Saturday, December 11, 2010

Getting in God's grill

“Here I am, I am calling from a dark place, Hear the cry of my heart”.. – Michelle Lang (used without permission she can sue me later… The complete song can be found on MLSW newest release “Obnoxious” it can be found on CD Baby.com, it makes a great stocking stuffer. You should go there and buy one, after you read this latest communiqué)

Its funny how one can talk a good game and the enemy shows up to see if you are really serious about what you said, or God tells you something and you have the promise, you hold it in your hands and you have the key, but you have to hold on to that promise. The past two weeks for this lil brotha here in the frigid Midwest have been rough. My wife Nicole had to step her game up, and she did, (one of the reasons every day I am amazed that out of all the brothas she could have chosen she picked me, I tell ya I do not come close to deserving the jewel that I have. ). As many of our friends know Nicole and I have been trying to have a baby. Last year about this same time she had surgery to remove fibroids so that getting pregnant would be possible. This year we went to a doctor in Indiana, felt really good about the outcome, we felt we finally had a plan. Two weeks ago we were told that both her fallopian tubes are blocked, and that the only chance of us getting pregnant is IVF.
Flash back with me to almost three years ago, my life was an unequivocal mess. I had just lost four people in my family including the man who taught me how to read, my dad, the woman who taught me refinement and proper diction, my aunt, the man who encouraged me to be a good soldier if that is what I wanted, my uncle, and the woman who made me laugh at everything including myself, my cousin. All this happened while I was in Seattle. I had just moved back to Chicago to be with my mother, she was dying, and I was here to be with her in her final days. While I was here, Nicole was still in Milton a small town we lived in just outside Tacoma, which is about 40 miles south of Seattle. We attended New Heart church in Federal Way. She received a word saying that she was going to have children (multiple) that she would be calling the church to let them know that she was pregnant. Now keep in mind the pastor when he gave this word knew that I was gone, and that Nicole was soon to follow. He prayed for me before I left because of what I was going to encounter once I arrived back here in Chicago. She got this word and called me excited because with all the stuff happening around me, it was something that I needed to hear. We had been promised children.
Ok come forward with me. It’s hard to hold on to a word given when all around you, you hear things to the contrary. I told you in my first blog post that this little one was going to be honest and transparent. I am not going to lie and tell you that in the past few weeks I have not questioned God, not been angry with Him, not gotten up in His grill and asked Him why? Now before you ask, yes one can get up in God’s grill and ask Him why, (Is 45:11) Keep in mind doing so is from the perspective of one who has influence, not one with power. We partner with God in bringing His Kingdom to fruition in this world, as a result of that it is practical and imperative that this relationship we have with God affords us some ability to go to God and ask why. It is extreme theologically wrongheaded religion that states that there are some things that we will only understand in the great by and by. Sorry that makes absolutely no sense. That premise has no basis in scripture whatsoever. When you are there, what does it matter, why would I be concerned with anything that I had to endure on this side. I love my father, he has been gone now for almost four years, but I love him still. I know that he though he is with Jesus, right now, LJ Anthony loves me still. It is that one fact that keeps me from not losing it. It is the fact of knowing that Solomon wrote in the Song of Solomon that “Love is stronger than death” (SOS 8:6). Having said that, I seriously doubt that he is asking God, “yanno God that son you gave me, you know that youngest boy of mine, why did he do this, or that or the other”? My dad could care less, all he knows and cares about is that he loves him some Johnny. Getting back to my original point I believe that Isaiah tells us three things in that chapter, 1. There is no other god that we can go to, asking to know the future. 2. He is God alone and beside Him no one else like Him exists. 3. In partnership with him we can influence through prayer how things work in this world.
Truth of it is this, God also tells us to remind Him of the things that He has said about us (is 43:26)….Fact is though that the promise was not made to me, it was made to Nicole. My job is to stand with her, I can support her, and encourage her to do things that walk in line with the word as given. That includes encouraging her to eat right, and do what I can to keep her focused on the promise made, agreeing with her that the promise is going to come to pass, and doing what I can from a human standpoint to make sure that it happens. All I can do is pray with her, move forward and do what we have been doing, preparing for the arrival of this very special child because it is so evident that the enemy does not want him or her here…..

1 comment:

  1. Good post, my Brother! Glad to see you posting again!

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