I'm Single and I'm Bored. What can I do?

Hello Readers and Followers,

How are you today? 

Do you have any burning question that you need an answer to? Remember to send your questions to trulymakingadifference@gmail.com. I will be happy to help. Thanks to my readers and followers that are making use of the free questions and answers opportunities via email.  

You are making Myss Lafunky to be more zealous in the ministry and the foundation that God has committed into my hands.

I was given the opportunity to write on a Christian Women's group for singles about being single and bored. I humbly accepted the opportunity.

Below is the post that I shared within the women's group:

                      I'm Single and I'm Bored. What Can I Do?

Firstly, you need to examine why you are bored. What makes you bored? How do you ensure that you do not get bored? What are the things that you have done in the past that minimised your boredom? 

Are those things good? Or bad?

A mini introduction about me...I am not yet married, I am proud to be under the single status at the moment. 

I enjoy the freedom to learn so many things, freedom to develop myself, I also love the fact that, I have control of how I spend my money, I can treat myself any-time and I don’t have a lot of responsibilities. At the same time, I am mindful that I must be prudent with my spending.

Everything must be done in moderation including spending of money.

Do I also get bored? Off course I do, being a Born Again Christian does not exempt me from being bored. I get bored when I am not communicating with people. However, I have addressed my boredom. Actually, it is ongoing..

I have realised that, while I enjoy talking and hanging out with friends, amongst other things that I do. I must also create time for quiet time.

My quiet time involves: reading a chapter of a Christian book on a daily basis, writing on my blog, reading a chapter within the books of the Bible, listening to music and reflecting about life in general, praying, treating my hair and face by myself, etc.

When we are bored, we need to engage in meaningful things that will add values to our lives or the lives of others. As Christians, godly principles must be applied to whatever we want to engage in.

The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 10:23 that “You say, "I am allowed to do anything"--but not everything is good for you. You say, "I am allowed to do anything"--but not everything is beneficial”. This scripture is telling us that, whatever we do must please God.

                10 things to do when you are bored (Caveat!: This list is not exhaustive and it is not written in the order of its priority).

1) Build your networks...attend Christian fellowships. Observe Christian married couples, find a mentor who you can learn from, build friendships with other Christians.

2) Learn how to cook different dishes; this is the time to experiment. Make use of cooking groups on social media, and youtube, learn from your parents, your friends, siblings and aunties.

3) If you are someone that needs to perfect your make-up skills or the way you dress or how to combine colours in your dressing, make use of your friends from church/school/work, etc , learn from them. If you are someone that wants to learn how to bake, how to sew, how to swim, this is the time to learn it.

The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 3:1 that, “to everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven”. This suggests that, there is a time for you to undertake those tasks that you have been contemplating on.

4) Create time to study biblical characters in the bible and also create time to study the New Testament. There are different bible plans that will aid you.

5) Also, create time to read Christian books on serving the Lord, Christian courtship, being a woman of God, being a praying wife, sexual purity, read blogs about building relationships with God, building relationships with people, amongst others.

6) Minimise the hours that you spend on watching TV and the hours that you spend on the internet, ensure that everything that you do, you are conscious of communicating more with God, and you are conscious that you are adding positive values to your life and the life of others.

7) Learn to pray and fast. Develop your prayer life and fasting. Create a day within a week to fast, and list prayer points from what you have read or from any prayer aid that you have.

I cannot over-emphasise the importance of prayer, you can never get bored of talking to God and also..you can never get bored of things to pray about. Maximise your single period to talk to God.

There are so many things to talk to God about.i.e. a) How you would like your children to be, b) how you would like God to help you to be a better person, name your weaknesses and tell God to help you, c) You can pray to God about..the purpose of your life, d) you can pray to God about the lost souls within your nuclear and extended family, and the lost souls in the world, etc. e) you can pray to God about your career and where you see yourself, f) you can pray to God about your future in-laws and how you want to be treated.

