Magic

Each of us has that “it” experience when we know that God is real to us.  For most of us it was early on in our lives but it let us know that there was a God and he heard us.  We had either prayed silent inwardly or verbally outwardly and he gave us a direct and sure response, so that there was no question that he heard our prayer.  Most of the time it was a personal issue that we were in desperate need of and God either provided or made a way out of no way.  You prayed for your parents not to split and they did not and so you believed.  You possibly could have escaped a harrowing experience like being shot at or avoiding being sent to jail or to prison; depending on the severity of the crime.  He may have kept your lights on when you thought that by now all your utilities should have already been shut off for non-payment.  Perhaps someone just sowed financially into you and only you and God knew that you were in need because you had never confided to anyone; but God showed you that he knew even when you thought that you were all alone.  God now had your attention.  What you didn't realize was that you were on the hook and starting your process of being held accountable for what you now know.  Early in your faith walk, every time you prayed it seemed like your prayer was answered quickly.  You were like whoa… this praying thing works like Magic – I pray and then miraculously my prayer gets answered.  After so long and after so many prayers, God wants to know what you have learned about him and are you willing to stand in faith even if he doesn't answer as promptly, as frequently or the way that we would have liked him to.  This is the crux of where many believers lose heart and in doing so; they find themselves losing something more costly – their faith.  There is a reason that God says keep your eyes on him and him only.  You are being walked out onto a plank and you have been walking so long looking at God that you haven’t noticed that you ran out of plank a long time ago; and you are suspended only by his spirit when you walk by faith and not by sight.  Those who have been walking know that it’s not magic at all, but rather good old grace and mercy.  God has been removing every obstacle that will make it impossible for you to say that you don’t know or question that he has been real to you; so now if you choose to not believe, it is a willful choice.  Why is it as long as God is doing what we like or giving us what we want – we believe?  Soon as things grow trying and difficult – Is there a God and does he know what I am going through? Those are our next thoughts.  There is no Magic, no abracadabra, and no tricks of any kind - Only believing and having faith in God regardless of whatever else - Period.

Good News

Have you ever asked yourself – What is good?  Good is a relative term when it comes to anything or anyone else, but God.  Even Jesus said “why do you call me good, only God is good”.  What once constituted good at one time in our lives, we found out the hard way that good can go bad or good could have been a disguise and what we thought was good was bad all the while.  The word says that every good and perfect gift comes from the Lord.  So, in actuality, only God can cause good to happen.  We ask each other “are you good?” and we really don’t know what we are, if we aren't in Christ.  We say “it’s all good” and we know that things could be a lot better.  Life flows in and out of good, bad and indifferent times; and they intermingle as our emotions make the determination of which one we are feeling like on any particular day.  We must make up in our minds that our trust is in Jesus Christ and him alone, if we are going to see each day that we wake up as – Good.  Don’t allow your circumstance to determine whether you are “good” or not, but know that if God woke you up this morning, then this day can only get better and in time - the best is yet to come.  So, I ask the question again – What is good?  Your response: God.  And that is some Good News.

Expectations

When I call my Mom or Dad, friend or family and ask either of them for a favor, I expect them to do it; whether they do it or not, I still expect them to.  Do I deserve for them to do anything for me because I am simply their child, friend or because we are blood related? No.  They may be unable to do the request for one reason or another but I still “expect” them to do it originally when I ask.  I go into it with the expectation that my needs will be fulfilled.  Now if I can expect that of human beings who have limited resources and time on this planet, why can I not go to God expecting from him in every area of my life?  He has unlimited resources and he is forever eternal.  Do I deserve him to do anything for me? No, but I still go to him with expectancy as God Almighty to do each and every promise he spoke in his word for my life.  I go into my prayer and supplication with expectancy that all of my needs will be fulfilled because he is God and admonished me that I must have faith in him to provide, to heal, to comfort, to supply, to reward, to be good to me all the days of my life.  Unlike people, he is well able to deliver on every request and even when he doesn't, it is still for my good because he has kept me from both things and people that meant me no good and it was a blessing when it was all said and done.  I thank God for my parents, and friends and family who I have been able to reach out to, but never forget from whom all blessings flow – God and besides him is no other.  Give credit where credit is due but give God all the Glory, Honor and Praise; which is your reasonable service.

