Category: Devotions

To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write:

These are the words of the One who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What He opens, no one will shut; and what He shuts, no one will open.Revelation 3:7

So today I locked myself out of my car and my mom’s house. Tragic. Of course it came to me to write about it. Here I was, baby covered by a blanket, my junk bag purse, diaper bag, and a cup of water. My hands were too full to call anyone but fortunately I have an Apple watch so I could call my mom and my best friend. My mom got home in 5 minutes. I had plans that I instantly rescheduled and rearranged.

But when I had time to sit down and catch my breath about 2 hours later, I thought about how we sometimes force things that have been locked and closed. For example, we dig up in the recesses of our phone history or Facebook messages the name and phone number of an ex or old friendship — any ship that has set sail will do. And then what happens? We fall back into the same thing we had been delivered from. We wonder why we stopped talking to that person or changed our number and life has a way of quickly reminding us. We prayed asking God to deliver us from a relationship and when He does, when He closes the door, we are happy and throwing up a praise.

So why do we quickly forget? Why do we lose sight of what life was like when we were in sin, or in a messy situation? I don’t know why and I wish I did. Wait, perhaps it is how the situation makes us feel at first, the false warm fuzzies we get, the false sense of love and how our eyes have been distorted to view the situation as something that is desirable.

All of this to say, be vigilant and pay attention to the situations you are in, even if the people are not the same. Don’t be afraid to ask God for wisdom and insight so that you can truly see things for what they are. Don’t let how good it feels disillusion you to the truth! It’s easy to get into "locked, closed doors" if you are determined enough. The enemy doesn’t want you to be happy, so he will make it look so appealing, so desirable, that you lose sight of the markers along the way that are telling you to run!

“Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live!”
‭‭Deuteronomy‬ ‭30:19‬ ‭NLT‬‬

I’ve been meaning to write for a few days now. Happy New Year!! With each new year we entertain the possibly of New Year’s resolutions: things we want to do differently, changes we want to make, goals we’d like to achieve. I write to encourage you to consider a new possibility: evaluating the choices you’ve made over the years to make a turn in the right direction going forward. Let’s be honest, we don’t like to consider that our choices have us in the places we are in. We get offended if someone tells us the truth in love — that our choices and the meter we gauge them by need to be adjusted.

The events of my life last year are now public knowledge. I got involved with a man, had sex and in the course of our involvement, I became pregnant. I went through my pregnancy without the support of that man and delivered my child. I made the choice to go forward with the pregnancy and have my child after much prayer, despite his lies. I chose to say no to that man’s requests for me to reconsider. I chose to look myself in the face in the mirror and own my faults and my need of God to bring me back from what I perceived to be the worst and lowest point of my life.

Sharing scriptures is something I do on my LifeInspiredByGod blog to tie things together…and it was fitting here to do it. People in general do not think about the long term ramifications of their choices. Especially in our "live in the moment" culture as of late, it’s easier to say yes to something now without thinking about how it will affect you later. So in light of having a child now, I have to, I mean I must think that way because everything I do now will affect him in some way. Dang. I just thought about how everything — from the food I eat to choosing to be active — affects him and me in some way. But such is life. So in all that…make sure the choices you make today, you can live with the consequences of them tomorrow, be it good or bad. As the scripture says, choose life!