The Dating Game

Are you the consummate dater?  Never allowing transparency and comfortability in a lifetime commitment called marriage.  There is a level of freedom when you are allowed to be authentically you while sharing a space and life with another individual.  All the pretense and putting-on airs eventually ebbs away and you are left with who you are raw and uncut.  Cruise control is set and the relationship goes from a standard shift, to a manual, except for the occasional routine maintenance needed to keep a well-running coupling performing at a peaceable level.  No relationship is perfect because no one individual is perfect.  But you can have an uncongested commute in the life of happily ever after.  I can only speak from a woman’s point-of-view; and there is nothing like not having to always be on point!  To not be on my best behavior, to tell him that I do not want to go over to his mother’s house, to be me – character flaws and all.  Of course it is unsettling at first to place a heart that loathes being hurt, into the hands of another person whom you ultimately cannot control what they will do with it.  Some think that being married is a conformity that restricts, which in all actuality there is a freedom that is truly unexplainable.  If your husband or wife isn’t your best-friend, perhaps you might want to re-evaluate who is and why?  Spiritually – if God isn’t your best friend and you cannot go to him with whatever is going on in your life – the good, bad and the indifferent; perhaps you need to re-evaluate your relationship as well.  God wants to be married to us and he wants us to get cozied up and comfortable in him and trust that he is faithful and full of fidelity.  He wants to show you more of him but you have to be fully committed in order to receive that level of intimacy.  When you only date, there is an automatic boundary that is implemented that keeps each participant from giving their all.  God wants to show you more of him and give to you exceeding and abundantly in all areas of your life, but he wants you all to himself.  You hate infidelity and so does God.  God told you off top just how jealous he is, so he expects the same from us.  You only have three choices to choose from on God’s version of the dating game – The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit.

DEAD WEIGHT

Have you ever had to assist an injured person or disabled individual because they were rendered immobile? That person had become dead-weight and they are leaning on us to support and carry them.  Many of us have become that same dead-weight to other people, family and even to God.  God doesn’t need our help but he does want our participation in our rehabilitation.  At some point we need to be involved with our recovery process.  We will get back to full health much faster if we would grab ahold of God and use his strength to pull ourselves up – not by your own bootstraps but by his Spirit!  Do not be your own hindrance to getting what God has for you. 

 

Man up!

Question:  Why would you waste your time worrying or pondering what another person is saying or for that much - thinking about you, when they are going through just like the rest of us trying to find their way through this life; rather they are successful or not? From the greatest to the least of us – we all are enduring something; and we all will until our demise.  The only one that you should be trying to please and garner an understanding of is the Lord.  Most of the time the Lord will instruct you to do something unconventional in order to get you to focus solely on him; and it will  appear to be crazy to onlookers, so you may as well start realizing that you are in this faith walk alone.  No one can praise God for you, no one can believe God for you and no one can take God at his word for you.  People can pray for you, stand in agreement with you and even petition God for you but ultimately, you are one person coming before the Lord.  There are so many people killing their time left remaining here on this side of glory allowing others to steal, kill and destroy a life that is no greater than their own.  A common man should not affect you; especially not what they say, think or do.  And for that matter, neither should a great man – operative word here MAN.  Man up is what you must do in the word of God.  Sadly many  feed off of energy, be it good or bad of other people; they don’t like being alone or cast off.  God sustained Elijah by a raven.  God is your strength and your only true source.  Stop looking to others to give you joy when they don’t possess it themselves.  Stop going to deserts looking for a refreshing ocean.  People can only give and do so much; God never runs out of whatever it is that you desire or stand in need of.

