my last cigarette…”
Now, when I said the words of the prayer… “God, cleanse anything you don’t like in my life and show me the purpose for which you created me…” I suddenly bolted out of bed went to my kitchen, picked up the one remaining cigarette and went straight to my chamber pot, yes I use a chamber pot for long calls in my house in case I do not want to go to the latrine. If you are wondering what a chamber pot means, its modern equivalent is a potty. Wait a minute, my potty or chamber pot is not the sort your baby uses…no, no…mine is an improvised 3 kg white Kasuku container. I usually pour scented water into it to camouflage the stench. After relieving myself, I do cover it securely with a plastic trough and dispose the content in the morning.
I matched straight to the corner where I do place it, bitter tears scalding down my cheeks, waves of pain rippling in my chest as I tore the cigarette into little pieces. I said, “Cigarettes I am done with you…out of my life,” and dumped the broken pieces into the filth. I decisively covered the chamber pot. Instantly I felt an overwhelming sense of peace and serenity. This was immediately followed by a sense of unfathomable joy. I knew that God had finally answered my prayer after 31 years of trying and miserably failing to quit smoking cigarettes. Then I said, Lord, now I am free…I wanted to jump up and shout in joy…God, victory is here at last…God I have won…I experienced a kind of ecstasy and inner peace that I cannot describe here…I felt like a new born baby.
“If God is on my side, who or what can be against me?” This line I first came across in Norman Vincent Peal’s book, “The Power of Positive Thinking…” played a sonorous melody of freedom in my mind…freedom from servitude and bondage in Satan’s domain.
I then decided that henceforth, my litany or mantra in life will be this… “Lord, I have one last dream…to serve and work for you with all my heart, my soul, my strength and my wealth…But Lord, should my heart and my flesh fail, Lord, you will always remain the strength of my heart and my portion for ever and ever…therefore Lord, I have just one desire left…that whenever and however I die, my Lord lift me up and place me on your right hand side, then adorn my head with the glittering crown of righteousness and eternity. AMEN.
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