Black Moses

I don t revere or reverence many but Mrs. Harriet Tubman is one of those people.  My belief is that God blessed Black Moses as she is affectionately known to escape from freedom because he knew that she was not going to only leave, thank goodness and disappear into the a freed state and life.  But he knew that she had a deep desire to free others once she saw and felt what actual freedom was like.  My prayer Father is that once I am free myself to entire into my own Land of Promise, that I too be granted access to reach back and help others experience the life that you call many to experience but only a few take you at your word and believe you for every jot and tittle and receive. 

Love of My Life

"Love of My Life"

When I finally sign the deed for the home of my dreams – I will get in the full garb of makeup, hair, and wardrobe and jump in the pool or the hot tub. Because it will be as such and such… what is it to me? Nothing but pomp and circumstance that pales in the face of what you have done Father. As I told Momma today – I have nothing to lose by trusting you but everything to gain. It takes determination that exceeds human ability, but rather unparalleled faith in order to see the great things of you Father. And I simply believe, I only believe that there is a greater life already out in front of me and that I have to have the faith in order to rent the veil in two to be able to see it and walk into in fully.

I choose to chronicle my life and my walk because people need to know what kind of dedication is necessary to see greatness in God. Not money, not works, not good deeds. Yes – all those things are good but it takes Faith on top of Faith – day in and day out in order to surpass the understanding of what the human mind is capable of believing. Being human we can only go so far, see so far and do so much. All things are possible to those of us that believe in you Father.

One day someone might read my writings and be inspired to walk with you until their soul draws to them what belongs to them out of the spirit. It’s not about possessions but about seeing you Father God do it. Do what? To do exactly what it is that you said in your word - every promise – every jot and every tittle. Some are hopeless romantics. Call me a hopeless believer.

This is a courtship of sorts between you and I Father. You love me like known other and you just blow and boggle my mind. I enjoy our time together and I grow sick and disturbed if you and I are not together constantly. I remember feeling that way about lovers in my life and they could hardly understand me or where it was that I was coming from. I kept telling them to love me but they didn't know how to. You loved me perfectly and it came without me ever having to ask. You are the love of my life.

I have wasted a lot of time, breath, words and emotion on all types of people and things and I have also failed at giving those things to others who needed it from me. Therefore, I have chosen to no longer waste my time, breath, words or emotion on anything that isn't uplifting to you and the advancement of your kingdom; anything else is a utter waste of precious time.

Erykah Badu had hip-hop as the love of her life – You Lord are mine. “ooOh you know you rock my world and you be boy and I ll be girl and… ehhh ehhh ehhhh…. “

Be Prepared

Like Heaven - Blessings are a prepared gift for a prepared people. Preparation makes it easier to endure and it is less stressful than living in chaos outside of God's will. Preparation makes the process able to be completed with less time, effort and worry. When you are prepared you possess a confidence that keeps you steadfast even when things look bleak. How to be prepared? Trust God. I know that it sounds too easy but God has really made it just that simple. Trust him with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.

Sweating!!!

8-8-14                                              “SWEATING”

Dear Father God,

     Today when I shut down all the negative thoughts and decided to enjoy my time in you while walking my mile or so distance for exercise and mental relaxation; and I began to sweat profusely until the sweat began to run down into my eyes and I finally found out what it meant when people said they “had sweat burning their eyes.”  Because that was a feeling that I had never known before because I just didn't sweat – unless I was very close to my internal body temperature overheating, and usually that was followed by the seeing of stars, the spinning of the world around me and the high possibility that I might pass out from heat exposure.

Then you have me a revelation that blessed me spiritually.  Before when I sweated it was because of a negative reason.  Now when I sweat, for the first time in my life of 40 years old, I sweat because I intend to, by walking at least a mile a day and for a purpose – to get my weight down and to get off these blood pressure medications.  I look forward to the sweat and I am disappointed somewhat if I don’t get a good down drenching. 

