A lot of times it’s not God isn’t hearing or responding because He’s forgotten us. The issue is, we’re unsure of the season. Contrary to what we have come to know, not every season is a season to reap. If all you’re doing is reaping, when will you plant? When will you rest? When will you be pruned?
The same way there are seasons, naturally, we experience seasons spiritually. The problem … we don’t know what season we’re in.
How do you know your season? By praying, fasting, and asking God.
What’s the benefit of knowing the season? So we do the proper work for THAT season. If we don’t, we’ll be in the season of planting, believing we’re supposed to reap and now we’ve forfeited the season with no seeds in the ground. (Seeds = God’s word, not money.) We must know the season or we’ll start believing the enemy whose job is to put opposition between us and God.
Last month at Temple Church we learned about sowing seeds. (You have to plant to reap.) This month, we’re in our series Waiting Room. Some of us are in the waiting season, yet we’ve come to believe God is punishing us because we aren’t seeing a harvest. No baby. What God is actually doing or trying to do, is prune, and prepare you to promote you. Yet, God can’t do the work because you don’t want to wait.
This is why you have to stop counting the seconds and start recognizing your season.
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Three years ago, I had the privilege to be the guest blogger for my friend Pastor David Foster’s blog, The Love Connexion. Although it’s been three years, the post still fits today. So, I wanted to share it here for somebody, whomever you are. Even if it’s not for you, it may be for someone you know.
Stop comparing your marriage to others. This is YOUR marriage.
My grandparents were married 65 years before my grandfather passed away. He and my Grams (as I called her) were thirteen and fifteen when they married. Mere children and somehow, they managed to stay together all those years. Lean in, it wasn’t easy. See, during the era of my grandparents, you rarely heard of people divorcing. Oh, they’d separate but divorcing really wasn’t a thing. Through raising children that ran into the double digits, most times, to struggling to overcome racism and poverty; marriage wasn’t easy.
But you know this, right? You know the strains and struggle. You know the burdens. You know the sacrifices. You know the weight. Then why are you trying to build your marriage on the backs of your grandparents when you don’t know the half of what it took to make it? Your marriage is your marriage and what worked for them, might not work for you.
Pause and allow me to clarify something … Every marriage is different. I will never tell anyone to stay in a marriage and put up with some of the things my grandparents endured while married in their era. I’m only sharing to encourage you to find what works for your marriage in order to sustain it for 60+ years.
You know why I can share? I’ve been married 22 years, since I was 21 years old. I know the strains of marriage. I know about infidelity, struggle, debt, him not liking me and I couldn’t stand him. I know the harshness of marriage and moving back with my grandparents when I was over it. See, I thought marriage was what I saw in my grandparents. As long as I did my part as the wife, he’d do his part as the husband. As long as we both contributed, came home and functioned things would work. Man was I wrong. Marriage is a whole lot more.
It’s sacrificing, giving, going, shutting up when necessary, speaking up when you have to, apologizing, being, doing, believing, struggling, overcoming, loving, trusting, honoring, praying, fasting, covering, shielding, protecting, compromising, warring in the sprit, destroying yokes, ___________ (you fill in the blank).
This is why you have to stop expecting your marriage to mimic what you saw grandma and granddad or others in your family do. Your marriage isn’t your grandparent’s marriage. YOU AIN’T BUILT THE SAME! Yeah, I said it. We give up to easy. We throw the deuces as soon as times get hard. We want the forty-thousand-dollar wedding and two-dollar marriage. We argue and put other folk in the business. We get angry and go to social media. Baby, this isn’t your grandparent’s marriage. They were married at 15, raising ten and twenty children off one income in a 3-bedroom house. We got the houses with multiple rooms and yet we’ll still storm out the house after an argument.
Read this carefully … when I say your marriage isn’t your grandparent’s marriage, neither is it your parent’s, his/her parent’s, your sister/brother’s, best friend’s, pastor’s, or anybody else marriage. This is your marriage. You and your spouse have to create a marriage that works for the both of you. Sure, it may look different than what you’ve been accustomed to seeing, that’s okay. Sure, it may not be the way self-help books portrayed, that’s alright. It might not look like the happily ever after movies, it wasn’t meant to.
