Recipe: Honey Kokoro (corn snacks)

Today I am venturing into the world of Nigerian snacks. Kokoro, is one of the snacks i enjoyed eating in my primary school days in Lagos. I remember, when as kids we will compete for whose crunching sound will make the most noise when chewing. Kokoro is basically a combo of groundnut and corn . So you get to have your Guguru and Ekpa (pop corn and groundnut) in a different way.

So here goes, something to entertain guests with if you don’t want to offer a meal. Enjoy the crunch!

Recipe
1 cup Corn Grit
3/4 cup roasted Groundnut (ground)
3 tablespoons Honey
1/3 cup water
3/4 teaspoon ginger powder
1/4 teaspoon ground dry Pepper

Method
1, Blend dry corn and sieve into not so fine flour. The texture of the flour is slightly gritty.Tip: corn is quite difficult on the regular domestic blender so it is advisable to do this at the millers in the market or neighbourhoods.
2, Blend the groundnut into powder
3, Mix all dry ingredients
4, Mix the honey and water
5, Pour the honey mixture into the dry ingredients and need into a a firm dough. Kneading should be just about 1 minute
6, Take a little of the dough per time place between you palm and roll into ‘sticks’. Alternatively you can do the rolling on a smooth surface. The slimmer the sticks the crunchier .
7, Place gently on a baking tray  and bake for about 15-20 minutes. After baking on one side for about 10 minutes gently turn each stick on the other side to brown.
8, Allow the Kokoro to cool completely and crunch away.
You may wish to leave the Kokoro in the fridge as this helps to keep the crunchiness.

Kitchen Tip: Preheat oven to gas mark 400 before you start mixing your ingredients.

Source: southpawgroup.com

The way to Influence Your Teen to Love God

Even the best of parents must make some changes in the way they parent as their children grow up. The old methods of relating don't work the same way anymore. In fact, they seem to cause problems instead.

Of all the changes teens make, the most important one is probably the adjustment in their relationship with their parents. They're moving from a parent-child relationship to an adult-adult relationship. Unfortunately, some parents never make the shift. They continue to treat their teens as if they're still eight or nine years old. Honor helps parents recognize the changes and make the necessary adjustments.

Although you may be able to "control" young children, the key word for teenagers is "influence." Here are five words that describe different ways you can influence teens.

1.    Teach—Provide them with new information or help them understand another facet of life.

2.    Encourage—Remind them of the benefits of moving in the right direction.

3.    Entreat—Earnestly ask them to act in a mature, responsible and wise way.

4.    Admonish—Warn, caution or advise them by anticipating possible negative consequences.

5.    Persuade—Use relationship, incentives and natural consequences to motivate them to make wise choices.

Remember that you don't have to accomplish everything in one interaction. Change takes time, and your influence over time will produce the greatest results.

Overcoming Procrastination

Procrastination, the habit of putting tasks off to the last possible minute, can be a major problem in both your career and your personal life.

Side effects include missed opportunities, frenzied work hours, stress, overwhelm, resentment, and guilt.

The behaviour pattern of procrastination can be triggered in many different ways, so you won't always procrastinate for the same reason.

Let's now address these various causes of procrastination and consider intelligent ways to respond.

1. Stress:

When you feel stressed, worried, or anxious, it's hard to work productively. A wise solution is to reduce the amount of stress in your life when possible, such that you can spend more time working because you want to, not because you have to.

2. Too many things to do at the same time:

Sometimes you may have more items on your to-do list than you can reasonably complete. This can quickly lead to overwhelm, and ironically you may be more likely to procrastinate when you can least afford it.

In this case the message is that you need to stop, reassess your true priorities, and simplify.

3. Laziness:

Often we procrastinate because we feel too physically and/or emotionally drained to work.

Once we fall into this pattern, it's easy to get stuck due to inactivity because an object at rest tends to remain at rest.

When you feel lazy, even simple tasks seem like too much work because your energy is too low compared to the energy required by the task.

4. Lack of Motivation:

We all experience temporary laziness at times, but if you suffer from chronically low motivation and just can't seem to get anything going, then it's time for you to let go of immature thought patterns, to embrace life as a mature adult, and to discover your true purpose in life.

5. Lack of Discipline:

Even when motivation is high, you may still encounter tasks you don't want to do. In these situations, self-discipline works like a motivational backup system.

6. Poor Time Management Habits

Do you ever find yourself falling behind because you overslept, because you were too disorganized, or because certain tasks just fell through the cracks?

Bad habits like these often lead to procrastination, often unintentionally.

The solution in this case is to diagnose the bad habit that's hurting you and devise a new habit to replace it.

7. Lack of Skill:

If you lack sufficient skill to complete a task at a reasonable level of quality, you may procrastinate to avoid a failure experience.

