Be Humble, For You Are From Dust And To Dust You Shall Return

Some of us may not be aware of the true significance of Ash Wednesday, whereby Catholics from all walks of life go to church to have their foreheads crossed with black ash by a priest. More than a day that marks the start of Lent, Ash Wednesday is also a reminder of the message in Genesis 3:19 – “You are dust and to dust you shall return”.

It’s a spiritual message that holds correlations to the saying: “Life is short, everything is temporary; nothing is permanent.”

Whatever our status in life may be – wealthy, famous, influential, in power and the like – all of these don’t really matter when our time to join the Creator comes.

I came by this post by a Nigerian doctor named Dr. Abdullahi Alkali Haruna on LinkedIn titled “You Own Nothing, You Lose Nothing” which got me thinking.

He credits the piece to have been written by an anonymous writer, but its message is something that’s worthy of the world’s attention. It goes:

If you buy land or buy a house, you have only paid rent for the remaining years you have on Earth. None of them belong to you.

If you buy a car, you have only paid for your transport for the period the car will last or for the period you will last. It doesn’t belong to you.

If you marry a spouse, you have only got company until circumstances or death do you part. No one owns the other.

If you have children, you have only fulfilled the demand of continuity of life until death comes. You don’t own them. That’s why the state still dictates how you bring them up.

If you have money, you have only amassed value to purchase what you want, for your remaining number of years on Earth. The notes belong to the Central Bank.

If you work and retire, your pension is only for life. After your life, it stops.

Even if you eat and get filled, the food in your belly isn’t yours. You must defecate it back to Earth.

The body itself which you cherish so highly, doesn’t belong to you. The Earth will certainly reclaim its bits when the loan is due.

Even the life we live is borrowed and surely will be returned.

So let us not be afraid of losing anything in this life, because we do not own anything here. Two things will surely happen; we will either be taken away from everything we think we own or everything we think we own will be taken away from us someday. It is that day that none of us know.

We boast about our bodies, our houses, our lands, our money, our wives, our husbands, our children, our parents, our everything. But that’s where it ends. Boasting! Ruminate intensely and it won’t be difficult to find out that, we do not own any of those things. We are only availed of them to mitigate the necessary constraints of our sojourn here.

So never lose your head or your cool or your temper or your values or your vibrancy, whenever you think you have lost something because nothing was ever really yours.

As it is written in Genesis 3:19 – “Be humble and never think you are better than anyone else. Remember for dust you are and to dust you shall return”.

““Whatever our status in life may be – wealthy, famous, influential, in power and the like – all of these don’t really matter when our time to join the Creator comes.”