Your assignment

If you are like me, sometimes you go through this in life so difficult that all you can say is: OMG!!! For some of you, you have no words nor can you come up with reasons as to why you are going through what you are experiencing but all you know is that you are in pain.  The desert of pain and the road of loneliness are often accompanied with feeling as if you have no purpose and that your life is meaningless.  Have you have experienced days when you smiled but you were honestly crying inside?  Everyone's critique of your life would suggest that you are doing quite well and that from their vantage point life probably couldn't get any better for you.....and yet if people only knew what was in your head and what rested on your heart they would possibly start crying along with you.

Today I had another inspiring conversation with a close friend of mine, and came to this crazy conclusion:  As a child of God, what if your storm was actually your assignment???  I'm not suggesting that God loves when we are in pain, neither do I believe that we should go looking for storms.  However, I am reminded of a story John's gospel when there was a man who was born blind. He didn't ask to be blind, he didn't enjoy his blindness, and I'm quite sure that he would have loved to experience sight long before Jesus finally healed him.  However Jesus said that the ONLY reason that blindness was on him was so that God could get some glory.  What I am learning in my world is that sometimes God will use your 'blindness' as a platform for the glory of God.  I think many of us are missing our moments of God's glory and replacing them with moments for self preservation.  Hey, I hear you...I've been there, I don't always enjoy being God's platform and being His poster child.  But then again maybe I do...if God has given me a storm as an assignment then He must believe, know, and trust that I am capable to do Him justice!!!  I'll be the first to admit, that I have often missed by assignment by complaining, my attitude, and non-testimony because I wanted my way more than I cared about His way.

I'm not there yet, I haven't fully gotten to the place I need to be....But I now understanding that as a child of God...my pain isn't random...what I'm going through and what you are going through....even in your storm is your assignment and God believes that through even your OMG moments--He will get glory...peace!  Just some thoughts from my world...

The joy of the Lord

Many of us would probably not admit it, but in my world, I have learned that we can oftentimes get very impressed as well as depressed by people.  We get excited when people feed our ego, or we can be saddened when people disappoint us and let us down.  

God spoke to me this morning and said: "The reason why you often get overly impressed with people AND extremely low with other people is because you invest too much of yourself in them."  The bible says that the joy of the Lord is our strength.  Its God's joy that should carry us, consume us, encourage us and uplift us.  Simply stated, we have expectations on people to do things for us that they were NEVER created to do, and that is to be our SOURCE of joy.

Whenever we find ourselves wrapped in the the affairs of others it may be a sign that we have allowed them to rent too much real estate space in our mind.  If the joy of the Lord truly is our strength, then our happiness is never left to what others do or don't do for or to us.  Oftentimes our emotions aren't stable and they are built on how well or poorly someone treats.  Everything we need for happiness, peace,  and joy-the bible teaches us is found in the Lord!  He is the SOURCE of what we need.  In my world I am learning to stop looking for what I need in other people.  If I continue to look for what I need in other people, the possibility exists that I will be disappointed every single time.  People move like the wind, their attitudes are as shifty as ours, and continuing to seek joy in people says to the Lord that we don't think he is competent to give us what we truly need.

I don't know about you, but in my world I NEED joy!   I need joy, and I can't leave the receipt of my joy to people who were NEVER designed to give it to me.  The joy of the Lord is my strength, your strength and whatever you need can always be found in the Lord!

The death of me...

In my world I am learning that comparing myself to other people will be the death of my Christian experience.  A few years ago I felt like life was passing me by, everyone was moving and advancing past me, and that everyone was experiencing things that I was supposed to be realizing as well.  I looked at people's seeming lifestyle, what I saw as their accomplishments, and what they had and concluded how well they must be doing and how blessed they must be.  I compared what I was feeling and what was going on in my life and said: Wow, why is what happening to them, NOT happening to me?"

