In the game of Monopoly, you have to pass GO before you move on and collect your $200 bonus, right? Well, in my every day studying of God’s word, I’ve found this Christian journey to be almost the same because walking this path you’ll have to endure and go through stuff just like the things on the monopoly board in order to insure that you reach GO. See, you’ll pass over railroad tracks called haters who may end up costing you unless you’ve already bought your ticket, you’ll land on other folk’s properties (by being in other folk’s business) and end up paying a price, you’ll land on chance or community chest and take a chance of whatever the situation ending up good or bad, you might end up in jail or may just be visiting and sometimes you’ll buy your own land and reap the benefits, if you use your money wisely and you may even land on boardwalk and receive an extra blessing. But once you land on GO God rewards you again for your faithfulness because you endured through it all to make the full circle and now you stand with your head held up, ready to go again and every time you pass GO you receive an extra blessing in your bucket. Isn’t that good news? In Psalm 37: 5 it say “Commit everything you do to the LORD. Trust him, and he will help you.”
You know how you can be watching TV and the notification comes on that says “This is a test of the emergency broadcasting system?” because they are trying to make sure you are within range when an actual emergency happens to be able to hear how to remain safe. Well, when a storm comes in your life, it is simply a test of God’s “Emergency Saving System” to see if you are within range in order to hear his instructions on how to remain safe when an emergency comes in your life. See, a test is usually given, in school, to see if you have learned what has been taught and it is generally given at the end of the week in order for them to move you to the next chapter. Well, when God sends a test, it’s the same way. He is trying to see if you have learned anything from the storms you’ve already endured and if you are actually ready to move on to the next chapter, you know to be elevated. See, the next chapter is the next level up and it’s harder than the one you’re currently on, so in order to be elevated up you’ve got to be able to endure while you’re down. Somebody will miss that so let me explain. If every time you run out of money before all the bills are paid, you get depressed, you aren’t ready for a new car note. If every month you complain about how high your MLGW bill is in the house you’re in now, you aren’t ready for a bigger house. If you constantly complain about the job you got, the car you drive and the home you live in then chile, you aren’t ready for the next one. You have to be able to endure small things before you can be elevated to receive big things. If we were able to handle everything that is put in our path, why would God make us babies first? He makes us small so that we can be taught and tested to handle bigger things as they come. When you’re a baby, you use a baby spoon to eat because the spoon can give you the right amount for the size of your mouth and stomach but as you get bigger so does the size of your spoon because now your mouth and stomach is big enough to handle the amount that is going in. If you are not able to handle the amount of food on a teaspoon then how can you handle a tablespoon size serving? This is all that God is trying to see when he sends a storm cloud your way. If you run at the sound of thunder, you surely wouldn’t be able to handle the rain. But if you read Psalm 18:2 it says, “The LORD is my rock, my fortress, and my savior; my God is my rock, in whom I find protection. He is my shield, the power that saves me, and my place of safety.”
If you trust and believe in God, he won’t leave you in your time of need. See, even though trouble has been promised to us while we walk on this side of the dirt, it is not to take us out. God has our lives already destined and designed for us so we have to trust him when he says he will not leave nor forsake us. God’s test is setting you up, not to fail, but to succeed and in succeeding you get success and with success comes victory and victory makes you victorious over the enemy. The storm is not sent to wash your feet from under you but the rain is simply being used to wash off all the dirt that has been thrown on you by your haters, your enemies, the folk that say you won’t be nothing, those that are wishing death on your life and those digging a dusty grave to throw you in. So don’t run and hide every time the rain begins to pour because it’s just a storm and with any storm it has to end. You have to go on through the rain and come out clean and refreshed because once you’ve been refreshed you’ve been renewed and through renewal comes endurance and enduring gives us assurance that we are ready to be elevated! I don’t know about you but every day I am asking God to enlarge my territory but in order for me to receive the increase, I have to be ready for it. So, I’m weathering the storm and I keep getting up each time the enemy knocks me down because I’ve got my first aid kit in my purse (that’s God’s word) to bandage up any cut or bruise I get when I fall. I’ve learned that it’s not about the times that you fall that God is concerned about just as long as you get back up better than you were when you fell because 2 Corinthians 5:17 tells me “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” So it doesn’t matter about my past sins because they don’t count against me no way!
Lakisha, the Author 