THE BURDEN OF CHURCH

As a child I loved going to church. In fact, I would sometimes beat my parents to church on Sunday mornings. I grew up in a small town and lived about 10-12 blocks from church. It was a nice walk and sometimes I would make it when my parents were running behind. There was something about the fellowship. The people were like family and I looked forward to seeing my friends every week. Sunday school was my absolute favorite. I loved discussing the Bible with my friends. My teen Sunday School teacher was amazing. His love and passion for the Word of God was a huge influence on my spiritual development. His passion made me want to know God intimately, and to study His word. Church was a sacred place - a special place where growing in our faith was the priority. I was taught what church should be. The Church universal. The bride of Christ. A place of edification and service. I loved going to church as a child because it was a refuge. Worship was a sacred time where I could be in the presence of God personally and corporately and leave feeling equipped to endure.
I have found over the years that the sanctity of worship in the house of God has diminished. Where church used to be place of refuge for me, a place where I could escape the rigor and ills of my week has become a cacophony of activities and obligations. It has in many ways, for me, become a chore. I find myself feeling bound instead of feeling free.

​When people are going through a trial they need a respite, a sanctuary where they can be in the presence of God with fellow believers that will pray for you and lift them up. The absence of worship and sound Biblical preaching is why young people are missing from our pews. In our churches we meet over and over trying to come up with strategies to bring more people into the church when all we need is to preach Christ and Him crucified and resurrected. Folk are looking for Jesus even if they don’t know it. The church must give Him to them. Lift Him up and He will draw.

I have conversations with people who have been hurt in the church quite often. Their accounts of why they no longer attend church rarely has anything to do with Jesus but everything to do with the people. To be quite frank, church is sometimes a hard sell. Even with all of the challenges I would still rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. We must stay in the fight to ensure that the mission of the church is upheld. We have to keep working and praying and lifting one another up. We have to continue to pray for the presence of the Holy Sprit to have his way in our worship services. There is nothing like the fellowship of believers so let us continue to pray.

My prayer is that we enter into our places of worship for the purpose of worship and equipping. That we set aside the worship service for folk to get what they need while in the presence of God. May we invoke the presence of the Holy Spirit so that the anointing will fall and yokes will be broken. May our praise and worship be so focused and so high and so authentic, that the atmosphere is present for liberation and deliverance from the things that bind us.

As Jesus went to the cross He was was beaten unmercifully only to then extended mercy as He hung between two thieves. To the one who accepted His invitation He promised that he would be with Him in paradise. He extends that same mercy to us, and we ought honor that in our churches every second of every minute of every hour of every day.

RESENTMENT

Identifying the Affliction
The man at the pool at Bethesda sat in his affliction for thirty-eight years until the Lord asked him a simple question, “Do you want to be healed”? Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.” And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked.
“See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you.” Every time I read this verse I think wow, thirty-eight years! How can anyone stay in the same condition that long? I could not understand it, until I found myself in the same situation. The Lord revealed to me my affliction of resentment. My resentment was not general, but rather toward a particular person. That resentment would prove to destroy my peace for over two decades. Resentment was like a yoke around my neck It was not until I asked the Lord to search my heart and to reveal the issues there that I was able to identify this malady. It was a shocking revelation, one that leveled me. One that I was ashamed of. When God spoke to me, it became clear and apparent that a change had to take place. The focus I resented but in my own heart. Resentment is bitter indignation at having been treated unfairly. I could not love through a lens of resentment.


Jump
My affliction become a part of me, so much so, that it becomes my new normal. I was speaking with a co-worker the other day who reminded me of the analogy of the boiling frog. If a frog is placed suddenly into boiling water it will immediately jump out, but if the frog is put in tepid water which is then brought to a boil slowly, it’s body will adjust to the changing temperature of the water. It will not perceive the danger because of its ability to adapt and will be cooked to death.

I will say, that there is profound value in a trial by fire when walking with the Lord. Sometimes you have to stay in the difficult place to learn the lesson. But the “jumping” I’m speaking of is a jumping of consciousness. It is amazing how long you can stay in a situation and how easy it becomes to operate in that condition by adapting to the thing that is literally killing you. The temperature increased slowly, days turned into weeks, which turned into months, which turned into years which turned into decades. I experienced this…I lived it….and then, after two decades, I jumped.


