The Right Way

Have you ever been at a crossroads in your life? You know where you had to make a decision of going left or right, saying yes or no, leaving or staying, or even finding a new job or staying with your current one. At these times it becomes so hard to know which decision to make or which will have the best outcome for you. Many of us battle within ourselves to make the easy choice, the choice that will cause us the least amount of discomfort. Someone once told me "to make a difference is to inconvenience yourself." And truly I know most of the time we chose not to fight or inconvenience ourselves. God give us all free will and through that free will we make decisions that shape our lives. The hard thing about free will is that you never know if you've chosen the right way. In times of tribulation I find it's best to sit back and be quiet for a while and try to allow God's voice lead you the right way. He knows better than all and he is the creator of your big picture.

Education

Knowledge is power. This is something that slavemasters knew oh so well. Most slaves were forbidden to learn the alphabet or to learn to read or write. If a slave was found with a book they actually could be killed. Can you imagine that? I love to read and collect books but I could have been killed for that passion if I was a slave. Something so small to us now was something that our ancestors fought and died for. The slavemasters knew that if slaves were taught to read and write that they would be very dangerous because then questions would arise. Questions that the slavemasters did not want to hear nor did they want to answer. Keeping the slaves ignorant was an intricate part of keeping the slaves content in the bleak existence.
In my opinion this same mentality is still very much alive today. A friend of mine asked me the following "Hey Nikki I got a question for you. What does an education do for you? I was asked this question by a member of my church. He is our age, without a GED or any will to get one. He feels that his life if lead by God. And he will be taken care of through miracles from God. I have to say that this thought process really challenged me." I know that God is leading my life and that through prayer all things in my life can be changed but I also know that God doesn't want to see me just sit and do nothing while I wait to see him move. How unrealistic is it for someone to think that God will come and change everything for you when you aren't even willing to make the first step? If you were stuck in a dark room and you sat still and prayed to God to help you out of your dark situation and God said to you turn on the light, but instead of moving around trying to feel your way to a light switch, you just sat there still waiting for God to give you some light. God gave us a brain and the ability to learn as a gift and if not used God will take back his gifts! Education is the ultimate equalizer, it is something that no one can ever take away from you. So Billy, my answer for the member of your church is this: God blesses those who are willing to be obedient and move when he says so. Being ignorant by choice is turning his back on the gifts that God has given him; the same gifts that slaves died to further. Knowledge is true power and it sounds like the member of your church is choosing to be powerless. I'ma pray for that brother!

A Break

I think everyone should be able to take a break. You know when you are so tired that you just don't want to do anything. When you feel like that and you can't take a vacation, or take a break from what you are doing then it really make you feel bitter. As people we need to take time to refuel. You're break or vacation could be going into a room in your house alone away from everyone listening to music or flying to lay on the beach in Hawaii. I haven't made it to Hawaii yet but I hope to one day.

Half Full or Half Empty

Are you the type of person that when things are going good and your life seems great that then you can tell others how blessed your are and the wonders of God, but when trials enter in you find it much harder to keep praising him? I'm listening to Byron Cage "I will Bless the Lord" right now, and it's my third time in a row of hearing it. A lot of us find it easy to sing and bless the Lord when things are good in our lives, but this song that I'm listening to right now says that I will bless the Lord at ALL times, even when I'm lost and my strength seems gone. If we could all look at our stormy times as lessons from God instead of some kind of punishment, then I know we would all be able to reach the potential that God really has set for us. The only thing that holds us back from being great, is us. Our own minds keep us trapped. Bless the Lord at all times because He has done great things for you. Remember the times that you fell down, remember when you got a speeding ticket, remember when something you tried at something that didn't work out as planned. That speeding ticket could have kept you out of a fatal accident, when you fell down God just let you know how strong you really were when you were able to get back up, and always remember that when you've failed at something once you now have secret to make it work when you go back to try again. How do you view your big picture; is it half full or empty.

