Daily Devotional – 12/30/19 “Cycle of Completeness!”

I was going back through some older devotionals, looking for one to share again. I couldn’t find it, but I stumbled across this one and I’m led to share it again (with revisions). It’s not that God doesn’t have more for me to say but somebody needs this word. Somebody who is feeling like God can’t use them. Somebody who feels like rejecting the calling on your life because of who you think you are. This is for somebody who’s having a hard time believing that God can and will use you. Maybe you feel like this woman. A woman who didn’t always feel useless but now she walks the streets, in skimpy clothes, selling herself to every person she thinks can fill the emptiness on the inside of her.

See, her son passed away, a year ago, at the age of two; heart disease, and no matter how she tried, she couldn’t bring herself out of the depression that called her name day after day. Her family loved her, but they couldn’t help her. She tried drugs/alcohol but even they didn’t help. One day she got into the car of a man she’d serviced before. He had a smile that made you trust him, and she did. But this day the smile faded, and the monster appeared. He raped and beat her, leaving her at the edge of the city for dead.

She was in a coma for nineteen days.

On the twentieth day, she opened her eyes and saw a man walking around her bed. She couldn’t make out what he was saying but he kept touching her. She tried to speak, she tried to move but couldn’t. So, she closed her eyes and whispered within her spirit, “Lord, I surrender,” before drifting off to sleep. The next day she is awakened by the sounds of her mom calling her name. She opens her eyes and after the tubes are removed, she asks about the man. No one knew who she was talking about, but she kept whispering, where’s the man?

After a few days, the hospital chaplain comes in and she recognizes him. She asks him about that night and he explains that God allowed her to sleep until the 20th day because 20 represents the cycle of completeness. 20, biblically, is connected to a perfect period of waiting, that sometimes comes with labor and suffering. Think of it as serving a sentence and it’s now release day.

This woman’s cycle of guilt, shame and depression was now complete.

For whomever you are that’s reading this and thinking, God won’t use you because of your past mistakes and present sin; you’re wrong. Beloved, your cycle of shame is about to be completed. Your season of lack, it’s about to be done. But you must surrender and wait on God. I don’t care about your past or your present, God has need of you, but I need you to make it to 2020. Can you do that? Will you trust God enough, even in your labor and your suffering? Will you believe God’s promise to never forsake you? Will you take God at His word? Your cycle of completeness is on the way, but you’ve got to make it.

Psalm 138_8

Guess what I did …

I released a new book 🍾🥳🤗

Guess what again … you can get it 😋

What’s it called?

TENSE — The Past | The Present | The Future

What’s it about? 👇🏽

For these friends, the past year holds memories, some they’d like to forget instead and others they’ll always remember.

They’ve experienced all kinds of things but with each other, their families, prayer, and God; they’ve made it through 2019, to the month of December.

But not every relationship salvaged will make it to the future.

In this Holiday Short Story, Special Edition of When the Vows Break, you’ll get to peek into the lives of these friends and see how they’re spending their Christmas holiday. Will the past they’ve endured affect their present, attempting to shatter their future? Or has the past given them instruction to treasure the present while preparing for the future? You’ll have to read to find out.

It’s more than just writing, it’s ministry. ❤️

Get it here 👉🏾 HERE

Happy Reading,

Lakisha

Daily Devotional – 12/18/19 “More than a vision”

A vision board won’t mean a thang if you don’t put work into making your vision a reality! It’s more than cutting out your dream vacation spots, the car you want to own, a building you keep passing that would be perfect for your business or ministry. It’s more than pasting pictures, scriptures and wishes on a board. It’s that plus mental maturity, finances, prayer, faith, action and work. We are quick to paraphrase Habakkuk 2, “write the vision and make it plain,” but do you know what God was meaning?

When God told Habakkuk in Habakkuk 2, “Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it,” this was after Habakkuk and God had dialogue, starting from chapter 1. Habakkuk was crying out to God from a place of misery because he’d been watching the state of the land. He says in verses 2-4, “How long, O LORD, must I call for help? But you do not listen! “Violence is everywhere!” I cry, but you do not come to save. Must I forever see these evil deeds? Why must I watch all this misery? Wherever I look, I see destruction and violence. I am surrounded by people who love to argue and fight. The law has become paralyzed, and there is no justice in the courts. The wicked far outnumber the righteous, so that justice has become perverted.” Does this sound like our world?

God answers him in verses 5-11 where He tells Habakkuk, (to sum it up), “Look around at the nations; look and be amazed! For I am doing something in your own day, something you wouldn’t believe even if someone told you about it.” Habakkuk then goes back to God in verses 12-17, asking God (in summation), “O LORD my God, my Holy One, you who are eternal—surely you do not plan to wipe us out?” Habakkuk says, I’ll climb up on my watch tower and await God’s answer. To which God replies, “Write my answer plainly on tablets, so that a runner can carry the correct message to others. This vision is for a future time. It describes the end, and it will be fulfilled. If it seems slow in coming, wait patiently, for it will surely take place. It will not be delayed.” See, God was telling Habakkuk to write down what He was about to show him, in a vision but do it so plainly that anybody after him who reads it, would understand it. Why? Because this vision would happen after Habakkuk.

