6 Chapter 6
The following week, at work the echoes of the weekend could still be heard, predominantly all they could speak about was the excitement of fun they had. Because of this hype, Loyiso appeared to be his old self again; even though he was still far away from resolving the real challenge that made him sad in the first place. Throughout that week there was special warmth of a strong bond between him and his colleagues.
The following Friday after work Loyiso dropped a bombshell when he joined his colleagues on their trip to a pub for drinks; because retrospectively he despised this phenomenon that was practised by his colleagues every Friday. Inasmuch as they were shocked, it was fun out there having him around; they drank almost all night long at the pleasure of beautiful girls in their company. The boisterous noise and drunkenness were silencing the guilty in Loyiso's consciousness. And now the inner smooth voice that was attempting to stop him slowly was dying down as he continues with this new trend for consecutive weeks. It felt like this new side of life seem to be addressing his problems just perfect, because he does not have time to think and stress about his loneliness over the weekend when he is drunk. From then on unconsciously he decided to drown his problems in alcohol.
Surprisingly none from his colleagues bothered to approach him, nor attempt to rescue him in his sudden change of becoming a party butterfly and a drunkard. Yes! At times the Devil will grab a noble cause that will surely attract your attention, only to perpetuate his evil works using people who care and love you dearly. As the bible says the prince of the ruler of the air works in the minds of those who disobey God, Ephesians 2 verse 1-2. This means according to the Christian bible the mind of those who don't follow God's standards can be easily manipulated by these spiritual principalities to perpetrate acts of unrighteousness. But Satan won't just choose random people who can't influence the victim; he makes use of those who are close to the heart. Take for example a biblical pericope in the book of Mathew chapter 16, when the Lord was predicting or revealing his death and resurrection to his disciples. The bible says Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him and said to him in verse 22 " Far be it from you, Lord; this shall never happen to you" but it is even more interesting in NLT translation because it says "heavens forbid this will never happen to you". Peter was used by the devil to distract God's plan through the noble act of showing compassion to Jesus. However Christ is one with the father, he saw this prince of darkness masquerading as Peter, so he replied and said in verse 23. "Get behind me, Satan! You are an offense to me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men". Whereas on the surface it appears as if Jesus was addressing Peter but he was rebuking these devils that were manipulating him because it is not in Peter that Jesus was offended but in Satan who was using Peter.
This might have been the case in Loyiso's colleagues because when Loyiso's life was spiralling out of control before their eyes they didn't try to stop him as they did before. But they made sure that he is orientated to every dark corner of that lifestyle, they organized for him transport when he could not make it because he does not want to be behind the wheel when his under the influence of liquor; they will buy him booze when he excuses himself because of money, they organized everything to ensure he attends. This is how the evil spiritual principalities which are in heavenly places operate to destroy an innocent life that was created for God's purposes.
Hence the bible says "Therefore my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armour of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places" Ephesian's 6 verse 10-11. The undertone from this verse is the fact, it not people who are our enemies so we are not supposed to fight people, hence we are commanded to love everyone; And also that we are all vulnerable and susceptible to the wicked ways of the devil outside the Lord's protection. Therefore let us make use of the spiritual weapons to extricate ourselves from these devils.
The golden boy who collected every achievement award for consecutive years was oblivious to the fact that his career was going down the drain very fast. He was destroying the entire performance appraisal he has worked hard for, and when he would be admonished by his bosses. He would have lousy excuses justifying his malodorous attitude.
Alcohol was reigning over Loyiso's life as he would go to work drunk on Mondays and sometimes he will be AWOL, surely he was losing it. Even though somewhere in him he did knew the error of those ways but something else was telling him a different narrative, that he is still the invincible Loyiso; the magnetic force of addiction that comes with drinking alcohol has had its grip on him, but he never wanted to admit that he's got a drinking problem though he could not free himself at this point.
Indeed he took a poisonous short cut as a remedy unaware that an addictive substance is pestilent. Its deceitful nature will promise to give what it does not have; your heart's loneliness and desperation shall convince you to believe its deceit. Then the hopes of your heart will drive you straight to its welcoming arms that are promising pleasure in the beginning; and this is the nature of everything that is causing addiction such as gambling, alcohol, and drugs, etc. However, the desires of your heart will never be realized instead it will steal away the value of things you treasure the most; and in the end, those arms which promised you pleasure will throw you in a pit of snakes to destroy you both physically and mentally. Addiction has its mouth open wide to chew and swallow up all of your precious time like a grave. And after its large belly has digested your faithfulness it will be transformed into perverseness.
This wise and strong young man's life was falling apart because when he was busy trying to close up potholes of the road in his love life; he ended up stumbling and falls in one big pothole of being a drunkard because of his misplaced action plan to remedy his dilemma. Solomon once said "When you dig a well, you might fall in. when demolishing a hedge, you could be bitten by a snake. When you work in a quarry, stones might fall and crush you. When you chop wood, there is a danger with each stroke of your axe". Ecclesiastes 10; 8-9. The wisest king that has ever lived in the history of mankind is speaking from experience because he was also a victim of being enticed by evil desires of his own heart that lured him to stray away from God's ways.
It is always foolish to take any artificial solution to remedy a real problem; because real problems need real solutions, no matter how comforted or relieved you feel after the use of an artificial remedy it will not address the statuesque. For a silly example, every time an altercation brakes between you and your spouse and you both have exchanged some strong words, you run to your friends who will probably make you laugh and forget about the situation you left at the house. And then when you go back home relieved and cheerful, you act as if nothing has happened, the problem has been resolved. No! You don't do that because you still need to face the problem that has caused the altercation and find its root cause so that you can get the right kind of solution even if it is a painful or tough solution.
Yes! Going to your friends might be a wise move to clear off the mind and calm the spirit down, but when you are in the right state of mind; because this is no point to contend for the high moral ground then go to your spouse and apologies whether you were right or wrong. Thereafter focus on fixing the problem and finding its root cause so that it does not happen again. Lastly, there are those people who hold for you, best interest at heart but cannot be objective in their judgment or advice, even though they are striving to show compassion by giving sympathetic ideas. Because their judgment is clouded by emotions they can lead you to your demise.
Your heart most of the times will be thirsty to hear those kinds of superficial advice which are inclined to its selfish needs and it might be dying to receive the comfort that can only be detrimental; because a troubled heart is always astray to a reasoning mind that anticipates a future or long-lasting solution, and usually the heart overcomes the mind because of our vulnerability to pain.
Take a good look at the kind of comfort which came from Loyiso's colleagues; temptation and doom were wrapped around the beauty of their generosity. When Nwabisa's hands were wide opened and longing to give him the right kind of comfort he needed to face the challenge had he made her aware. Instead, he opted for destructive superficial solutions that were doomed from the beginning because they were appealing to his troubled heart and it has coaxed him to feel comforted and important while it was self-distracting.
A dangerous enemy of every man is his heart, more especially when it is shattered; it has inclinations that can turn you against your values. A heart can give a rotten apple a pretty glaze of a yummy cream, that will make you desire to eat the apple then at your bite, you end up swallowing harmful worms that will threaten to take your life away; never follow a broken heart because it will destroy you. The bible says in the book of Jeremiah "The heart is above all deceitful things, and desperately wicked, who can know it".
