Taking Things for granted

We take things for granted. Life, family, love... We even take for granted the right to certain freedoms we have, not realizing that at any given moment it could be taken away.

We are guaranteed to the right to a fair trial, and to the right to a trial by jury. The jury is supposed to be of our peers. But how do you explain a jury of perdominantly white people for a trial where the defendant is a black man accused of killing a white cop?

How do we justify killing a man without giving him the benefit of a doubt even though there were eye-witnesses that recanted their stories.... How do we justify not letting him get a re-trial? Is it because he's black? Is it because he's convicted of killing a cop?

Or do we just take for granted that our legal system isn't as corrupt as what it seems to be?

In the midst of it all....

Bad things happen to good people. It seems as if that's the question we ask all the time... Why do bad things happen to good people. We make mistakes. We don't always do what we are supposed to do. When we do that, our actions not only affect us, but it effects those around us. We don't always see the mistake that the person made. We just ask... He/She was such a good person why did such a bad thing happen...

Bad things happen sometimes to get us to dig down deep. To get us to think about what it is that we need to possibly turn around not only with in us, but with the world around us. sometimes bad things happen because we need them to happen. If life stayed good, we wouldn't tell someone we loved them, we would go on assuming that they knew. If life stayed good, we wouldn't learn about who we are because we wouldn't take the time out to stop and spend time with God getting to know him. For it's when we get to know him that we find out what our purpose is, and in finding out our purpose, we learn who we are, what we're capable of.

There have been many postings that refer to the story of David. Man did he go through some things on the way to becoming king... Through it all, he spent time and relied on God, and then wrote about it... Where do you think all of the Psalms that he's credited with came from... In the new Testament, Matthew 11:28, has Jesus telling us to rest in him when we are weary. To lay all of our burdens on him... How many of us do that? How many of us just walk around acting like things are OK instead of admitting we cannot handle it on our own? How many of us find other ways in which to deal with the hurt and end up in the process killing ourselves?

We have to get to a point where, we are depending on God more and more than we depend on ourselves and our own mind....

Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil.... Proverbs 3:5-7

Timing

It's funny how this came about. Timing is everything. We learn that when something presents itself, when the opportunity comes... to just jump on it. But it makes you wonder why when God presents us with the perfect opportunity we don't take it. How is it that we can turn down the chance to have everlasting life, yet we can't pass up that new job... or that one-day sale. Makes you wonder doesn't it?

In your Presence

For in your presence
I am whole
In your Presence
My mind is clear
In your presence
I know which way to move
In your presence
I am free
For it is in your presence
That I draw
My strength
I draw my hope
I draw my peace
For it is in
And by your presence
That I can walk
Walk out my purpose
My anointing

What man plans for evil- God uses as good

1 Samuel 18:17-30, 1 Samuel 19
..... But Saul thought to make David fall by the hands of the Philistines....


By this point, Saul wanted David killed. Saul recognized David's anointing. He recognized that, that was once his anointing and wanted to kill David because he now had it... Saul however, was a smart man. While he wanted to kill him, he knew he couldn't be the on to do it because David had God's anointing. Saul gets this idea to have the Philistines do it. This was supposed to be accomplished by David going out and actively seeking the Philistine's to attack and kill them as apart of the price for marrying his daughter.

What happens is, not only does David get the actual price, but he's able to go above and beyond what was asked. Because of this, Saul knew, and was beginning to learn exactly what and who David is and what he was destined to be.

Because Saul kept trying to kill David, David had to run. He had to flee, and in the process of his fleeing, he had to rely on God. This is when David writes a bunch of the Psalms that he has been credited with. During this process, David grows. David learns things about what he needs to do in order to have a successful kingdom. David had to go through this before he could become king. God had to remove him from all distractions, to get him to rely solely on him. David had to go through God's kindle. He had to be molded, and shaped and formed, but God couldn't do this while things were good. He had to go through the fire... and because of this, we know of him as a "Man after God's own heart..."

