Caught In The Rain

To date this or mark time on this blog, on May 19th, 2013 (Malcolm X's birthday by the way), I read Joshua 3 and in the 7th and 8th verse, God tells the leaders to stand still in the Jordan river and walk through it till the river dries up, but its not drying up till they start walking through the waters.  As a coincidence, if there is such a thing, President Obama gave a commencement speech at the Morehouse graduation in Atlanta, Georgia.  The interesting thing is, here in Atlanta, the rain came and came and came.  And the 2013 Morehouse men graduating class, sat in the rain, as men, as leaders, listening to the words of wisdom from the President Obama. 

Now, the usual speech any Christian or motivational speaker would give at this point is, "rain will come but you have to go through it in order to get what you want," and yes, that is the truth.  But lets dig deeper here:  these men, Joshua's men and the 2012 Morehouse men, had to stand and get drenched in the water and lead the way so that others behind them could cross on dry ground.  See, whatever rain and water we have to go through may not even guarantee that we will always get the sunny weather and dry ground afterwards but people that come behind us will have those opportunities. 

The thing is, its up to us to walk through it.  If we do not walk through it, those waters will never open up for us and for those coming behind us.  God, if we had not notice, is all about making and leaving legacies so that people will have standards and goals to aspire to.  In Joshua 4, people took 12 stones and built a memorial so that generations to come would know where they are going and where they have come from.  At the same token, Morehouse class of 2013, made a mark for future generations, especially young black men, to follow and that is, by any means necessary, through rain, through flood, through fire, through brimstone, through whatever God leads me through, we have to go through it not only for my personal success, but for the success of generations that follow.

To close, in Joshua 5: 9, God said to the Joshua, "This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you."  I bring that up to point out that Joshua and the people he led probably felt the shame of being slaves and to bring it up to current times, those Morehouse graduates probably felt some type of way knowing they had to sit out in the rain for their graduation.  But in that moment, then and now, God made a change and says, we no longer have to be ashamed of what we had to go through to get to our expected end.  Our journeys may not have always been the prettiest and brightest circumstances but God being the Master Artist, wanted to bring us to a point of completion or perfection, and any artist can tell us that any great work takes messy and ugly details but when it is over, those ugly moments were needed to get the desired result.

One At A Time or Season For Everything

Okay, call me lazy or call me devoted, but I like listening to the Bible on my computer (I love the Bible Experience, you all should get it), and got to Leviticus 19:19 talking about not mixing things together and of course brings us to why we're reading this.  I found it interesting that God made this a commandment, I mean, I've seen some beautiful hybrid flowers and tasted some good fruits and veggies that were mixed together as seeds and of course I said, God did a great job at this...lol.  But thinking on it, I understand why because different seeds have different seasons, I will say it again, different seeds have different seasons.  A professional farmer or a good gardener knows that sometimes planting two seeds at one time will affect what grows i.e, chili plants will make fruit spicy, cucumbers will make watermelons taste like cucumbers, and so many other combinations.  The gist of it is, if one thing is expected but has a different result then the work done for it has been in vain therefore no one can sell it and no one can taste it and that whole process has been wasted and now we are behind.

I know we like to multitask and combine this goal with that goal but there is a reason why oranges are oranges and apples are apples: they require their own attention to produce them and it is the same for our goals.  I'm a writer and an actor and some other stuff too but I can't focus on trying to write a poem in the middle of the scene or quote Hamlet while I'm reciting a poem about how cute rabbits are, that would be awkward and out of place.

I looked up this site, http://www.pastorpauley.com/tzedekah/articles/Leviticus19_19.pdf, talking about the benefits of planting one seed at a time and a few highlights for having as he put it, heirloom seed is that (1) tastes better, (2) more consistent performance, (3) better nutrition, and (4) a continuous harvest.  See what God is trying to bring us too: all the dreams and visions He put in us can happen if we are patient and do the necessary steps in the one season we are in now and not having to cram season three and season four into season one (it doesn't work with our dvr's so it certainly won't work with God's plan for us).  Jesus even said that mixing different wine with different bottles ruins everything (Mark 2:22).  Therefore, we have to be patient in the things that God has given  us and trust in Him to give us what we need in our apple season the same way He did in our carrot season.  There will always be seed time and harvest time just be sure not to have both hands full because you are sure to drop everything (Ecclesiastes 4:6).