Modern Day Miracles

When I think of miracles I think of Jesus turning water into wine, healing the blind, and feeding thousands with one loaf of bread and a few fish. Most of us are still looking for those types of miracles to occur now to help insure our faith but when we really experience miracles today we brush them off as something ordinary. I know I witness a miracle today. My 6 year old nephew was hit by a car today, flown by helicopter to a hospital and when I went to go visit him in the emergency room he didn't have any broken bones or bruises. There are people hit by cars going only 5 or 10 miles an hour who suffer major damage to their bodies. I will not ignore the wonders of the Lord working. I know people choose to overlook the great things that God does everyday but I am choosing not to be one of them. Have you experienced or seen a miracle lately? Even the little things: have you found $1 in your pocket when you really needed one, ever had someone hold a door for you when you had your hands full? Tell me about your miracles, because they happen everyday but sometimes we are just too busy to notice or we just write them off as something ordinary. God is anything but ordinary.

God's Gifts

When ever we receive a blessing whether it's a new car, a new job, a raise, or even a child it's a gift from God. That gift is given to us to enjoy for the as long as God allows us to. The hard thing to deal with is when seemingly out of nowhere, God takes away your blessing. You lost that new job, you had an accident with that brand new car of yours, or even when He takes away your child. How do we as humans deal with the strong emotions that come along with loss? Many times we are so grief stricken that we blame God or even seek out answers to why something so horrible has happened to us. Often we ask Why? Why me?; why take this from me? I don't really consolable answers to those question but I do have the answer that I believe most Christians would give: Why not you? God never makes mistakes. I know neither of those answers help ease the physical ache in your heart that you can feel when you incur a loss but isn't that what faith is all about. Being able to praise God even when.... even when bad things are happening, even when things aren't going your way, even when...
I'd like to ask everyone who reads this entry to please pray for my friend Joan Frank who has just lost her 9 yr daughter, Jeanna. I have no idea what that kind of loss feels like but I know that I would want someone to pray my strength in a time such as hers. Please pray with me.

Never Satisfied

On my ride into work this morning, I listened to the Steve Harvey Morning show. During his first half hour Steve always starts the show off with a prayer and an inspirational thought for the day before he (as he puts it) gets completely ignorant. Today he said something that really made me think. He started off by giving thanks to God for waking him up this morning and promising that he would try to fulfill some purpose for the day. He said God doesn't just wake us up to go through our days thinking just let me make it through, but He really wants us to try to find some purpose for the day. Then Steve went real deep on me and said: to move ahead and allow God to allow bigger and better blessing to occur in your life you must first be pleased and satisfied with the ones that he has already supplied you with. Meaning if you want a bigger house, first be happy and pleased with the fact that you already have a roof over your head that God has already provided for you. Why would God want to bless you further if you can't even thank Him for the blessing he already gave you? Steve's example was that of a boat. He said if he had a little boat and was never grateful for it but he wanted a bigger boat why would anyone want to bless him if they always heard him talking bad about the boat he already had. God wants to bless us beyond our own beliefs but we must first have faith that He can and will do that for us and then we also need to be thankful for the blessing we already have while we wait for other blessings. Sometimes we need to be satisfied with what we have. That's not to say you don't strive for more but appreciate what you have because you didn't have to get it. Remember God already knows what your big picture looks like but if you can't realize the beauty of what you can already see why would He give you something even more beautiful to look at?

Vote Or Die!

That's Puffy's slogan not mine but I like it! I meant to post this early so that I could say "Hey get out there and vote" but since it's a little late for that I guess this post is just "Hey, I hope you got out there and voted!" I did! And if you didn't then don't complain when schools are over crowded and your kids have books from 1881! If you aren't part of the solution then you are part of the problem.

Giving Advice

Have you ever given a friend advice only to have them get mad at what you've told them. Of course you are left puzzled because this friend of yours came to you for your own personal thoughts on their situation and then decided to get mad at what you told them. I guess for some people it's much easier to shoot, stab, and kill the messenger than to actually take to heart the comments that they made. Also it's strange to me the folks who come to you and ask for advice and then they decide to just keep on doing what they were doing anyway. I look at it like this: if you needed to talk to someone about a situation or problem in your life it usually means that you know you are doing something wrong and since you don't want to listen to your own voice of reason you need to hear someone else's. So why do some folks ask for advice and then act like they never even heard you? I read once (and it's something that I thought was quite profound) "when you don't have the information you aren't responsible, but the minute you get the information on what you need to do, then you are responsible and if you don't do anything you can't blame anyone but yourself". Great quote, I think. If you asked for someone's advice, it must mean you trust them, so trust enough that they wouldn't steer you wrong. Don't waste time asking for advice you don't want nor going to take. This isn't anything that I'm going through right now just something I was thinking about.

