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Punctuation w/ Purpose

Something I heard some years ago. Many times in life we wait for God to start our new chapter. However, when you end a chapter can’t end it with a comma. A comma doesn’t end a sentence. It pauses a phrase before continuing the thought. In the same manner, comma is telling God that you are going to hold on to what He told you to let go or end, in order to begin a next new chapter of your life. That may be a variety of many things: relationship, job, house, money, comfort ability, etc. It’s pretty much telling God He you don’t trust His authorship of your life. So it’s like you hang on just in case…But you won’t get to the new chapter, because you’re stuck in the old.

punctuation717548When you end it with a period, however, or even a question mark (you may not have the slightest clue what’s finna happen next), you allow God to continue the story, fulfilling your purpose. A period, says to God that you trust Him enough to leave behind what you know, many cases for long periods of time, many pages. Ending with a period, letting go that is, give God the green light to take you to new places and keeps the story in progression. Thus, it doesn’t drag out and you stay in or get in unnecessary mess that wasn’t even a part of the original story…

Desire

So yesterday, I went to church and the message was on the story of the temptation of Jesus (Luke 4). I loved most how Jesus went through this to prove his humanity, and desiring to show us that we can live victoriously, even in the face of dire trials and temptation. However, the catch is being full of the Spirit. Even as Christians, we still go through things, we still are put in adverse situations, even though it may not be out fault. Yet, this story proves that we can be conquerors.

The particular temptation we looked at in the sermon yesterday, was the first, the personal temptation, of Jesus in the wilderness. Satan had probed Jesus to turn the stone into bread, being as though Jesus was hungry from not eating 40 days. Still, Jesus said no and replied “it is written…” The sin in this situation wasn’t turning stone into bread; he hadn’t eaten in so long and it can be assumed he desired to eat. However, being in a close relationship was God, he knew it was not God’s timing, and blatantly going against God’s timing is the sin. Our flesh is a monster, still, our God is greater and we can fight the temptation of self, of the flesh, no matter how practical the temptation may be, and lets be honest sometimes we want it bad, real bad…but just as Jesus was in the wilderness, we are more than conquerors (Rom 8:37).

Furthermore, it was a great reminder to me that life is full of desires and things we want, and they aren’t all bad or sinful. However, we have to understand that God has a time for everything. It gets hard to wait, especially when you have your mind made up and planned the who, what, when, where, and how. Still, as it is written, we may have our own plans, but God orders our steps and it is His purpose that will prevail and it will always be greater than expected  (Prov 16:9, 19:21). He knows the desires of our hearts, and will give them to us (Ps 37:4). Yet, we must delight in Him and His will first, so that we can know His voice when the answer is yes, no, or wait. Your desire may in fact be good, but I pose the question, is the timing bad? That’s answer can only come from God Himself, so don’t get discouraged. He wants to bless you, and truth be told, He already has. Talk to Him…What is He saying…to you?…

 

Talk about Purpose x2

These are two incredible stories that so greatly illustrate the power of the blood of Jesus. Only he can turn your failures and mess into miracle for an even greater message. God has a purpose and their stories confirm the verse:

Romans 11:29 – For God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable.

No matter what happens in your life, the bad, ugly, messed up and stupid, even if it was by your own merit, that doesn’t change God’s plan for you. He hasn’t and won’t change His mind about you.

http://www.twylah.com/BlogHer/tweets/281873963934687232

It’s Been a While

Oh my!!! It’s been so long since I’ve posted and I actually have things to finish writing. On top of that so much has been going on, so many emotions, many tears, many prayers, many smiles, good days, long days, productive days, and lazy days. I’ve been in the studio, broken a phone, lost a friend and realized how much of  a friend I had in someone else; I’ve encountered evil spirits when I was sent to pray them out of an apartment. I’ve been sick, hoarse, bitten, challenged, and put in the hot seat. I’ve learned that beating around the bush 9 times out of 10 helps no one, so in situations, I’m striving to be less passive. I’ve meet two celebrities, and learned how to do love knots, bantu knots, comb and finger coils, french braids, and 2-strand flat twist. I’ve been studying the book of Job in the Bible and it’s blown my mind and sometime soon I’ll share what I’ve learned. It’s just awesomeness. Likewise, I’m apart of the study of Jonah as created by an aspiration of mine, Priscilla Shirer, and yeah she’s awesome. “Navigating a Life Interrupted,” loving it.

Yet, for the sake of this post, I’ll talk about what I’ve learned just today. In the Priscilla Shirer study actually, in the book she questioned our place in life. This assumed that in some way or another coinciding with the “life interrupted,” we may not be in a place we thought we’d be in or what we may be doing may not be as grand as we imagined. Nonetheless it made me think of the verse Matthew 25:21:

His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

In my life now, as I’m sure many of us are we are quite where we wanted to be, or where we thought we’d be, not forgetting God totally debunked your original plan. Still, even if we yielded and are in God’s will, like me, have the urge to go out and do more and reach more. Yet, for some reason you are home; you aren’t going out to the masses; your territory grown maybe and inch; you may not be getting the calls that you thought you would by now. When this verse came to mind, I was immediately humbled. God has me where He has me for whatever purpose, and if one thing is for sure my patience and faith is being stretched. As I read in James 1:3-4, I’ll be in this spot until His work is completed in my patience and perseverance.

So, in enduring during this interesting time of my life, no matter how much I want to explore and leave and force my dreams to come true by midnight tonight, and meet so many new people, I have to be faithful to where God has placed me, at this very moment, using and developing the gifts and talents He gave me. He promised me that if I am, my oh my, He’ll entrust me with so much more. His work in my life in this stage isn’t complete but when it is…well you’ll just have to see ;)…Ironically though I am scared out my mind, but I know He is with me.