You then have three viable options to overcome this type of pattern: educate, delegate, or eliminate.

8. Perfectionism

A common form of erroneous thinking that leads to procrastination is perfectionism.

Believing that you must do something perfectly is a recipe for stress, and you'll associate that stress with the task and thus condition yourself to avoid it.

Reflection:

Procrastination is unfortunately something that a lot of us suffer from regularly. Procrastination can often hold us back from what we really want in life, and unfortunately, it's something that can crop up at any time of life, no matter who you are.

A lot of people often assume that procrastination is simply being lazy, but this isn't always the case.

Often, feelings of tiredness, hopelessness, panic or even depression can cause us to put things off and avoid reality completely.

JESUS CARES FOR YOU

I Am the good shepherd; and. I know My sheep, and am known by My own. - John 10:14

The Lord is not just our shepherd, He is our Father. He is not a hired labourer who has been given the task to watch over the sheep of another. He is both the Creator and owner of His sheep.

The Shepherd knows His sheep. He has intimate knowledge of all His sheep. He knows us by name. He knows our personalities.

He knows our strengths and weaknesses. He knows our dreams. He knows our fears. He knows us so much that He can read our innermost thoughts even before we construct them into ideas. Nothing about us escapes His attention.

Not only does He know our natures, but He knows our needs. Don't forget that the Lord Jesus knows what it is like to be human.

He knows what It is like to face the limitations of humanity because He lived amongst us and experienced what we experience. He knows what it is like to feel the pressure of temptation. He knows what it is like to experience loneliness, sorrow and joy.

Today, you can come to Him with all your concerns and pour out your heart to Him in prayer. He is ready to help and guide you. He is more powerful than your enemies so you can trust Him to deliver you from the hands of those which seek to bring you down and destroy your life.

Your Good Shepherd cares about you.He knows what it is like to be a sheep. And He knows what you are going through. He wants you to trust Him today with your worries. He wants to deliver you and fill your heart with joy and peace.

Prayer: I come to You Lord, with my burdens; deliver me and give me Your joy and peace.

Scriptural Reading: John 10:7-21

Relationship: Where Are the Christian Men?

She was a single Christian friend (totally just friends), venting her frustration about immature men. It was casual, because that kind of venting is common. It was over coffee. It cut deep.

"Christian men . . . ugh."

As a male Christian college student with no wife, no steady job, and no financial independence, I squirmed with unease and insecurity. She wasn't attacking me; just issuing a general complaint to the universe. The words effortlessly flowed out of her mouth like she had said them a million times before, and I wasn't prepared for the adjectives that would be slung in the conversation: "Immature." "Childish." "Lazy." "Weak." "Pathetic." Wait for it . . . "Man-Boys."

At a level, the tone we use to speak about young Christian men today would be self-evidently disrespectful in another context. And to state the obvious, it cuts the deepest when coming from our single female counterparts. There are a slew of legitimate reasons why a single Christian woman would be tempted to rag on immature men. (1) Secular women offer a pre-packaged and intuitive man-boy bashing liturgy. (2) She (or a friend) dated a guy, got burned, and reinterpreted him through the lens of hurt as a "man-boy." (3) Taking jabs at immature men is a fun and easy way to sequester the chilling reality of singleness.

It's understandable, but can I please say this? It's not okay. The term "man-boy" (sometimes "man-child," "baby-man," etc.) is a slur. It is used to personally demean and debase a class of Christians. It is a put-down. It expresses contempt and exhibits haughtiness. And, worst of all, it defines the value of humans in God's image according to their gender performance.

The Problem Is Not Laziness

"But," you say, "there are a lot of Christian men who exhibit disappointing behaviors." This is true, but I'm not convinced categories like sinfulness or laziness, common explanations, properly capture the issue. Perhaps laziness points beyond itself — maybe it is symptomatic of a more systemic problem. Let's interpret the classic "man-boy" behaviors through a lens other than laziness:

   Delaying marriage can help: avoid shared physical, emotional, and spiritual space, and retreat into personal space.

   Neglecting the Bible and church can help: avoid divine intimacy, and retreat into personal life.

   Floating without ambition can help: avoid work hours, and retreat into personal time.

   Playing video games chronically can help: avoid external reality, and retreat into virtual reality.

   Living at home can help: avoid external pressures, and retreat into internal comforts.

Modern-Day Fig Leaves

"Lazy" is a surface-level description. "Avoid" moves us toward an explanation of the heart. Scripture tells us that the heart is always active (Genesis 6:5;Deuteronomy 11:6; Jeremiah 17:5, 9; 1 Peter1:22), so our description of the heart should always be in the active voice (I'm not saying avoidance is the problem, but it helps us get a bit deeper than the laziness concept).

