THE ILLUSION OF PERFECTION: A SPECIAL TRIBUTE TO JAMES EDWIN NJOROGE
With brightness in our eyes and earnestness in our ambitions, we felt entangled in our camaraderie as peers during our toddler days at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology. In those sunlit courtyards, we echoed with laughter, initially as strangers then later bound together with firm chords of brotherly love. The common denominator in our affiliation was the love of music and a burning desire to spread the gospel like a bushfire in an arid land. In the hallways of faith, we dared to be partakers of this holy duty, yet indeed within us, was the shadow of doubt. How would we be zealously engaged in angelic responsibilities, when our appetite for sin was a siren's call into dark and murky waters? Guilt wrapped around our hearts like thorns threatened to undo our commitment to this marvelous task of serving God through the tunes of Zion, the gift of music.
Dear James E. Njoroge, on that uneventful day when you made an affirmation to let stay our initial commitment of service, because of the innermost rhetorics beyond your human might, your words cut deep into my fleshy soul. Until now, they remain imprinted in black and white in my memory chamber. As I reflected upon them day and night, it became clearer how our smiles masked brooding doubts and our sight grew faint every day. Our devotional efforts felt in vain. Allow me to admit today, that I almost gave up too just before the intervention of our brother Evans. M.A. in a devotion that whipped my senses back to rationality. I tactfully tried to lure you back into what made us love this work and the imminent passion of music within us but the intrigues of surrender within your soul were too heavy to make you yield to my plea. Eventually, God's will prevailed and he set you free to unpuzzle the riddle within you.
My brother, it is in this moment that God taught us through this song in the words from the book of 1st John 2:1, "My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father-Jesus Christ, the Righteous One." As your expectations to overcome self shattered with each attempt, Christ was always around with grace beyond measure and love beyond human imagination. How did we dare forget His promise in Rom 5:20 to increase grace in double proportion with each stumble in the block of sin??? God admonished us to be perfect because He knew it was IMPOSSIBLE by our might but POSSIBLE by his grace that has appeared to all men.
Beloved, as we sang this marvelous tune, our thoughts wandered around your efforts to set up the building blocks of this ministerial unit and leave without completing the solemn task ahead because of your inner struggles that God allows in seasons for all who love and serve Him. I know you still love Him who conquered all the fears within your soul. As I close this tribute to you, I drown in the promise of hope in the chorus of this song, that our faith in Jesus, enough to move mountains makes his boundless love greater than all our sin and guilt. The struggle is not in the absence of sin but in the courage to face it and conquer it in the name of Christ Jesus our Lord. We love you brother.
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