What am I sharing? Because somebody has been using this scripture while you excitedly create your vision board but then that excitement dies and you become angry at God when nothing happens. Beloved, you can create your vision board, add glitter and make it pretty but if you don’t do something to make your vision manifest, it’ll be another thing taking up space in your living room. So, let me ask you this question … what are you doing to make the vision God has given you come to pass? What are you doing to make the thing that’s keeping you up at night, a reality? What are you doing with the prayer requests you have on the wall? What are you doing about the list of things you want to accomplish?

They can come to pass but you must:

1. Change your thinking. Nothing will be handed to you and if you’re waiting on somebody else to bless you, you might not get it.
2. Work on your finances and number one. Yes, God can increase your earnings but if you don’t change the way you mishandle the funds, you’ll find yourself in the same situation with more money.
3. Pray for guidance. God is a man who does not lie and He’ll never lead you to a person, place or thing that wasn’t meant.
4. Work your faith. Faith without GOOD works is DEAD. #thatsbible
5. Trust God and your gifts. #selfexplanatory
6. Work your vision. A plan without action is just a plan. Action without a plan is just tiring work. Action + Plan can become that thing that makes money while you sleep.

It’s takes more than just a vision.

Book Excerpt – Shattered 2

Shattered 2

Chapter 4 Excerpt (Therapy Session with Dr. Scott)

“Yeah, well, Cam is the only person who has been consistent.”

“Consistent in what, exactly?”

“Everything,” I state. “Without her, I don’t think I would have survived.”

“Girl, Cam isn’t a resolution to your problem, she’s residue and I don’t mean the kind that reminds you of something good. Cam is a constant reminder of what you’re hiding from and as long as she’s here, she’ll taint everything you touch.”

“You say that like it’s easy to forget. I know Cam isn’t good for me but what am I supposed to do? Was I supposed to pray to God when He was the one who allowed that man to hurt me?”

“Camille, God didn’t allow that, evil did.”

“Yeah well, evil or not it happened, and you act like it’s easy to forget that.”

“I never said forgetting but at some point, you’ve got to come out from behind this wall you’ve built and that starts by an inward cleaning.”

“How?”

“Come with me,” Dr. Scott tells me.

I follow her down the hall to a bathroom. When she opens the door, my mouth drops and my hand flies up to cover my nose.

“You didn’t expect to see this, did you?”

I shake my head no.

“Did you assume this bathroom would be clean?”

“Of course,” I reply.

“Why?”

“Because the house is.”

“Oh, so since this house with its pristine outside is clean, you never would have suspected it to have something so filthy inside, right?”

“To be honest, no. I assumed—”

“You assumed?” she chuckles. “People assume that because we’re fixed up on the outside, from the image we portray that inwardly it’s the same. However, most of us walk around daily, just as filthy as this bathroom because it’s easy to hide, if we close the door. Go on in.”

I hesitate.

“What’s the problem?” she questions.

“It stinks in there and it’s full of trash.” I say.

“So,” she shrugs, “your insides stink too. The only difference between you and this bathroom is that it’s filled with trash while you’re filled with shattered pieces of you.”

Shattered 2 Available Now


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Daily Devotional – 12/3/19 “You’ve got work to do!”

Your life isn’t going to change on 1/1/2020, not if you’ve yet to change what didn’t work in 2019. There I said it because here’s the truth, there is no magical formula. There’s no special vision board that’ll make all your dreams come true. There’s no right concoction of oil that will bring you everything you’ve been praying for. There’s no church service, midnight prayer service or prophecy that will transform your life, in the twinkling of an eye; if you are not working for yourself and I’m not talking about clocking in.

Look, here’s what I know works.
1. Prayer
2. Faith
3. Work
4. Prayer
5. Belief
6. Work
7. Prayer
8. Tithing
9. Work
10. Prayer
11. Sowing
12. Work

You see where I’m going? Bible tells us in James 2:26, “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” Sure, you can have a body without a spirit but it’s called a corpse. Corpse = a dead body especially of a human being or the remains of something discarded or defunct. THIS IS THE SAME FOR YOUR LIFE, BUSINESS, MARRIAGE, VISION, GOALS and PLANS … WITHOUT WORKS!

My apology for yelling, but I need you to get this. You’ve got to work, beloved. And I don’t mean at your job. You’ve got to work your prayer life which means you need to pray more. You’ve got to work your finances which means tithing and sowing and believing God. You’ve got to work your faith which means trusting God especially when you can’t see it, taste it or touch it. You’ve got to work your gifts even if they’ve yet to pay off. You’ve got to work your belief which means knowing God hasn’t forsaken you, especially in those moments He’s silent.

I know these devotionals have been longer than normal, but God is speaking more and I don’t know who they’ve been for, but I need you to work. Baby, work like everything you do is paying off. Do you know there are times I preach and barely get paid? It doesn’t matter that it took a week or more to prepare the sermon or that I sweated my good curls out; I’m working my faith. Do you know it took seven (7) years before my writing paid off? It didn’t stop me from working my gift though. Child, I put out books like they were bring in hundreds of dollars when truth is, I barely saw enough for my $50 water bill. I still wrote. Why? I trust God instead of worrying because I know if He sent me and I work, He’ll take care of me. Will you do the same? Will you trust that if God sent you and you do the work, He’ll take care of you? Will you work, knowing God has your entire being?