Someone Else's Armor

1 Samuel 17:38-39
...... And David said unto Saul: I cannot go with these for I have not proved them.....


When David got ready to fight Goliath, Saul tried to give David his armor. Saul's armor was made for him, designed for him, yet he tried to put it on David. It make you wonder because why was Saul trying to put something on David designed for him? Why was he trying to impose himself on David?

Have you ever seen this, someone putting their "armor" on someone else? Armour, not being the literal meaning, but armor being a way of thinking, hopes, and dreams. Saul at this time was King. He had had God's favor on him and could do wondrous things. When Goliath showed up, Saul had lost his anointing. It had been given to David, and with the new anointing came the new way of thinking; David understood that the old way of thinking didn't work and hadn't worked for some time. David understood that his protection came from God and he had this thought tested and proven to him ten-fold on many occasions. The armor, not so much. It had shown it's unreliability in the face of the toughest challenges. Because of this, he knew that the armor would not help him it would only hinder them, so he shed it.......

Now think about this... What armor do you need to shed or reject?

Trust-Letting it Go

Those of us that have been hurt, know that it's hard to trust. Whenever we see something that resembles the behavior of those who hurt us we shut down. Any little thing... We start to reveal what we only want people to see. Who we only want people to see. In all of it, in everything, we only show... only send our representative. It's said that when we have our first date with someone we send in our rep... But when does the rep go away? You would think after 20+ years of marriage that the person should feel like they can trust their spouse enough to bring out who they are, but they can't because they are still holding onto that hurt...

God teaches us that in order to become a new creature in him, we have to let go... I know that's easier said than done. Heck, there are things I still haven't let go, but I'm learning to. Letting go of past hurts and pains is the first step in being able to put away our representative. How do we get comfortable enough to let ourselves get over the hurt and pain? We have to get into a secret place with God. We have to tell him everything that is eating at us, why we feel the way we do etc... We have to start by opening up, by letting ourselves into the place that we have hidden away buried... We have to acknowledge the hurt, who hurt us, and why we felt hurt. When we take the time to go to God about it, he helps us to let it go, and when we let it go, it gives God the opportunity to restore the broken pieces of us back to better than who we were before the hurt. It's going to be an ongoing process, but at the end of it all, as God works on us, we can be that light in the world that God wants us to be. As God works on us, we walk away with a testimony. From our testimony, we teach.

Letting Go means learning to Trust that God has you in the palm of your hand....

"They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength...." Isiah 40:31

Is it yours?

I had to ask the question the other day, why is it that people don't achieve their dreams?

My mentor, the smart and wise human being that he is, gave me two main reasons....

#1. People are satisfied with what the status quo, and don't want to go for what is theirs....

#2. People don't know who they are....

We have had this conversation many times. Yet I still wonder about it. Why would people have a dream and not go after it?

People dream big. We all think that we can be astronauts as kids. We want to go "traipsing away through the constellations", yet as we get older, and life settles in, we settle. we settle for getting off the curb instead of the constellations. We forget how to dream big. We also forget that in order to get what we want, we fall down.... Think about it... As kids when we wanted to learn how to ride a bike, we fell. Some of us more than others, but nonetheless we fell. But we got up, and kept getting up until we got it right. As we get older, we tend to stay down a lot more, and a lot longer with things instead of falling and getting right back up. That's when we end up with shoulda, coulda, wouldas..... You talk to any businessman/woman, and they will tell you that they didn't succeed at what they were doing at first. Talk to any athlete, and they all have stories about the shot that didn't go in, or the missed catch, the missed free throw, the missed spare, that cost them the game and/or the championship. However, they continued to get back up and press forward. They worked on that shot, they worked on that spare, and got it right....

Micheal Jordan, arguably one of the best Basketball players, past or present, was cut from his High school team. Did that stop him from going after his dream? His work ethic consisted of being in the gym when his peers might have been out partying. His work ethic consisted of working on his game... One of my favorite posters of him says this "I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." No matter how many times he failed, he got back up until he got it..... Instead of settling for the status quo, for being just like everyone else, he not only had to play in the NBA, but he had to be great at what he did...