Life only through Death

There is abundant life found after the death of our flesh and going our own way.  We must die to ourselves.  We must trust that God will resurrect our life after salvation to receive the promise(s).  It’s so much like God for us to find life-only in death.  Jesus conquered the world and the enemy in death.  It takes faith to believe that God will raise you up when this life has passed away.  It’s the same faith to believe that God will bless you exceeding and abundantly in this life as he has already promised.  How can you believe for a life of resurrection from a natural death but then question God when he says that he will bless you to see his goodness in the land of the living?  Contradiction cannot exist in God’s word or his promises-or our belief in them.  Either you believe it all or all is null and void.  He never said that doubt wouldn't enter in.  He never said that it would be an easy walk, but he did promise to be with us through it all and when we ask for strength when we fall weak, he will give us the strength.  And he has already given each of us a measure of faith.  You must remind yourself constantly and consistently of his word and speak it back to God, not that he will remember, because he already knows; but rather it is for you to declare into the atmosphere and in the presence of God that you believe his every word.  It will build faith in your heart and confidence in your mind that you shall see goodness and dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Personal Trainer

Aren’t you glad that God didn’t let you go?  Even when you wanted to be turned loose?  When God committed to us, he took it seriously; it was a blood-oath that he would never leave us nor forsake us.  And when the waiting at times because unbearable, we just want to throw-up our hands and say “I give”.  Not that we give up, just that we have grown weary of waiting on the promise because it is costing us more than we wanted to give.  Nobody likes to exercise but if you are a person who has exercised or played a sport and felt the fatigue after a good work-out but then also felt rejuvenated once the exertion wore off and was glad about the sacrifice and obedience it took you to follow through. That is how it is walking out your faith.  As when you first start working out, we don t see the results right off but over time, we see that all of our hard work hasn’t been in vain.  The Holy Spirit is our personal trainer whose sole purpose is to encourage, train, motivate and chastise us until we reach our goal.  Don’t despise all the hard work and effort but find it despicable to go through all that you have been through only to not obtain the prize called the promise(s) of God. 

Extra! Extra! Read All About It!

Some think that the etymology of the word acronym N.E.W.S. stands for North, East, West and South because information traveled from every corner of the earth. No one truly knows where a thing truly originated; some are still debating to this day - Creation or Evolution? (Psalm 75:6-7) which says, “For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another. God is the progenitor of all things that have and will ever be created and come to be. Today I know that I am currently living in the wrong life, because the visions that I have received through revelation from the Lord are contrary to where I currently am in life, but the life that is for me, I have seen but I have yet to lay my hands upon it in the natural. A true blessing of God must be experienced spiritually first and that fuels our faith and builds our trust in God fully. Believing first, before receiving, takes away all safety nets of relying on “self” to manifest what God has shown us in the spirit. When you come to that place and to that point wherein you know within yourself that there is nowhere else for you to go, no place for you to turn back to; and can only venture forward into your future with only the Holy Spirit as your guide – you will find yourself in the perfect will of God. Trust in (Proverbs 28:20) which says; “A faithful man shall abound with blessings: but he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent.” Relish and cherish your relationship with God above all else and he will bless you with the “all else”.

A Sum Total

Call me not keeping up with the times but I am neither New Age nor Neo-anything.  In fact, I would deem myself more of an old-fashioned kind of girl.  I believe that God can – Period.  His word never stated or said that people could not prosper by the works of their own hands; people did so all the time-since the beginning of time.  Take Oprah for instance, with many accomplishments up underneath her belt-she lacks in many ways.  She has never married, no posterity to leave her wealth to, and was raised in a not so sound family life.  All she has is wealth but she is not whole.  Her entire existence has been external accomplishments.  As there were ten lepers healed by Jesus, they all received the healing that they were imploring of him, however, only the one was made whole, which turned back and gave thanks to the Lord.  There is something to be said about giving God all the praise, glory and honor and not delving into what totally belongs to him by taking credit for one self.  Some are satisfied with “a” thing- be it wealth, health, family or prosperity.  However, I seek what only few obtain and that is the fullness of the blessing of the Father in every area of my life.  I do not believe that we have to sacrifice one thing for another because when God blesses, his intent is to bless everything that we are associated with-not just a portion or specific area in our life.  Maybe at different intervals, but when it is all said and done there is a comprehensive, aggregated, and cumulative totality in God, which can only be quantified by God as a complete and blessed life.  Why settle when we can have ALL.