Comfortable is not synonymous with Contentment
For me, comfortable is adapting to the situation you are in with no action to change. Contentment is recognizing that the condition you are in is not where you should be, and then operating in joy while you pray for God to deliver. For me, comfortable became a warm fuzzy blanket and I found myself existing as opposed to living.
Once I became keenly aware of my condition the spiritual work began, God moved me into a changed mind set. When you make the shift from being comfortable to being content with the fact that His grace is sufficient, everything changes.


God’s Grace is Sufficient
God’s grace allowed me to accept that I was a resentful, allowed me to ‘jump’ and gave me the strength to move forward in love. When Christ sets you free from a thing, He really frees you. I’ve always known that in theory, because the Bible told me so, however, knowing it experientially is something different entirely. It changes you and has an eternal impact. God’s grace turned all of the pain associated with resentment into a testimony of victory. I was raised in a church where sacred songs, anthems and hymns were sung on a consistent and regular basis. They are the songs that shaped my worship of God as a young woman and as I’ve grown older, have greatly manifested meaning in my life. I was listening to a preacher - on a podcast, I believe, and he reminded me of this great hymn written by Annie J. Flint. As he recited the words, it spoke so clearly to my spirit. Annie Flint wrote this poem / hymn from a place of great suffering with physical pain. The words have brought me great comfort and provided hope during my journey to wholeness.

​He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater,
He sendeth more strength when the labors increase;
To added afflictions He addeth His mercy,
To multiplied trials, His multiplied peace.

When we have exhausted our store of endurance,
When our strength has failed ere the day is half done,
When we reach the end of our hoarded resources
Our Father’s full giving is only begun.

Fear not that thy need shall exceed His provision,
Our God ever yearns His resources to share;
Lean hard on the arm everlasting, availing;
The Father both thee and thy load will upbear.

His love has no limits, His grace has no measure,
His power no boundary known unto men;
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus
He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again.

-Annie J. Flint

​When you feel as if you cannot make it another inch, Jump! Let go, and allow an omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient God pour into your life with His loving grace. Allow Him to reveal to you the issues of your own heart. No matter the wickedness that resides there, He is faithful and just to forgive us and will lead us to the place where we can forgive ourselves. The maladies of our hearts cause our souls to be restless. We will continue to be restless until we find our rest in HIm. “His love has no limits, HIs grace has no measure, His power no boundary known units men; For out of His infinite riches in Jesus He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again”.

JOURNALING TO DELIVERANCE

There is a distinct difference between being alive and living. I spent a great many years of my life just being alive. There were great moments, many of them, yet I was still simply existing. Get up, take the kids to school, go to work, come home, start over. I was in this never ending cycle of constant routine, like a ferris wheel that I woke up and blindly got on and the wheel began to turn. So it was with everything in my life. Even church was filled with tasks and to do lists, deadlines and meetings. I was on the wheel there also. The wheel became my normal and being on it was a behavior to which I became accustomed.


As a young person I loved to journal. There was something about pouring out my feelings on paper that somehow allowed me to see myself. As I became older and found myself merely existing I stopped journaling because I was afraid of what I might see in myself.
Yes, I am a Christian and I was afraid. The thought of it terrified me. I was a Christian that was fearful and perpetually unhappy which for me, brought a level of guilt and shame. How do you profess Christ and all the liberation He brings and fell like this? That was just one more thing adding weight to my soul.


I witnessed the grace of God everyday, as I raised my children while in this state of deep depression. I was sad all of the time and my sadness presented as frustration, impatience and a very short temper. While I am quite sure that my girls did not escape my condition unscathed, I look at how amazing they are as women and give God all of the glory for protecting them.


My oldest daughter gifted me a beautiful journal. (God always gives you what you need when you need it). That day I began to pour out my soul on paper. All of it came out. Everything. I wrote sometimes an hour or two at a time. I cried as I wrote. I was releasing all of the heaviness of my depression onto the paper. The act of writing it all down resulted in the lightening of the load. Reading my journal entries showed me that I had a lot of spiritual work to do in order to be inline with God’s will and purpose for my life. Those entries revealed the ugly parts of my heart. It was then that I could begin to heal and come out of the dark pit in which I was existing.


We serve a God who not only promised life, but life more abundantly. Abundance is simply a large quantity of something so some look at that scripture and define abundantly as having more money. I look at it as having large quantities of joy. The joy has been restored in my life which is worth more than any amount of money. There will certainly be times when you and I are sad, but learn from my account, sadness does not have to turn into years of despair when we look at our condition through the lens of the Gospel . Doing that is what will lead to deliverance.

