Daily Devotional – 1/4/18 “CTRL + X”

You know how, sometimes, you can be writing something and when you read over it, there is a word or phrase that doesn’t quite fit? When that happens you can choose to delete that which doesn’t fit or you can use CTRL + X to cut it. Well, as I was thinking about this, sometimes you have to CTRL + X some folk and stuff out in order to balance. Now, here is where I need you to pay attention. Notice I didn’t say delete but I said CTRL + X and I’ll tell you why there is a difference. There will be some times when people and stuff will not fit your NOW but it does not mean they won’t fit your LATER. Think about it. You have a friend who is loud and has a filthy mouth. He/She hasn’t quite figured out how to use their inside voice or how to control their emotions. They will shoot off on social media, call folk and be ready to fight and will show up. Then there is you, who is starting a business, trying to build clientele and maintain your reputation. As you survey the situation, you realize this person needs to be CTRL + X. He/She doesn’t fit your now. But you’ve kept in touch because you’re both still friends and a little while later, they’ve matured and changed. They no longer show up at your business functions acting a fool. Unlike before, they add balance now and all you have to do is CTRL + V because you only cut them, temporarily instead of deleting them permanently.

Please understand me, sometimes the cut you’ll have to make will hurt like you wouldn’t believe. It may be a close friend or family member but let us be honest. Sometimes in order to survive and keep your sanity, you may have to CTRL + X some things that do not balance out your now. It doesn’t mean you love them any less. This doesn’t mean you think you are better than they are but that CTRL + X may save your life. When you have high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease; you have to cut some stuff out in order to survive. After you’ve gotten things under control, you might be able to add back a little of what you cut out, in moderation. Because although it doesn’t fit your now, it may just work in your later. Ecclesiastes 3:1, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.” What are you holding on too that needs to be cut from this season? What/Who are you looking at, you know don’t balance yet you’re afraid to cut? Yes, it hurts but the good thing about CTRL+X (cut) is, you can CTRL + V (paste) when the time comes.

Daily Devotional – 1/3/18 “Now what?”

A New Year … now what? This one line could be the entire devotion because ‘Now what,’ is a valid question a lot of us have yet to answer. Yes, the year changed but now what? Yes, we lived to see it but now what? Yes, we’ve made the resolutions and created the vision boards but now what? Do you know the number 18 means bondage, biblically? It does but I believe this year, God is about to release some strongholds. I just believe, with every fiber of my being that God is about to do something in 2018 for somebody who has been faithful even when it seemed like all you were doing was fighting. God is about to shift someone’s ministry who has struggled. Somebody’s business is about to do an about-face, suddenly. Somebody’s health is about to turn, for the good, and it’s going to blow the mind of the doctors. Somebody who has been in the background is going to be thrust into the light, this year. Some things you’ve been praying for are about to come to pass. Beloved, God is about to do a release for the faithful and obedient. And when those around you try to speak on you and doubt God’s ability, He’ll ask just like Luke 13:16, “And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day?”

And God is going to use the unlikely, the overlooked, the underpaid and the downtrodden this year. How do I know? When Israel again did evil, God gave them over to Eglon for 18 years but bible shares in Judges 3:15, “But when the people of Israel cried out to the LORD for help, the LORD again raised up a rescuer to save them. His name was Ehud son of Gera, a left-handed man of the tribe of Benjamin.” I need you to understand something. Being left-handed, then, was considered a defect yet God used Ehud, a left-handed man to save the children of Israel; after 18 years. Signifying to me that God is about to use those often overlooked to do a major thing in 2018. Is that you? This is why I asked the question, in the beginning, now what because now, what you should do is trust God to move. Now, what you should do is believe that God will do what He says He will. Now, what you should do is have faith that God can do for you what He’s done for others. Can you? Will you? ‘Now what’ is being shifted from a question to a statement of ‘now, what’ by simply changing how you say it and believe it.

Daily Devotional – 12/29/17 “You are not alone!”

She walked the streets, some days out of her mind and talking to herself. Sometimes she would even give herself to the dude on the corner, when he was willing to give her what she needed to stop the voices in her head. Other days, she’d sit in one place staring out as the worst day of her life flashes before her. The day her uncle took her virginity, forcibly. She was 13 and at home by herself because her mom had a work thing. She didn’t think anything of her favorite Uncle Joe stopping by, so she let him in. But what she didn’t see was, Joe wasn’t his usual self, instead he was the monster that heroine turned him into. And that day, he changed her life. She told her mom but she just cleaned her up and told her to never speak of it again. She didn’t but it did not stop it from replaying over and over again, especially when he’d do it, over and over again. Now at 18, she can’t bring herself out of the depression that calls her name. She tried to get help but it never worked, they just didn’t understand. She tried to forget but how can she, when Uncle Joe is still invited to family functions. Tired, she stole cocaine from the dude at the corner and a syringe from the pharmacy. She went into the nearest alley and fixed it up, the way she’d learned. She pulled the belt, tight, around her arm and she stuck the needle in. As the drugs filled her veins, her head fell back and she whispered, “Lord, I’m tired,” before her eyes closed.