"Avoid" is a door to a slew of other active words and a host of other realities of the heart: fear ("What if I fail?"), anxiety ("I can't handle this!"), depression ("I hate myself/life"), feelings of insufficiency ("I am not enough"), self-deprecation ("I am stupid/dirty/undesirable"), shame ("God and neighbor are disgusted with me"), and a thousand more. "I would rather escape than publicly be put to shame" (cf. Rev. 6:16).

These categories give us a new perspective. "Man-boys" aren't first and foremost struggling with being men, but with being human. Singleness, solitude, laziness, video games and Mom's house are modern-day fig leaves—self-made coverings for men who are stripped of competence and deeply ashamed of their inability to engage with the realities of life because of their experience with the Oppressor (Is. 14:4), who seeks to spread confusion and chaos among God's people (John 8:44; 2 John 7; Rev. 12:10).

The Solution Is Not 'Try Harder'

The need of the day is not for the church of Jesus Christ to rip away the leaves but to start clothing them with the God-made garment of the gospel (Gen. 3:21). The solution to immaturity among young Christian guys is not remembering truths or tightening regulations, but a Person who did not avoid our realities but rushed into them for our sake: Jesus (Luke 2:52; Phil. 2:6-9)—Jesus, with his intercession, charity and grace.

Surely women aren't to blame for male immaturity or responsible for changing men. But what can single Christian women do about this phenomenon of immaturity—for their brothers in Christ—besides vent and name-call (Matt. 18:15; 1 John 3:14)? Here are some ways that they can help:

1. Intercessory Prayer

Pray for more fathers to take seriously their role to teach their children how to engage the world and not avoid it. Pray for men in general to do the same for guys without fathers. Pray for men to change, not merely at a behavioral level, but at a heart level—to move toward God and neighbor in the midst of indwelling sin and external oppression (Luke 10:27).

2. Charity

Speak well of others (Eph. 4:31). Treat the immaturity of young men the same way you would treat any other issue in the church: with diligence, faithfulness and love—the very same traits Paul includes in his imperative to "be men" (1 Cor. 16:13-14). This means that women are not reacting with cynicism or using the term "man-boy" (Eph. 4:29).

3. Faith

God is disciplining immature men to grow them up (Heb.12:11). He doesn't need your snide comments to help (Prov. 11:12). Trust that God has not abandoned men to immaturity, but is finishing the work that he began (Phil. 1:6).

4. Grace

All temptation is common to humankind (1 Cor. 10:13). The fear that exists in a man's heart may manifest itself in different (gender-specific) ways in your life. No matter whom you date, he will be a sinful man (Rom. 3:23) who is immature and afraid, and if he is a Christian, God is overcoming evil that is against him and in him (Phil. 2:13; Rom. 16:20). I'm not saying Jesus wants you to date a loser. He doesn't. All I'm saying is this: Don't just date a gospel-centered Christian; date like a gospel-centered Christian (1 Pet. 4:8).

Philosopher Søren Kierkegaard said that nature has affectionately equipped women "with an instinct so sensitive that by comparison the most superior masculine reflection is as nothing" (Sickness Unto Death, XI, 162). Sisters, prove Kierkegaard right. Outdo us in prayer, charity, faith and grace, and we men will try to outdo you in godly discipline and ambition. Then, perhaps mutual awe of the One "who helps us in our weakness" will bloom in due course (Rom. 8:26).

Source: charismamag.com &original article here: http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/talking-about-man-boys

Biblical Answer to Broken Relationships

Marian Evans, who wrote under the pen name George Eliot, described the beauty of friendship: "Oh the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person; having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words but to pour them all out together, knowing that a faithful friend will take and sift them, keeping what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away."

David had a friend like that, but something terrible happened. The friend turned against him. Psalm 55 pours out of David's heart as he struggles with the unbearable emotional pain of abandonment, betrayal, disillusionment and disbelief.

Internal nightmare

David begins with a plea for God to listen (v. 1). The "listen" is punctuated by urgency: "Do not ignore my plea; hear me and answer me" (vv. 1,2). Did David fear God would be as insensitive as the departed friend?

Quickly, David summarizes his deep depression (vv. 3,4) and poignantly notes the horrible physiological and psychological trauma he experiences: "Fear and trembling have beset me; horror has overwhelmed me" (v. 5).

Emotions like this never arise with the loss of a casual acquaintance. Such wounds can only be made by someone close to you. Who has left you that you loved? The excruciating present feelings far surpass the former comfort in friendship.

You now long for escape from the hurt but can't find anywhere to run. "Oh, that I had the wings of a dove! I would fly away and be at rest. ... far from the tempest and storm" (vv. 6–8).

External danger

Some breakups in close relationships are not accompanied by the external dangers confronting David in this psalm: violence, strife, malice, abuse, threats and lies. However, such terms do describe the devil's assault: "Destructive forces are at work" (v. 11).