Beginning

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My name is Marsha Joi. Welcome to my life style channel. I am a mother, 911 Dispatch Instructor, Youth Ministry Director and owner of Alpha & Omega Tactical Dispatch, LLC. We train dispatchers and take the public safety model into the private sector. Visit our website to learn more: www.aotcdispartch.com.

WHAT I'VE LEARNED IN 50 YEARS

I’ve learned so many lessons. I’ve loved, lost, failed, been depressed, made some good decisions and lots of bad ones.  I’ve fallen short while striving to live holy.  I’ve lost myself and found myself again.  Through it all God has kept me and I thank Him for all of it - the good and the bad. I give Him all of the glory!

Vulnerability is Not a Choice
No matter how secure we feel we have no control over what happens to us.  You can fly around the world 10 times over without incident and be killed in a car accident driving home from the airport.  We hear of stories of brave service men and women who survive combat during wartime only to return home and be killed by a stray bullet.  As much as we want to believe that we can control our fate, ultimately we cannot. God is in control.  That vulnerability extends beyond loss of life.  It is everything that happens to us.  Each day that we wake and step out into the world we are utterly and completely vulnerable.  Whether we make a conscious choice to love someone or not we still remain vulnerable to emotional harm as a result of our feelings.   Whether we open our heart and take risks or remain closed off and are careful not to place ourselves in certain positions, we are still susceptible to emotional and physical attack or harm.  It sounds terrifying, however, if you are a Christian it is simply a matter of putting your faith in God and believing His promises.  Each day that the Lord allows me to wake up and see another day, I pray for the Lord to sustain and protect me, my family and friends.  Whatever it is, whatever is going to happen is in the hands of a loving Savior.  Over this 50 year time span I have learned to simply trust Him.  That trust brings about a peace that surpasses all understanding.

Remain Authentic
Staying true to who you are is often difficult in the face of opposing views and opinions, especially when those views are presented by the people we love the most. The compromises were never my core values defined by my Christian world view.  Those things remained in tact, although sometimes at great cost to my happiness.  That was a cost I was willing to pay because Christ tells us that for the sake of His Gospel we will suffer as He suffered so I’m squared away there.  I am speaking more about the little things that don't have much to do with our faith but that make us unique as individuals. - our style of dress, hair style, love of art, theatre, travel, music and cuisine, etc.  Sometimes the dismissive loud and prevalent voice of others, over time, can cause you to let go of those simple things that bring small moments of joy.  “Don’t let anyone steal your joy.”  “Do you!”  - I’ve given that advice myself, often.  But I also understand that when a loud and pervasive opposing voice is always present, it becomes a slow and steady drip that will cause you to move away from your authentic self to the point of being unrecognizable, most of all to yourself.  A slow drip will eventually wear a hole in the surface upon which it falls. Remain authentic.

Forgiveness is Paramount
There are enough books about forgiveness to fill a thousand libraries and yet the act of forgiveness can be elusive.  Sometimes the offense is so great and causes such profound damage that the thought of forgiveness seems impossible.  In any relationship whether romantic, friendship, familial there will be an offense.  It is the offense of those closest to us that proves the most challenging to forgive.  God gives us a clear cut breakdown in Matthew 6:14-15 of what will happen if we do not forgive:  “For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”  There are no conditions on this thing folks.  It just is what it is. Forgive others or God will not forgive you.  Have mercy.  I have learned over these 50 years that forgiveness is a choice and a process.   Arriving at an authentic and heartfelt place of forgiveness does not always occur overnight.  It oftentimes comes with fasting and prayer, but it all begins with a choice.  Upon choosing to forgive, it is God that gives us the strength and power to do so. Forgiveness is challenging at times as you may find yourself forgiving someone for an apology that you felt was due but never comes.  As conflicting as forgiveness may be in our flesh, it is quite honestly is, freedom.

Protect Your Peace
Peace is defined as freedom from disturbance. Not void of disturbance, but freedom from disturbance.   As long as we are breathing there will be challenges, adversity, trials and tribulation.  We will experience pain and loss.  The devil will try us and try to defeat us.  Listen, all I can tell you is to keep John 16:23 on repeat in your heart and mind and just keep living.

“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”  John 16:23


Love folk. Forgive them when they sin against you. Show people the same grace and mercy you wish to receive from God.  Wage war, in prayer, against everything that seeks to destroy your peace. Protect it at all cost. Cherish your family, friends and fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. Speak life into those around you.  Encourage and be kind.  Trust in God and live in peace.

