Stop Playing

Stop Playing

Andy Stanley wrote from his devotional; Better Decisions, Fewer Regrets, “People yielded to God don’t attempt to play God. They don’t predict outcomes. Instead, they surrender. They obey. They follow. As much as they want anything they want to be able to lie in bed at night knowing that things are good between them and their Heavenly Father.” 

I know that we live in a world full of different people. I also know that some of our differences are all that some of those people are going to see. Some are going to embrace and appreciate the differences, and unfortunately, some of those people are going to reject and hate you just because of those differences. 

How you love or treat someone should not be dependent on how they treat you or other people, it should be based upon how God treats you and has instructed you. 

People may abandon you, exclude you from their lives, and become very cold towards you, but God will never leave you nor forsake you (Deuteronomy 31:6 KJV). Forsake... what’s does that mean? It means that He will give you the space that you ask for, but promised not to leave you, and then give up on, reject, turn His back on, or disown you. Even when we turn our backs on Him He has never stopped being their for us, especially when we call on Him wholeheartedly. 

So stop playing God, stop playing the victim. Stop playing like you can see things clearly when you aren’t even looking. Be true to Him, be true to yourself, and turn it all over to Him. The picture is much clearer when we look at it in Supernatural faith, rather than with natural sight. 

Peace, blessings, and joy... 

That Same Sky, Same Moon, Same Stars...

Celebrity Lights

Celestial Lights

I remember watching Tom Hanks in his role as Chuck Noland in Castaway, and thinking, "how brilliant is this man?!" He was in survival mode the entire time of his tragedy, he didn't panic, he was well educated, he took control and responsibility of the situation the whole time he was stranded. As an actor Mr. Hanks was brilliant, and to perfection, portrayed the role of a brilliant businessman that simply refused to give up. We should all be so inspired in our daily lives to live and love in the same manner. Never give up! 

Love fueled his desire to live. He looked for every resource that he could find that was natural, and he looked through the resources he had from the wreckage that would help him survive, and enable him to return to his love. 

Mr. Noland was a desperate man towards he end, he was in an all or nothing frame of mind. I won't spoil the ending for you in case you haven't seen the movie, but I'll introduce you to a scene that helped change my outlook on life. 

Mr Noland decided that it was do or die time. So rather than wait to be rescued, he built a raft, one that he felt would endure the breakers, and see him afloat off in the deep blue sea. He again utilized his resources, and began navigation by calculating his direction based on the tools provided by God in our solar system, the sun, and the stars. He was an extraordinary mind. This scene in the movie led me to do some critical thinking of my own while on a missions trip. What if my plane were to have gone down in the vast deep? What if I were just told by the people on the island that I couldn't return home? Even though I now swim like a fish, would I be brave enough to overcome my atavistic fear of sharks and water? Would I be intelligent enough to utilize my resources and find my way home if I were? Or would I be like Djimon Hounsou in his role as the captured slave "Cinque" in another powerful performance and movie, "Amistad?" Cinque wanted to get home as well. However, even as great as his love for his home and family were he did not have the privilege in his camp to obtain the knowledge of the skies like Mr. Noland had. Cinque would need help. Love is a powerful drug. 

Have you ever sat underneath the midnight sky and wandered in your minds eye to ask the question, "I wonder if my loved one is thinking of me right now?" "I wonder if he/she is looking at that same big, full moon that I am right now?" "I wonder if he/she is wishing on that star, like I am, praying that soon, very soon, I'll be reunited with the one(s), I love?" 

What would you do, what have you done, or endured for love? If credit cards could buy love, my company's slogan would be, "What's in your heartbeat?!" Tell the people you love that you love them. Now... yes, right now! This blog is over, go tell that love what they mean to you... go on, get ta gettin'! 

Peace, blessings, and joy... that real PB&J

The Ghost of Missus Past

Just Like A Woman

Her father told her story first. Her love tells it most. Her Heavenly Father, and First love tells it truest, and has the last say. She loves her earthly father, but she was never good enough in her own eyes based on what her father told her growing up. She was never good enough and could have done things differently according to her recollection of daddy. What she failed to understand was that he only wanted to be her harshest critic because he loved her enough not to settle for mediocrity. Great fathers don't want great things for their daughters, they want what's best for them. That's the best dad anyone could ever have. Unfortunately, she learned to do just that, to settle for mediocrity because she didn't see what daddy saw, she saw what her pain led her to see. Her pain led her to see that it was most fitting to settle. Settling helps find an ease in the pain, a quick remedy to the pain. Which led her to settle all her life, to avoid the pain at all costs, to settle for allowing the ghost of her past to haunt her. 