The enemy's deeds are never constructive. He is interested only in our defeat.

Unendurable loss

A grieving divorcée asked for prayer: "I just can't bear the pain. My husband, my closest friend, told me he had to leave me because he was gay. I never saw it coming. We had such a caring relationship. I don't know if I have the strength to go on living."

The betrayal of a spouse, a friend, a relative, a close companion is very hard to take. David speaks for all who have been so wounded when he laments, "If an enemy were insulting me, I could endure it; if a foe were raising himself against me, I could hide from him. But it is you ... my companion, my close friend, with whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship" (vv. 12-14).

Intensifying the pain is the remembrance that the "sweet fellowship" had included spiritual togetherness ("as we walked with the throng at the house of God" (v. 14). He never expected the companion who loved God with him to turn against him.

Anger vented

A husband, whose wife had left him for another man, admitted, "It was all I could do to restrain myself from going to her new home in the middle of the night and torching it with her and her lover in it."

David is no stranger to those emotions. He wishes the worst to happen to the one who hurt him—sudden death or being buried alive.

The Psalms continually illustrate how to deal with anger when we are hurt by others. The Lord gives permission to express that anger to Him, but it is not acceptable for us to act on the anger. Maturity in Christ takes us along an even higher and more difficult path: forgiveness and overcoming evil with good.

One dependable Friend

Other persons may disappoint us. God won't (vv. 16-19). His action is always consistent with His speech. We can rely upon the Lord; therefore, David closes this psalm with a word of advice—picked up by Peter in the New Testament: "Cast your cares on the Lord" (v. 22; 1 Pet. 5:7).

It's hard. I want to solve my own problems so I can get the solutions I desire. Prayer makes me desire His solutions.

Is a broken relationship with a close companion plunging you into the emotional fight of your life? God must be involved. Put the matter in His hands.

We began the psalm by demanding God's immediate attention, and after a season of struggle in prayer, quietly relinquish our situation into the Lord's care, "But as for me, I trust in you" (v. 23).

Source: George O. Wood

You Have What It Takes To The Top

1. Start spending time with the right people. – These are the people you enjoy, who love and appreciate you, and who encourage you to improve in healthy living, career development, education etc. They also share God’s Word with you.

2. Start facing your problems head on. – It isn't your problems that define you, but how you react to them and recover from them.

Problems will not disappear unless you take action. Do what you can, when you can, and acknowledge what you've done. It’s all about taking baby steps in the right direction, inch by inch. These inches count, they add up to yards and miles in the long run.

3. Start being honest with yourself about everything. – Be honest about what’s right, as well as what needs to be changed. Be honest about what you want to achieve and who you want to become. Be honest with every aspect of your life, always.

4. Start being yourself, genuinely and proudly. – Trying to be anyone else is a waste of the person you are. Be yourself. Be the person you know yourself to be – the best version of you.

5. Start valuing the lessons your mistakes teach you. – Mistakes are okay; they’re the stepping stones of progress. If you’re not failing from time to time, you’re not trying hard enough and you’re not learning.

Take risks, stumble, fall, and then get up and try again. Appreciate that you are pushing yourself, learning, growing and improving.

Significant achievements are almost invariably realized at the end of a long road of failures. One of the ‘mistakes’ you fear might just be the link to your greatest achievement yet.

6. Start being more polite to yourself. – If you had a friend who spoke to you in the same way that you sometimes speak to yourself, how long would you allow that person to be your friend? The way you treat yourself sets the standard for others. You must love who you are or no one else will.

7. Start creating your own happiness. – If you are waiting for someone else to make you happy, you’re missing out. Smile because you can. Choose happiness. Be the change you want to see in the world.

Be happy with who you are now, and let your positivity inspire your journey into tomorrow. Happiness is often found when and where you decide to seek it.

If you look for happiness within the opportunities you have, you will eventually find it. But if you constantly look for something else, unfortunately, you’ll find that too.

8. Start giving your ideas and dreams a chance. – In life, it’s rarely about getting a chance; it’s about taking a chance. You’ll never be 100% sure it will work, but you can always be 100% sure doing nothing won’t work. Trust God to lead you to the right people at the right location and at the right time.

9. Start believing that you’re ready for the next step. – You are ready! Think about it. You have everything you need right now to take the next small, realistic step forward. So embrace the opportunities that come your way, and accept the challenges – they’re gifts that will help you to grow.

10. Start entering new relationships for the right reasons. – Enter new relationships with dependable, honest people who reflect the person you are and the person you want to be.

Choose friends you are proud to know, people you admire, who show you love and respect – people who reciprocate your kindness and commitment. And pay attention to what people do, because a person’s actions are much more important than their words or how others represent them.