I believe that we are living in precious times and men will become more so lovers of themselves rather than lovers of God. We should turn away from such things. I try to thank God for his divine intervention and leadership. God does not make mistakes. Instead, he brings things to the pass into fruition.
No matter what it looks like or how so-called “bad” things get or become, you’re a child of the king. He will bring you out unsinged and not burned. What the devil meant for bad, God meant it for good! I truly believe that God allows situations, circumstances and things, good or bad or indifferent, to shape and mold us into something beautiful!
I’ve heard it said that life is meant to be lived and that if you keep on living you are bound to end up experiencing more or less your share of difficult days. Just as well as good. We cannot have one without the other. Life is like a box of chocolates. All of it will not always be satisfying to your taste. Life shows up for all God’s creatures, great and small. No doubt. I will attest, our creator God sure possesses a good sense of humor and it ain’t always funny!
Be good to us but instead, it is good for us. “As I look back on my life and I think things over I can truly say that I’ve been blessed. I got a testimony!”A familiar songwriter/ vocalist once wrote and penned these words.
Back when I was a child, before life removed all my innocence, I still can remember waiting, anticipating the recess bell at school to sound, and acknowledging that it was time to go outside to the playground. Besides lunch, that was my next best class. Basketball, volleyball, kickball and sliding board, just to name a few, were some of the things we would do during recess. I can also still remember a few of us kids huddling up and we would begin to say “eenie meenie minie moe, catcha a tiger by the toe, if he hollers let him go, eeenie meenie minie moe” and so on. It was oh so simple then…memories! Life was so simple.
I can remember when I was a young boy around the ripe
age of 10, my parents allowed me to join the Number 9 Police Boys Club. At the boys club, we were able to play ping pong, shoot pool, and play board games such as chess, checkers, dominoes, monopoly, clue and a host of others! The boys club, back then, was the best thing in our lives, for it saved us from the threatening and treacherous life of the streets. Boxing and basketball were the two most popular activities that kept us mostly out of trouble.
As I aforementioned, boxing and basketball kept me out of trouble, most of the time. Every now and again I would slip back into embracing doing foolish things. And getting into trouble and causing disruption all around the neighborhood. Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair. I had some good days and some hills to climb. And I had some weary days as well as hungry ones and some sleepless nights. In comparison, the good outweighed the bad (and I could) but I won’t complain.
Be it though as it may, regardless of my mischief, I was even more an A to B student and I was skillful at whatever I was engaged in pursuing. 100 fold! I always excelled in whatever I endeavored to do. In spite of all those God-given gifts and talents, there still remained a void, an empty place and space which kept me frantically at times trying to accommodate and fill what I found out later in life could not be filled with things and other worldly possessions. This emptiness could only be filled by a power greater than self and this sufficiency would only come from God, our Father! By the time I embraced the ripe age of 12, the concept of junior high school my dumb-intelligent-genius within me took me to a whole new world. A whole new level of ungodliness. In the same beauty though, I knew God called me to do exploits for the advancement of the kingdom. It is there I recognized and acknowledged the war that was being waged within me.
From this very point, my life began to spiral out of control even with the foreknowledge of that declaration of being called by God to live a life pleasing to him. There were times
when the good I desired to do, I did not do. But instead, the bad I desired not to do, I did, on purpose. This battlefield of the mind got so draining to the level of despairing of life because even when I wanted to, I still couldn’t do right. The dumb-intelligent-genius in me began to navigate my life and took me to negative heights unimaginable. I knew how to be better, which is truly desired.
This tug of war persisted and it ended up in this negative rigamarole with these two defining characters who were piloting my life and where I would end up. It was not a pretty picture. I ended up in juvenile detention as a result of listening to and adhering to that powerful and negative deafening voice in my head. This period of detention was tedious and overwhelming and my very being rejected and disputed things put in place to aid and assist me in becoming a productive citizen of society. Here I grow again! The dumbintelligent-genius within me piloting my life again without a license or a parachute!
Doing the same old ignorant things, expecting different results. I wanted to blame everybody else for choices foregone. Someone once told me “Reginald, you got issues” and I say that to this. “You are your own worst enemy and it shows up in the choices you make until you get honest within yourself and expose that demon you are allowing to manipulate and sway you in the wrong direction. Things will only get exceedingly worse.”
Oh, what a tangled web one weaves for the entrapment of oneself. It’s like a jungle sometimes. It makes me wonder how I keep from going under. Yet, I still continue to fight the good fight of faith, knowing that the creator is he that is in me, that the is in the world. God always has the last say so.
Stay tuned! Let me continue to connect the dots and disclose to my avid readers the road from whence I’ve come and where I am today. Come along with me and connect the dots.
