Lakisha, the Author

Daily Devotional – 7/26/16 “Pain hurts but it also heals!”

It’s a known fact that pain, no matter how big or small, hurts. If you don’t believe me, hit the side of the bed without a shoe on, close your finger in a door, lose a love one or go through a break up. You’ll quickly find that pain hurts. However, there’s great news … pain will also heal! Yes ma’am, yes sir; the pain subsides once healing takes place. That’s why if your heart has been broken, you’ve got to let go and heal. If you’ve been hurt in the church, you’ve got to deal with it so that you heal. If you’re grieving, deal with it so that you heal. The worst thing you can do, with pain, is act like it’s not there or that it’ll go away on its own because it won’t. This is why you have to deal with things of your past and present because it’s already affecting your future. See, when you allow past hurts to linger, it messes up your present and if you never do anything about it, it moves right into your future. That’s why, you need to deal with this stuff. It won’t, no matter how bad you wish, magically disappear. Why do you think we have so many angry children? It’s because parents are angry due to unresolved pain and that baton of pain is now being passed down from generation to generation. It has to end. Beloved, if pain would end on its own, there wouldn’t be need for pain medication, counseling and praying. You have to deal with it so that it can heal.

How do you deal with it? Simply by dealing with it. Look, if you know there are issues you can’t fix alone, seek help. If there’s a problem you can’t resolve on your own, ask for help. And please, stop allowing folk in your space that you know have hurt you and they don’t care. Why? Well because every time you see their selfish face smiling in your face, you’ll start to feel the hurt all over again. When what you should have done is snatched your power back. Tell them, ‘you hurt me but I forgive you and I won’t let you hurt me again.’ By doing this, you relinquish their hold to ever hurt you again and you also begin the healing process. Open your mouth! It’s like surgery. When you tell the doctor your problem, he/she diagnoses your case and then makes a plan to get you well, this is called healing. And with Dr. Jesus, tell Him your problem, allow Him to diagnose your case and set you on your plan of healing. Say like Jeremiah 17:14, “Heal me, LORD, and I will be healed; save me and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise.” Understand this, it’s going to hurt but after the hurt comes healing and with healing, pain no longer resides. Healing doesn’t come overnight so you have to be faithful to God’s plan and know that He won’t leave you alone. As God says in Isaiah 41:10, “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” Pain hurts but it also heals!

Daily Devotional – 7/25/16 “Stop judging!”

Stop judging folk by their outside appearance because you don’t know what they are dealing with inwardly. Baby, you see a person who is well put together but what you don’t see is the hours they paced and cried all last night. You see the smiling man but you don’t see the hell he has to put up with from a jealous/nagging wife. You see the smiling woman but what you don’t see is the pain she’s enduring from an abusive husband. You see her as abrasive but what you don’t see is the anger from sickness that’s consuming her life. You see him as cocky but what you don’t see is the many times folk have torn him down to shreds. Yea, you see an anointed preacher, minister or pastor but what you don’t see is the many hours they’ve spent in prayer to keep from losing their mind. You see the slander but you don’t see their inward suffering. This is why you have to stop bashing folk, you don’t know their story. This is why you need to keep your mouth off folk, you haven’t walked in their shoes. This is why you need to hush and pray instead of throwing in your two cents.

We are living, now, where it is time out for judging and time in for joining together in prayer. The enemy is destroying homes, businesses, relationships and worship places and by the time we recognize him (or her) it’s too late, damage is done. This is why we’ve got to get away from basking in someone else suffering and get right spiritually. I don’t know if you believe this or not but you aren’t getting away with it, it’s simply not your time to suffer. Please don’t think you’ll continually get by with causing chaos in the church because it doesn’t fit your logic of thinking. Keep thinking God isn’t abreast of your malicious deeds, it’s just not your time to be dealt with. If you aren’t a helper to God’s kingdom, stop being a hindrance. Sit down somewhere and hush because we have too many souls being lost than to dwell on your selfish, ignorant behind. There are folk dealing with spiritual demons that need to be dealt with and there’s simply not time to fight over who has been at the church the longest or paying the most tithes. When you get to a point where you can laugh at the suffering of someone else, you need to rededicate your life to God because obviously you’ve lost your way.

— “Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn others, or it will all come back against you. Forgive others, and you will be forgiven.” Luke 6:37

Daily Devotional – 7/21/16 “It’s your potential”

You don’t sleep well at night because the potential of who you shall be is keeping you woke. This is because you are doing everything else but what you’ve been purposed to do. I preached on this, in revival the past 3 days because there are too many of us (God’s children) who are walking around forfeiting our potential. We’ve settled for what seems good at the moment when God says He has something better in store. We accept what fits, at the time, when God says He has greater for us. We say yes to the first thing that fits in our plan when God says His plan includes larger territory. I mean, we will force a door to open that God intentionally closed because we think, in our natural state, this is all we are worth. Baby, don’t you realize we serve a plentiful God who has immeasurable resources. So why should we have to settle for anything? I’ve told you this before but it’s the enemy’s job to make you think you don’t deserve better. The enemy keeps a report of your past deeds because this is all he can use against you to make you doubt in yourself. That’s his job. However, the only reason he has shown up now is because you are getting close to unlocking your potential. Think about it. A robber won’t break into a place he/she knows doesn’t have what they need but they will kick in the door to a house/business that can give them exactly what they’re looking for. What’s the sense of taking something you don’t need? Why do you think an ex-boyfriend/girlfriend only shows up when you’re in another relationship that’s going good? It’s because they know you have the potential to be a great wife/husband. And because they can’t handle the potential of what you can be, they’ll try to keep anybody else from benefiting from it either.

