Yesterday’s blog was GOOOOD!!! LOL… If I must say so myself!
No really….for me it reminded me that though I am
responsible for preparing myself for my promise (love & marriage) it is
nothing that I earn! Because love is not
merited on good works, it is freely given. When I think about the years of
trying to impress God and prove to Him that I was worthy! When He was trying to get me to see that I
was worthy simply because He made me! And that I am worthy of real love!
After I posted the blog last night I thought some of the
teaching on preparing to be a wife or preparing to be married that I have heard
and I am not saying that preparing is not essential it is just not a
prerequisite of being loved… and I think we with the microphones miss that when
trying to minister to the single saved.
I am actually grateful on this end of the journey that He didn’t reward
my efforts with respect to allowing me to think I had done something to earn
it.
What comes to mind is this thought, “if you enter into a
marriage believing that you earned it you will treat is as a trophy and not as
a ministry”... Good right?!?! We save that topic for a little later LOL
But let’s dive into this preparation thing a little more first… See, I had previously approached preparation
in fear and not faith. I didn’t do it in
belief that He was going to reward me, I prepared in fear that He wouldn’t find
me worthy or that I didn’t qualify… So
for however many years, I had been operating in what I thought was faith but it
was actually fear. This is probably why
I couldn’t be consistent with my preparation or faithful in my waiting…
I would have these dips…3 months then dip…6 months, 9
months, 1 year then dip… because when nothing would manifest I would get discouraged
that after doing my best, that my best wasn’t good enough! Not for a man, but for God! See, I can get a man, that is not my issue
LOL …It was getting the RIGHT man!
Receiving the man that my life requires… and for a
long time I didn’t see myself as being worthy of having that kind
of man IN my life…because I surely I didn’t measure up to all the things people
said I needed to be, and surely I didn’t measure up because if I had then
wouldn’t the Lord have rewarded my efforts by now??? If I was doing everything that I was supposed
to do, going to church, serving in ministry, paying my tithes, fasting, praying
fasting THEN wouldn’t He see I was ready and reward me with the man that my
life required…. And since I had done all
I knew right and He didn’t reward… I had figured it was because; I just wasn’t
good enough for “that” kind of man! Holy Ghost filled, sanctified, fire
baptized, walking up right, speaking in tongues, prayer warring, intellectual kind
of man!
So I found myself, attracting myself… when I really reflect,
most of the men that I loved, I LOVED because I could see me in them. I could see the pain of rejection, them
wanting to be loved, accepted, affirmed and found worthy of love and
loyalty! Since I could identify with
that pain, I wanted to give them what no one had given me, love without merit! Not realizing that it was “house of mirrors
effect” …whereby seeing myself was the inevitable trap only for the moment I
thought I saw my way out, I would just keep running back into…myself! Haven’t you ever wondered why you keep
attracting the same person, just with different names?!?! LOL …I am laughing
but I am so serious!
Not realizing that as saved as I was, as Holy Ghost filled
as I was, as anointed as I was… what I WAS was still broken… I had not removed the burial clothes that had
me bound. It is THIS mindset that is fueled
by fear but not by faith!
What comes to mind is a sermon I heard preached by Pastor
Dexter Nutall (New Bethel Baptist, Washington, DC)…
His sermon text was from the book of I Samuel chapter
one. If you are not familiar with the
history of the text, I will try my best to give you the abbreviated version…. Here
you have a young woman by the name of Hannah.
Hannah is married to a very prominent man by the name of Elkanah. We know that Elkanah was wealthy because he
didn’t have just one wife but he had two wives.
And though he loved Hannah, she could not give him any children. Because the other wife was fertile, she liked
to taunt Hannah. This was very upsetting
to Hannah. Even though she knew her husband loved her she still felt
unfulfilled…
Year after year, Hannah would go and bring sacrifices to the
house of the Lord and pray in hopes that God would hear her and respond by
giving her a child. But year after year,
she was no closer to receiving what she wanted than she was the year
before. Around the 7th verse,
you find Hannah in a place of complete devastation… her countenance was sorrowful;
she wouldn’t eat and couldn’t stop crying.
Hannah again goes to the house of God to lay her petition at the altar
and she continued to pray and cry. The
priest, Eli, heard her and after some dialogue around the matter, he told her
to go in peace and that she would conceive. Immediately she stopped crying, her
countenance was lifted and went back home eating and drinking…it was not before
long she conceived and gave birth to the promise.
Often when the message is preached the focus is put on the vow
(that act of commitment, the human participation/work of effort presented to
God) that Hannah makes the last time at the altar. But what Pastor Nutall suggested
during his sermon is that had Hannah responded in faith the way
she did when Eli, the priest, said that her prayer was heard by leaving with a
lifted countenance, without fear or doubt that God’s delay was not a denial, the
first time she had gone to the altar maybe she would not have to experienced
the delay in the manifestation… An observation often overlooked but essential
in the exchange… SEE, Eli’s proclamation to Hannah, was in fact, the change
agent because He allowed her to HEAR! Because faith comes by hearing… the word
Eli spoke gave Hannah faith to believe, freeing her to act in faith by waiting
patiently and not responding to the absence of the manifestation in fear. We are sometime so bound up in the grave’s
clothes… bound by what we think we need to do to earn the blessing of God we
can’t hear Him proclaiming the promise…
What did you hear Him say the last time you left the altar?
Did you leave in confidence that He has heard your petition or did you walk
away trying to figure out what you can say or do next in order to get His
attention to respond? Maybe, just maybe
He doesn’t want you to offer Him anything other than your heart. Maybe He just wants you to get up from your
prayer post hearing His promise of provision over your life…believing that He
knows what you need and why you need it. And maybe, just maybe He is waiting for you to
respond in faith!!! Because love made
perfect really does cast out fear!
I don’t have all the answer, but I know…what I know!
No comments:
Post a Comment