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Book lights path to personal development

Life & Style
Title: Light your candle Author: Taziva Mapango Publisher: Media Essentials (2018) ISBN: 978-0-7974-8591-4 IT is essential that an individual seeks to discover a way through which they may light up their own path in life.

Title: Light your candle Author: Taziva Mapango Publisher: Media Essentials (2018) ISBN: 978-0-7974-8591-4

IT is essential that an individual seeks to discover a way through which they may light up their own path in life.

Between the Lines: Beniah Munengwa

The gospel of success has been a central thematic concern of many contemporary writers.

Taziva Mapango’s latest publication, Light Your Candle, fits that mould as it encourages the reader to achieve their full potential in life.

Light Your Candle lays a foundation for individuals to find a clear path to create a future based on Christian ethos. From the look of things, Mapango’s dream is to push the reader to a new trajectory of growth and development.

This kind of education can be attained through several means, but the author hints that “reasoning with God is different from reasoning with men”.

It, therefore, stands as a book that has a capacity to stretch across the lines of believers and readers who prefer to pursue the self-development path.

Mapango contends that “without God’s powerful mega-generator, the sun, to light our world, it would be dark all round”. This creates a sense that although a man has a capacity to develop himself, it is only through God’s plans that his destiny is realised.

Will Durant, cited by the author, explains education as “the progressive discovery of your own ignorance” and the process of working towards its erasure.

The process of lighting one’s candle is cited as an important process that, if not followed, leads to the perpetual imprisonment of the self.

The first chapter, titled The Origin and Nature of Things, focuses on the spiritual construction of nature, laying the basis of the necessity of light in the context of both the world and one’s self.

The second chapter, Break Through the Mind, on the other hand, intends to construct the formula for destroying the barriers that hinder one’s process of having the full view of life’s opportunities. Chiefly highlighted by this section are components like sin, ill-belief and lack of faith. Chapters 3 and 4, titled Word Power and Faith, respectively, wrap up the book.

In a church age, where deliverance associated with the casting out of demons has become the norm, Mapango, however suggests that “full deliverance is mental,” rather than spiritual, so one is better off focusing on “building and maintaining mental homes” which are housed within the inner self.

The author’s efforts come against the background where most people are full of material possessions which appeal to the outside world, when on the contrary, their personal lives are crumbling, faced with multitudes of problems.

Mapango highlights that marital woes, internal conflict and budget constraints disrupt the possibilities of one finding peace in their heart. He then highlights and suggests the importance of people receiving Christ in their hearts.

He argues that one’s words must be well-chosen for they determine one’s fate. Cited in the self-help guide is James 1:26: “Our words can deceive our spirit into believing that what we are saying is what we want.”

Therefore, one should aim towards the refinement of the words they speak and hear, so that their mouths and ears become reservoirs of what nourishes their hearts and dreams.

However, the fluidity of what and how it is written leaves a lot to be desired, much adrift to the amount of endorsements given to it.

Mapango’s offering is competent as shown even by the endorsements. He is not a new voice, however, having written his first publication a few years ago titled, This One Thing I Do.

Beniah Munengwa writes in his personal capacity. He can be contacted on [email protected]