Making Repairs

Okay, so yesterday I cracked my guitar that I was just learning how to play on for the last few weeks and needless to say, I was kind of down about it.  Now I was not playing like Jimi Hendrix or somebody like that but still, I was just getting into it and to have it gone like that was just troublesome.  So in talking with a co-worker about it, feeling that all hope was lost and that I would have to save and buy another guitar he said to me, "Maybe it can still be repaired.  As long as you still have the pieces there is a chance the strings can stand the strain of being fixed."  He then told me that the process of fixing the guitar is binding and glueing the broken part together then if it survives that then it can be restrung and play as good as the day it was made.   He says to me, "Things can be repaired."

Things can be repaired.  In a simple statement, truth was spoken.  Things can be repaired.  Broken, hearts, friendships, families, marriages, credit, dreams, a car, and the list go on, can be repaired.  What jumps out at me the most is that, as long as the two broken pieces are not damaged any further, there is hope it can be fixed.  Often times, we throw away and give up on what is broken when it can be repaired.  It will take work to put it back together but that is when we have to ask ourselves, is it worth going the through process of the strain to play beautiful music again? How many marriages, friendships, families can be saved if the two broken parts realize its worth the time and effort to be made one again?  It all can be repaired if we give it to the One who is the Creator of all things.

God can mend it back together but it will take a commitment on both sides to let it happen and as we all know, going through the process of something is not easy but when it is finished, it is worth it.  Besides, all the time and effort put into building something up the first time should be worth rebuilding right.  And with God now in the middle of it, it is sure to last (Ecclesiastes 4: 12).   So think back on relationships that have been broken and if there is still part of it that can be brought back together then go ahead.  If you have a broken heart then be assured that God can and will make it whole again.  If you think your dream is broken, pick up the part that is still there and God will send back the other part (2 Kings 6: 1-7) and you can start back up again.  Whatever it is, it can be made whole again, just trust that God is able to put it back together again.

Dreams Don't Have Deadlines (The Prequal)

Okay, I'm a wrestling fan, I mean a huge wrestling fan and one of my favorite wrestlers is DDP, Diamond Dallas Page, the one who will make you feel the bang!  And his whole story is very motivational and one time he did a very good promo when he was about to wrestle one of the all time greats in wrestling, Macho Man Randy Savage.  In this promo, DDP said that his first 79 matches, he lost (and as a kid I remember him losing a lot and just to say he lost is being kind).  Anyway, he lost his first 79 matches and one time he was stripped naked in the ring at a live pay-per-view, and whatever you think about wrestling, clearly, no one wanted DDP to be in the wrestling business but the thing is, just as bad as people did not want him to succeed in wrestling, his desire was even greater that he pushed through those barriers.  Keep in mind, Dallas Page was 40 when he lost his first match and continued in this streak, and this was after he had been managing other wrestlers for about fifteen years.  Years later in an interview Page said what helped him through everything was that it was his dream and "you can't put your dreams on anyone else, you have to do it yourself."  And that statement stuck with me.

Taken that into consideration, there is never a deadline on what God has given you to do.  If you want to do something bad enough, something that drives you, a purpose that you cannot deny then there is no time limit for it.  George Elliot says, “It is never too late to be what you might have been,” and its true because if time is our only limit, we have our whole lives to fulfill our dreams.  When Joseph had the dream about being a ruler over his family as a young man it did not happen till he got older.  When David wanted to build a temple, he gathered all the money and materials together and his son Solomon built it.  Simeon literary waited his entire life just for the birth of Christ.  These few and many more had dreams to keep them going and the thing is, through everything, they never gave up on their dream no matter how long it seemed to take.

The old statement of Rome not being built in a day is true.  It started with Romulus, one man with a vision of a city and after thousands of years, one man's dream became realized.  Of course Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream for the future of the people in the US and worldwide and even though he knew he probably not be alive to see it come to pass, he was willing to do whatever it took so that future generations would see it happen.  In all that, we should not put a deadline on our dreams.  If we are 40 years old trying to be wrestler or leader with hope for all people to love one another, there is no time limit on what we can accomplish.

Opportunity Knocks or Invite Opportunity

Recently, I had a conversation with someone that had a great opportunity slip through their fingers.  This person played in a marching band in high school and transferred and stop playing because of the lack of skill level of the band.  Now, in the back of the mind of some of us is, if you love doing something, those little things do not matter right, well to this person it did, and who knows where that road could have gone.  So this person comes to my alma mater, Georgia State University, who in the last few years, launched a football program and along with that came, guess what, a marching band.

Now, this band is not on the level of some other major universities just yet but that will come with time.  At any rate, this person, once again, did not join this the GSU band because it was not up to the level of expectation so being apart of it was out of the question.