We fall into this rut where we don't want to be great, because being great requires more from us. When people know you can do something they rely on you more instead of just leaving you be. They require and expect you to always deliver when they know you are capable of it... Knowing this, there are times when I haven't been great, where mediocre was cool. However, when your soul craves for greatness a piece of you diminishes until there is no fight left in you. when there is no fight in you, you accept any and everything. This is perfect for the life we live. A defeated people, is a people less likely to seek the truth. A defeated people is more likely to raise the next generation of defeated people until everyone is blindly following each other instead of creating their own. They are settling for unhealthy relationships cause they don't see themselves as being worthy of them... That brings me to the next point.

People don't know who they are. They don't know what they are capable of because they refuse to stop. Stop, Look, and Listen. Stop all of the distractions, go off into the dessert, have the quiet time without the distractions and pray. Pray, meditate, get closer to God. Our souls, because they come from him, strive to get back to him, but how do we know that unless we tap into our souls, and we can't tap into our souls until we're willing to stop and listen. Once we tap into our souls, if we listen close enough, we can find out what our purpose is and how to carry out the plan. Once we know what we are listening too, we know where to look... By knowing ourselves, we get closer to God......

So the question is are you willing to get closer to God? Are you willing to go after what is yours?

Faith

Hebrews 11:1 says "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for. The evidence of things not seen"

There are many people throughout the Bible that had unshakable, unmovable faith. I fell led to talk about the 3 Hebrew Boys.... Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

These guys have an interesting story. Their people were in captivity. They had been captured and and were being held in Babylon. A foreign land, away from everything that they know... How are you supposed to cope in a situation like that? How would you cope in situation like that?

These guys had immovable faith. They trusted when Daniel said that they weren't going to eat of the King's portion... (Something, I will definitely talk about at a later time). By trusting in this, which of course was a testament to their faith in God, they gained favor from the King. Not because of the fact that they gave up their faith to follow a corrupt government, but because they showed the better way. They not only caused trouble with their faith, they showed the people how to go about living a better life....

While Hebrews was written to a New Testament audience, it applies to no only many cases in the Old Testament, but it applied to this one specifically as well.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for... The evidence of things not seen....

The three Hebrews boys when presented with giving up their faith, their worship of the one true God, or saving their lives... They told Nebuchadnezzar that there was no way they would stop worshiping God. They told him that even when faced with the fiery furnace they weren't going to stop. The conversation went back and forth to the point where Nebuchadnezzar says "...Who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?" The boys answered the king "We are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God, whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace and he will deliver us out of thine hand O king, but if not, but it known unto thee o king that we will not serve thy gods nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. (Daniel 3:16-18)

They hoped for God's deliverance, but they were not giving up if it turned out God didn't deliver them... It didn't matter to them if they were saved or not.....

That is faith... We should live our lives liked that. Live our lives so that anyone who comes into contact with us sees our faith. Sees our faith not only in our actions but sees our faith in the way we believe...

Faith, is the substance of things hope for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. (Hebrews 11:1-4)

Now or never

We wait for just the right time to do something. The right time to call, the right time to go out, the right time to go back to school... Just the right time...

There comes a time when what we think might be the right time, is not the right time at all.

We have to trust that God knows when the right time is. He will point us in the right direction. That is why we need to have a relationship with him in order to hear him.

In the bible there were many times when it was questioned if it was the right time..... Everyone from Abraham all the way down to John has questioned God's timing...

The most famous person we could think of was Mary. She was 14, not married, and pregnant. If anyone had reason to question God's timing. It was her. While she questioned God's timing, she accepted it. She said "Let's Go".... She was ostracized for her decision to say yes...

That will happen sometime. We will be ostracized for us saying yes, for relying on God's timing...

To honestly tell you, when God tells us to do something, we have to do it at that moment. There are so many people and other things relying on us saying we'll do it in God's time... When we feel it in every fiber of our being that it's time to do something... Say a prayer, and do it...For a lot of things, it is Now or never.

What level are you on?

Relationships are a funny thing...