8) As a single person, I will encourage you to also create time to tell people about Jesus Christ. Let it be part of your life. Ensure your life preach Christ.

9) If it is possible, learn to drive, further your education or create time for the very thing that you want to learn. Don’t give excuses that, you can’t undertake the task until you are married, unless God instructs you.

10) Be proud of being single, don’t wallow yourself in shame and think that only married people have fun. Being bored can affect anyone regardless of their marital status. However, you can take charge of your mood and the things that you do, but remember that, you must not conform to the pattern of this world in whatever you do; everything that you do must make God happy.

Finally, rushing to a relationship to cure your boredom will result in more harm..as the purpose of the relationship is very likely to be abused. Nonetheless, God does not want you to be lonely, at the right time, He will perfect all, it's just a matter of time.

There are posts on my blog that can be linked to this topic

Below are the links to the posts:

http://lafunky.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/should-i-be-looking-for-my-mrs-rightmr.html

http://lafunky.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/should-i-be-looking-for-my-mrs-rightmr.html

- Myss Lafunky

Purity in Thoughts

Hello Readers and Followers,

How are you today? 

Do you have any burning question that you need an answer to? Remember to send your questions to trulymakingadifference@gmail.com. I will be happy to help. Thanks to my readers and followers that are making use of the free questions and answers opportunities via email.  You are making Myss Lafunky to be more zealous in the ministry and the foundation that God has committed into my hands.

This week, I will be focussing on Purity. Purity in thoughts. Have you ever wondered how you can stay pure in your thoughts? Do you know what the consequences of an impure heart and impure mind are?

The Bible says 'For as he (she) thinks in his (her) heart, so is he (she) . . . (Pro 23:7)

Purity in thoughts is being free from sin in ones thoughts. Jesus pointed out how important this is when He said anyone who was angry at his Brother or Sister was a Murderer! (Matt 5:23) What?! Seriously?! He's gotta be kidding right?

Then, He goes on to say that if you lust after a woman or man in your HEART then you're already guilty of fornication or adultery (Yep! All those sneak peaks at Cosmopolitan ladies and GQ men) (Matt 5:28). So, definitely, this purity in thought has got to be pretty important. Right?

Purity - being free of sin and being uncontaminated. 

Purity is first for the benefit of the one who remains pure, then, others around you. To achieve purity in thoughts, we need to be truly committed to God.

Why is it important to be pure in thoughts?

This question can be re-phrased as: why is it important to live a life free of sin because so far, we can infer that purity in thought leads to a life free of sin.

1.  It is at the heart of God for us to be pure. God said, be ye holy as He is holy (in every aspect of our lives).
2. It subconsciously puts you on the track to live a life of purity.  Feeding your mind with good things and not reading or listening to things that are negative or things that do not promote God's values help you to walk in the path of purity without much thinking,
3. God's rewards for purity are the blessings stated in His Word such as; freedom from guilt, good success, peace etc.  When you are not pure, you are actually cheating yourself of these blessings from God.
   It gives you a healthy heart. Your heart will be free from the weights of malice, sorrow,  unforgiveness, selfish ambitions, conceited. . .

How can I be pure? 

1. It's a choice. It's a choice that we have to make. It is what we have to stand for. The Grace is available for you. Titus 2:11-13.
2. Wash your mind and feed it with the Word of God continuously. (Practical steps - Start from the New Testament, read a chapter every day, pray before reading it, take prayer points from the chapter that you read, and tell God about how you need His help in applying it into your life).
3. Take your thoughts captive and think about things that are good, honourable, true . . . (Phil 4:8)
   Automatically delete the impure button in your heart when your thoughts start becoming impure. 
4. Don't focus on the reason as to why you cannot be pure. Focus on why you can stay pure.
5. Focus on the rewards of staying pure. 
6. Apply self-control! 1Tim 1:7 states that God has given us the spirit of self control, MAKE USE OF IT! 
7. Distract yourself with a pleasant thought when your thoughts start wondering in the wrong direction and most importantly, always ask God for help. 
   If He has asked us to be pure in our thoughts, He definitely would provide help when we're in need of it. Humble yourself, admit your weakness, ask God for help.

