Will. The easiest yet the toughest choice one can make.

Somewhere in the midst of all that confusion, their is hope, and then there is WILL.

Somewhere in our day to day life, nestled in one of the most powerful graces mankind has ever owned, is a profound thing called will. The oxford describes it as “control deliberately exerted to do something or to restrain one's own impulses.” For as long as we can remember, will has been a part of our lives, well, to be precise, when we came to our senses at a very tender age. 

 

Will, pronounced as /wil/, with a clear depiction from The Holy book, the Bible, brings out itself as a punishment given forth to man when he sinned in the proverbial place of perfectness, The Garden of Eden.

Back in the years, I attended a mission school adjacent to a crumbling church in a small forgotten town located in the heart of the rich Tea highlands of Western Kenya. A distance away was the massive River Nyanderema; a massive piece of nature flowing tenaciously to the famous Ewaso. As a freshman, holding my shiny-sleek metal box of clothing and books, entitled me enough pride to seamlessly show on my young bubbly face. The great grandson of Lonjo was attending a Mission school and that had earned me boundless respect back in my village at home. 

It was a Sunday morning, after a break from the rigorous week of studies and books. I sat in church absentmindedly humming away hymns and prayer incantations with the rest of the pupils. The dirty sunlight slanted in through the multicolored windows before mass, and like a velvet, kissed the church’s floor and reflected back dazzling colors. It made the atmosphere around the church quite ghostly. Father Kugger, a fellow from England, who claimed was sent by the pope himself, kept lowering his balding head in supplication. He often said, in passing, almost as if humming under his breath, that he was a man without faith, yet haunted by God. We treated him with high regard, often scampering away when he got angry at our mischievous deeds. But Father Kugger did not want to punish us. He often strutted around the school compound, relishing the satiny silk of God’s white robes swishing left and right. Or at least, that is how we imagined it felt.

Father Kugger, he often said, Will is the toughest decision one has to make, yet it is the easiest of them all. Baffled, we did stare at him, disbelief well written in our faces. How can something be of two opposite meaning? A yes can never be a no, not even possibly the other way round. As confused as we were then, that phrase has stuck up with me till date!

So, is will the toughest decision one can make in life? Or is it the easiest choice one can come up with? I am still confounded. 

Matthew 6:5-13. Jesus says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only one who does the WILL of my Father in heaven.” 

We all want to go to heaven, right? Someone gimme that answer.

Merry Christmas to y’all!

Loughran.