I begin tonight's blog with a long exhale....sighing, gathering my thoughts, and praying all in one breath. Somehow finding solace in my momentary prayer and deep draw of oxygen, I share with you a lesson that I've learned.
If there's one thing I know, after 25 years of living, it is that the devil never sleeps. Don't mistake this statement to mean that I think he is more aware than God, because God is omnipresent and omniscient! Ever present and all knowing! But that devil...oh he works hard to make us falter. That devil...oh he works overtime when there is a good work going on in the name of the Lord! Today, I must admit that he almost got me for the okie-doke.
Tonight was another Youth Bible Study night. I had the lesson all planned out. I had a new structure and incentives laid out to make the lesson more fun, interactive, and appealing to my wonderfully apathetic tween/teenage boys and girls. So, I begin the lesson, and the children were actually being very attentive and quiet...I thought to myself "Wow, they are actually behaving themselves." Instantly, I relaxed myself (I was a little all over the place from a long day at work) and set in for a comfortable lesson about relying and trusting in God (Proverbs 3:4-5). In that second..in that solitary decision to not be on my absolute p's and q's...the devil found his way into the lesson. The moment I was lulled into a false sense of security that the devil so frequently uses to fake us into his snares, he attacked! The kids began to act terribly! The attitude shift in the room took a dramatic turn for the worst. Kids began back talking, yelling at one another, hitting one another, laughing, playing, etc (all the things you KNOW you wouldve gotten a whoopin for)....
Soon enough, I had lost my patience. I had lost my resolve. I had forgotten the reason that I was even there in the first place. I became frustrated. Frustration led to irritation. Irritation soon blossomed into full on disdain! Instead of reprimanding the class, I dismissed them in anger. I didn't stand there and be the example of a leader that I should have been. I didn't react in a manner in which I felt was the most Godly. I did the exact opposite of what the lesson was about, further discrediting my witness as a good Christian. I so took an 'L' for God.
I left the church feeling slightly defeated and highly heated. How could they be so rude? So blatantly disrespectful? How could they not see the sacrifice of those who want them to have a good relationship with God?....The minute that thought entered into my mind, tears stung my eyes. Not because I was upset with them, but because I was upset with me. The key word was sacrifice. God sent His Son, sacrificed Him...for us, so that we may have life...so that we could be saved...so that we could make it to Heaven one day. My time spent with the children wasnt for me...but it was for God. I wasn't sacrificing my time for me...I was doing it for God. In my anger, I had lost sight of that. All I could think about was how ungrateful the kids were acting, but really I should have been looking at myself. If I wanted to inspire spiritual change among the children, then I needed to be the change....and I failed. I failed them..and I almsot failed God. I almost let the devil rejoice in victory because the lesson I was trying to teach didn't go as planned. But I take back the victory in the name of God because I know that next time I will deal with the children differently. I will trust that God see's my efforts and will see me through. I will know that the only thing that matters is that God is love, and that is the image that I should mirror as a spiritual leader for the Youth.
So...yeh, I took an 'L' for God tonight. But it wasn't a Loss. It could have been...especially if I had let the devil get the best of me. Instead, I took a Lesson for God. My lesson was in Love. Because He loves me, He saved me..and He continues to save me everyday of my life. It is because of this, that I love God with all of my heart, and I will be back next wednesday to teach the kids another lesson, so that their love for Him can grow as well....
Showing posts with label lesson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lesson. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Friday, May 23, 2008
Wolves in Sheep's Clothes...
I probably should have wrote this blog a long time ago...
But silly me didn't realize just how transpired events (even until today) were shaping yet another lesson learned.
Who has ever heard the saying a 'nigga' is a 'nigga' (and excuse my language, but I just need to get my point across)? I can truly say I really thought I understood fully and completely well what this statement meant, but CLEARLY I hadn't.
Okay, let me lay it out here for yall (and this is for men and women both):
Who has ever thought that talking to or dating someone hinged on set criteria and prerequisites such as, status, beit monetary or reputation, educational background, moral standing, and/or career choice/path? I must willingly admit, that I was a firm believer in the standards I had set for the filter I used to weed out the men from the boys, the losers from the winners, the keepers from the keep it pushin'. I thought that with my trusty list of credentials, I would never come across those 'niggas' that KeKe 'nem from up the street were always dealing with. Ha ha ha, but oh contrare! Just like in the justice realm it is said 'innocent until proven guilty'...I was 'naive (borderline dumb) until proven wrong.'
As I said, I had a set list of my standards that I called myself never settling for so that I could never be hurt: The list is as follows:
1.) College Degree --> Bachelor's minimum but Graduate degree would be even better
2.) Nice car and House (or a desire to own a home within the next 3-5 years)
3.) Career not a job (there is a huge difference) or furthering his degree at the time
4.) No children preferably
5.) Real relationship with the Lord/able to be a spiritual partner
Now, those were my 5 basic bare minimum requirements as to what I was looking for in a mate (more here and there were added, however these were consistent). Using these rules, I actually dated 3-4 men who fit all of them. Here's where the rude awakening comes...they were all 'niggas'! Two were PhD students and were on track to making six figures! One was succesfully employed after receiving a graduate degree with a nice home. All of them claimed to have a right relationship with the Lord. And none of them had children. I thought surely that my Adam was somewhere in there! WRONG!! These turned out to be some of the grimiest, most trifling men I have encountered in my life. A mangy dog ridden with fleas is compliment compared to their kind! They lied, cheated, and manipulated all with the most innocent of smiles on their faces. So what is my point?