Joel Osteen said: "Our minds work a lot like a computer. The way we program our thinking will determine how our lives are going to function. You can have the most expensive, powerful computer you can find, but if you load the wrong software, it’s not going to perform at its best."

Lastly... 

Whatever you feed your mind with, will determine your tomorrow.

Anything that you feed your mind with, will drive your emotion.

Anything you feed your mind with is likely to control the action that you take in reality.

Remember that every temptation is an opportunity for you to choose to do the right thing.

- Myss Lafunky

As a Christian, Am I allowed to sleepover at my boyfriend/girlfriend's place?

Hello readers and followers,

How was your weekend? Hope you had a great time. 

Someone asked a question whether it was okay to sleepover at your boyfriend, girlfriend, fiancé, fiancée's place so as to get to know each other more.

I belong to a group where the question has been exhausted with tons of answers; Twale and I will offer our views below. I wanted Twale to be included in this write-up as some ladies believe it is usually the guys that insist on sleepovers, it will be nice to know a single guy's perspective about sleepovers.

 

Myss Lafunky asked Twale: What do you think about sleepovers? Sleepovers between two people that are in a relationship? Can we sleep over in order to get closer to each other and because we live in different cities?

 

Twale's response: Emmm . . . Would you allow my cat watch over a tasty cat treat of Fish Flakes in Jelly? I doubt it! I am very much against sleep overs no matter how far apart both people live. Regardless of how born again or spiritual humans are, we are still human and are prone to be drawn by the lust of our human flesh. Sleep overs sounds pretty harmless (and yes it should be) so why a fuss about it? It's because it could potentially lead one to sin. 

A biblical example is Tamar and Amnon. In a sleep over situation, even boundaries set by those involved in the relationship could be easily crossed. Why? Because it's in the secret place and one could be overcome by temptation because this is a case of fleeing the temptation not resisting it. 

It is commonly said that sin thrives in secrecy, well, sin is born in secrecy!

There are many ways to know each other better without having to sleep over. Why put one's self in a situation that may lead to temptation when it can be avoided? That's Wisdom.

 

 Summary of our discussions

Also, the reason for sleeping over is not concrete enough- to know how the person lives so that you can study them closely is not an acceptable reason to engage in sleepovers. You can study your partner closely without sleeping over. You can pray to God to reveal the person to you. We believe that you will only know someone truly when you have been married to them and when you start living together. Even after marriage, it takes a while to know your spouse. 

May we kindly ask, how are you learning about each other if you are meant to be SLEEPING? *Hmm..if you truly examine it carefully, sleepovers are not needed.*

 

There are no reasons that will ever make sleepovers at your partner's place right. It is dangerous and the likelihood of compromising your purity is very high.

We don't know how someone can sleep over and resist youthful lusts, remember the Bible says resist all youthful lusts? 

Also, God is protecting us and He does not want us to defile our body, He also advised us to flee from every appearance of evil and from every youthful lusts. God knows that, no matter how strong we think we are in our Christian faith, it is a lot easier to fall into sin in an enclosed place where nobody is watching or seeing us.

If it works for Person A, it doesn't mean it will work for Person B. 

 

Myss Lafunky: I am personally not in support of sleepovers. I can recollect when one of my male friends wanted to visit me, and he wanted to stay over at my place, I advised him that, he must book a nearby hotel to stay or he should stay at a friend's place, he rejected the offer and he cancelled his visit to my place.

I never felt bad for my action, I stuck to my belief, I didn't care if my view was misconstrued as arrogance. 

Standing for purity means you speaking out/standing for the truth/for you to dare to be different for God at all cost, and focussing in pleasing God more than pleasing your friends or your special friend.

We believe the likelihood of practising the THKS is very high when you sleepover. Also, how would others perceive your action? Especially other young girls that look up to you. Remember what Paul said here, same applies to other areas of one's life.