Here is the kicker to this filibuster if you will (thanks Dusty Rhodes), Georgia State University just celebrated 100 years of being in education and the marching band was invited to be apart of the inauguration of the re-elected President Barack Obama which I must say as an alumni, I am proud of that fact and I am proud of the band members that were able to have that opportunity and experience; a rare, even once in a lifetime opportunity, that the person I was talking to missed out on.

As the old heads say, the only thing between us and success is opportunity and air and its true.  The thing is, opportunity comes to our house very little and accepts our invitations even less and rarely invites over for that matter so we need to take heed to Ecclesiastes 11:4, instead of waiting on right conditions to do something, i.e., a better marching band, better job, right background, or whatever we come up with, we will never do what God put on the inside of us to do because we are looking at what is going on around us instead of what is in  us.

Ecclesiastes 11:6 says that we should be working at one thing in the morning and working on another thing in the evening because opportunity could happen for either one or both but the thing is to be prepared when God sends opportunity to our house or when He tells us to call opportunity up and invite opportunity over.  I will close by saying that time is precious and opportunities are few so we have to treat it all like a lightning bolt that we can grab on to and ride it because it is no guarantee that we can put that lightning in a bottle (yes it is cliche but it fit right?)  God gives us the skill and ability, provides the opportunity, but its up to us to make the choice if answer the knock on the door or send out invitations for it.

Branded X

I was watching the show Brand X the other night and they were in the midst of an interesting social experiment. One of the audience members stated he was on the way to South Beach a.k.a. Miami, for sex to put it bluntly and the Russel Brand volunteered a backstage area as a porn shoot. (I haven't lost you yet have I? Keep following, I'm going somewhere.) So the debate came to the rest of the audience if they wanted to watch this unexpected turn of events and one woman, mature in age, stated that even though she knows the amount of pornography produced in America and around the world, she's never confronted with it publicly even though she knows it happens and it is against her morals. Now here is where we get to the heart of the matter because Russel points out that we as a society know that immorality and injustice exists and is happening all around us but as long as we are never confronted with them personally, we continually go along with the status quo. Too often we shake our heads at crimes we hear on the news and other things but when more schools are closing, communities are failing, bullying is still rising, shelters are falling apart, racism, sexism, and the list goes on but we do not take a stand on these things. God never wants us to accept things as status quo; He wants us to do justice and judgment (Proverbs 21:3) . In a world where there seem to be me more priests and Levites and less good Samaritans, people are hurting and left on the side of the road because society has said its a sad situation but it is what is. God is calling us to something higher than to accept things as is; He put in us to be different and to change situations. The first step to greatness is to not turn a blind eye but rather, extend a warm hand to those who are suffering in a cold world (Luke 10:25-37).

Willing To Wait

Recently, I mean very recently in December 2012, I saw a line begin to form one evening in front of a shoe store on Candler Rd in my hometown of Decatur, GA and the next early morning, the line got even bigger.  One can assume it was for the Jordan 4 or the D Rose 3 shoe; in any event, it was cold and the store was not going to do a midnight sale so those people had to wait.  It made me think, people can discipline themselves to wait for anything and go to any lengths if they think it is worth it.  We can hardly wait for the dinner to get done or for microwave popcorn to finish or even for a friend to hurry up so that we can get to where we are going; we have to build up patience for those things because in reality, those things are not of great value to us.  But things we really value and want to happen, we become very patient for it.  So I think that is an approach we should to take to our dreams and goals as well.  In Luke 2, Simeon was promised to see Christ before it was over and so he waited.  Abraham, in Genesis 12 and 13 was promised to have essentially, a nation of children but he had to wait on his first child with his wife, Sarah.  And there are so many other examples I could give.  The point is, we must have patience for things to happen because, like those customers that waited for about 15 hours in the cold, anything of value is not going to be given over night.  In the book, Outlier by Malcolm Gladwell, he gives us the "10, 000-Hour Rule," which is to work on your purpose, your dream, your goal, for a long period of time, working out the kinks and the wrinkles so that it and you are perfected.  It takes time + dedication (patience in other words) = to get perfection but you have to be willing to go through whatever it takes, good and bad, cold and hot, sun and rain, days and weeks, months and years.  In this smart phone and facebook/twitter/instagram society we tend to think that things should be done in a blink of an eye and that our dreams and goals should get presidential treatment (never having to wait on anything); but if you look at what it took for the person to become president, all the years of hard work plus the amount of the babies kissed, its no wonder he or eventually she, does not have to wait for an elevator or an airplane or limo.  So remember to go for your dreams and purposes but remember that it takes patience to keep going after them, and if you read Hebrews 11, you may not see the full completion of it in your lifetime but that does not mean you give it up.  Run with patience until your task is complete.