Don't think that just because you seemed to have found someone with high moral standing along with the career, education, and status to back it up that he (or she) is not a 'nigga.' Transcripts, paygrade, and the cost of a car have nothing to do with the make of a man (or woman). We as people like to pretend like it does, but it truly is mutually exclusive. A person is going to be who he or she wants to be regardless of his/her position in life. It may be fair to say that a person of good character with goals and determination, may live a life with such perks as a nice career, car, and house. But the converse just is not true whatsoever. It is highly inaccurate to say a person with a nice career, car, and house is probably of good moral character. And that is where the fallacy within my naive, young mind resided for almost 23 years.
For all of you reading this, take stock in this: Wolves in Sheep's Clothing may not be that hard to spot if you wise up and look at the way you are looking at things yourself. All wolves don't smell like wolves or hang with wolves. Just like all 'niggas' don't look like 'niggas' or neccesarily hang with them. I thought there was an easy way to make sure that I would never surround myself with a wolf, when actuality I was only increasing my chances of encountering wolves in sheep's clothing. So, re-evaluate how you choose your potential mates. Do not make it about credentials or prerequisites...you are not interviewing for a job. Instead, think about the very thing that cannot be bounded or held by a college degree or bought with money...LOVE. I am not saying that you shouldn't be concerned with the credentials I named earlier, clearly we all need security in knowing that our mate could provide for us; however, those cannot be the sole basis we use to find our mate. That is left up to God our maker and the love we decide to share with one another.
But silly me didn't realize just how transpired events (even until today) were shaping yet another lesson learned.
Who has ever heard the saying a 'nigga' is a 'nigga' (and excuse my language, but I just need to get my point across)? I can truly say I really thought I understood fully and completely well what this statement meant, but CLEARLY I hadn't.
Okay, let me lay it out here for yall (and this is for men and women both):
Who has ever thought that talking to or dating someone hinged on set criteria and prerequisites such as, status, beit monetary or reputation, educational background, moral standing, and/or career choice/path? I must willingly admit, that I was a firm believer in the standards I had set for the filter I used to weed out the men from the boys, the losers from the winners, the keepers from the keep it pushin'. I thought that with my trusty list of credentials, I would never come across those 'niggas' that KeKe 'nem from up the street were always dealing with. Ha ha ha, but oh contrare! Just like in the justice realm it is said 'innocent until proven guilty'...I was 'naive (borderline dumb) until proven wrong.'
As I said, I had a set list of my standards that I called myself never settling for so that I could never be hurt: The list is as follows:
1.) College Degree --> Bachelor's minimum but Graduate degree would be even better
2.) Nice car and House (or a desire to own a home within the next 3-5 years)
3.) Career not a job (there is a huge difference) or furthering his degree at the time
4.) No children preferably
5.) Real relationship with the Lord/able to be a spiritual partner
Now, those were my 5 basic bare minimum requirements as to what I was looking for in a mate (more here and there were added, however these were consistent). Using these rules, I actually dated 3-4 men who fit all of them. Here's where the rude awakening comes...they were all 'niggas'! Two were PhD students and were on track to making six figures! One was succesfully employed after receiving a graduate degree with a nice home. All of them claimed to have a right relationship with the Lord. And none of them had children. I thought surely that my Adam was somewhere in there! WRONG!! These turned out to be some of the grimiest, most trifling men I have encountered in my life. A mangy dog ridden with fleas is compliment compared to their kind! They lied, cheated, and manipulated all with the most innocent of smiles on their faces. So what is my point?
Don't think that just because you seemed to have found someone with high moral standing along with the career, education, and status to back it up that he (or she) is not a 'nigga.' Transcripts, paygrade, and the cost of a car have nothing to do with the make of a man (or woman). We as people like to pretend like it does, but it truly is mutually exclusive. A person is going to be who he or she wants to be regardless of his/her position in life. It may be fair to say that a person of good character with goals and determination, may live a life with such perks as a nice career, car, and house. But the converse just is not true whatsoever. It is highly inaccurate to say a person with a nice career, car, and house is probably of good moral character. And that is where the fallacy within my naive, young mind resided for almost 23 years.
For all of you reading this, take stock in this: Wolves in Sheep's Clothing may not be that hard to spot if you wise up and look at the way you are looking at things yourself. All wolves don't smell like wolves or hang with wolves. Just like all 'niggas' don't look like 'niggas' or neccesarily hang with them. I thought there was an easy way to make sure that I would never surround myself with a wolf, when actuality I was only increasing my chances of encountering wolves in sheep's clothing. So, re-evaluate how you choose your potential mates. Do not make it about credentials or prerequisites...you are not interviewing for a job. Instead, think about the very thing that cannot be bounded or held by a college degree or bought with money...LOVE. I am not saying that you shouldn't be concerned with the credentials I named earlier, clearly we all need security in knowing that our mate could provide for us; however, those cannot be the sole basis we use to find our mate. That is left up to God our maker and the love we decide to share with one another.
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