Before I didn't sweat and before I didn't see much weight loss and my health continually declined.  Today I sweat and I feel better and I look better and I know that my health has got to be improving. 

Maybe before I didn't really want to sweat and made a conscious decision not to… Now I am choosing to be the best me I can, by any means necessary.  I sweat to have fellowship with you, so sweat is not a bad thing after all and it has taken me time to grow up and embrace what a little physicality can do to benefit me.

The sweat at times represent my walk of faith and how determined I am to see this weight come off; and moreover my determination to see my faith payoff and I walk into my Land of Promise - blessed as I come and as I go – fit and healthy and walking in my purpose and fulfilling my calling.

Not even the sweat of my life is wasted and I can see you in the drops as I work out my own soul salvation.  I know that some people think that I am taking you too seriously, too literally but who can separate me from the love of God?  You are in every detail of my life and can be seen if we only choose to receive what you are revealing to us by and through faith.  I might be crazy – crazy enough to want to see my God and to believe that you are with me daily, in the insignificant and the important, the impertinent and the pertinent.  I cannot separate you from all that I am because it is you that will cause me to be all that I am to be. 

When we choose to see you, you will reveal yourself, sometimes even through the mirror image of a sweat droplet.

I love you Father and I ask all these things in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen-

Reservoirs

8-8-14                                                            RESERVOIRS

Dear Father God,

All I know is that this is what I enjoy doing.  I so look forward to whatever the future hold for me because I know that somehow, some kind of way that this will be woven throughout the tapestry of my life. 

As I strolled down the walking pathway of Eureka Gardens, I crossed paths with a foreign gentleman who I have seen a few times as he and I came across each other going our separate ways.  He is either Chinese, Korean or Vietnamese and today I finally looked at him in his eyes and I saw despondency and a sense of him wanting to be back in his homeland, be it oppressed or not; instead of living in a ghetto apartment complex pacing back and forth to the corner store and back to his 6X9 cell apartment dwelling.  Perhaps I perceived that there is a sense of hopelessness because perhaps he was able to perceive my own despair as we trolled by one another.

I felt for him and I wondered did he know that I knew some of what he was feeling. 

I love chronicling the days of my life.  The struggles of contending for my faith and the blessing of my spirit when I see you move effortlessly through my life Father without a care because you already know but you do care about me as I go through because you know that it is not easy for me to wittingly accept what is happening to me without learning you and your character first and in learning you, I learn to trust you in all things because I know that you care for me even more than I care for myself. 

Right there in that spirit of overflow of your faithfulness and goodness is where I want to set up camp and not be moved.  I love how the simple but in-depth thought of who you are and what all you are capable of doing; it makes me continuously say “yes”, because it has done nothing but bless me Father.

And my hope is that one day that I can get the privilege to share with another whose on their own journey but somehow my testimony, my walk, my words, my experiences will open a new world to them in you Father. 

The more I want to draw up into a ball and just rock myself to unconsciousness, the more I witness myself choose you because I believe your word even though everything around me tells me that I pray, I fight, I wait in vain and I refuse to accept that as your final answer Father and you have the final say Lord Jesus.  I am human and I can only see so far but my spiritual eyes give me insight into a life that I know and believe will blow my mind because I believe in lieu of the impossibilities. 

My faith has changed gears and shifted into cruise control because the things that used to so easily beset me, I choose to take you at your word and not trust my senses.  Betrayal most of the time comes from friendly fire of our own minds.  My mind is my first and final defense because I must commit my ways to you, and I will be able to do so because I have set my heart after yours Father. 

My soul screams why not today? My heart cries deliver me today Lord with your strong right hand!  My mind reels with the hope of what is to come and know that I have neither control over the time nor what is to come but in all my ways I have committed to walk with you into glory. 

These living waters flow out of an endless reservoirs of your spirit that has filled me to overflow and it will replenish and restore all arid and barren lands.

