Chasing Love, Finding Christ

Chasing Love, Finding Christ

Michael Uzoramaka Jonathan and Michael Uzor

Published by AFROSCOT LTD, 2023.

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

CHASING LOVE, FINDING CHRIST

First edition. May 13, 2023.

Copyright © 2023 Michael Uzoramaka Jonathan and Michael Uzor.

ISBN: 978-1739172534

Written by Michael Uzoramaka Jonathan and Michael Uzor.

© 2023 AFROSCOT LTD

Published by AFROSCOT LTD

United Kingdom

Baltic Chambers, Suite 240 - 241,

50 Wellington Street, Glasgow, G2 6HJ

afroscot.org

Printed in the United Kingdom

ISBN is 978-1-7391725-3-4

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the publisher's prior written permission. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Scripture quotations identified KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.

Contents

Acknowledgments……….. 7

Introduction……….. 9

Why? ……….. 12 - 18

What?……….. 19 - 23

Where?……….. 24 - 28

When?……….. 29 - 33

Who?……….. 34 - 39

Childhood Sins……….. 41 - 140

End Notes……….. 141 - 144

Acknowledgments

I desired to write this book for one reason alone, to share the love God showed me to the world. Witnessing many young men and women indulge in sexual sins and licentiousness became something passé, like old recycled news. The danger in this passivity was alarming to me. My purpose is to speak to the world about the troubles youth experience and to colour this experience with literature and art. In doing so, I’d be able to share the gospel and bring them to the knowledge of the truth—Jesus Christ. As a young man, I am attuned to the zeitgeist and well-equipped to speak on this sensitive topic.

Love is sweet when done in God’s way. I thank my family for inputting their love into me when others couldn’t. To come from a loving home is a blessing I do not take for granted. I’d also like to thank; my friends and the church for their encouragement in giving me the space for God to use me as a beacon for young adolescents. The most important thank you goes to Jesus Christ for inspiring me to write this book, to share my testimony (although it wasn’t easy) and also for giving those suffering from the affliction of cold hearts and sexual sin to see that a free gift of love through repentance is available through Jesus Christ who loves us not due to our works of the flesh but because we are his masterpiece.

Introduction

Looking at the world today there’s a confusion that has proliferated and germinated throughout the conscious minds of humans—the idea of love. I’ve watched countless documentaries, spoken to different people and experienced for myself these ideas of love, and consistently found that most people’s problems come from a desire for one thing—love.

We assume that feeling valued brings inner peace, so we do everything, like an inner motor guiding us, to find this love, but we can’t ignore the debilitating emptiness that follows our striving. Our endless journey for popularity, fame, money, and success only leaves us with a large gaping hole in our chest. What is this thing that is missing?

I went through this same feeling of nothingness brewing within my soul as a young boy. I tried everything to achieve success, worked hard day and night to achieve my ideals and read every book I could on entrepreneurship and psychology believing that all this diligence might fill the large feeling of hopeless helplessness within me. Deep down, I was looking for some type of love but only found it when I met the one.

Now who is this one? I rather take you on a journey to discover who it is I speak of, not in name but as a real person.

Someone who is the giver of love and the person I believe will settle the world’s problems if we all just accept him. But I know it’s not as simple as that. I wanted to explore the word love, from every angle so that by the end you, the reader and myself can come to an understanding of what love is and what it is not and dissect lust and how damaging it can be to our knowledge of love.

I plan to do this by expressing the 5 W’s of Love through literary language and then presenting a novella about a boy’s childhood encounter with false love. By the end, I will conclude the meaning of love, hoping to leave you with a new or improved perspective on life’s Agape.

WHY?

Why should we love?

My reasons for choosing to write this book are various. I decided to approach this section of the book in the non-fiction format rather than the usual fiction style. Non-fiction allowed me to properly speak my experiences and thoughts to the reader without the imagination blurring the lines of communication. Imagination crystallises in reality. I always wondered what love was and what it felt like but most of all, why should we love? Why is it important?

The odd cringe and discomfort follow the word love in today’s world. Whenever someone said they loved another it was met with rolled eyes and patterns of disgust. Perhaps love was something that lost its flair and genuineness over the years due to the overuse of the word narcissism and the lack of trust so prevalent in society.

Chasing Love, Finding Christ 5 W’s We all have experienced what we thought was love in our life only for it to disappoint us. No one starts off hating the word love. Why should we hate something that is associated with healthy emotions and positive thoughts? I believe we hated it as we were duped to believe in fake love. I’m sure we all experienced a time in our life when we loved something passionately. We approached it with a zeal that transcends the norm. We loved it so much we went to sleep dreaming about it, making ‘love’ to it and hoping this bliss with this love will never end. However, something happens that is either engineered or by chance that we forget about this love, we start to dislike this love and soon we wish we didn’t encounter it. It reminds us of a version of ourselves that was too vulnerable, too open to danger, and we look at the mirror and curse the scenes associated with our former love. A dangerous thing indeed.

The romantic notion that love hurts has been mainstream since the days of Beethoven, and its beliefs seeped and poisoned the mind of every media and educational material out there. Now we have relationships based on a sort of microwave love. Something trivial to fill the time. With all I’ve said it must seem strange how time after time we charge ahead and swim through the sea of dating and countless failed relationships with spouses, friends and families seeking this dangerous elixir we feel will close the gap within our hearts.

It’s ironic that someone like us will even bother to love.

Maybe we shouldn’t say love but slow and painful death.

I intended to understand why I should love and looked at my favourite television shows as a child to understand it. Love, as displayed on television, was interesting. Every week, the main character wakes up to find himself interested in a new person.

16

Chasing Love, Finding Christ 5 W’s Love then was described as intense mania, like dizziness that lasted for a week before you experienced it again like a constant excruciating loop. Growing up I saw love as indispens-able. It didn’t require any commitment and had to always be happy.

I guess that's why pornography and sexual imagery fascinate youths. It was quick, like an automatic weapon, killing our souls, and filling us with depraved thoughts that we hid with more indulgences of the material.

My first foray into pornography was when I was a young boy. While visiting my friend's place, another boy from the neighbourhood entered the house with a devilish smile. He went downstairs to my friend's father's room and began to play pornographic films. He pulled us along like a mermaid luring the seafarer to his death. I saw the scene of a man and a woman engaging in sexual intercourse but at that age, I couldn’t comprehend what it was. It was alien, like when older men hear the language of youths. It was strange. But the unusual had a powerful way of drawing us again and again. As they say, curiosity killed the cat but the cat was replaced by my conscious. From then I was introduced to this poison called sexual depravity which God freed me from its grip. I believe lust has