 

What would others think of your action? The Bible says...we should ensure that our actions do not cause others to sin.

http://lafunky.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/dont-judge-me-im-in-love-and-i-do-not.html

 

Even when you sleep in the same house, in different rooms, it can be dangerous when no other adults are present. I don't think any adults that slept over at their fiancé's place prior to marriage will encourage anyone to implement it, as we all know that the experience usually ends up not being pleasant.

To our dear readers and followers, please don't fall for excuses such as: "Don't you trust me, nothing will ever happen", "We are both Christians we won't do anything" or "I can't believe you don't trust me" or "How would I get to know you properly if we don't have sleepovers", "It is only this weekend that we will sleepovers".

"I promise you nothing will happen" , "You can sleep in the spare room while I sleep in the other room", "You can sleep on the bed while I sleep on the sofa or on the carpet."  

Don't be stubborn and insist that you want to sleepover, and please, don't start quoting that, it is not expressly stated in the Bible that you cannot sleepover.

Twale and I recognise that, even without sleepovers, it is possible to compromise your purity. We believe that, you are working towards maintaining purity and you will take every necessary steps to stay pure.

 

Practical steps to take in order to prevent you from sleeping over

1. Ensure you have a day visit in an open place.
2. Ensure that you discuss the benefits of not sleeping over and the consequences of sleeping over.
3. Ensure that you plan only DAY TRIPS together, when you marry, there will be tons of opportunities for weekend trips.
4. Never compare your relationship to another couple who do not see an issue with sleepovers.
5. If you stay in an indoor place together, have an accountable partner, also, promise God that you will not compromise your purity even if your day visit includes being in an enclosed place together.
6. Never ever entertain any late night visits from the opposite gender, never welcome any of your friends that are of the opposite gender to stay over, no matter how  well you trust them.
7. Bear the cost of paying for a B & B accommodation or a hotel. The cost of a room in a hotel is cheaper and it is better to pay for a hotel than for you to compromise your purity, which you can never redeemed with a price.

-  Myss Lafunky and Twale

  

If you have any questions for us, feel free to send us an email on trulymakingadifference@gmail.com we shall be happy to help.

Inner Beauty: Beauty Within: Are We Truly Beautiful?

Hi readers and followers,

Below message is a guest post by one of my readers (she has a ministry (The Brides), her ministry is to equip women to be the bride that Christ will find holy and pure when He returns).

The below message links to a post that I wrote last year (May 2013) about pruning, the pruning post can be linked to numerous things in one's life. Click here for the old post.

                                           Beauty Within

Some years back I had this girlfriend who told me that I was a beautiful lady.  One day, I asked her about her understanding of beauty and she said, because God created me, therefore, I am beautiful. 

Also, she stated that, the fact that I did not apply any make-up on my face, it suggested that I was naturally beautiful.

Growing up as a young child, hardly would anyone not tell me how beautiful I was as a girl. Back then in my secondary school days, I had so many toasters (prospective boyfriends-for the benefits of my readers) and I truly enjoyed all the attention from boys. 

As a teenager, I stood in-front of my mother's full-length mirror, just to admire my beauty. Sometimes, I would even dress up and cat walk round the room. One day, I was in the room doing my usual fashion parade and I never knew my mother was observing me, I was extremely embarrassed when I noticed her.

She looked at me and said, ''God will deliver you Tosin'' and she added ''the day you will break this my mirror, that day I will surely use it to give you a mark''.  I was anxious to break the mirror, I prayed quietly that it would never happen. But guess what? A month later, I broke the mirror. Don't ask me what happened,  the rest they say it's history.

After I completed my secondary school in 2002, I went to live with my guardian.  It was very interesting living with him, his wife and a large number of ladies. It took a while for me to settle down as I grew up living with my parents and siblings only. 

On a fateful day, one of the sisters shouted at me and said ''Tosin you are ugly!!!''. You need to see the look on my face. ''I am ugly? How? When? I can never be ugly, I thought. I ran to the room to look at the mirror to truly confirm if someone had changed my beautiful face over night. 