My 50 years of lessons can be summed up in a hymn that I can still hear my daddy singing (he always had a song of praise on his lips - just an amazing human, God rest his soul) anyway this is it:

I trust in God wherever I may be, Upon the land, or on the rolling sea,
For come what may, from day to day, My heav’nly Father watches over me.

I trust in God, I know He cares for me; On mountain bleak or on the stormy sea; Though billows roll, He keeps my soul; My heav’nly Father watches over me.

I pray that this blessed you or at the very least gave you something to consider. 
If you do not know Christ as your savior He is ready and waiting to receive you. 

​He loves you and so do I.

MY MIRACLE MORNINGS

There is a popular book called "The Miracle Morning" by Hal Elrod contains practical steps that everyone can take to live the life of their dreams.  Let me start by saying that I have not read this book.   The author does not seem to be saying anything new here.  He asserts that today is the most single important day in your life and what you do with your morning determines whether or not your day will be successful in the pursuit of your dreams.  Your morning sets the context and mindset of the day.  So if you have an unfocused, unproductive, unpowerful morning ritual you will have an unfocused, unproductive, and unpowerful day. I am a personal witness to the truth of this statement.  This may not true for everyone but it is absolutely true for me.  From that book an international movement has taken form.  It is amazing to search the hashtag miraclemornings on Instagram and see all of the things that people are doing as part of their Miracle Morning.  I search that has hashtag throughout the day on various social media platforms to see what others are doing as part of their miracle morning process and it serves as an source of encouragement as I continue in this process.

This next paragraph is purely parenthetical and meant to be an aside:

(I love the steps of this miracle morning process. I have taken the process and used the steps to spend time with God each morning before I have contact with others.  It has become essential to my goal of increased prayer and devotion.  It appears as if this author is more of a "self-help" type guy and so you are not necessarily going to find any great biblical truth in the content of this plan other than the usual basic Christian tenants that are often recycled and remixed to be marketed as some revolutionary concept.  I did view a lecture where the author was giving his personal testimony as to how he arrived at this Miracle Morning concept, but I used this process simply as a template for a morning ritual by which I engage in devotion to God).

The morning is when I am at my absolute worst.  I just do not like having to wake up at a certain time and be somewhere. I am that person that hits the snooze button 4 or 5 times and procrastinates about getting out of the bed.  Having to be at work at 6:00am is a daunting task, and because I loathe mornings I unknowingly had been setting myself up for failure each day.  My days, while filled with productivity on my job, were lacking in personal productivity in the pursuit of my dreams.  My mornings, while I am admittedly still a little tired, have been transformed.

Living the life of my dreams on a daily basis includes the following: I want to glorify God, spread the good news of the Gospel, introduce someone to the person of Jesus Christ, and make a positive impact  in the life of someone else.  That is a dream day for me.  I would love to do this while having sufficient income to meet my needs that comes from owning and operating my own business and not having to go into a job each day for someone else.  The latter is a more recent element to my dream life.  When my children were little, I was perfectly content with going in to work every day, working my eight hours and collecting my pay check every two weeks.  There was a certain order to it, a flexible schedule of shift work that I could work to my advantage.  My focus was different then.  My goal was to make money to assist my husband in providing financially for the household, as we worked collectively to ensure that our children would have everything they needed.  What I learned from critically looking at that time when I was content going to work day in and day out was that I could have lived a much more impactful life had I adopted the practice of these miracle mornings back then. 

Breakdown of the process:

Silence 

Affirmations

Visualization

Exercise

Reading

Scribing

I am a Christian so I move through the Miracle Morning with my focus firmly on Jesus the Christ.  My Silence is filled with worship, recognizing God as omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and sovereign; and giving thanks for His son, Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. My Affirmations are either scriptures or scripturally based.  My Visualization includes focusing on my Goal and Dream Board that I have created in my planner.  My Exercise consists of stretching and walking (I am working on getting up early enough to go for a swim before work - pray for me)!  My Reading consists of my daily devotion from the BBH Devotion and RZIM Apps (you can find them here and here).  My Scribing consists of writing out the focus scripture in the devotion, the key point(s), what God wants me to learn, how does the scripture apply to my life and how can I apply the lesson to make a change, and ends with scribing a prayer.