I would have possibly spent years feeling this way if not for a revelation that God gave me which was: "You know Noah, you could be jealous of a figment of your imagination."  What do you mean Lord, I thought?!?!?!?  God began to explain to me that what you see in the life of other people is oftentimes not reality.  As all of us know, we often love to promote an image of ourselves that is not altogether accurate.  We enjoy having people think we have more money than we honestly do or having people believe that we live a life of ease and comfort.  Many times what we will even buy for ourselves (clothes, shoes, cars, electronics, etc.) we buy them because of how other people will perceive us.  WOW, they have that?  Man, look at what they are driving!  They stay looking stylish!  Yet when we get home out of the company of the human eye, we are miserable because while we are living are lives to please other people, we are often miserable.

I am learning in my world that comparing myself to people will be the death of my Christian experience because when I compare myself to other people, I can always lie to myself thinking that I am better or worse than someone.  However when I compare myself to Jesus, I ALWAYS come up short.  Coming up short to Jesus is a great feeling though, because Jesus promised that he would fill every shortcoming of my life through the power of His Spirit!!!!  

So listen, stop doing it!!  Stop comparing!!!  It hasn't been beneficial to you, and you would have to admit that it has been silently draining you!  Stop living for the expectations of others and live to please one...Jesus!  After all pleasing Jesus is much more worth it because you know that Jesus loves you with flaws and all!  We try and impress people who we don't know or don't even like us.  So in fact we could be going through a world of trouble trying to impress people that actually don't care or even take notice about what we are doing.

Thats my world....

Would you be missed?

In my world I had to learn to look the possibility of death in the face while experiencing my difficult bout with Lyme Disease.  As I struggled with my mortality I had to grabble with these difficult questions:  If I died would I be missed?  What difference had I made on the earth?  How many lives did I change?  While I still wrestle with these questions in my world, I would like to throw the same questions back to you.  Whose life are you changing for the better?  What positive changes are you making on the earth?  If you were to die, would you be missed?

I am noticing that our world is becoming more filled with people who are making changes in people's life, but those changes aren't for the better.  We are (society is) creating by music and media killers, rapists, angry fathers, and bitter mothers.  We are through reality television, certain music, and mainstream television; creating people who no longer seek positive change in the world, but are content to just get a new car, some new tennis shoes, and content with existing but not really living.

The mentalities of the men and women such as Martin L. King Jr., Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela, Barbara Jordan, Shirley Chisholm, etc are fleeting!  The positive messages about hope and encouragement about oneself are being replaced by expletives and calling people out of their name.  Helping people become what they were created to be has been replaced for keeping people beneath the level where God intended for them to be.

What are you doing now that is having an impact on the life of someone else?  Are you just marking time, or is time being filled with you pouring into someone else's life.  Our society has become incredibly selfish in that, we don't see the need anymore to look for people to pour in to!  Would people miss you if you were gone?  Make you life count for something more than just taking up space...Your life should have so much meaning that people wouldn't just be sad by your death but are sad by the absence of your presence!   Would you be missed?

  

Preparation

In my world I am learning that I don't prepare enough now for what God has in store for me in my future.  If you would be honest with me today...you don't either.  God says in his word that he has plans for me!!!  If in fact God has plans for me, then it stands to reason that if I don't prepare for what God has prepared for me, then I run the risk of standing in my future but unprepared for the particular season of life that God would have me be in.

When going through the worst season of my life to date, I often wondered if I could have prepared better for what was taken place.  I believe that there are things we go through in life that we honestly can't prepare for.  Sometimes life's twist and turns are so brutal that there is much that can be done to mentally or physically get ready for what will be before you. However, I do feel that there can be some staple principles to use in all of our lives.  Don't wait until January to prepare for your future.  Your future is really next week, tomorrow, or even the second after you read this.  Oftentimes we wait for a more opportune time to prepare: the beginning of the week, the first of the year, the start of the month.  While there is nothing wrong with these times, waiting for those times to begin could cause you to be unprepared for your time!!!  So here are some things I have found helpful in my world, to help your preparation for your future:


1. Stop waiting!!!  This is soooooo easier said than done.  But I have learned and am learning that the more we wait and talk about what we are going to do, we usually settle for what we've been doing! (Somebody should tweet that...LOL) Lets be honest, how many times has the record played about what we were going to start doing or what we were about to do, and before we know it, years have past and we haven't even started it....Start now!!!