Giving Back

It's a wonderful thing when you have reached a certain point in your life when you can look at where you've come from and reach back to help some one else blaze their own trail. I know I've always felt that once I got to point-a of my journey that I needed to stop and remember that other people needed help to find the directions to point-a. I still strongly believe that we all need to give back; that it's not something we should pay lip service to but something we should put into action. I truly believe that it's my duty to help all young black kids get into college, tell all black folks that owning their own home is possible, and that being debt free is just a budget (and a lot of hard work) away. Once God give you a gift, why wouldn't you want to share it with as many people as possible?

Counseling

Why do black folks have a problem with going to get counseling? Actually I think I can answer that one myself. Most people don't like to discuss their feelings. As an adult looking back over your life, I'm sure you can pin point several different scenes in your life that have made up the big picture that encompass the person that you are now; some good, some bad. Also looking back on your childhood I'm sure you can remeber certain lessons that you learned from your parents that have shaped your who you are today. Now what I'm sure you can't see (although some of us can) are how those lessons made you have certain issues. A son watching his dad beat on his mother may have taught a young man how to treat a woman or how not to treat a woman. Or a young girl who's father was never around may always seek the comfort of a man (whether a good or bad man) or she may take that hatred out on every man she encounters. I could go on and on with scenarios like this but I think you can get the picture. My point is that under all of those outer issues are deep seeded issues that many of us are so afraid to really take a look at, that we would rather act like nothing is wrong or that it must be everyone else. Speaking to a counselors doesn't really bring up issues that you don't know you have; oh you already know about them, but the counselors is there to help you find the light in that dark closet where you've hidden all those bad scenes and lessons that you learned as a child. God puts everything in out lives for a reason; the good and the bad. All of those life lessons that you have learn have helped you become the person that you are, the counseling could help you understand why you are the person that you are. Everyone needs to understand the person that they are to move forward to become the person that God wants you to be. You can't see God's big picture for you if you still have your eyes closed.

Knowing God's Voice

How do you know when God speaks to you? I mean how do you distinguish between hearing your own flesh, the crafty voice of the devil (who sometimes in confusion sounds like God), and really hearing God? I have had times when I realized that I was at a crossroads and making the right decision was very important. I think at these times, the battle of good and evil are at the highest levels so much so that you can actually see it. You know when you look at someone and they seem so lost, worried and utterly confused about which way to turn; that you can see the war of self, God, and the devil at work. At these times there is usually someone around to say to you "Just pray and listen to the voice of God". The problem with listening is that the voice that you hear and may think is God may not be. There are people out there who kill their children and say God told them to deliver them. I know in the bible that God has asked for children to be slain just to see how obedient someone would be but I don't recall any bible stories where God actually had it done. (I could be wrong because I don't know the whole bible by heart :0) So how do you really know when it's God? For a person who is so confused in a decision and who is listening all the voices in their head; how do you explain to them how to distinguish between God's voice, their own, and that of satan? I need some help with this one because I know God's voice for myself but I can't explain it to someone else.

Growing Up

I have a question for everyone: Why is it that some of us look at growing up as a bad thing? Not growing up as in getting older because of course all of us have to do that with out choice but I mean the actual process of getting wiser, learning from our mistakes, accepting advice from others, admitting when you are wrong or have made a mistake, and just realizing that maybe you don't know everything. Here's what I think: I think that some people are so afraid of change that they would just rather stay stagnant instead of following God's path. Many people are afraid to change because they know that once they show signs of growth then they won't be able to relate to the people around them and the people around them just might notice the change and not see it as a positive thing. So what do you think; why is it so hard for some folks to grow up?