Walking through the valley of patience with a proactive mind

Day by day I see people, places, and things in a variety of perspectives. When you want the best for your family and your future, than there is a certain level of urgency that comes with those desires. This level of urgency can be displayed in many ways. Whether it is the way you plan, pray, speak, or pursue. I realize that patience is the breeding ground that God uses to prepare us to receive these desires that are aligned in His will. I've seen marriages, ministries, businesses, anointings, and various accomplishments that God is allowing to happen all around me. There is power in patience. Patience should bring about preparation which in turn will be the foundation to build upon what God will bestow upon you. We as children of God must have a mind to be proactive and not reactive when it comes to our lives. Satan seeks to put us on the defensive by being reactive. There is power in being proactive when it comes to spiritual warfare. In order to be proactive (i.e. prayer), there must be a certain level of faith to sustain us when we can not see certain things. This faith allows us to set things in motion instead of reacting to what the enemy has already set in motion to hinder our destiny. I just want to encourage you to live your life with a proactive mindset that will in turn position you to receive what God has in store for you.

Positioned to be released through His grace

In this day and time we have to realize how delicate our destinies can be. There are individuals that should have been married but they were not positioned correctly. There are people that should have been elevated in their careers, but they were not correctly positioned either. There is power in being positioned correctly. Being positioned correctly means being where God desires you to be. This requires having a relationship with God. When you are positioned correctly and God releases you then his favor is with you. The struggle at times for me is remaining focused long enough to experience the fullness of the next phase of my destiny. God wants to release people into the next phase of their destiny, but He will not release us if we are mispositioned out of his His will. When we are positioned correctly in God's will we speed up the process of our development and maturity. There is a certain level of faith that is required to remain positioned and not become impatient. Impatience, distractions, and lack of faith are 3 things that the enemy uses to get us out of position. We must be careful to know what spirit we are being influenced by so that we can come into the full fruition of our destiny in Christ Jesus.

Looking past the obvious to focus on the potential

When I think back to the place that I was in when I was invited out to the church that I attend now and was also baptized at; I can't help but to see God's favor in my life. I was in a nightclub and the individual could have easily felt ashamed about being in the nightclub also, and could have just not said anything to me about their place of worship because of "guilt". I know people that from looking on the outside it may look like there is no need to invite them out to a church service or even witness to them because of their outward appearance; but I know differently. Sometimes we as humans can not get past what the outside looks like. Some individuals struggle to witness to feminine men and/or masculine women. I thank God for giving me eyes to look past the exterior and to look at the potential. I find myself when I am witnessing thinking about the potential outcome instead of one's current predicament. The kindgom of God can grow so much more if others in God's kingdom would just "look past the obvious and focus on the potential". This is critical because many people may not have gotten saved if it was not for someone "looking past the obvious and focusing on their potential". I just would like to encourage you to begin looking at those around you, not with "eyes of doubt" but rather with "eyes of potential" so that the kingdom of God can have a chance to grow even more.

Making a commitment to His house and the treasures within it

As I look at the condition of the Church today; I see a landscape that portrays a lack of men that have been unwilling to make a commitment not only to God's house but also to the women of God within it. This is a two-fold crisis facing the Church. Churches throughout this nation are filled with women and there remains a lack of men in comparison to our women counterparts. This in turn creates an imbalance within the the Church. God created man to be the image of Himself in the earth. When there are a lack of these images in the churches than the Church struggles to come into the fruition of its real potential. God speaks to men as well as women, so why especially in the black community is there such a discrepancy when it comes to men in the house of God? I read a study that showed 61% adult women vs %39 adult men is the average attendance in U.S. church congregations. God desires a commitment from us. There are many men that struggle when it comes to making a commitment especially in relationships and to their families. I have to realize that as men we are struggling to provide what is necessary to build the kingdom of God. I realize as a man that as long as I can stay committed to God and his house which is the Church this in turn will lead to me being committed not only to my family but also to the treasures within His house.

Finding true beauty through the eyes of purity

As a man living in a world in which true beauty is distorted, I have to fight to maintain a perspective of what true beauty really is. Before I gave my life to Jesus I had a tainted perspective of what true beauty really was. This perspective that I had was based on natural traits and had nothing to do with spiritual characteristics such as "virtuousness" and being "Christ-like". True beauty has to be based on a wholistic perspective. True beauty is lasting and not temporary. As a man I have to realize that if I seek after beauty that is only temporary that I will never truly get what God has for me. I realize now that if I was not saved that I would not be able to identify what true beauty really was. I heard an artist say that "our true beauty stems from being rooted in Him"(Jesus). Before I gave my life to Christ, no matter how attractive I thought someone was there was always someone else that could catch my attention. When we experience true beauty through the eyes of Christ this beauty should be enough to retain our attention. When God presents a spouse to you there should be enough beauty in them that your attention is focused on them and not on multiple objects of distorted beauty. Ask yourself these 2 question "If you have found true beauty than why is there a need to seek for more? Have you found Christ Jesus?

Committed to maintaining a growing and vibrant relationship

As someone that is single and trying to live for Jesus the challenge for me is knowing what things to do to continue to build a growing/vibrant relationship with Christ. I am realizing that it takes a certain amount of creativity and effort in order to grow a relationship. It can be so easy to get stuck in doing the same mundane things that are familiar to me. Before I got saved I was creative and spontaneous when it came to me expressing my feelings for the opposite sex. The challenge for me is making sure that I remain creative and spontaneous in my relationship with Christ. The same way that I strived to remain innovative in regards to how I displayed my affection before I got saved, has to be displayed on an even greater level now that I am saved. If I am able to build a strong and vibrant relationship with someone that I cannot physically see, than how much more prosperous shall my relationship with my wife be in whom I will be able to see once I step into that arena of my life? With so many distractions and temptations pulling and tugging at my time and energy how do I maintain a relationship with the one whom first loved me? What boundaries do I draw in my life to make sure that no other relationship(s) is stealing time away from me and Jesus? I just want to encourage those of you who are in this dilemma to take your creativity, intimacy, spontaneity, and energy to another level when it comes to entreating Jesus who is the only mate that should currently matter.

At a crossroads in my life: with nothing to lose

Many times I reminisce on what led to me getting saved. I was tired of wasting my time, money, and energy on things that did not add to my character or the quality of my life. A year before I got saved I had suffered through an abortion process. Before the abortion I had survived a car collision that could have been more devastating then it ended up being. I walked away from that car collision with no injuries. God was speaking to me through these situations, but I still had not finished satisfying my fleshly desires. I had gone through some things where Satan could have tried to spiritually blackmail me. None of my family members knew about the abortion, but my soul was crying out for more. I didn't know for "more of what." The emptiness that I felt was a "lack of God" in my life. I was determined not to let what I had gone through stop me from taking a different direction in life. The most important decision that I ever made in my life was to seek after God. . He came and met me where I was at in my life, and the decision was up to me as to whether to seek more of Him. I was at a crossroads in my life and I had nothing to lose. I am thankful and grateful that God extended his grace to allow me to have a relationship with Him.