2. Don't take on the entire project at one time.  Sometimes because of waiting, and what we haven't been doing, when we start doing, we try to do it ALL at one time....and this usually never ends in completion.  We either get frustrated, bored, or upset we waited so long to begin.  Do a little at a time.  Rome wasn't built in a day...but it was built!

3. Keep yourself accountable.  If nobody knows about what you are preparing yourself for, it becomes that much easier to wait, procrastinate, and talk yourself out of preparing for what you need to get ready for.  Not everybody, but someone you know you can be honest with and they can be honest with you to help you along your journey.


God has plans for you, but its possible that where you are is causing road blocks to that plan.  Lets prepare ourselves for the great plans of God....go ahead, start now....no for real for real....go ahead!!!

I'm an Addict

Hello, my name is Noah Washington and I am a recovering addict...my addiction?  Pleasing People....smh

When people placed expectations on me and would ask me to jump, I would usually respond, how high?  Don't read this and look at me strange because there are many of us who have had to deal with this addiction for many years and has caused us much stress, unhappiness and pain.  What caused us to be so people pleasing driven?!!!  For many of us its a result of what happened or what didn't happen in the homes that we grew up in.   For countless others it may stem from poor relationships through college and post college years.  Whatever the case may be, let me offer some ways that you like me can be a recovering addict of this deadly addiction.

1.  Please realize and understand that people will ALWAYS have expectations of you.  They will place realistic and unrealistic expectations on you and expect you to deliver and WIN every single time.  Understanding this, don't be surprised when they come because thats is part of life.  They are factors that you cannot stop: people and expectations.

2. People who often place expectations on you, do so because they are unsatisfied with their own lives.  There are people who will love to places expectations on you because they are so unhappy with how their life is going that they have to look for people whose lives seem to be more fulfilling and more interesting than theirs.  They love to critique, examine, and manipulate how you live your life, because they are ashamed about what their life has become.  Regardless of how many times you live up to the current expectations, you can NEVER satisfy these people!  They are unsatisfiable!!!!!  They will always look for things in your life to place expectations on....You can't win with these type of people.

3. When you give yourself goals to accomplish, you will never be a captive of people pleasing.  When you have set goals and are actually accomplishing those goals then it doesn't matter what people are trying to cause you to do.  Regardless of what people see or say, you can sleep at night knowing that through the power of God you are setting goals and accomplishing those goals.  Accomplishing goals is one way to silence the "peanut gallery" into making you do things.

4.  Every good thing isn't a God thing.  Just because you are busy doing doesn't mean you are busy in purpose.  People would love to see you running around busy accomplishing what they set out for you to do.  Before you move forward and get busy doing, you have to ask a critical question: IS GOD LEADING THIS?!!!  If God isn't leading, and you move forward, its a sure way to continue pleasing people.  

I sure hope these help you, because they have sure helped me not to be stressed, saddened, and sold out to people's expectations of me!  God bless you as you too can become more than a conqueror!!!

Don't Hide

Its been a while since I have blogged and felt the need to blog about something today.  Over the last few months I have been praising God for good health and the fact that I am completely off of my medication for Lyme Disease.  Its such a wonderful thing when you can look back over you life and remember where you were, how bad of a situation you were in, and praise God for His goodness and extreme mercy towards you.

I have also been reflecting on how often silent I as well as other Christians can be about our beliefs and Christianity.  Why is it that sports, music, education, etc., get more publicity out of my mouth than Jesus?!?!?!!  Hey if the shoe fits for you then wear it, but I am blogging about myself primarily.  I have to constantly think about when I meet people or am seen in different places, what fragrance do I leave with people.  By my presence, do I present Jesus to them; not by my words so much but more so just by my presence.  Not a bible study, not even initially what I believe, but is the fragrance of Jesus left to linger in their atmosphere?

I, by the grace of God, want to make sure that the God who has saved me, delivered me, and continues to bless me is made KNOWN!!!  After all, if you can't make Jesus known why are you a Christian?  In my world, I am trying my best to not hide the fact that Jesus loves me and I love Him!  He always deserves a standing ovation.  Jesus always deserves and encore.  Jesus deserves everything and more....come on and help me with making him known, everywhere you go!!!