I realized that if I practiced these steps before I had contact with others my response to people as well as unforeseen, uncontrollable circumstances or adversity was in line with the God's will as opposed to my own.  It has allowed me to set the tone for the day.  My daily devotion and prayer did not always come in the morning because I was always rushing.  I am now deliberate and purposeful about completing this process each day and it has changed me.  I challenge each one of you to devote about an hour each morning to this process.  Use the time to draw closer to God.  It will change you and once we are changed and armed with the word of God, we can go out into the world and carry out the great commission with boldness, making a positive impact on those we come in contact with.

May God bless and keep you...

THE PAINFUL YEARS

I took this picture of myself one day. Freckled and without make up. It inspired this blog post……
I am one who has always struggled with low self esteem. Esteem – respect, admire, value, regard, acclaim, appreciate, like, treasurer, favor, revere. My parents told me I was beautiful and intelligent but somehow, that did not translate. It mattered not, how many times they told me, I did not believe it. I may have fronted like I did, but internally, a constant struggle existed. The combination of struggles with my weight, attending a predominately white private school, and a face full of freckles was overwhelming. The covert and oftentimes, overt theme of “you don’t belong here” as it related to my Elementary and HighSchool education was a constant reminder of the social and racial divide that dare I say, still exists to some extent. In the midst of being reared by amazing parents, surrounded by a supportive and loving church family, and with all of the benefits and opportunity afforded to me – in my heart, for much of my childhood and adolescence, existed anger, hurt, and pain.
When sharing with my parents that I felt unattractive and awkward, they always replied with words of love and encouragement to the contrary; and at the risk of sounding ungrateful, I never shared my disdain for many of my white counterparts in private school and the fact that I was uncomfortable in that environment – so as a result, these issues persisted. My heart grew harder and my self esteem continued to plummet.

Suicide was an option that I seriously considered. I was feeling that low.

It was a difficult thing, at least for me, to grow up in such a duplicitous environment. On the one hand, my parents were Civil Right’s Activists and provided a strong foundation, teaching us about our history, struggle and progress made as a people in this country – while instilling pride and love of self. On the other hand I went to school everyday, and at that time, could not see the advancement. On the one hand, my father was a retired Major in the Army, yet when we would go to the Officer’s Club on Sunday’s for brunch some would ask what we were doing there (amazing what sticks in one’s memory). It was equally as difficult to deal with seemingly not being attractive to young men, as no one was really lined up, asking me to go out. It is troubling, upon retrospect, how when I was younger, I equated feeling beautiful with the response or lack there of, to my exterior from young men. The struggle continued.

While attending college my then boyfriend, now husband, invited me to come to church with him. I was 19 years old at the time. The pastor was preaching on the subject of knowing the Word of God for yourself and applying it to your life. The point that resonated most with me most was when he began to speak about those with strongholds and addictions and how folk were not seeing themselves as God sees them – and the fact that we will not really know how God feels about anything, lest we study His Word for ourselves and apply it to our lives. He went on to say that if we rely on others to tell us what the Word says as opposed to studying and then asking the Lord to reveal it to us what it means, then the stage is set for manipulation. It was a process, however, this church visit, this sermon changed the game for me because it began to change the way I saw and thought about myself. I began to see myself and God saw me – sees me. I began to receive the love He had for me, which is perfect love, and embrace it – live it. I began to truly love myself and my attitude about myself shifted forever. Once the thoughts of myself changed it also changed how I saw others. As I began to study the Word of God, it showed me my error, and I began to repent of the anger I was harboring in my heart for White folk, for those who ridiculed me because of my physical exterior, and also for those that dismissed me because they felt I didn’t belong. I forgave everyone and then asked for forgiveness for even having such feelings. I asked Him to remove the root of my anger and my low self esteem in its entirety and I thank God that He was faithful to do it.

I do not regret anything that has happened in my life. Nothing. I embrace every emotion, situation and issue, as God has used it to bring me to the current state of mind in which I now operate. He sustained me though all of that hurt and pain to the point where I am now ministering to others and young people in particular – a time in my life where I struggled the most. He traded the ashes of my hurt and pain for the beauty of the freedom in which I now live. Listen, if I’m honest, I still struggle from time to time with self esteem. The difference is that now, the negative thought enters my mind and I pray immediately for God to remove it – fully recognizing, because of my study of the Word, that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. I pray for Him to cast down even every thought that seeks to exalt itself above God.

Allow yourself to embrace the Word of God and truly get to know the person of Jesus Christ. It will change your life. I pray that if you are struggling with a lack of self esteem that you begin to see yourself as God sees you. You are made in the very image of God…..all you have to do is believe it.