When was about 15, maybe a bit younger, I was in the laundromat and I over heard this couple talking about relationships... The woman said relationships have three levels. This has always stuck with me because it applies not only to intimate relationships but to our everyday relationships.

When we think about relationships, we don't always think about how they affect us in the long run. We meet people, people meet us.... That's how life happens... But with every person we meet and choose to have a relationship with, there are three levels it can fit into.

Level 1: Everything stays the same. In this level no one grows. Everything is left exactly as it was when you first met. Nothing happens. It's just their. The person who we are in this type of relationship with, can come and go and we would never know it because they didn't have an impact on our life, which is hard to do because everyone in some way affects our life.

Level 2: One person stays on the same level, and the other person doesn't. This level is a bit rough because in this level anything can happen. We see this level in a lot of relationships though. One person grows while the other person stays where they are or one person moves backward in their growth while the other person keeps going. This happens because when one person grows they don't include them in the process. It even happens when they grow backwards. When a person is going through a rough patch they don't always included anyone else in it until it's two late.

Level 3: Both people grow. This is the ideal relationship. This means that both people are moving in one accord. This is a tough one to do because it would have meant that both people were on the same accord at the start of the relationship. Both people have to have the same foundation in order to build upon it so that no one's house is collapsing. So this means getting to know you and your partner before even jumping into a relationship. Same thing at work, why get into a conversation or develop a relationship with a co-worker who doesn't share your beliefs? You don't have to agree on everything, but the important things you should definitely agree on....

My challenge to you today is to evaluate your relationships. Are you a level 1, 2 or 3...... If it's not a level 3, examine why it's like that, and is it worth fixing.....

Praise him.

This one is a bit personal, but someone, not sure who, is going to benefit from this....

Sometimes we feel like a piece of us is missing. Sometimes, it's the best part of us. Sometimes, it's the part of us that reminds us that the world is a good place. Sometimes it's the thing that reminds us to always reach higher. Reach higher than just what it seems like we are reaching for.

When that piece is missing, we have a tendency to go inside ourselves. Ourselves during grief can be a dark place, and if we let it engulf us, it can take us into a really dark place. At this time, when it happens, we can retreat. Actually we need to retreat because we need time to handle our grief. In our retreat though, we are not to be alone. We are to take our bible with us, our praise and worship music, and just praise God. Praise him for everything that we are doing now. Praise him for everything that is going on in our life. Praise him for the good times, and praise him for being able to go through the grief that we are going through because it helps keep us humble, it helps to show us our mortality, it helps to keep us in the palm of his hands... For it is when we are at our lowest that he can show who he is in our life, and through us...

Wow! It's been a while... 2 1/2 years... In that time a lot has happened... My world has been turned upside down, flipped around, and just altered.... But through it all, I haven't lost sight of the most important thing. That I walk with a good God, a great God, and an awesome God....

I'm back to writing, and hopefully we'll keep this updated on a regular basis. So let's continue this walk together. Time to start walking.

We wonder sometimes why it is that when things are going on around us we are spared from it. Have you ever been in a situation where you know you should not have walked away from it, yet you did. You might have been bruised a little bit, but that bruise didn't kill you. There are many situations that have happened like that. I want to talk about a man named Moses.

Moses when he was born, was sentenced to death. At the time of his birth, a decree had gone out from Pharaoh to have all of the male Hebrew babies killed because the Hebrew slaves talked of a deliverer, for they were in bondage. Moses could have died, he could have been killed, but he was placed in a basket. The basket was placed in the river, and Pharaoh's daughter found him. He was bruised a bit, because he grew up not knowing who his family was or where he came from, but he was spared. As the rest of the story goes, he freed the Hebrews from Pharaoh's son, they wandered the dessert, and their children got to enter the promise land. Why their children.... That's a topic for another day.....

We are spared for a reason. It's always a reason... It's our goal to find out what that reason is, and as we find out what that reason is, we find out who we are. In finding out who we are we get closer to God. Until it hits a point where we are relying on him for everything... Who else but God answers when we call, is always there for us? He may not show up when we want him, but he is always there when you need him....

SO why have you been spared?