God is #1

“Thou shall have no other gods before me.”

Exodus 20: 3

With essays, exams, presentations, and mandatory events piled on top of each other, it’s a challenge finding time to eat and sleep, so how am I supposed to find time to read the Bible and pray? When school first started I kept the perfect schedule. I knew when to eat, sleep, do homework, read the word, and converse with God. However, as the weeks went on, college life got more stressful, more difficult and more time consuming. I found myself forgetting to eat, pulling all nighters, getting easily distracted in class, dusting off my Bible and questioning God’s voice.

It started off as a simple mistake. One morning, after staying up the night before much later than I should have, I woke up with only 15 minutes to get to my first class of the day. With no time to read even one scripture and neglecting a quick “Thank you Jesus for waking me up this morning” I bolted out the door, jotting down a quick mental note to read and pray before I went to bed. However, when bedtime came I was preoccupied with an essay, so I pushed my devotion back to the next morning, promising to wake up an hour early. Of course, already sleep deprived, that never happened…eventually there was a void that began to develop in my spirit. My Holy Ghost was crying out for the Lord and I’d try to shut it up with a verse from Psalms and saying grace before so I could go back to studying, but it never worked…not that I really expected it to.

I was sitting in my room trying to write an essay on ‘Science vs. Religion’ when I decided to use the scripture above, Exodus 20: 3, to defend one of my arguments. (Let me just tell you that God knows how to reach you.) I contemplated on how people could worship things, and realized that’s just what I was doing. Worship means to “give reverent honor, homage and adoration to a personage or object regarded as sacred.” I’ve always put my education first in my life. Without it I can’t get a career, I can’t earn any money, and I can’t make a living. However, without God I can’t even get out of bed, I can’t breath the air I need to survive, and I can’t make it to heaven.

 Education is indeed important but in the end a PHD is going pass away and only what you’ve done for God will stand. We need to keep Him first. Our relationship with Him should be the most important thing. I will no longer let the workload and stresses of college let me lose sight of my bond with God. I have totally reworked my daily schedule, not to fit God around everything else, but to fit everything else around Him. I now have time to read my Bible and get on my knees before eating, doing any type of school work, and manage to go to sleep at a decent hour. I feel myself getting closer to God and my relationship with Him is getting better day-by-day. 

#'nuffsaid

Trust in Him

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my way, saith the Lord.”

Isaiah 55:8

Growing up in church, I was always told that once I got to college my relationship with God would go through the ultimate test. I used to take the saints warnings lightly, brushing It off, assuming I would be fine if I just kept praying, fasting and reading my word. However, now that I’m in college and have gotten a feel for it, I can say that it’s best to listen to the wisdom from the elders of the church.

Last week, I was dealing with an issue that I stressed over for days. I was presented with a great opportunity and really wanted to take it. I know that the Bible says “…no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly” (Psalms 84:11) but it also says “…faith without works is dead…” (James 2:26) so not only did I have faith that the Lord was going to present me with this chance to further my academics, I also prepared, prayed, fasted and stayed in my word. However, in the end I was denied the prospect. I was torn up inside for days. I felt as if God hadn’t heard and it made me question if He ever had. I felt like I could never trust Him to be there for me again.  I knew that I should have gone back to Him in prayer in order to get clarification but instead I found excuse after excuse not get on my knees, even after hearing Him call out to me. I was like a child ignoring their parent who refused to give them a lollipop.

I am a member of the gospel choir at my school and one night during dismissal prayer the leader quoted the scripture above, explaining that though we don’t always understand why things happen the way they do and all we can do is trust Him. This hit me hard. I had put all of my trust in Him and felt like it had been broken but in reality it hadn’t been. As soon as I got back to my dorm room I fell to my knees in prayer. I apologized for turning my back on Him and thanked Him for not forgetting me. We have to remember that God works in mysterious ways and even though we may not always understand them, we have to trust that He is doing what He knows is best for us. Its like Deitrick Haddon says in his song, “…don’t give up on God, because He won’t give up on you…” I still don’t know why the opportunity had been denied to me and I’m not even going to try to figure it out. I know that it just wasn’t a good thing for me and that I have an even better blessing on the way. 

