The mockery of a man is not always in his enemies; sometimes, it is in his meaningless motion — a ceaseless wandering without purpose, passion, or vision. Prophetess Rose Kelvin pierces through this reality like a seer on fire: “Life is an Odyssey, life is a voyage. You are either going on a mission, moving with passion, or running with vision. If you don’t belong to any of these, life becomes loitering — and when life becomes so, it becomes a mockery.” In that single sentence lies the anatomy of destiny and the grave of the purposeless.
In this epoch of hyper-activity and spiritual fatigue, multitudes are not stagnant — they are motion-rich, but meaning-poor. Their feet move, but their souls are stationary. Like men rowing in circles, they mistake movement for progress. Yet, the divine script has never endorsed aimless locomotion. Purpose is the prerequisite for legitimate propulsion. “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how,” wrote Nietzsche, yet most simply bear time without a why, drifting like philosophical orphans.
Life loiters when vision is lost, and when vision is lost, identity begins to hemorrhage. The Hebrew text for “perish” in Proverbs 29:18 implies “to cast off restraint” — a people without revelation are not just ignorant; they are wild, naked, ungovernable. Vision clothes your destiny; without it, you become exposed to societal scorn, spiritual drought, and existential ridicule. Like Esau, who traded legacy for lentils, many today exchange calling for convenience — then blame fate for their famine.
The African proverb says, “The man who cannot see far will soon stumble over an anthill.” This is not just rural wisdom; it’s prophetic. To loiter through life is to be busy in error — to invest decades in shadows, hoping for the applause of eternity. But eternity only claps for obedience. In the words of E. Stanley Jones, “The great tragedy of life is not unanswered prayer, but unoffered prayer.” Equally, the great tragedy of destiny is not rejection, but redirection never pursued.
The divine voyage demands alignment with either mission, passion, or vision — three triplets of transcendence. Mission anchors your identity to your divine assignment. Passion inflames the heart to persevere when applause is absent. Vision grants foresight beyond sight, turning deserts into doorways. Without these, life becomes theatrical repetition — a cycle of arrival and departure without destination. You become a nomadic soul, camping in every trend, never arriving at truth.
Even the Lord Christ, archetype of celestial purpose, spoke of His alignment: “I know where I came from and where I am going” (John 8:14). That awareness deflected distractions and distilled His journey. The Apostolic Fathers called this telos — the divine end. Every odyssey must be teleologically grounded, or it disintegrates into futility. To exist without telos is to breathe without becoming. You inhale days and exhale dust.
Those who loiter are not necessarily lazy; they are divinely disconnected. Their gifts scream for expression, yet their gaze is blurred. Their speed intensifies, but without a north star. Like the Greek myth of Sisyphus, they push the boulder of ambition up the hill of time, only for it to roll back into irrelevance. “Activity without direction is the enemy of destiny,” said Dr. Myles Munroe. It is possible to be faithful in error.
But every man is summoned to reorientation. Like the Prodigal, we must “come to ourselves” before we can return to our Father. When the voyage loses compass, the captain must repent. There is no shame in divine recharting. The shame is in persisting in irrelevance while pretending to be significant. For when God laughs at folly, He does not shout — He withdraws. And when Heaven is silent, mockery becomes public.
The warning is clear: Life loitered is destiny wasted. To escape the ridicule of unfulfilled prophecy, one must seek divine geography — Where am I sent? What drives me? What do I see? Until these questions are answered, motion is manipulation. Mission births clarity, passion births momentum, and vision births eternity. Anything else is loitering. And loitering, as Prophetess Rose Kelvin declares, turns life into a public parody — a comedy of the uncalled masquerading as the called.
– Inah Boniface Ocholi writes from Ayah – Igalamela/Odolu LGA, Kogi state.
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