You Can Win!

"As long as you keep ... your head to the sky ... BE OP-TI-MIS-TIC!" 🎶🎤🥁🎵🎹

Ya'll remember that catchy Sounds of Blackness tune?!

You know how certain songs push you right into a memory? Someplace. Some time? Some point in your life?

This song makes me think of my mama (because she would play songs by this group) and when I was ... oh ... anywhere between the ages of 10 & 13!

And remembering this song, connected to this time period, brings joy to me. I guess it's because it reminds me of a time when I was a child just living life, pretty much carefree, happy, and taken care of.

GOD'S HAND

If I venture to think further about it, my delight in remembering this time isn't necessarily because all things were perfect. For, in fact, my mom and dad were no longer together; they actually divorced when I was about five years old. Then, when I was around the age of 11, my mom and step dad decided to marry, and that was a new thing I had to get adjusted to.

However, the reason I can look back with pleasure and gratitude now is because I see how God took care [and has never stopped taking care] of me ... of all of us ... and that each of us has progressed, thrived, and continued to walk and develop in God up to this day. And guess what ... that's enough and that's good because that's GOD!

A FACE LIFT FOR YOUR PAST

What I think I'm getting at [as I type this straight from the heart without premeditation] is that I'm learning to honor the past with all of the imperfections it yields.

I recently heard a pastor preach about people often pegging their pasts with damnation because of some of the hard stuff they hold. However, the point he highlighted beautifully is that the things in our pasts [be they good, bad, or disgustingly ugly] are no match to top God at any point. This is because He has the ability to work everything together, in our lives, for good (not just our good). And this is why there's nothing that can ever be stamped FOR LOSS in God through Christ Jesus.

"In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory." - Eph. 1:11‭-‬12 NKJV

This scripture says, to the believer, that God (even while we were not yet saved) has always had in His eternal mind what He's wanted to do in the earth THROUGH our lives. And so, this doesn’t encourage us to live lazily around His will (for that isn't the purpose of this passage). What this should spark and feed within us is a bent on pleasing and obeying Him in EVERYTHING we do. We should be fixated on and driven out of our comfort zones by this.

SHOULDERS OTHERS CAN STAND ON

The pastor I've referred to went on to preach that the things and experiences in our pasts are building blocks -- if we allow God to test us out of our feelings about the stuff -- for somebody else to step on in order for their spiritual ascension. The notches in our spiritual belts, the scars that have healed but are recognizable, the pits we've had to claw our way out of, can add 20 years of trailblazing-empowered ammunition for other people who've encountered, are encountering, or will encounter us at some point.

HALLELUJAH!

And so, when God tells us, in His Word, to not fear ... to meditate on that godly stuff in Philippians 4 ... to keep our minds on Him, which will yield perfect peace ... to gird up the loins of our minds ... to know well the simplicity with which we're called to live through obedience to Him ... to love Him with all that's within us ...

He's ... telling ... us ... to win!

For, if we do these things, we'll be exactly who He crafted us to be, which will blaze trails for the others who have the same responsibility.

Amen.

#optimisitc #win #trailblazer #obey #simplicity #past #God #glory #praise