the musings of this nigerian gal

For as long as I have had breath in me, I had lived with at least one person. My parents. My siblings. Strangers. Acquaintances. Friends.

And there have been days when I am the only one with money or food.

On some of these days, out of my benevolence, and without any iota of doubt or hesitation, I share what I have.

And other of these days, I want to keep it all to myself.

I remember, expressly, the day I was with three of my friends. We were hungry and suddenly, #1000 enters my account. The first thought that came to my mind was to keep it; don’t announce it. The next thought was to satisfy myself, then give the change to them to share.

It got me wondering about how does selflessness actually go.

Is it a nature?

Is it something you hack once?

As I kept brooding on these questions, the Holy Spirit gave me an answer.

Selflessness is a choice.

Just as love is a choice.

You see, the verse of the Bible that listed fruit of the Spirit —love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control— is preceded by the command to walk in the spirit.

The word walk is a verb, and a verb is an action word.

Nobody walks without first purposing in his heart to do so.

For example, you are at home and suddenly you say “oh, I want a snack”, and there’s a shop few blocks from your house. So you get up and walk to the shop and buy the snack. You did not walk aimlessly. You walked with a goal in mind

So it is with the fruit of the spirit.

We daily bring ourselves, our desires, our resources under the leading of the Holy Spirit.

We don’t hack it once. If we did, Paul wouldn’t have asked us to walk in the Spirit. Neither would he have exhorted us to continually offer our bodies as a living sacrifice.

So, how does selflessness go?

By being led by the Spirit. Heeding His prompting to offer a soft answer rather than a harsh one; to stop by the little child on the street; to pay the T-fare of the person next to you.

It is by giving Him your yes, over and over again.