We have a lot of wise saying these days but it is doubtful if majority of those who peddle them in compiled volumes actually imbibe what they tell others. I received a small pamphlet of wise sayings complied by a young pastor in training. It was a brief compilation of stuffs that sound like this, “The key to recovery is discovery.” “No gain without pain.” When I showed the pamphlet to those who knew him they glossed at the book and muttered things that indicated that the author is a notorious unwise guy. And you know these days that when people want to avoid calling people foolish or stupid they use milder words that might not attract much of venom like “unwise,” “not-wise” or “not-good.” It is sad to see people parading wise sayings and never getting wise. It also sad to see those who claim to be wise get involved in a game or gamble that they cannot in any way predict its outcome. Nevertheless I liked the wise sayings I picked from Funke Egbomode’s column on the Sunday Sun, 15th September 2013. She quotes one medic@live.com: “Men are smart but ladies have grown devilishly smarter at their own detriment. (I suppose he meant to their detriment). It is no longer news that the culture of a man being the one to initiate an intimate relationship between the opposite sex is gradually being taken over by the females. Women are now the ones initiating the marriage proposal. Some go further length to fund the marriage including the traditional rites, church wedding and the subsequent running of the home. Mankind has a crafty way of blaming everything on someone else. Adam blamed his failure on his wife and the woman blamed it on the serpent and the serpent of course had nobody to blame. The ladies in furtherance of this new trend say they are not to blame since the Bible prophesied of this and who are they to disobey Bible prophecy. This defiance seems to mean humans are not responsible for their action since the Bible suggested it. If the Bible had not suggested it, according to this warped defense, nobody would have thought of it or had courage to implement it. This so called Bible prophecy is the one recorded in Isaiah: “At that time seven women will grab one man and say, “We will eat our own bread and make our own clothes, but please marry us! Please, take away our shame.” (Isa 4:1NCV). Women these days are ready to do a lot of crazy things in order to get married. Being single has come to look like a curse and many flock to the church to receive “anointing to marry.” This anointing to marry sometimes might mean being able to use subtlety and cunning means to capture a man for marriage. In order words there are certain merchants of the gospel who specialize in praying for women so that their cunning traps for catching “marriageable” men would not be detected. This could be a church (not Christian) variant of love potion. These women begin a game with their male prey in which all the cards are not laid bare.
Kenny Rogers a veteran musician sang, “You got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em, Know when to walk away and know when to run. You never count your money when you’re sittin’ at the table. There’ll be time enough for countin’ when the dealin’s done.” Kenny Roger’s song is deeply instructive for the deceiver and the one being deceived. For instance in one of the verses the advice is, “Son, I’ve made my life out of reading’ people’s faces,
And knowing’ what their cards were by the way they held their eyes.” Rogers here is talking of an ability to be discerning as well as being proactive. There are people who dabble into games and get so drenched in it that they fail to see some indicators that show it is time to walk away or run. They never know that as one progresses in his act of deceiving people the more he exposes his intentions. During Childhood days I can easily recognize that I was going to lose in the game of “whot” by the way my brother held the jokers. I can easily recognize when he is about to release the bombshell of “General market, hold on and last card, check-up!” Success exposes intentions just as it is easy to know that a man has struck an unexpected jack-pot by the way he spends the money. In line with this Kenny Rogers advises the gambler not to count his money while sitting at the table but after getting home by then the deal would have been done. -“If you’re gonna play the game, boy, ya gotta learn to play it right. You never count your money when you’re sittin’ at the table.There’ll be time enough for countin’ when the dealin’s done. It is very easy to know whether a market woman has made huge profits or terrible loses by the construction of her face while she is counting the money in the market place, and so con-men use this to know when to hold on or when to strike.
Some men are so naive that they do not know when they are being preyed upon by women trying to hook them into a compulsory marriage relationship. They don’t know when to hold on, neither do they know when to walk away or even when to run. Is it not the Bible that said we should run and walk in circumspect especially in matters that have to do with passions with the opposite sex? “Run away from infantile indulgence. Run after mature righteousness” (2 Timothy 2:22. The Message Bible) “So be careful how you act; these are difficult days. Don’t be fools; be wise: make the most of every opportunity you have for doing good Don’t act thoughtlessly, but try to find out and do whatever the Lord wants you to. Don’t drink too much wine, for many evils lie along that path; be filled instead with the Holy Spirit and controlled by him.” (Eph 5:15-18 TLB). The women who indulge in this act of capturing a man for keeps are what I refer to as female predators. I do not know about all their antics but here are some that start as a process that leads a man into a sequences of events that can better be described as “the more you look, the less you see, but the more excited you get.”
