Daily Devotional – 1/17/18 “My next move may be my best move!”

One of the things I like to do, in my limited downtime, is play Farm Hero Saga. I absolutely love this game. What I have noticed while playing is, if you get stuck and cannot figure out a move, the game will give you a hint. Sometimes, though, the hints look as if they aren’t helpful for me to win. What I mean is, it looks like the hint will actually give me something I don’t need. But then I realized, making the move that didn’t look usable actually set me up to win. And for somebody, right now today, you are looking at something that doesn’t fit within the scope of your vision board. You are staring at somebody who didn’t actually meet the requirements on your list. You are contemplating saying no to something or somebody, simply because it/they don’t look as if they are right for the plan you made. Yes, you had it all mapped out because you’ve studied the board but then the next move, you really need to make, isn’t there. Instead you received something tell you to go left when you’ve planned to go right. Well beloved, sometimes the very thing you’re looking at that doesn’t make sense, doesn’t fit and doesn’t look like it belong; could be the one thing that sets you up to win.

Okay, so he doesn’t meet all the requirements of your tall, dark and handsome but he’s short, light and a little bit cute; however he loves you, is a great father and hard worker who pushed you to go back to school. Okay, she isn’t the type you’d typically go for because you’re looking for cute in the face and thin in the waist but she’s a lady who is a little heavier in the waist and takes care of her face; however, she can throw down in the kitchen (and bedroom), faithful and knows what it means to be a helpmate who helped you open that barbershop. Sure, you have your business plan and it looked great to you but it’s been denied three times. You can’t understand why God will allow it but then you get a job, in the same field that now gives you access to the information you need to rework the plan and get approved. You’re sick and can’t seem to get well. You’ve been going to the same doctor for years, the only one you’ll see but then one day, he/she gets sick and you have to see someone else. You’re skeptical at first because the new doctor looks too young but he/she notices an issue with current medicines due to some changes made to it that interacts with your diabetes. Sometimes beloved, the move in front of you is the one set up to make you win. It may not look like it, it may take you out of your comfort zone and it may even knock you back a few steps but if your heart is in God and you trust Him like you say you do, you can be sure the hints God gives are always for your good.

Daily Devotional – 1/16/18 “Start with goodbye!”

Here it is, the third week of the New Year and you’ve been doing, almost, everything right. You’ve been to church every Sunday, bible study once and you’ve even been faithful to the church’s fast. You created the vision board. You’ve prayed, shouted ‘I surrender,’ and told God you’re letting go yet it still feels like life is in a downward spiral. You’re emotionally drained because you cannot sleep and instead of vitamins, doctor says you may be depressed. You’re trying to budget but then the flu happened and it put you behind, again. The kids and spouse are acting half way right but that job, it is an entirely different story. You said you’d pray more and you have but nothing has manifested. You’ve been to the altar, got prophesied over and still nothing. Well beloved, maybe it’s because you haven’t really surrendered. Maybe you haven’t, for real, let go. Sure, on the surface, it looks like it but dig deep. Go on and take a for real look and tell me what you see. Do you still see the old text messages you occasionally go through? Do you still see the inboxes? Do you still see their social media pages? Do you still see the stuff they left at your place? Do you still see the programs, you won’t throw away, from the church you left? In other words, do you see the attachment you still have to your past?

You do know the heart never lies, right? You do know that staying connected to emotional stuff can drain you spiritually, right? Why do you think your new relationship doesn’t work? It can’t when you’re comparing it to the old. Why do you think you’re still stagnant at the new church? You can’t move when you keep saying, we didn’t do it this way at my old church. Trying to do something new with an old mentality is like putting a new garbage bag in a funky garbage can, remove the bag and you will still smell the stench. Yes, the New Year can be new for you when you’re ready. That’s when you for real surrender and for real let go. Stop stalking their pages, answering the “Hey,” texts, showing up to support them and being pulled back to the place you left. Stop pulling off the scab and let the wound close AND heal. Sever the ties that bind. Forgive and/or apologize and move on. Write the eulogy, have the funeral, perform the burial and grieve it. But it starts with goodbye.

Daily Devotional – 1/15/18 “Quality of my strength!”

Pastor preached from 2 Kings 20, on yesterday, “When the verdict doesn’t match the outcome.” In this particular passage, Hezekiah is sick and the bible says he is “mortally ill.” God sends a message by Isaiah to tell Hezekiah, “Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live.” As I read this, I wondered why God would allow this to happen to Hezekiah. From previous chapters, it looks as if he’d done what was right but God still allowed him to get deathly ill at the age of 39. Why? Well, I’ve come to the conclusion, God doesn’t need a reason for what He does. Yes, Hezekiah was good and faithful yet God still allowed sickness to come. Sure, we can say, “maybe it was for somebody around him,” but could it not have been God doing what God does? Because sometimes things will happen, we don’t think we deserve. When they do, how will you handle it? Hezekiah turned his face to the wall, praying privately to God in which he speaks his peace before weeping from a place of desperation. He didn’t question God but he said in 2 Kings 20:3, “Now, O LORD, please remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in your sight. And Hezekiah wept bitterly.” Hezekiah wasn’t grandstanding but he was grieving.

