Monthly Archives: August 2018

Forgiveness is the key to happiness

Leave a reply

For the better part of a decade-plus, I let anger and bitterness fill my heart when it came to a particular family member. The reason for my anger is neither here nor there but suffice to say it was Ironic that despite the fact I was harboring a grudge, I knew that the result of their actions played out to my benefit. It laid the very foundation of the man I am today, and I am very proud of that man. Despite this indisputable fact, I continued to curse the decision and the way it was revealed to me.

Hebrews 12:15 – “looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled.”

Not acknowledging my bitterness and true feelings during this time robbed me of a family bond that should never be broken. My anger cast a giant shadow on my very being. The rift between that family member and myself by its very nature spilled over to that family member’s immediate family. In essence, I cut myself off from them while not acknowledging that I was doing exactly what I was doing. I missed the birth of many children and the growth of others. I became a stranger to an entire branch of the family tree. I can never put into perspective what those losses have had on me as a person, but I know it could not have been positive. Family is always family, and through anger and bitterness, I had forgotten that.

A recent health issue was the catalyst for me to re-examine and reenergize my faith. Through prayer, the Lord spoke to me and guided me to realize that the very lack of forgiveness is sin. That same lesson is taught to us in “The Lord’s Prayer.”

Matthew 6: 12-15

12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation,[1]but deliver us from the evil one.[2]‘ 14 For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

As explained in Bible.org href=”https://bible.org/article/issue-forgiveness-sermon-mount”>https://bible.org/article/issue-forgiveness-sermon-mount it appears that what Jesus is saying is that God, intending to love the unforgiving child, refuses to forgive him in an attempt to get the child to come face to face with His sin of an unforgiving heart. The person who is unwilling to forgive will soon meet his Equal. The goal of this is to re-establish the broken relationships between God and the people involved.

For me, this realization was like a bright light shining onto the darkness in my heart. The next day, I picked up the phone and called that family member to start the healing process and mend the rift between us. I expressed how wrong I had been and how I wanted us to go back to being a family again. It was an emotional call for both of us, but upon saying the words, I want us to be a family again I could feel the weight lifted. My heart had been released of the bitterness it had stubbornly held for over a decade. I understood that I had finally done the right thing. After all, a family is a family and nothing should break that bond.

D648FAD1-F432-46C0-AAF3-63E09AA3DAF8.png

You may at times neglect your faith but it is never to late to renew it

1 Reply

When I first moved into my new apartment, I was gifted an African Violet as a house warming gift. I remember thinking how beautiful it was with its purple blooms. Now I’m not exactly known as someone with a green thumb, but the African Violet did not need much attention. You have to keep the soil moist to dry and allow the soil around roots to dry out before watering. It thrived in moderate to bright, indirect, indoor light. Pretty much, it was set and go and enjoy its beauty.
In the beginning, I made a point of taking great care of the plant; it was, after all, easy to do. I also found myself looking at it as a source of relaxation and motivation due to its striking color and amazing blooms. Just by looking at it, I could feel my spirits being lifted as it seemingly gave me a sense of purpose.
As the months went by, the good times were plentiful. Success seemed to be around every corner. With success, I found myself spending more time at the office as I endeavored to continue, which at the time was a rapid rise up the corporate ladder. When I wasn’t in the office, I was out networking and enjoying the social scene. During this time, I neglected my beautiful African Violet that had provided me with so much inspiration. Then as fast as the success came, the economy took a downward turn. Cutbacks were on the horizon. I survived the company purge, but the rise up the corporate ladder came to a dramatic halt. The large bonuses that I had foolishly incorporated into my budget to finance my overextended lifestyle dried up. At the same time, my girlfriend, who I believed loved me, answered the question New Edition once asked. Can you stand the rain? As you may have guessed, her answer was no, and she told me it was over. She made up some excuse about us growing apart, but it was pretty obvious the distance between us only widened as my bank account lessened.
I fell into a funk. Depressed, I cut myself off from most of the world. I frequently asked myself, why is this happening? Spend many a weekend laying in bed with no desire to get up and embrace the day. One day, I looked at my long-neglected African Violet, hoping it could once again inspire me with its beauty. When I looked at it, I saw it had stop flowering and its leaves had turned yellow. I immediately understood that it was my failure to water it and cultivate its soil because I was so busy enjoying the good times, that was. Responsible for its current condition.
I had taken it for granted and assumed that it would always be there in all its beauty as an inspiration when I needed it.
Your faith is like the African Violet; it does not require super high maintenance. But it does require that we not neglect it. Not cultivate and continue to strengthen it in the good times and expect that it will merely be there for us in times of angst. We must continue to take steps along our spiritual journey, praising the Lord for the blessings He has bestowed upon us in good times. Strengthen our belief each day so that we do not turn away from the Lord and egotistically pat ourselves on the back for achieving such success, forgetting that without the Lord, we would be nothing.
I looked at the African Violet and took steps to restore its beauty. Watering it, cultivating its soil, ensuring that it received the proper amount of sunlight. Soon its beauty began to return. It started to bloom once again. New bright and vibrant green leaves took the place of the ones that had turned yellow. My renewed commitment to the African Violet brought me a new and stronger plant and, with it, a new source of inspiration. Now each day, I look at it in all of its beauty and go out and embrace all that the world offers me, good and bad.
As with the African Violet, you can renew your faith by recommitting to the Lord. The Lord does not hold grudges and His blessings are always there for you. As you restart your spiritual journey and offer your praise unto him, you will soon see that your situation will begin to brighten in time.

