THE GOOD ITSELF (The debt of Love)

My life is a pursuit to pay this debt. This debt I owe shall take a lifetime. Romans 13:8 says ‘Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law.’ The debt of love is always outstanding because we will always have people to show it to (until death). In John 12: 8 Jesus said ‘You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.” In otherwords, for the debt of love to humanity you will always have it outstanding. 

Our purpose on earth is to pay this debt of love.

I remember occasions at the school library (which was then at the basement), even after closing hour, this security guard gave me one of the rooms, with the light and fan to continue studies. At dawn when most people have left and I’m still there, he would come around asking if I’m not sleepy. One once told me ‘Study hard’, for your mum and dad, they are paying a lot. He told me how he wished he went to the university. 

During the time of the Third Eye security agent, this old man who sat at the basement gate, he knew me well and welcomed me so nicely. 

The security guards became my friends because of my consistency. They parolled every night and dawns and times when my day was long and I felt sleepy, they came around with their own motivation. Though it was hard to communicate sometimes because I didn’t understand the local dialect ‘Twi’, we found a way to infuse some english words here and there to provide contextual meaning. 

One day, one of the old men, he asked me for money to buy water. I gave it to him but in my heart I cried more than the litres of liquid that money would have bought. I wondered if he had grown children. I wondered if they were graduates, if they had good jobs, if they were ‘waakye’ sellers or ‘tro-tro’ drivers, mates, I wondered how he lived, how much this job paid and how well his old age was faring. 

You know, the CPA 4.0 I realized I owed it to a lot of people. For this reason I titled my valedictorian speech ‘Alabaru” which means in Yoruba , head porter and in Twi ‘Kayawei”. 

Today, I recount some of these good acts and I motivate you to do same too. Look critically at your life and you will see that the goodness of God and the goodness of man has brought you where you are. No, you have looked at the people that disappointed you too much????. Don’t you see those people who sacrificed their jobs for your education, that old father who made his pension your monthly allowance, that friend who shared her provisions with you like you were her family?????

‘Good’ itself is an asset. Every act of goodness is a deposit. You must increase the value. This means one good act done to you is a responsibility to do 10, 000 more to ‘others’.

Now, in Luke 7 Jesus was approached by a woman tagged sinful. She came to anoint him with an expensive perfume. Jesus said she washed his feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair (vs 44). She was a grateful woman. In Luke 7:47, Jesus said this “ Therefore I tell you, because her many sins have been forgiven, she has loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.”

Listen, if you owe me, pay it to others. Any good done to you is so that you have the power to do more to others. God has forgiven us so we can forgive others (Matthew 6:14). Any time you are failing to do a good to someone, you are a judgment debtor. In verse 42 he had told a parable of two debtors “Two men were debtors to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty’’. When the moneylender decided to let their debts go, he asked which one of them would love the moneylender more. Ladies and gentlemen, the only way to repay the debt of love is to do “more’’ to others. He that has been forgiven much should forgive others more. In the parable of the wicked servant in Matthew 18:21 – 35, we saw a man who failed to pay a debt of love. Good had been done to him and he was refusing to extend it to another. David, a man who testified that the taste of God is good in Psalm 34:8 understood that receiving so much from God is not for him to just give God thanks much to do same to others. So he said in 2 Samuel 9:3 3 ‘So the king asked, “Is there anyone left of Saul’s family to whom I can show the kindness of God?” Ziba answered, “There is still Jonathan’s son, who is lame in both feet.’

May I let you know that you owe the world ALOT. When I think of what you have been through and how God and how God through people stood for you, I am convinced you have a debt to pay like me. If someone paid your fees, you have to pay 3 people’s fees at least. If someone gave you money, you have to give others accommodation, jobs, clothing.

Every good done to you by one man is a deposit he made in your life and wrote a note that the profit should be shared amongst others (who probably don’t even know who made the deposit). I have a responsibility to send the needy children to school because someone sent me to school. 

Take your education seriously, you have no idea what information and power can make out of you. God is taking you to a position of authority where the world needs those certificate and experiences you have been through. When you get there and as you get there, He wants you to continuously pay this debt. Let no other debt remaining outstanding than this debt of love. 

Every grateful heart like David will search for people to extend the kindness of God to (2Sam9:3).

In the subsequent episodes of the “HAT-TRICK”, I hope to inspire you with more good things. Today I have celebrated the security guards, let’s see who is next in my undergraduate story. Till then, whenever you feel useless or passionless to achieve your dream,ask yourself “don’t I have a debt to pay?’ People have invested in you, God has invested in you and even with this piece, I have joined to make an investment in you. Baby, you can do it! The children living on the streets are looking up to you.

Subscribe now so you don’t miss out on any episode of hope. God bless you dearly. 

Read Episode 2 (The Intellectuals) here The Error of Commission

(c) 2019 Elizabeth Ewudiwa