Sight Your Source

When I was in school I wasn’t much of a writer but I enjoyed writing research papers. Sounds strange, right? But I loved that when I researched the information on a topic, it was all laid out and made easy for me to manage. My least favorite part of the paper came at the end when I now had to cite my source. The format was tedious and I, who worked last minute, now had to go through my paper and figure out which words, phrases, sentences went with the specific part of the source used.

As the Lord reminded me of this unsung part of the writing process, He said to me “I need you to tell them how important it is to sight your source. When you see me working in your life, when you feel me moving in your midst, when you hear my wisdom conveyed in another person, you must make it plain that I am is there.” I remember thinking, “what an incredible and deliberate concept!” God needs us to acknowledge that He is the one moving swiftly and mightily on our behalf in the same way my teacher needed me to comb through my entire research paper and cite my source.

As I continued my conversation with God, I sought out how to better understand what He was teaching me. “How can we better sight our source?” And Jesus said to me “it starts with correction.” What the Lord made clear to me afterwards was that often times we know that Jesus worked out an issue or problem in our lives and when someone compliments the fruits of Christ’s labor, we say thank you without acknowledging the true source of our success. We say we appreciate that they noticed without being transparent about the role Jesus played. I know I’ve been guilty of this before.

In continuing the lesson, I asked the Lord “what comes after correction?” And He said to me “once you correct the way you speak it corrects the way that you speak.” In other words, once you acknowledge Jesus as the source of your good, you ingrain acknowledging Him as a permanent part of your speech. This teaching was so important to me because I remember there being a time when I didn’t acknowledge Jesus properly for my blessing because I was surrounded by people I assumed wouldn’t get it. Even if they didn’t get it, I still owe everything to God and must give honor where honor is due.

I want to encourage anyone who loves Jesus but has felt uncomfortable bragging on God in certain spaces. You’re not alone. I want you to remember that the words of our testimony is how we are saved. I want you to remember that God is worthy of all glory, honor, and praise. No matter what, these things don’t change, and you will be refreshed after letting loose the truth. Who knows who your transparency will inspire. Til’ next time adieu.

It’s About Heart Posture

Happy New Year!

It is my honor and privilege to be blogging, sharing, and speaking with you all in 2022. May the Lord show up and show out on all that you’ve been praying, fasting, and seeking Him about with hesitation or delay.

I want to talk to you about a lesson that the Lord has been teaching me about prayer and humility. In this walk in Christ Jesus, I tend to want to do things perfectly right. Can anyone else relate?

Though I’m aware that God has given us the grace to make mistakes and still be in alignment with His will for our lives, I still want to do my part and do it excellently. Now, this isn’t a bad aspiration but it can turn fruitless if left unchecked.

So what was my issue? How to pray. Not the words to say but the position to be in while praying. When I wake up in the morning, I pray on my knees but sometimes I would be sitting up in bed and pray as well. At meal time I’m sitting at the table praying, at other times I would pray standing up or with my face flat to the floor. I found myself wondering if some of those prayer positions weren’t humble enough or if my praying wrongly meant that some of those prayers didn’t reach God’s ears.

As silly as it sounds, these musings and questions consumed me to the point where I became uncertain of how to physically pray. My need to be perfectly right had now become the source of my paralysis. After a few months of the shenanigans, I finally heard a response from the Lord regarding my issue. In hindsight I believe the Lord had responded to me a lot sooner but my no longer believing that my prayers were reaching His ears, affected how His words reached mine.

And so early one morning when I was having my quiet time with God, He said “It is about heart posture not prayer position.” And just like that, it was like fireworks were going off in my mind. Of course, it is about heart posture not prayer position! What is in my heart matters most regardless of how I pray!

With that revelation, the Holy Spirit then had me reflect on how I had been behaving over the past few months, in pursuit of this need to be perfectly right in my walk. It was plain to see that I lost track of where my heart was and needed God’s grace to bring me back again.

I want to encourage anyone who might be doing the most in their walk in Christ Jesus. You can’t be perfectly right. You can be good, excellent even, but it is God that keeps you right. Don’t be afraid to have errors or make mistakes. God’s grace is truly sufficient and He will always bring you back on course if ever you veer off.

Til’ next time, adieu.

Meeting in the Middle

Hey PWEN people, it’s been a while. I’ve been taking a much needed break from writing in order to focus on my mental health, but the Lord gave me a word to share with you. For those who don’t know, Christmas time has become a difficult time for me because my mother, Peace, passed away on Christmas Eve last year.

The holidays were my mother’s favorite time of year because she enjoyed bringing her family together. We normally hosted Thanksgiving at our house and then we would go elsewhere for Christmas. Last year my mom spent Thanksgiving receiving hospice care and I couldn’t visit her because of work, a decision I still regret. We also didn’t get to share one more Christmas together.

With all of these rather harsh realities swirling around as we’re approaching the one year mark of Peace’s passing, I sunk into a deep depression, which became a full blown manic episode, after I stopped taking my medication for bipolar disorder. At the time, I wasn’t trying to do myself any harm. I was inspired by the faith of a man at my church, who put his medication on the altar, and declared that Jesus was going to heal him because he wasn’t going back home with his ailment.

I was believing in Jesus for the same type of healing. The problem was I definitely didn’t confirm if He was telling me to stop taking my medication, and I should’ve. However, despite my poor decision-making, Jesus still met me in the middle of the mess I created. He met me right in the center with the fullness of His strength, His unfailing love, and His all encompassing presence, when I felt most alone and ashamed.

Where did He meet me? The psychiatric clinic. See, my failure to take my medication, which led to my manic episode, did not come without consequences. I had lost so many days of sleep and couldn’t tell what was going on around me. My loving family, who by God’s grace I went to be with this holiday season, checked me in so that I could get the help I needed.

It was at this clinic that Jesus showed me that He heals through medication, and that this was how He was healing me back to wholeness. This realization blessed me profoundly. Within a few days of being back on my medication, I was back to normal mentally, and feeling truly loved spiritually.

I want to encourage anyone who is going through a mess this season. Don’t be afraid to expose it, because we serve the mighty God who will meet us in the middle of our mess. We serve the God whose infinite strength is greater than anything our situations and circumstances can throw our way. When we’ve created a disaster scene and end up stuck in the middle, this is the time to lean even stronger on the Lord. For in our weakness, His strength is perfected!

Til’ next time adieu.