If she's not good enough for daddy, perhaps she can find a father figure that will make her forget she's not good enough by having him tell her that nothing outside of him (the father figure) is good enough? He's smart enough to temporarily tickle her ears, so he has to be the smartest man she knows. How will she handle the lies? When will she see the truth? The lies of... the money is not good enough, the affection is not good enough, the physical relationship is not good enough. He needs more from more, more money (more theft), more affection (more women), more for the flesh (more substances/addictions). She is so used to the lies that she feels as though she has to stay trapped inside that tiny earthly body, and still figure out a way to hold the weight of the world on her shoulders. Then when she tries to take on the weight of the world, she experiences the weight of the universe, and it is there that she has an encounter with God. A feminine, Job, why me moment.

"Lord, I've been telling You ("telling" is often confused as prayer), I want one of these play things, (a man that she can manipulate like an older sibling blackmailing the younger sibling to get out of more choice situations, or get into situations they really don't want to be a part of), so I'm gonna rub Your bottle (Bible or imaginary subconscious bottle), You play genie, give me what I want, and I promise to be a good girl," she demands! 

He replies, "Two questions for you little woman, dear little sweet child of mine, Why start now, what are you really praying for? You've continually taken matters into your own hands, why stop now?" Why do we start prayer, and why should we end disobedience, and making vain request? To receive our blessings, to do the right thing, to get out of His way, and let Him be life, love, and the joy in us, through us, and for us.

Even though He doesn't have to, God still hears, so when will we? I've been praying for someone just like you!!! Did you hear you, or did you hear God? Did God say, "I've heard your prayers, and now the answer is in you. Seek Me in him, and you will get closer to him as you get closer to Me. "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all this things shall be added to you" (Matthew 6:33 KJV). Yes all these things, the man, the diamond on the finger, the nice home (not just a house), and all! You were almost a wife, don't let satan still anymore of your joy. Don't seek the desire you want in a man, it's temporal, don't stay focused on the pain of a past man, this too should, and shall pass as you let it!!! Instead seek the God in him that was created for you, and find the love of a lifetime.

Peace, Blessings, and Joy... that real PB&J

#BlackLivesMatter vs. #AllLivesMatter II

Burnsville Town Centre (Mass Choir)

The #BlackLivesMatter (BLM) movement isn't a movement meant to attempt to denounce the fact that #AllLivesMatter. Unfortunately, all voices that speak out against BLM attempt to denounce their movement. Rather than jump on a bandwagon, and join the ignorance, why not listen, learn, and then look long into the matter, and speak lovingly?

First things first; I'd like to address the selfish naysayer's mentality. The selfish naysayers react based on their own fear, their own hate, and their own stereotype. A selfish naysayer isn't the rational debater that has studied with due diligence. The selfish naysayer simply sees a movement, or an action, and jumps in head first with the selfish, "what about me?!" They are worse than the spoiled only child. "Look at me, look at me," then gets upset when everyone else looks momentarily to assist the child next to it that's lets fortunate, and comes out of an abusive home. Well for the record it's not about me, it's not about you, it's about us. I don't exclude you, why exclude me?  BLM isn't "meant" to take away from #AllLivesMatter (ALM), or for that matter any other lives that matter. Rather than go out kicking, and screaming about how wrong BLM is why not include them in ALM? That's what the BLM is about. Not exclusion, but to be included and recognized. Therefore, why not support ALM or even #BlueLivesMatter? I'll tell you why you can but need to do so carefully, because then someone says, "What about #RedLivesMatter," and someone else in my Native American tribe becomes offended. Then what? All I ask is that you don't jump on the hate bandwagon. 

News flash... not everyone in brown skin hates everyone in skin that's different to theirs. I can, and will speak from experience on that one. Not everyone in brown skin feels that everyone with a different skin tone hates them based on their skin tone either. I also speak from experience on that one. 

