In Genesis 15, right after God sealed his covenant with Abraham, God told him his descendants will spend 400 years in Egypt
God also promised that he would bring the descendants of Abraham out of Egypt with a mighty hand
Abraham didn't argue with God, he accepted God's verdict as

I found myself unable to discuss or see people in a negative light
It was a strange place to be
A whole new realm that isolated me in some way
When I am among people and the topic goes in the direction of Mr. So and So did this evil thing to me or Mrs. Such and such said the

following things about me
I find my skin crawling and my defences up
I don't do this naturally, it just is.
When I am with my team and we're discussing stuff, I dodge all the unnecessary stuff
I don't want to know who is doing that bad thing or who is not performing up to par

I find it nauseating to say the least
Talking ill of people even when it ought to be discussed
A brother caught covid from his girlfriend
They were not married and ought not to be together that way
Someone pointed my attention to it and I felt somehow
Like the person wanted to

force-feed me poison
The person meant well and I should know what is going on but I really couldn't bear the heaviness of such talks
I understand that it is normal for people to share such talks and bond over it
I once worked as a personal assistant to a pastor who will pick a

person and talk about the person with his wife all the way from Lagos to Ibadan and will still chew the person like a bone all the way from Ibadan back to Lagos
He will keep digging out faults and misdeeds like a dog unearthing buried bones
It was a crazy habit I could barely

She kept hanging around him
She told herself she was just being a friend
He was somebody she could talk to
He was somebody she could relate to comfortably
She enjoyed being around him
He enjoyed being around her too & he made it obvious
But he told her right from the outset that

he was a single parent with children
His wife had died giving birth to his twin girls
He had a thriving pharmaceutical drugs import business and was making a lot of money
She met him by chance
She imported some goods for her online business from China
When the goods arrived

the country, she realized she didn't have enough money to clear them
She reached out to some people for a loan
A friend told her about this guy in their church who definitely had the money and would love to help
She went to the church the following Sunday and asked to see him

the service
She told him what the problem was and he sent her the money she needed instantly
He was rich
He was the kind of person she would like to relate with on more than a transactional basis
He was a friend worth having but they had nothing in common
There was no basis for

any familiarity
She cleared her goods and went to return the loan two weeks later
He thanked her for keeping her word and that was it
She changed her church the following week
She wanted to be around him
Perhaps its the money or the fact that she didn't have such as him in her

He knew marrying her was a mistake on their honeymoon,
she suddenly went into an eerie silence when they got into the hotel room.
He was still all bubbly and happy
He didn't notice her change of mood until he finished undressing
By that time, she had taken offense that he didn't

pay attention to her change of mood which happened about an hour earlier
He asked her what was wrong with her
She flared up
"Is this how you are going to do husband? If I had died right by your side, you wouldn't have noticed for one hour and three minutes?
Is this was I settled

for?
He was taken aback
It was the last thing he expected
The surprise showed on his face
She saw it and shouted "Oh my God. You regret marrying me right? You are already weary or is that disgust i see on your face?"
He didn't even know what to say, so he sat down and kept quiet

while she ranted and cried
When she was done, he wanted to hold her and placate her
He felt the events of the day had gotten to her and she was just venting
As soon as he touched her on the shoulder, she flared up
"Dont infect me with leprosy. Just go. Get out. I don't want your

sympathy. I dont want you consoling me. Just get out.
He did
He left her in the room
He went into the restaurant of the hotel for two hours
He bought some sparkling water because he wanted their first meal as a couple to be together
By 1AM, he went back to the room and knocked on

Their mother gave birth to five girls
Their father wasn't particular about having a son but their mother insisted she must have a son
She said she had seen a vision when she was a teenager that she gave birth to a male child and was even given the baby's name
She married quite

early, so she had some time to relax after the fifth girl was born
They were living at a "face me I face you" apartment in Eleyele at the time
Her husband was a cook with IITA
She was a typist
They both attend a uniform wearing church where all forms of manifestations were the

norm
After she had the fifth girl, she went to church to pray one evening, asking God about the vision she had and why it had not come to pass
She really wanted to have only four children but she didn't want to ignore the vision because she was convinced that male child could be

God's purpose for her life
She told herself if having that male child was not important God wouldn't show his birth and naming to her in a vision
A prophetess came to her while she was praying
The prophetess said "Wait for five harvest ceremonies, after the fifth harvest you will

have this boy
That was exactly what happened
She got pregnant five years later and delivered the boy a few months before the sixth harvest
Her last girl was five years and ten months older than the boy
She named him Imole (Light)
Coping with six children was very difficult
They

The first time he heard that his wife was cheating on him
He cried all the way from Atlanta to Nigeria
He saw a message from his mother
The message said one of the instrumentalists in his church went to report himself to some elders in the church for disciplinary action because

had been engaging in sexual immorality.
Upon investigation, it was discovered that the person he was having sexual relations with was the pastor's wife
The elders didn't know how to go about it
Some said the instrumentalist was framing the pastor's wife in order to bring down

the pastor's ministry and tear his family apart
Others said the pastor's wife should be invited to face the elders and defend the allegations
it was a political issue
Had it been any other person, they would have acted swiftly but the pastor's wife was off-limits, even for the

elders
So they took the case to his mother and his mother sent him a message asking for directions
The message was not such a shock to him
His wife had been threatening that she would ruin his ministry for several months if he does not quit the ministry and return to his medical

practice
He had told her what she was asking him to do was next to impossible
He knew from the age of twelve what his calling was in ministry
He preached his first sermon at a village crusade at the age of fifteen
He got his B. TH degree at the age of twenty before proceeding to

Dua is the core (or bone marrow) of worship because unlike other acts of worship, people’s hearts are always present when they want something. Wanting things, along with the process of receiving it, is one of the best ways for iman, character, and love for Allah to grow.