When her eyes opened, she was in the alley, belt tied around her arm and the needle still in place. She sits up, looking around because surely she must be dead but then she hears people talking and cars passing by yet no one comes into the alley. She throws the belt and needle into the dumpster and walks out toward the street where she bumps into a girl she knows who asks where she’s been the last few days. Confused, she walks in circles until she gets to the free neighborhood clinic. When it’s her turn to be seen, she tells them what happened, saying the drugs must have been bad. The nurse laughs and says, “Girl, it wasn’t the drugs, it was God.” For somebody who is trying to silence the voices of abuse and molestation, erase the images of losing a loved one or forget the terrible things you’ve been through and the enemy is telling you suicide is the option; it’s not! God is mighty to heal you, if you’ll let Him. God is powerful enough to let you sleep the effects of the sleeping pills off when they should have killed you. God is strong enough to make the gun jam when the bullet should have torn through your skull. God is great enough to take the sting from death just to let you live. And this time when you wake up, your story will change. For you’ll be saying like Psalm 119:67, “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey your word.” Your suffering can and it will save you, if you let it. This holiday season, don’t be afraid to ask for help. You are not in this alone.

Daily Devotional – 12/28/17 “Will you have the time?”

She had the house, the finest car and the custom-made clothes. She was top in her graduating class and her business was booming. She vowed to never go back to the place she was raised because it had nothing for her. Sure, she sent money home to her parents but all the siblings had to know it. Sure, she made the occasional calls but it was to brag, never to ask about them. When her mom got sick, she sent flowers. When her sister was losing her house, she sent a check with conditions. She never made time for anybody or anything unless it benefited her, even God. Yes, she joined a church but not to serve, she liked the honorable mentions of being the biggest tithe payer. But then a stroke knocked and it crippled her. The people at the church, they didn’t show up. Her employees, they didn’t come. Her family did. The same parents she hollered at whenever they asked her to come home. The same brother she “didn’t fool with” because of prior drug use, he was there. The sister she called a slut for having two babies out-of-wedlock, she was there. They wiped the mouth that had been so foul. They helped her learn to walk again even though she used to walk all over them. They help with speech therapy, although she never had anything good to say.

One night as she lay in the bedroom she grew up in, trying to find strength to make her left arm move, she cried. Not because of the stroke but because of the space she’d allowed to grow between her and her family. She wanted to hug them but it was hard to do now. So she cried, realizing the money she made didn’t mean nothing because all they wanted was her. She cried because the bragging she did couldn’t bless her, the hating couldn’t heal her and the fancy stuff couldn’t free her. And now, the bible she never read lay stretched open on her nightstand and the God she’d forsaken, she now prayed to; thanking Him for the chance to make things right. She had time because this story isn’t real but what about you? Do you have the time to forgive, forget and make things right? Will you have the time to say “I forgive you,” “I love you,” “I’m sorry” or will your ego keep you from evolving and your pride keep you from offering peace? Will you have the time? Before 2017 closes, will you have the time make it right before you’re weeping to a casket that can’t speak back?

Daily Devotional – 12/27/17 “Get in the fight!”

My husband is a football fanatic and he loves everything that comes along with it which means every day, especially Sunday morning, the TV is on some sports channel. His team is the Tennessee Titans and normally, he’d say, they hardly talk about them however last Sunday, the Titans were a topic of conversation. I even stopped, at one point, because the sportscasters were giving a play-by-play of the game. As I stood there, I realized, it wasn’t about the Titans but more for the team they played against and what they were playing for, a spot in the championship. Why am I sharing this? For somebody reading this, the very fight you are in is about to cast you into the place you deserve simply because of your opponent and what you are fighting for. See, you couldn’t understand where this mess came from, all of a sudden. You can’t explain why you seem to be picked on, suddenly. Why you are having to fight folk, unexpectedly but it is about to elevate you. All those times you tried to get noticed but your name wasn’t called. All the times you won but nobody celebrated you. All those times you showed up but they didn’t care. Well, I am here today to tell you, your fight, this time, is about to pay off.

In the bible, before David ever fought and conquered Goliath, he’d been brave enough to kill the lion and bear with his bare hands, when no one was looking. Yet, it was his fight against Goliath that got him noticed. Beloved, you’ve been in the background, fighting people and things that no one knows about. You’ve been fasting and laying on your face in prayer and nobody knows it. You’ve been walking around the altar of the church after everybody else is gone and nobody sees it. You’ve been preaching in places and people still don’t know your name. Helping and nobody gives you credit and serving, faithfully and what you’ve been praying for hasn’t shown up. Well, this next fight is about to shoot you into the place your destiny says is yours. Please understand, I am not saying the only way promotion comes is by a natural fight because the bible tells us in Ephesians 6:12, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” What I am saying is, sometimes it will be the hardest, biggest and most fearful spiritual fight you’ve ever been in, the one nobody knows about that will get you to the promised enlargement of your territory. Oh, you may lose but winning against them isn’t the goal. The real test is to see if you will get in the ring, in the first place.