To conclude this segment let's look at the rainbow of matters. Different is not so bad. How would an all black rainbow look after a rain? How about an all white rainbow? Do I recognize difference? Of course. Difference/uniqueness is beautiful. Do I see a reason to hate because of identity in difference? No. Most of my friends that have very racist tendencies (not necessarily racist just have a few tendencies), will say that they don't see color. Which I dare say isn't true, or it wouldn't be mentioned in the first place. However, one of my friends of non-color, but color (contradictorily speaking based on her Native American Indian ancestry), once explained that she most definitely recognized color. She spoke of the rainbow. She loves rainbows. "What is a rainbow without color L," she asks me? She was absolutely correct! What is a rainbow without ROYBGIV?! I don't want my favorite color in the rainbow excluded when I look at Gods' promise. However, I also do not see the rainbow being as beautiful with only violet in it. Would I dismantle the rainbow, or the movement? No. Just for the record this is not a LGBT message either, it's about the #LivesThatMatter Movement. I'm not saying that the lives in the LGBT community don't matter either. I am saying we can talk about the oranges after we wrap up the apples. 

Thanks and blessings.

Love Thy Who?

KKK billboard says, 'It's not racist' http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/us/2015/01/01/dnt-billboard-causes-controversy.kolr.html

This billboard is like having Rush Limbaugh doing a remake of "Do The Right Thing," (a Spike Lee movie), make it concerning his own version of race relations within his hometown, and calling it, "Do The Right Wing." 

Instead of Public Enemy doing the theme song of "Fight the Power," it'd be Public Enema doing "White's the Power."

Imperfectly thinking here we go:

Love thy neighbor as thyself, unless they're not your people. Thats how that goes, correct? Is it fair, or just to say too, that that's not racist? 

Forgive the imperfect one, Lord, but I missed the latter half of that verse in Your Holy Word. So to whom should the imperfect Christian call his people? Everyone?! Wow! Even those that don't act like they know that they too belong to You, Lord? Ok, the imperfect loves all people just not all of some people's ways. The imperfect one praises You for the lesson Holy One, and now apartheid (of the imperfect Christian's soul, mind, and body), is dead and freedom is much more abound. Thank You. 

What I Am, Is What I Am

If you're a quitter, you breed quitting or shame. 

If you are a hypocrite, you breed hypocrisy. 

If you are a perfectionist, you breed (oft times), intolerance and displeasure. 

We complain or we ignore. That is to breed complexity, and ignorance. 

We try to be the best friend or the tyrant. That is to breed failure and cowardice. 

Things become difficult and we allow life to do what it will of us, rather than doing with life what we will. The strong parent gets up, knocks the dust off and teaches perseverance. 

"Smoking is bad for you, I don't smoke." "Going to church is important." 

"Don't you dare use that kind of language with me!" 

"You need to take your time!"

How many parents have you heard use these phrases, or better yet have you said these words?

You don't take a promotion because you're afraid of responsibility. The boss makes you mad. Your spouse makes you mad. What do you do? You resign, or remove yourself from your duties. It's a cop out. A cop out that is instilled, bestowed, thrust upon even the youngest of your children. Why? Because they are products of their environment. 

You don't go to church with your family, but harp at how God should be first in everyone's life. You tell everyone drinking is a sin, but you drink like a fish. Yes, I am preaching at self. 

I personally can't stand cigars or cigarettes, and I seldom ever drink and when I do it's not Dos Equis. I'm not the most interesting man in the world or the perfect parent, I am the imperfect Christian that your mother warned you about. 

I am the hypocrite that needed prayer and still does. I'm the parent that tried to learn from other parents and not just my own. I am the parent that tries to learn from the good and the bad in order to make good for all of my children on all occasions. I am the parent that is trying to lead as I am rather than the opposed and lead as I am not but say that I am. Pray for me reader as I pray for you, "Lord let me be more like you!" Amen. 

They Didn't Stand A Chance III

Blogwizer (BW) speaks with the families in this blog. Married couples (MC), as well as single mothers (SM), single fathers (SF), even the children (CH), and here's what they all have to say:

BW: After reading the ladies post (because Blogwizer is a ladies first network), what say you as a single father, about the most difficult things in single parenting. 

SF: First of all, kudos to the single mom for not downing all men or the man that is not their for her children. She may have left him, or he could be a dead beat, but she didn't down him you know? 

Financially it is tough, but I have a great family. My children had their grandparents, and aunts and uncles. So Childcare wasn't a big issue for me, and I have great friends. I was fortunate. It's not as difficult for a man with boys, I could play ball, and help them with homework and hygiene, but I can't imagine having to put ribbons in hair, or talk to a teenage daughter about boys, or hygiene, or caterpillar to butterfly stages. Girls would be hard. 