Your marriage is your marriage. DO WHAT KEEPS YOU AND YOUR SPOUSE HAPPY.
If this means changing your thinking, so be it.
If this means marriage counseling, so be it.
If this means different traditions, so be it.
If this means moving, so be it.
You owe it to yourself and each other because the length of a marriage means nothing when you’re both on opposite ends of it. Marriage isn’t about being perfect. Marriage isn’t about worshipping him or bowing down to her. Marriage isn’t happy wife, happy life … marriage is healthy spouses, surviving houses. It’s about loving each other enough to ensure you’re meeting each other’s needs. Marriage is caring for the other when they’re sick, knowing when something is off by their tone or knowing what they will or will not eat. Marriage is about compromise and making choices together. Marriage is about getting angry but not leaving and admitting when you’re wrong. Marriage is apologizing and saying I love you. Marriage is about the simple things like getting to your car to see your husband has made sure to put your umbrella in there because it’s raining and today is your beauty shop day. Marriage is when your wife doesn’t fuss every time you leave the toilet seat up.
Marriage isn’t for show, but it should be for sure. And if you get nothing else from this, glean one point … your marriage is YOUR marriage.
Ephesians 5:33, “Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.”
I thought I’d reshare this post from last year. I don’t know who it’s for, but if it’s you, here’s what I need you to say. MY FAITH IS IN GOD, NOT FLESH!
Say it with power because I need you to know, the devil is a liar. Whatever has been spoken over and against you, it is a lie and I’ve come with a counterattack declaring …
The sickness or disease won’t kill you. You’ll live, even with the scars, but you’ve got to believe it.
The grief. It won’t always be like this. You’ll smile again without your heart hurting so badly, but I need you to breathe through it.
This dark place you’re in, it’ll end, and you’ll find the light again. However, there are things you’re going to lose in the darkness, but it won’t be you.
Those suicidal thoughts can’t be your end. Sit up, inhale then exhale. Open your eyes, even with tears flowing. Do you see that? That’s another chance. Take it. Call the therapist. Talk to somebody. Get the help you need for depression. Take the medicine. Stop staying in a place that’s speaking negatively to you and your mind. You aren’t a failure. Starting over is okay.
The disappointment, mistake, or the thing that’s making you feel like a loser, sit in it. But only for a moment to learn the lesson. Then get up, takes your notes, hold your head up and get to work. This time, use what you learned to do and be better.
I don’t know what you’re facing, at this moment, but speak to it. Speak by the authority given to you by God and come out! You must survive this because we need you.
Here’s a prayer from a devotional I read. Pray it.
Lord, I am renewing my mind to the promises of protection You’ve provided. My trust is in You, and I have more faith in Your Word than what I may see with my natural eyes. In the name of Jesus.Amen
Stop allowing people to force you to be someone you’re not comfortable being!
Stop staying in places you’re uncomfortable!
Stop holding your peace when doing so hurts you!
Stop thinking you HAVE to go, do, be, or give!
Stop believing you can’t say no!
Stop pouring all of yourself into people, places, and things!
Stop thinking you don’t need to rest!
Stop acting strong, all the time!
Stop saying you’re okay when you’re not!
Stop acting like you don’t need help!
Stop devaluing your worth!
Stop holding back!
Stop giving the enemy credit!
Stop thinking God won’t do what you need!
Stop believing you don’t need relationships!
Stop condemning yourself!
Stop holding unforgiveness!
Stop self-sabotaging!
Stop the self-doubt!
Stop being bullied by fear!
Stop explaining your place, purpose, and anointing to people who don’t have the capacity or care to accept you!
Stop holding yourself back because somebody can’t understand why it’s you!
Stop believing the good of God can’t be for you!
Stop thinking you need a sign. You ARE the sign!
In 2024, find your voice, your strength, your belief, your trust, your get-up, your reason to go on, your plan of how to try again, and your ability! This year, trust God and you.
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’d made it and 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.
Then a stroke knocked, and it crippled her. The people at the church, they didn’t show up. Her employees, they didn’t come but 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 anything 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 before your clock runs out? 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 2018 closes? Will you have the time to make it right before you’re weeping at a casket, holding a body that can’t speak back?
“Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” – James 4:14
Lakisha, the Author 