My Month of Re-engineering My Home
Amos Dada PhD; P.Eng
Welcome to this month, my month of re-engineering my home.
What is engineering? Engineering (from Latin ingenium, meaning "cleverness" and ingeniare, meaning "to contrive, devise") is the application of scientific, economic, social, and practical knowledge in order to invent, design, build, maintain, and improve structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes.(wikipedia) Engineering is the action of working artfully to bring something about. Engineering means solving problems. In today’s world, engineers are mainly concerned with maintaining and improving living standards and quality of life in a society. To ‘engineer’ literally means to “make things happen”. Engineering is about the design and production of useful products and services.
So what is re-engineering? It means systematic starting over and reinventing the way a firm, or a business process, gets its work done. Fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business process to achieve dramatic improvements in critical measures of performance such as cost, service, and speed.
What is a home? A home is a dwelling-place used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for an individual, family, household or several families in a tribe. It is often a house, apartment, or other building, or alternatively a mobile home, houseboat, yurt or any other portable shelter. A home could also be an institution for people needing professional care or supervision. (e.g. senior's home or motherless home).
Notice that the topic is not re-engineering your marriage but home. Marriage is a subset of the home. Home includes persons and properties, the nuclear family and the extended family. Home is all encompassing. This month I want you to re-engineer your home. Find ways to improve your relationship with someone in your home. Make things happen. Re-design your thinking process. Are you a parent? Think of ways to make your relationship with your children better. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Ephesians 6:4. Are you a child, learn from the prodigal son, who re-engineered his life and returned home to fresh meals, new wardrobe and a lavish party. “When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, ‘At home even the hired servants have food enough to spare, and here I am dying of hunger! 18 I will go home to my father and say, “Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, 19 and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired servant.”’ Lk 15:17-18. Re-engineering is about coming to your senses.Are you a husband and all you have seen in your wife is negative things, salty meal, growing tummy (having had children bearing your name) nagging and complaints, re-engineer your mind, see her beauty, see the effort she puts in to make your meal, multi-tasking to get the home front stable so that you can focus in the office. In the same way, you husbands must give honor to your wives. Treat your wife with understanding as you live together. She may be weaker than you are, but she is your equal partner in God’s gift of new life. Treat her as you should so your prayers will not be hindered.1Pet 3;7Are you a wife, this is the month to soft pedal to do a rethink, yes you have put so much into the marriage ‘but one thing thou lackest’ (Lk 18:22) 'that is making the marriage to fall apart'? Find it out. That is re-engineering your home. Do you constantly provoke my husband; are you submissive or over demanding and overbearing? Or have you gone with the spirit of feminism unknown to yourself? This is the month to re-engineer. This month re-engineer your speech process, giving process, loving process, praying process, relational process and make your home a better place.
Some people say to me Pastor Dada you have stopped practicing engineering. My reply is usually that I may not be practicing Chemical Engineering but I am still practicing engineering albeit Jesus engineering. From the definition above it is very clear we are all ‘engineers’. We use some principles and knowledge to produce better products. Whatever skills you want to use this month, scriptural, social, practical and financial, go ahead and use them. Just come up with a better living environment in your marriage, in your home.
Whenever I read Matthew Chapter Five I see Jesus re-engineering the old laws, not just elucidating but improving on them so that you and I can have better social relations within the home and the society. Read this: You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’[r] and hate your enemy. 44 But I say, love your enemies![s] Pray for those who persecute you! 45 In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. 46 If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. 47 If you are kind only to your friends, [t] how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that. 48 But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect. Matthew 5:43-48.
I cannot but think of Jesus re-engineering principles and skills when I think in terms of global religion. While all of them profess love and peace, it is obvious they are teaching and philosophizing what they did not practice. This is obvious by what their followers are practicing today.Jesus re-engineered religion by teaching the principles of love and peace, but more importantly and practically by giving his life, he improved humanity by dying for them .He did not commit sin yet he died for sinners. He by his life style taught us how to build our homes - die for the other person, not kill the other person so that we can live. He in simple terms, is saying if you want a better marriage, a better society, it is not by complaining, passing the buck or playing the blame game, it is about ‘dying’ for the person. It is about loving the unlovable, practicing the agape, unconditional love. He even suggested, sorry, instructed that we should pray for our enemies. Jesus is saying even if you classified your spouse as your enemy, your (mother) in-law as your enemy, the best way of dealing with that person is not to kill him/her with your guns, hate speech , prayers or attitude, but to pray for him/her to live.
See the wickedness in our society today. See the level of senseless killings. Thousands being blown away to premature death. From Syria to Sudan, Afghanistan to Somali, even Democratic Republic of Congo to Nigeria. Millions being maimed by road side bombs. Citizens of the same nation shooting one another even when there is no war. Properties are being destroyed in billions if not trillions of dollars. Sanctity of life is being treated and ignored as if grains of wheat! It is inconceivable that under a religion people will abduct 300 girls and subject them to inhuman treatment, abusing them, threatening them and using them as cheap black mail to demand for hardened criminals. Even with the international outrage and appeal, it is unbelievable that some will still harden their hearts.
It is time to re-engineer our minds and consequently our homes. It is time to bear in mind that these girls are not tubers of yam; they were conceived in someone’s womb, someone travailed to bring them to this world; those children have a destiny that is being put on hold.
Let me be direct, terrorists are human beings. Boko Haram members are human beings Al-Qaeda members are human beings. They are products of some homes. They sleep and wake up. They eat food. They wear cloth, they even make videos albeit hate videos. Re-engineering is about rethinking the way we have done things and looking for ways to make it better. Let us practice love as advocated by Jesus. There are five categories of people to love; God, brethren, enemies, neighbors and strangers. Re-engineering is about strategizing on how I can love these people, if your religion is not helping you to do that you need to surrender your life to Christ. It reminds me of the story of a man who was always coughing. And he was invited to give a speech; he took his cough mixture along. He could hardly read a sentence without pausing to take sip of the mixture, and he apologized to the audience once saying ‘sorry, I have to take my medication my family doctor gave me eight years ago.’ Then someone from the crowd shouted, ‘if I were in your shoes I would change that family doctor and my medication!’ What is it that you are doing that is not working, in your home or in the office, in your marriage or career, in your church; in the school or in the factory- change it. And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. 9 Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you. Phil 4:8-9.We surely can make our world better. Let us think about the future of our nation, our children. Re-engineer yourself today for a better future for all.
Pastor Amos Dada is a trained engineer with the call of a preacher. Lives in Toronto.416-616-2425