For me, I believe God allowed Hezekiah’s sickness as a way to gauge the very thing on the inside of him, his strength. How do I know? Hezekiah himself told me because his name means, God is strength and strength means the quality of being strong. Beloved, God may need to test what is in us and that may mean throwing us into a place of sickness where it looks like there is no hope. You say God is my healer, don’t you? How would you know if sickness didn’t show up? You proclaim, God is my refuge, didn’t you? How could you testify if you’ve needed had need of refuge? You said, God is my way maker, right? How would you know if you never found yourself in need of a way out? After Hezekiah’s prayer, God sent Isaiah back to let him know, not only is God going to heal you but he’s adding an additional 15 years to your life. Isaiah, the messenger whose name means God is salvation and salvation meaning preservation or deliverance from harm, ruin, or loss. God needed to know if Hezekiah’s quality of strength could handle his deliverance from harm. Not because of what Hezekiah had been through but what he was about to face. Beloved, your place of despair isn’t for what has been, it’s for what’s to come. In order words, the very thing you’re suffering through, right now, is testing the quality of your strength.

Daily Devotional – 1/11/18 “From struggle to sacrifice”

On my ride to work this morning, the song “Different” by Tasha Page-Lockhart was playing and she said, “You can see it, I’m different in my walk. Others see it, in how I talk. I can see it in how I pray, I start to shed some tears each word I say. See I’m different. They tell me, I’m different.” Listening to those words, the Holy Spirit said to me, the difference is moving from struggle to sacrifice. And as I thought about that, it begin to resonate within me. See, one definition says struggle is to have difficulty handling or coping with and sacrifice is an act of giving up something valued for the sake of something else regarded as more important or worthy. Let me break this down in order for you to shout.

In my struggle, I found it difficult to make ends me. In my sacrifice, my ends have met with the same money I had in my struggle.
In my struggle, my prayers were empty promises I kept making to God knowing full well I probably wouldn’t keep them. In my sacrifice, my prayers changed to use me Lord and I’ll go and I meant it.
In my struggle, I was going to church. In my sacrifice, the church is in me.
In my struggle, I cussed folk out. In my sacrifice, I pray for and still love them.
In my struggle, I did some stuff I’m not proud of. In my sacrifice, I forgave myself for those same things.
In my struggle, I answered to my past. In my sacrifice, my name changed to favor.
In my struggle, I used God. In my sacrifice God uses me.

So you see, your struggle isn’t meant to harm you but it’s preparing you. The things I thought I needed in my struggle proved to be an obstacle in my sacrifice. The things I thought I couldn’t live without in my struggle were the very things I willing gave up in my sacrifice. This is why you cannot discount your struggle, no matter how hard it is or how much it hurts. Come here Abraham. Your struggle, beloved, is the very thing strengthening your trust in God to be able to take the thing you love (Isaac) to a mountain with wood, rope and a knife as your sacrifice when He tells you too believing He will show up with a ram in the bush!

Daily Devotional – 1/10/18 “End the silence!”

I know this is the New Year and while many spend time regrouping, making goals to make themselves and their family better, creating vision boards and such but the reality is, there are some people who are silently fighting mental illness and the date change hasn’t bought them relief. For them, they woke up on January 1, still battling a something that attempts to suffocate them while they sleep and crush them while they’re awake. It’s a sad fact but many of those, with mental illness, are people you see every day. They are the ones who are smiling and being helpful around the office. They are the ones showing up for the PTA meetings. They are the ones who are faithful in church. They are the ones who will give you their last. They are the ones who are the most encouraging. You want to know why? It’s because they want to help somebody else, seeing they cannot help themselves. See, for them this fight isn’t new, it’s a thing they’ve been trying to get loose from. And beloved, while praying and fasting is good, those who are struggling with mental illness, depression, psychotic episodes, suicidal thoughts/urges, bouts of crying, panic attacks and etc.; need physicians and treatment. Yes, slaying them on the altar is alright but they also need to seek medicinal help. Everything cannot be chalked up to being demon possessed that can be removed by a prophetic being who has the ability to blow and you fall down.

Understand me clearly, I am all for the prophetic, the laying of hands, the casting out, the crying loud and sparing not but baby I am also for utilizing God’s gift of doctors. And it is okay for us to need both, the prophetic and the physician. (Even Luke was a physician) Look, there are too many people suffering silently because they are afraid of how society will view them, too many dying at the hands of mentally ill people because no one recognized the signs and too many, especially in the church, who are suffering because they’ve been labeled as “acting out,” when they are crying out. This is why, if you aren’t qualified to handle what they are fighting, move so somebody who is, can. Pastoral counseling won’t help a person drowning in depression if the pastor isn’t qualified too. Marriage counseling won’t do it for the spouse who’s mentally ill if the counselor isn’t equipped to manage it. These fancy single meetings is good but what about the single whose words were asking for help but nobody realized it until it was too late? Please, do not be afraid or ashamed to get help. Talk to your doctor, connect with someone who understands, learn about mental illness and/or visit www.nami.org.

“I hurt with the hurt of my people. I mourn and am overcome with grief. Is there no medicine in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why is there no healing for the wounds of my people?” – Jeremiah 8:21-22