Key to Success

Key to success - If you plan on being successful in life – you should plan your success; not that we have any control over where God is taking us or what his purpose is for our lives but he does give us glimpses into what we can be - if we are in him.  So, I took a look at success and first ask myself “why do I want to be successful?”, and at first I didn’t have a really good answer other than I no longer wanted to be subjected to working for somebody else, and being limited at my movement and progression in life because of a lack of funds and career choices.  But then I realized that’s not a good reason to want success.  Then I thought about how many people who are deemed successful and wonder why so many fail at it after having received what they thought would make them happy for the rest of their lives.  After being dismayed at why I wanted to be successful, I came to the conclusion that it was okay to want success because God said that I could have it and I want everything that God says that I can have.  Success means different things to different people.  I can also desire the trappings that come with success as long as I possess those things and not have those things possessing me.  I wondered why Satan came at Jesus with a proposition of being successful and how he had to use God’s word against him in order to not bow down and then I wondered what is the “trap” of success that it can take a person who once pursued after God, to get it and then “it” be the reason why they follow after “it” and no longer after God.  We must fear God in order to possess the success that God says that we are privy to, and be conscious still that is only because of God’s goodness that we are able to experience life in full.  My success hinges on whether or not God can trust me now to be faithful with little.  Can I love him waiting? Can I love him while hoping for greater?  These are character issues that you need to be working out now before the success comes, so that you can know that only in God can you not be consumed by whatever the enemy comes at you with in order to get you to bow.  When you plan on being a success – plan it out before you get it or else it will have you.  Practice discipline, practice being kind and good to those who God places in your path that can do nothing for you, so that it will be habitual to you, and so when something comes contrary to what got you into your blessed place, that you recognize it as a distraction and supplant it before it takes root.  Your best plan for success is to be prepared for the success.  Successful people plan on being successful.

Stay Planted

Stay Planted - We pray to “break every chain” or to be “loosed”.  And we should ask to be set free from all which bonds us spiritually from seeking God fully.  The earthly bands, barriers, borders, doors, the narrow paths and the hedges have been placed around and about us to keep us from ourselves.  Have you ever thought about the freedom that you pray for to be granted, and what kind of self-discipline it would take to handle that kind of broad and free ability?  To learn how to stop yourself and to continually humble yourself up under the mighty hand of God takes a discipline that can only come from a God-filled relationship.  It’s far easier to declare that we can handle the blessing, than to accomplish when there is nothing keeping you from YOU.  We see people daily who get all they wanted and THEN SOME but they cannot handle the power and opportunity.  To get a God sized-blessing and not have the God of the blessing will be too much for anyone to wield in their own best interest.  Just like newly planted trees, it takes stakes positioned round and about it in order to keep it stabilized until it is securely rooted and not easily moved; and that is how we must be in Christ.  With great power, with great wealth, with great freedom, with great choices and options; especially whether to do right and love a neighbor and to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul takes an even greater responsibility.  In all our getting and thanking, remember to Thank God for all those boundaries that have kept you from doing the most detrimental damage to yourself.  We are our own worst enemy if we are truly honest with ourselves.  Had we only taken God at his word – where would our lives be today?  One of the worse experiences to have is to not make it into your Promised Land because you chose to go your own way; that would be an excruciating life of pain to have and to live with.  Trust that God will loose and break every chain that needs to be severed but also know and trust that he will leave the ones in place to bring us upright and straightway into the life that those who seek him were promised to have.  Some plant, some water but it is always God himself that gives us the increase and we will be able to handle the blessing and not be consumed or destroyed by it. 

This or That

This or that - I am thankful for this but I’m still looking forward to that which lay ahead.  This life truly has been good to me but that which God offer me now and to come is even more than this that I already have.  Only through faith can I believe for that when this is all that I have ever known.  That unknown existence is all that I can focus on to keep me from focusing on this known existence that seems will be all that I know.  But this faith that I have keeps that from happening.  There is a thing that fights me but this one thing that I know is that God is ever-faithful and that which seeks to keep me from being victorious has already been defeated.  So I thank God for this hope that I have even in the midst of all this that is going on inside of me.  For I know that the battle is not mine but the Lord and this is the reason why I can trust him – because of that very truth – and that is all that I know.  Whether I am feeling this way or that-a-way – either way I know that all things will work out for my good and to his Glory.