This is the same for the enemy. He needs to stop you before you tap into the potential of what you’re destined to be because it’ll be then you’ll gain the strength to resist him. The enemy has to keep you off your game because as soon as you wise up, it’s game over. The enemy will use the fact that you’re in a dark place, now, to knock you even farther down because he knows there is potential on your life that will one day thrust you into a place of greater. It doesn’t matter that you’re an alcoholic, drug addict, liar, back stabber, user, thief, whoremonger, etc., the enemy has seen the potential of what you will become if only you muster up the strength. This is why you have to stay faithful even if your fight seem hopeless. This is why you have to trust God even when it feels as if you’re losing. This is why you have to believe that God won’t forsake you even during the storm. Chile, the enemy will have you thinking God can’t use somebody like you when in fact God needs somebody like you. You’re only suffering because you had to be broken for God to restore. This is why today, “I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called–his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance. I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms.” – Ephesians 1:18-20

Daily Devotional – 7/19/16 “Suffering to remember!”

As I was reading the book of Micah, in preparation for revival on last night, it reminded me so much of the way things are going now. I mean, Jerusalem and the people of Israel had become a rebellious, unrepentant people and because of this, the false prophets and preachers; God said I am sending you to exile. Exile, being sent from your own home by an authoritative decree. God sent the people to exile to suffer but He said, after you’ve suffered, I’ll come and bring you home. This means, we HAVE to suffer. Please understand, God doesn’t use suffering as a form of punishment but He uses it as a form of remembrance. What do I mean? Well, sometimes God has to snatch our ignorant behinds out of our comfort zone in order for us to stop taking what He does for us, for granted. See, we get comfortable in knowing that God will do it. We expect God to wake us up, provide for us, shield and protect us and etc. that we sometimes forget that He doesn’t have to do it. So in order to get us to remember that He doesn’t, He allows us to suffer. Suffering isn’t unto death but it’s so we can rejoice in the deliverance, afterwards. Suffering isn’t to break you but it’s so you can be restored. This is why God says, after your period of suffering, I’ll show up to bring you home restoring everything you’ve lost.

But chile, we’ll get in our suffering and start screaming like God has forgotten us. We get in our suffering and start acting as if God was the one that abandoned us. Leaving God scratching His head, asking the question like He asks in Micah 4:9, “But why are you now screaming in terror? Have you no king to lead you?” In other words, God is trying to understand, why it is now that you’re screaming. God says, you weren’t screaming when you were sinning and not repenting. Were you screaming when you were standing over my people lying and prophesying from your flesh? Were you screaming when you had all the things you’ve asked me for but didn’t thank me? Were you screaming in pain when pleasure took precedence over praise? Were you screaming in agony when you turned your back against me? Of course you weren’t, then why are you screaming now that I’ve placed your butt in exile? Beloved, God is allowing you to suffer because He needs you to remember Him. Think about it, it’s only after you’ve lost something that you reflect back on the way things were when you had it. After you lose your house to foreclosure, your car to repossession, your hair to chemo, etc. you start remembering what it was like to have those things yet it doesn’t happen until you’re suffering from the lost. Well, when God sends us through suffering, He’s trying to get us to remember the blessings He’s allowed us to enjoy that we take for granted. And it is God’s desire that after He brings us out, we’ll appreciate Him and them more. This is why you should come out of your suffering declaring, “My suffering saved me!” If you don’t, you have a lot more suffering to do.

Daily Devotional – 7/18/16 – “At the name of Jesus!”

Sometimes in the face of chaos, confusion and calamity; you need to just take a moment and call on the name of God. Yea, every chance you get, you ought to cry out to God in your loudest voice, letting everything around you know whose you are and who you believe in. You do believe in God don’t you? Beloved, the bible says in James 2:19, “You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God. Good for you! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror.” Now, if demons shake at the thought of God, what do you think they’ll do if you call His name in the midst of the hell you’re going through? Jesus! Baby, I just believe that by calling on the name of Jesus, it’ll make the enemy let go of my stuff. I’m spiritually crazy enough to believe that calling on the name of the Lord will make the enemy tremor in his spirit, making him let me go. Think about it, when you’re trembling it’s hard to hold on to stuff. When you’re shaking in fear, you can barely think right to hold your composure. When you’re unsteady, it’s hard to keep a grasp on things. So, if this is the case and this is what happens to the enemy when I call on the name of the Lord; why wouldn’t I do it?

I don’t know about you but I’m tired of the enemy taking my stuff. I’m sick of the enemy grabbing a hold of me and my family. I am fed up with the boldness of the enemy. And if calling on the name of God, shakes him loose; I have no problem doing it. Look, the enemy will make you think he has control of the situation you’re in but baby, if God wanted you to lose your mind and if God wanted you dead; you’d be there by now. Stop looking at the darkness as a punishment from God when in fact it’s purpose. There isn’t anything that goes on, in the lives of believers that God don’t know about and allow. God ordains everything that happens to His children. How do I know? Well, If God designed our path, clearly He designed the mile markers of trouble along them and just like mile markers; they don’t last long for you to dwell on. This is why you have to get to a point where you trust God in the good and the bad. This is why you have to get comfortable calling on the name of Jesus, even if it’s in places you wouldn’t normally. You have to get to a place in your life where you believe in the God you serve, call on His name and trust Him to do that which you’re asking. Because the bible says in Deuteronomy 28:7, “The LORD will conquer your enemies when they attack you. They will attack you from one direction, but they will scatter from you in seven!” Do you believe it?