I checked and checked, the lovely face was still there. Then I reported her, with tears on my face to another sister in the house. 

She summoned her and confronted her. She flared up and shouted at me again ''Tosin you are ugly, you are not friendly neither are you approachable, infact you are very rude, proud and vain''.

Some of the sisters in the house came out to testify to what she said. I wept like a baby. I had never been so humiliated like that in my life. The same face, the same hand and body that left my country where I was a Queen and now in another state, I was seen as ugly.

It took me months to get over her words. I was so depressed. I even thought of leaving the house because I thought they were all jealous of me. I became very bitter and I never liked her due to the comment that she made.

During one of our family devotions, my guardian shared with us about inner beauty. I may not recall all that he had said, but his message touched my heart.  I knew the message was meant for me. I understood clearly what the sister said to me. She wasn't talking about my face but my heart. 

I realised I needed a heart surgery. I went back to the only Doctor who created my heart and who only can beautify it. I humbly asked him to beautify my heart. I cried, groaned and I poured out my heart to Him. 

I laid all the ugly things in my life at His feet and they all faded away. Gradually, awesome things started happening to me. It took me days, weeks and months. I became a sweet girl! Halleluyah! The surgery was succesful  . I could work in a team again. I could make new friends and live with others without discord. I could give myself to others without holding anything back.

Later on, I left the environment that I was, I went to a new place entirely. I met new people who never knew anything about me. Interestly I was also living with a large number of ladies from different background. Many of the ladies became my friends. They admired me and loved my personality. 

One of the sisters walked up to me and said, ''Sister Tosin, you are very beautiful'', I turned and looked at her because I had not heard the words for so long. Where I was coming from, no one ever said that to me but to be honest with you, they all helped me to discover myself, which I will always be grateful for. 

Then she continued ''Sister Tosin you have a beautiful heart, I truly admire you. I like the way you behave and handle people. 

You are so friendly, accommodating and God fearing'' and she further stated that the Lord will continue to beautify my heart. 

She didn't say my face/my skin complexion was beautiful. I wept, it was a tear of joy, I felt that the surgery that Jesus did was very successful.

Don't feel bad when people around you confront you like how the sister confronted me.

Author: Tosin Adejugbe.

Myss Lafunky wrote: I recently read a book by Israel Houghton, Israel said that, we need a Sister Sandpaper in our lives.  The purpose of a sandpaper is to smooth out rough edges.  

He said, we need a sister, a brother, or someone that will tell us the things that we do not want to hear- but those things are truly the things that we need to hear before we can become smooth, and in the process of getting smooth, there might be some friction.

I have been a Sister Sandpaper in some people's lives, and they hated me for it initially but afterwards, they appreciated my advice as it made them to reflect on their character.  

I also have sisters/brother Sandpaper in my life.  I have gone through the process of being pruned in the place of character, I believe the pruning is continuous, click here for the post that I wrote about being pruned by God.

See you next week Monday for another uplifting and insightful post.

- Myss Lafunky

Christian Men Mentoring

Hi readers and followers,

It's another Monday, welcome to Myss Lafunky's blog.  Also, welcome to the month of August.

For the last two weeks, I have written about mentoring, the importance of mentoring, and why God wants us to mentor others. The posts were obviously written from a woman's perspective.  

I felt I needed a post about mentoring from a man's perspective before I conclude the mentoring series post. So, I asked one of my male friends to write a post on biblical men mentoring, he humbly accepted the task albeit I only gave him a week's notice. Thank you Tosin.

Please, take time from your busy schedule and read this detailed post. I hope you will learn one or two things from reading it. This post can be used as a guide for teaching young/older men about mentoring, it can also be used for self-examination. Remember to share it with your male friends.

The discourse would be examined with the use of Titus 2.3, 6-8.

