Nov 3, 2022

Light is the new Black 😎

If I can be honest with you all 2022 has been a challenging year. Can anyone else relate? 🙋🏻‍♀️🙋🏼‍♀️🙋🏽‍♀️🙋🏾‍♀️🙋🏿‍♀️

I remember I met up with the First Lady of my church to just chat over a meal and I was complaining, "and they did THIS and I can't believe THAT and BLAH, BLAH, BLAH!" 🥴

And she just looked at me, with love, and said...

So what is God trying to teach you about you?

To say the least, that was NOT the answer I was looking for. But is sure was the answer I needed...

So during our 3 hour lunch date, so many pieces of life that I thought were seemingly unrelated started to piece together.

What I realized is

God is more concerned about the character of the person rather than you receiving the promise.

And the promise includes blessings for you and your family but also influence and leadership capabilities to help others know Him more.

See the thing is, if you have influence and power that is mishandled not only would it harm you, but it would harm those who are following you. Too many lives will be affect.

So God is just not here for it. You gone get this character stuff together or your blessings can wait, okurrr!

Think about it. If I gave my 4 year old nephew a car that he rather should have gotten after he passed his driving test around 16+ years old, he would 1) tear the car up, 2) injure himself while driving that car, 3) possibly endanger the lives of others while he was driving.

So the promise, rather than being a blessing, was a curse to all that encountered it because it was received before the character was ready enough to handle it.

See God loves His children way too much to have you out here affecting destinies and generations because you don't want to learn a lesson or two. So he will have you sit and sit and either learn or... continue to sit.

Funny enough lessons aren't learned most effectively through reading about it, watching someone learn it, or through easy situations in life. On the contrary, lessons are learned through trials and experiences.

When my nephew is of age. He will study driving rules, pass a written exam, get a driving permit, start taking countless hours of driving lessons, take an exam and hopefully pass it before he is free to drive on the roads by himself.

If you are dealing with jealousy, you don't learn the lesson by everyone close to you being below you and not accomplishing anything so you look the greatest.

No, you rather learn the lesson by everyone around you being blessed, getting married, having babies, and landing their dream jobs. Then your character has the chance to grow and appreciate and congratulate them knowing that goodness will also come your way soon.

And for me y'all, I realized the lesson I needed to learn was how to love people that don't necessarily love me back and who intentionally want to be spiteful or hurtful.

And boy oh boy, would I rather have ANY... and when I say ANY, I mean any other lesson to learn.

But the thing about God is that He knows what you need for your breakthrough more than you do.

He will allow challenges and trials to come to prune and chip off the yucky stuff and grow the good stuff, so that you can become exactly who you are called to be.

Somebody may say I mean what's the problem? If people don't particularly care for you what's the issue with not loving them back?

And what I have learned is that, more often than not, what happens is your heart begins to become hardened. You begin to become that hateful, bitter person that attacked you. And the energy you received ends of being the energy you give to innocent parties. And cycles of negativity continue.

And who God cannot freely pass through to bless and use for his glory is a person jam packed full of junk.

Imagine a drinking draw. You are enjoying your smoothly and all of a sudden a chunk of strawberry gets lodged in the straw. Well now no more of that delicious smoothly can pass through.

The same happens with God's Holy Spirit and His favor. If we have bitterness, self preservation tactics, unforgiveness filled up within is, where is the room for the Spirit to enter and move through?

So God being so loving will allow more experiences and encounters to occur for us to learn the lesson. Because again, He is more concerned about the person than the person receiving the promise.

I can remember some experiences from medical school and residency that began to warp my character slowly. I found myself being open, bubbly and free in spaces where I felt safe and in spaces where I did not you would not get one lick of anything from me. You won't know a thing about me or my life. I wouldn't dare give you the room to know anything about me to then hurt me. I totally shut down my character, my warmth; anything that could remotely be recognized as Jennifer did not exist. I would do my work and go home to safety or to people I felt safe around.

So as I transitioned from residency into attendinghood, I figured alright new environment, new me, babbyy!!

But again person>>> promise. Until your character is matured enough to fully receive that promise you will keep walking around that mountain and in the wilderness..**cough cough**...Israel. And now I understand why God has me sitting in the story of the Israelites leaving Egypt and trying to make it to The Promise Land.

So what do y'all think happened next?

Yup! You got it! More experiences to test my love gage! 😫 Would I allow the light of God to shine in me even in dark spaces or would I shut down in an attempt to self preserve?

The latter is what I was doing for a period of time. BUT... that is changing.

One thing that happens when you don't allow the light of God to shine through you is that

God will for a period of time extend grace and opportunities for you to change your ways, but He will eventually leave you to your own devices (as He did when an entire generation of Israelites died in the wilderness because of their hardened hearts).
The opposite of light begins to predominate in you when you don't learn the lessons.
God's name will be glorified Periodt! 💁🏾‍♀️ So if you don't want to be used He will surely find another to accomplish His task of setting souls free.

As you can see the work of God is never centered our me, Me, ME! It's all about helping others.

Being a light is not an easy job. But a necessary one! And if there is not light-- not just in that work environment you are called to but within you--then darkness is there.

So let your light shine, sis!

Light is the new black.

Light is cool.

Light attracts positivity.

Light brings blessings.

Light exposes and brings the best out of things.

Light allows things to sprout and grow.

You have light within you! So don't allow bad experiences to choke that out of you.

God is your ultimate protection. Not you. But God!

You can step out into dangerous territory still feeling so safe because of His security around. Your job is not to protect you, but to trust God enough that if He needs your light to shine, well, He's gonna allow for you to be A-okay in that space for it to blaze and emanate just as it is suppose to!

🥂 So cheers to trusting Jesus more!

🥂 Cheers to not ever letting any negative situation kill the destiny within you. Souls and destinies are dependent on your obedience to your calling.

🥂Cheers to being a light, sis!

XOXO,

Jenn