BW: So what would you do if you had a little girl? I have one, but her mother would NEVER go a day without checking on her. They are close. So what would you do if you had a girl?

SF: What would you do if her mother wasn't close?!

BW: I asked you first, lol!

SF: What any smart man would do... Call my mother! If she wasn't here, I'd call my sister, if she wasn't here, I'd go to my go to girl. You know, my Google woman, my Ask Jeeves woman. 

BW: Nice, hahaha! Ok so what's most rewarding about having your children full time. 

SF: This sounds shallow, but I do things my way. If I want to read to them at night, I can. If I want to have Cheetos in bed with them, I eat Cheetos in bed. I don't have anyone telling me I can't. If I feed them junk food before meals sometimes, then I can get away with that. We watch lots of sports, and we play hard, but school comes first. They are respectful, good boys, and we have a great, and selfless bond. I love my boys. 

BW: That's what's up! Thanks meign. 

SW: You know it, thank you, hope school is good. I know who my counselor will be when he gets his degree.

BW: You sir are too kind!

MiStakes...

Mistake

1:  to blunder in the choice of <mistook her way in the dark> 

2 a: to misunderstand the meaning or intention of: misinterpret <don't mistake me, I meant exactly what I said about my shoe>

b: to make a wrong judgment of the character or ability of 

Intrans.

To be wrong <she mistook the statue of Jesus in the park for a (bearded) lady>

Noun.

1: A wrong judgment: misunderstanding

Those are the Merriam-Webster definitions of the transitive, and intransitive verbs "mistake," "To blunder in the choice of..." "To be (very) wrong..." And last but not least the noun form, of the word "mistake," "a wrong judgment." 

Sivart Pooknyw's definition says, "Something one does to keep them from continuing on their way." He looks at the word a bit differently. 

His definition derives from the Latin "mi," and Middle English "stake." Mi (pronounced like the English "me") in the Latino world translates in English to "my." Stakes in the standard English could mean something at risk, or something that is holding another object in a state of being inanimate. Stakes keep things in place. 

Mistakes according to Sivart Pooknyw can do one of two things for a person. 

1: they can allow one to grow (mature, learn), because they teach valuable lessons in ones confinement, or 

2: the confinement grows (becomes GREATER) because the individual does not. 

We may learn from our mistakes and become greater individuals, and ultimately find freedom from those mistakes afterwards because of the lessons that we have learned, or we may continue in them and find ourselves stuck, confined, tethered, staked in the same mess we've always be staked in. 

If you're a pup who enjoys being off the leash, and not being of the leash (confined by the dog tie stake) then Siv's "First" is the direction you should be leaning in. 

My grandfather would use the dog analogy in a little different light and say, "Never let the same dog bite you twice." 

Another dog analogy could read like this:

Every weekend one of us goes to a club and says, "He/she doesn't love me, he/she lied to me, but what goes around comes around! Karma is a b¡+€#!!!" 

For those of you using that form of dawg analogy, please note that THE only thing going round is YOU! YOU are chasing your own tail, when you chase a different tail (lustfully) every other weekend. Also just for clarity's sake, if you're looking for tail in or out of a club every weekend or for "a" weekend you're chasing in lust. I've learned that the hard way a time or two as well, that you don't physically look for love, but rather that the SPIRIT of love finds you. 

Albert Einstein once said something along these lines... Insanity is expecting a different end result while you are stuck in the same beginning actions. If you aren't willing to change your ways, habits, and actions, then don't expect your consequences to change either. 

To close on a Bulldog baseball note, my stake needs to be pulled (and I'm preaching at self), the hitch in my swing needs to be removed, my mechanics are off, and causing me to strike out! Congratulations, if you hear those words, and you're truly making the CORRECT changes... It means you are on your way to freedom. May your MiStakes be SweepStakes to freedom. 

Blessings... SP

We Dream, We Live, We Believe

Don't just say you believe. Show that you believe.

We believe that what we think is right, when it's really all wrong...
We believe that what we sing is music, when we really have no song...
We believe that we climb the mountain, when the mountain is climbing us...
We believe that we are Trekking, when we can't even afford to ride the bus!

Dream while you sleep, Live while you're awake!

My Yellow jersey, will come with completing a few tasks for my family today. My team will reach the podium when we all finish with the agenda that's at hand. Run the race with faith, and let your steps be that of the righteous, let them be ordered from a Power so high, that nothing can bring you down!

See you on the black top and the trail, until we hit the streets of Gold... Peace