To the Older Men

• They should be sober
• They should be temperate
• They should be sound in faith
• They should be sound in love
• They should be sound in patience

To the Young Men

• They should be sober minded
• They should show themselves in all things to be a pattern of good works
• They should show by doctrine integrity
• They should show by doctrine reverence
• They should show by doctrine incorruptibility
• Their speech should be such that cannot bring condemnation thereby not allowing for another who is an opponent to be ashamed and have something evil to say concerning the young man

The Concept Of Mentoring

The concept of mentoring in my view is having to be like Christ in all things having submitted wholly to learn of Christ. The words of Titus 2.3,6-8 depict in clear terms the characteristic nature of Christ, Jesus Christ expressions were just like the father.  Scriptures further enjoin us to be imitators of Christ hence by inference putting Christ as our yardstick of measurement in terms of how we have a semblance with Christ in all that we engage ourselves in.

Man is the mirror which fellow man can see and attest as to whether or not one has being with Christ or not. Peter when confronted after the betrayal of his person by Judas Iscariot followed by his arrest denied that he ever was with Jesus even when it was in full know that he had been with Jesus all the time. Thrice, Peter denied the obvious but upon realisation he wept and repented.

As far as mentoring, the man who must mentor another or stands as a mentor to men must have dwelt with God in his presence. 

Such a man must have traces of Jesus in his life by manifesting the fruits of the Spirit - Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self- control (Galatians 5.22-23); his characteristic traits whilst he was on earth-hospitable, compassionate, prayerful, tender hearted, loyalty, integrity, giving just to mention a few. The life of a mentor must be like Christ. 

Myss Lafunky states that, a man who wants to mentor must also not exhibit Galatians 5-19-21, however, he must be ready to learn and be teachable also. 

 

The great commission as contained in Matthew 28.18-20 can be construed to be in the context of mentoring as it implores us to GO and make disciples of all nations teaching them to observe those things that he has taught us. Fellow men can’t be made to embrace the message of Christ when we have nothing to show that we are following Christ.

For a man to be a mentor, he must have being mentored by Christ. In being mentored by Christ, he must have submitted himself wholly to the lessons of Christ as presented to him by Holy Spirit. Today, men want to mentor others by force when they have not submitted to be mentored by Christ and Christ interestingly would not force a man, hence with such attitude, a man cannot be a successful mentor. 

 

Furthermore, a man’s loyalty is with God first as contained in Ephesians 5.25 though written in the context of marriage, however, men can only mentor their wives or children when they have demonstrated their integrity along with loyalty to God. 

 

Men by design are the mirrors to their wives and children, as well as to others around them, thereby taken cues, counsel and the likes from them. For the woman her loyalty is dual core it goes to her husband who is her head, and to Christ who is the head of the Church and saviour of the body (Ephesians 5.23-25).  The woman can be a mentor when she has patterned her life after her husband and Christ even when she is single, Christ is her husband.

Any yardstick of mentoring which does not have God as the utmost indices of example is bound to convey wrong signals and fail in the worst way possible. God alone is perfect and does not present any lapses for from time he has known all terrains and when worked and walked he excelled brilliantly. 

Biblical men that mentored others

In the Bible, the instance of Paul's encounter with God on the way to Damascus was the beginning of his series of experience of the power of God at work in and through him.  It was this same experience he presented to the Churches as well to Timothy and Titus who learned from him Paul.

Myss Lafunky states that, Elijah mentored by Elisha, Eli mentored Samuel.

These men, Paul and Eli, could not have being good mentors to the mentored if they had not learnt of God or experienced Him at varying points in time in varying times. You can give out only what you have received.

Are you undertaking the role of mentoring? How sad would it be if you have a message or a gift/talent that you had withheld from your fellow men? 

Take a step today and start mentoring (formal and informal) others. Remember, your way of life inspires others as well. 

I want to use this medium to celebrate all the men that are inspiring others positively and the men that have taken it faithfully as their role to mentor fellow men positively.

- Tosin

The last post on mentoring will be published next week, the focus will be on 'why we need mentors and what to look out for in mentors.'