Pearling

“…if the devil cannot stop you from becoming a tree, he will want to make you a useless, unproductive tree…”

For those who are not followers of my write-ups, I recently wrote an article titled ‘Shake off that lizard’, which provoked many thoughts. I received a lot of mails and comments imploring me to develop the write-up into a book. Although this is not as much of a yielding to the temptation of writing a book on the topic; but I have somehow found the concept interesting that I was motivated for more research as regards it.

Since the first part of this article was posted, I have been researching and studying on lizards and ants. I have found a lot of interesting things which I am compiling together and will share some with you on this forum. One of such interesting thing is what you are about reading. There are many species of lizards and the chameleon belongs to one of such species. Yes, the chameleon!

The chameleon is a specie of lizard which has very interesting characteristics which are more sinister and dangerous than those of an ordinary lizard in the context of our discussion. When the Lizards operating in a man’s life are chameleons, the devil must really be at a fight-to-finish with such a person. Chameleons are the devil’s joker in the game of purpose. He just plants them in a man’s life to propel unanticipated and surprising actions that can destabilize a man on a pursuit. You must really be extra-sensitive to deal with them.

Some of the characteristics of chameleons that are of significance to our discussion are outlined as follows;

It has an extensile tongue.

The chameleon’s tongue is remarkably extensile and is sticky at the end, enabling the chameleon to easily capture ants and other insects, its main source of food. It can stand far away yet be able to eat whatever it has identified as edible afar off. Lizards don’t have to specifically get close to you to operate in your sphere. You need to be extra-careful to deal with them.

They can stay seemingly afar off and still be able to operate in your domain. This is why the shaking off you must do is an utter shaking off and real chasing away. You can’t afford to be diplomatic with issues that affect your ability to fulfill purpose and achieve greatness. Chase lizards far! Some people use pretense as a coping mechanism when dealing with challenging issues of social relationships with others. You must not pretend that you are not seeing an individual whose actions in your life are ‘lizardic’ (when did I become Wole Soyinka?), that would be very ‘hazardic’! (Again?). You just have to confront such men and let them know their standing with you. Negligence in this issue may be disastrous to destiny pursuit.

It can change colour.

This is the widely known characteristic of a chameleon. This makes a chameleon very dangerous for a man on a road of destiny. Chameleons can change and attach themselves to you without you knowing what they really are. This very core adaptability of the chameleon allows it to escape death and danger. This is however not peculiar to the chameleon, many lizards are also cryptically colored—that is, they blend in with their environment and are hard to see. It takes very discerning eyes to identify them. Always have your guards up to identify ‘lizardic’ individuals when they come into your domain and quickly address them. If you give them breathing space, they will not be easily recognized again because they would have mixed into your daily life (changed colour to reflect normalcy) that you just tend to rationalize away their actions. That is why every man must add to his purposefulness, good sight. Both spiritual and physical. Don’t be too busy looking at the map of where you are going, occasionally look around to see who is with you on the journey and assess their contributions to your pursuit.

However, one very important thing all of us have to know is that chameleons may not necessarily be men; they may be other things such as little habits that has come to stay with us unconsciously. A profound statement that I like goes thus: things that make men fall from grace to grass followed them from grass to grace. That is the classical operational mode of a chameleon! Deal with those little chameleons you are seeing now because they will not show their true colour until you become a tree. A man going far should be able to see farther, see deeper, see higher and most importantly see clearer.

Chameleons are specially adapted to live on trees. Trees are usually easily identified in the community of plants. They are taller, fatter, have bigger leaves and fruits, provide shades for others and so on; so also are purposeful men who are in pursuit of destiny fulfillment and potential maximization. They are trees in the community of men!

Chameleons don’t have to walk on a tree; they can just hang with their very powerful tails. When such men hang on you, they appear seemingly non-detrimental. Chameleons also have special arrangement of their feet that allows them good grab on a tree. This makes lizardic’ men thrive on men who are tree-like. If you aspire to be a tree, beware of a chameleon.

Chameleons eat insect; this is a very important reason why you need to deal with them. Elementary science taught us that insects are one of the important agents of pollination for flowers and flowers are the precursors for fruits. Once flowers are not pollinated, fruits cannot develop. Without insects you can’t be productive. Chameleons act by destroying the agents of pollination of your flowers of purpose thus inhibiting the productivity and fruitfulness of your life as a tree. A tree without fruit is a serious waste of heaven’s resources. We all know what Jesus did to the fruitless fig tree. That is the purpose of the devil; if he cannot stop you from growing to become a tree, he wants to make you a useless tree that is unfit for purpose. Be on the look out for chameleons!

Till I post again, shake off that lizard!

Written by O’dayo Afolabi