EB31F339-E915-4CA8-8B0B-F27786B1AB02.jpeg

Happy Monday

Leave a reply

Good Morning and Happy Monday
Let us sing with praise yet another opportunity to see a new week and continue our spiritual journey. As the new week begins, remember that there are many new and exciting opportunities waiting for us. Many of them hidden from us in the dark, waiting for us to find them; it is with an unstoppable faith in the Lord that we will find that we are blessed with the vision to shine a light on these opportunities and bring them to fruition. For indeed, the Lord is great, and he has blessed us with many remarkable opportunities for us to claim in his holy name.

18CF2BE8-5D7A-4A01-B96C-C11F51D87962.jpeg

True Italian

Leave a reply

I grew up around many Italian families and NYC’s real little Italy Arthur Avenue and was honored to have a number of delicious homemade Italian meals and eat at some of the best Italian restaurants and pizzerias.  So let me be clear:

1. Deep dish is not pizza it’s a casserole 

2. The Olive Garden is not an Italian restaurant it’s a  store that sells something that looks like pasta and taste like… well I’m not sure because I’ve only been there once begged forgiveness after going and swore never to go again

3. Dominos, Papa Johns and Pizza Hut are not pizzerias it’s a storefront version of a supermarket freezer storing those frozen pizzas in a box

4. A slice with pineapple topping is not a slice it’s an abomination. 

5. The real little Italy in NYC is not in Manhattan it’s in the Bronx and Arthur ave & 187th Street is still the epicenter

4D8AD651-4C62-498F-962E-7363E70E1670.png

The danger within

Leave a reply

A country whose citizens:

Turns a blind eye to social injustice, 

Condones immoral behavior from their leaders,

Believes anything that those in power tell them rather than educating themselves.

Allows their government in essence to be run by and to the benefit of the wealthy few.

Need not worry about its enemies because in time it will be destroyed from with-in

 

It is not a test for the Lord it is a test for ourselves

Leave a reply

Not to toot my own horn, but I was considered a rising star in my career. Having achieved success at every level, I quickly rose through the ranks. At the same time, my colleagues continued to take training courses to strengthen their skill sets and keep pace with the innovations and technologies. I chose to skip these training classes. After all, I was a star, and what was a trainer going to teach me that I didn’t already know. Sadly due to an economic downturn, the company was forced to lay off several employees, including a supervisor in my division. Not being able to hire a new supervisor, I was tasked with the responsibility of that unit’s direct supervision. Upon taking over, I realized that much of what I thought I knew had evolved beyond my current level of understanding. Production levels began to suffer, people above me began to question my leadership. Self-doubt started to creep into my psyche. My bitterness toward the company began to mount. How could they put me in this position? Were they setting me up to fail? Then one day, my mentor came to me and said instead of moping around, being bitter, and blaming the company, realize that things were going so well for you it was easy to take your talents for granted you forgot what made you so successful. Recommit to your craft, he said, take those training classes, brush up on the new technologies. Strengthen your area of expertise, and you’ll see things will turn around. Taking his advice, I put my nose to the grindstone, enrolled in the training classes, researched the new technology available, and talked to staff to get their feedback on what we could do to increase efficiency. With my renewed energy and strengthen skill set, it was only a matter of time before the numbers began to turn around, and today the division is turning a profit at an all time high.

This story serves as a simile to our faith. When things are sailing along in our lives, we tend to take our faith for granted. But when faced with adversity, many of us ask, why me? Why is the Lord testing me? We become depressed at the situation and angry with the Lord. It is then that evil sees its opening and tempts us with the promise of a better day if we reject the Lord and follow it. When faced with this option, many of us are easily swayed to accept evil’s proposition. After all, if He truly loved me, why would He test me in this way? But what we fail to understand is that the Lord is not testing us for Himself; he is testing us for ourselves. As someone once said:

When God pushes you to the edge, trust him fully because only two things can happen. Either He will catch you when you fall, or He will teach you how to fly. 

The key part of that quote is the words trust him fully. In times of adversity, it a test for us to see for ourselves how strong our faith truly is. To see if we remember that our good times were the result of His blessings. To see if our faith is as strong as we believed it to be or does it waiver in times of adversity. If it does indeed waiver, we must, like I did in my career, put our nose to the grindstone and recommit to Him by taking steps along our spiritual journey to strengthen our faith. Remember, we are His children, and his love for us is unconditional. So much so that he gave us His only son so that we may be forgiven of sin. He loves us so that as it is written in Ephesians 13-14, He promised us eternal life.

13 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is the guarantee4of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it,5 to the praise of his glory.

Once come to the understanding that the Lord will never abandon us and that we should not question when He will provide us with the blessings required to overcome the adversity we are facing but accept the truth that as it is written, He makes all things beautiful in His time will we be able to prove to ourselves that we do indeed possess a faith that is strong and cannot be shaken even in times of adversity.

92ADEEF1-F306-489D-B24E-8D4A464F5B3D