The Prophet ﷺ said, “Love Allah for the blessings He showers upon you.”

I believe that if you sincerely want something, you’ll wait for it. The waiting and bearing through rejection after rejection has a ton of wisdoms. It’s is a way to purify intention and gain control over your emotions.

You see-saw between wanting/seeking and sufficing without. When you fail once, you can’t always try again right away. There’s a recovery period in which you lick your wounds and regroup.

If you give up during that recovery period, then you didn’t really want it enough. It was mere whim. Delay separates whim from truth. Whim clouds the intellect. You need to get rid of it in order to think clearly.

Here is a special thread introducing our series on “The Making of the Islamic World.” It offers 10 episodes about the transformation of Islamicate societies between the 7th and 17th centuries. You can find the series page here: https://t.co/7mL9eWmMmz

This is Chris Gratien posting. I created this series during Fall 2020 for my students as asynchronous material supported by readings and discussion. This is going to be a long thread, but it will be a great shortcut for those looking to make similar use of these materials.

There are two items worth pointing out: 1. This is an overview of the political, social, and cultural history of Islamicate societies. It does not deal with the origins of Islam or many theological questions. It does discuss Islam’s spread and the transformation of Islamic law.

2. This is the first part of a two-part sequence that takes the history of the Islamic world into the present. It emphasizes developments and themes that have particular relevance for later periods.

This is really a multivocal narrative of Islamic history. We feature over 20 scholars from almost as many institutions. Many of those who worked on it, myself included, study the early modern and modern era but have teaching obligations that take us further back in history.

@ChenHuailun here. I'm adding a supplementary thread before today's scheduled one to expand on the origins and early history of the Church of the East (aka the Nestorian Church) ~ahc #jingjiao 1/

The Church of the East traces its origins to the christological position of the School of Antioch, which held that the human and divine and human essences (ουσία) of Christ were united in a single prosopon (πρόσωπον). ~ahc #jingjiao 2/

This ran against the position of the School of Alexandria, which held that the two essences of Christ were united in a single hypostasis (ὑπόστασις). In general terms, hypostasis is more inherent than prosopon. ~ahc #jingjiao 3/

One implication of the Antiochene rejection of the hypostatic union is that Mary could not accurately be called the Theotokos, or God-bearer. Instead, she is the Christotokos, the Christ-bearer. ~ahc #jingjiao 4/

These Christological debates were further complicated by Syriac terms such as 'kyana' (ܟܝܢܐ), associated with 'ousia' but later translated to 'hypostasis' by Syrian Orthodox; and 'qnoma ' (ܩܢܘܡܐ), sometimes contentiously translated as 'hypostasis' or 'person.' ~ahc #jingjiao 5/

According to the #PadmaPurana; there are 8,400,000 life-form species, 900,000 of which are aquatic ones; 2,000,000 are trees and plants; 1,100,000 are small living species, insects and reptiles; 1,000,000 are birds; 3,000,000 are beasts and 400,000 are human species

and as per modern Science research till now they are able to find out only Over seven million species of plants and animals living on planet earth, according to the best estimates made by biologists, means Science is still behind in understanding the biological and multiverse

structure of almighty.But does that means every time we take birth in same earth in same human species  or in some other species in same universe ?, absolutely not, if we look deeply in spiritual reality. Our karmas decides where any being has to move through either in this

universe or in some other Universe and in which life form. It is difficult to understand in which world we take birth and which world we will move through, reason being Brahm-anda is composed of  so many multiverse universes within each of so Many inter- related
Brahmands

and in each of them, it has Many forms of trinity godheads are also present in each and every Universe. we can't imagine. This can be easily Understandable from Many of verses explained in Bhagwad puraan regarding parallel universe and Multiverse theory based on vedic cosmology

#Ramayana #LecturesOnTheRamayana

In today's thread and perhaps some subsequent threads, we will start looking into Rama as a person. The author clearly tries to bring out the human aspect of Rama captured beautifully in some of the verses.

1/

Please note, the discussion is NEVER challenging the supreme divinity of the person, but tries to capture the nuances or the finer points of the Bhagwan.

Sri Rama had extra-ordinary merit - Unequalled, Unmatched merit. He always remained at his own highest level.

2/

He seldom fell below it at times, wherein one can spot the conditions that led to the decline. In these conditions, he did & said things that his own higher nature would never approve.

Sri Rama was indeed the guardian and embodiment in himself of Dharma.

3/

Some incidents bring out the very best in him where he is able to uphold his own moral ideal.

For ex, when Vibhishina sought asylum, he held a council of war with all eminent counsellors. Except Hanuman whose advice was considered weak, rest all including Lakshmana ..

4/

recommended him to reject Vibhishina, with a few even ordering killing him.

He listened to this charged conversation (a skill where we humans utterly lack today) & said the famous words:
" No man shall seek my protection in vain. No matter who, how undeserving, how wicked..

5/