#nuffsaid

Fearless

       

         For the past twelve years I’ve worked my hardest in order to further my education at a university and fulfill the plans God has for me. When I finally made it, nothing could over shadow the excitement that I could barely contain. I had a very sheltered view of college. I expected to go to class, study in my dorm, eat meals in the cafeteria and hang out with friends when time permitted. However, when I arrived I began to see that college truly isn’t that black and white.

Teachers give you a syllabus and expect it to be complete by the end of the semester, your dorm mates beside you, above you and even below you keep you up all night with music continuously thumping through the walls, there’s so much to do you forget to eat, and even when you hang out with friends you’re thinking about the millions of things you have to do in order to graduate.  The first week of school revealed the world in burst of colors I thought I was ready to experience but instead of adapting, I spent the first couple of days numb to any distinct feeling until finally I broke down.

I can’t remember a time in high school where I felt this type of stress or cried so many tears. I could feel myself becoming fearful of everything but the one that was clear was failure in my future. After one week my peace of mind was completely shattered. I decided to go home for the weekend as a way to escape, but secretly hoping I wouldn’t have to go back. In the car, the song above popped in to my head and I realized that I was letting the devil get the best of me, but letting him scare me away from the blessing God has for me. It was then I decided that fear was no longer something I was going to allow to consume me.

As stated in one of my previous posts “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end” (Jeremiah 29:11) but even when children of God are in His will there are going to be times when we are afraid of where He is going to take us and how we’re going to get there, but the Bible says “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7).  We were not meant to be fearful of anything but God himself so whenever we are, we have to immediately cast that negative emotion out and replace it with the joy He gave us.  This song inspired me to confront the fear that’s been tormenting me this past week and say goodbye to it for good.  I am now ready to return to school from the long weekend and claim what God has in store for me over the next four years.  Enjoy! 

#'nuffsaid

Stand Out

“For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God, and the LORD hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth.”

Deuteronomy 14:2

Time is finally up and in a couple of days I’ll officially be a college freshman. My school’s official Facebook page has been blowing up with posts of excitement and anticipation. The buzz has been about who’s bringing the keg, passing our online questionnaire about drug use, showing each other up with the latest dance moves, and trying to see if corny pick up lines actually work. Don’t get me wrong, I’m just as thrilled as the rest of them are; however, I know that my expectations don’t really match up with many of theirs.

As a follower of Christ, I don’t drink, I don’t do drugs, and I won’t be having sex before I’m married. Now, as I re-read my previous statement, I understand how unorthodox it may be, especially because the world we live in greatly embraces all three acts. It’s normal for young people to have their first hangover before the age of 16, walk around on a high all hours of the day, and wake up in a strange bed, more than a couple of times.  However, to me, it’s all still foreign and it used to make me feel like a freak.

My Sunday school teachers taught me to think of the difference between the Godly and the ungodly as a fine line. I remember when approval from the world was the most important thing to me, but at the same time I still wanted to make it to heaven, so I kept one foot on both sides of that line, basically straddling the fence. I would blast rap songs that had no curse words, I’d consider communion wine as a taste of alcohol, I’d hang out with dope fiends but refuse their handouts, and I would twist the truth, telling the other girls I was just waiting for the right one. The Bible says “a double minded man is unstable in all his ways” (James 1:8) and that’s exactly what I was. After truly looking at myself in the mirror, I made the choice to follow God and live by the laws He has laid out no matter the social repercussions, which brings me to the scripture above.

I embrace the phrase “peculiar people”. I am proud to say that I am DIFFERENT! Followers of Christ were meant to be. We were meant to make the world like us, not let the world make us like it. I understand that there’s a lot of peer pressure to do what everyone else is doing, go where everyone else is going, and say what everyone else is saying, and I know it isn’t easy but we have to get to the place where Jesus was when they talked about Him and be able to say ‘who cares?’ Everyone claims to be unique but only followers of Christ truly are. It goes farther than just standing on the side lines at a club, boldly refusing a drink, passing during a night of “puff puff”, or stopping before things go too far. It’s never accepting the invitation, it’s asking your peers to stay sober, refusing to breath in secondhand smoke, and not even stepping into the bedroom. We were meant to “STAND OUT”, as Tye Tribbett would say, and that’s what we need to do so we can bring people in the world out of it. The most important witness is your life. We can’t only say no to the devil, we have to show him what it means.

#nuffsaid



His Will Be Done

“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end.”

Jeremiah 29:11

I have exactly a month left before my first day as a freshman in college. Lately, I’ve been asked the same question over and over again; are you excited? When most people hear the word “college”, they tend to think the same thing; FREEDOM! So my answer to the previous question is always the same; OF COURSE! However, even with the excitement of a new school, new friends, and new experiences, I know the most important thing about college is that it’s another big step towards my future, which brings me to the scripture above.

Jeremiah 29:11 is one of my favorite scriptures and has been an encouragement these past couple of years. In a nut shell the scripture is saying that God has a plan for your life, a good plan that is going to allow you to have a bright future. I like to keep that in mind, especially while at this point in my life, because, even though it’s the school I’ll be attending in the fall, George Washington wasn’t my first choice, Drexel was. I pretty much fell head over heels in love with the school after my very first visit and decided that’s where I wanted to go for college. However, I later learned that just because my heart was set on it didn’t mean that God’s was. I was accepted in to the school and prayed that things would go smoothly but instead everything unexpectedly fell through and I was unable to attend, finally I “settled” to go to George Washington.

For a while I was mad, straight up furious with God. I felt like He had failed me even after I did everything I thought a Christian was supposed to do. I had faith, I prayed and I fasted but things still didn’t go my way. The silly thing was that for a while I assumed God was just working in those “mysterious ways” everyone’s always talking about. I thought He was trying to teach me patience, but the lesson went much deeper than that. I realized that I was thinking more about what I wanted and less about what God wanted. I had no right to be upset with the path my life was taking because, just like my Sunday school teacher said today, only God knows what’s best for me. Just like the scripture says God plans for you are “of peace and not of evil”.  Even if I didn’t like George Washington at first and thought it wasn’t the right school for me, I know God isn’t trying to kill my dreams of a bright future; He’s trying to put me on the right path towards it.

As followers of Christ we know that God is just and fair, and “…no good thing will he withhold from...” (Psalm 84:11) you. However, we have to remember that not all things that are “good” are necessarily for us. How can we say that we’re living for God if we don’t completely submit to His will? God has a unique plan for each of our lives and even if we don’t like the way that we’re going, we have to trust and believe that God knows exactly what He’s doing to ensure you get the blessing you’re striving for.

 #'nuffsaid

The Battleground

“And he said, Hearken ye, all Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and thou king Jehoshaphat, Thus saith the LORD unto you, Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not yours, but God's.”

2 Chronicles 20:15

When I got saved (baptized in Jesus name and received the gift of the Holy Ghost) I felt like I was on cloud 9 after the saints of the church congratulated me for receiving salvation. I felt confident in my walk with God, I thought my fellowship was straight, and I assumed that nothing could touch me. However, I quickly figured out what my brothers and sisters in Christ had failed to tell me that day; living for the Lord is a battle.

The scripture above comes from 2 Chronicles 20:15. The spirit of the Lord came upon Jahaziel and spoke to the congregation of Judah with words that comforted them as they prepared for battle against their enemies from Ammon, Moab and Mount Seir (Read 2 Chronicles 20:1-19). Now the people of Judah served the Lord but they still had bad things happening to them, such as this upcoming battle. When we give ourselves to God and submit to His will don’t expect life to be a skip through a valley of flowers because the truth is, we’re going to go through some things. The devil isn’t after those who are OF the world, but those who are only IN the world. Meaning? He’s after the ones who are serving God and not him. He’s after us.

I would assume that the people of the Judah didn’t want to go to war but they trusted God enough to go anyway, and because they did He gave them the power to destroy their attackers. We, as youth for Christ, are fighting a spiritual battle in the physical world and the devil is going to tempt us with things that we like, things we thought salvation took care of but in reality the desire is going to sneak back up on us. It’s hard to say no, especially when the going gets tough but we have to trust God through it all because just like it says in the scripture above “the battle is not yours, but God’s.” My pastor preached a sermon on this scripture once. It was titled Lord Fight For Me, and that’s what we have to know. Even though we’re in a continuous war against the devil, the good thing about being on the Lord’s side is that we’re not on the frontlines, He is, and through Him we already have the victory. We’re already guaranteed to get a W out of this, just like the people of Judah, so as long as we continue to serve Him we’ll win it all fighting this fight of life.

#'nuffsaid