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Listening at the Speed of Life

– by C. J. Wade –

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The Gift That Keeps On Giving

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, But desire fulfilled is a tree of life.
– Proverbs 13:12

Hope deferred… That pair of words reminds me of Harlem, the famous Langston Hughes poem. It was one of my favorite reads in high school.

What truly happens to a dream deferred? That question has been a mystery for years, but the truth hasn’t changed in that the dream only dies when we allow it to cease. When you stop feeding it, it will starve and die within you. Then, you carry dead dreams, dead hope in desperate need of resuscitation. It’s hard to carry broken promises, shredded heart tissue, and withered hope. They’re like cannon balls in your chest, holding you down from flying past your present potential. This is where faith comes in from Hebrews 11:1 – Now faith is the substance of things HOPED for and the evidence of things not seen. Faith kicks in and stands at the door when hope runs out and fear circulates the perimeter of your heart in wait of your paralysis.

IMG_20160809_232315You can also think of this as a monetary transaction. Faith is the check written to you, while hope is the construction of belief that you’ll receive the cash. You can hold on to faith because it supersedes hope. Hope deferred will make your heart ill in longing to fulfill your purpose on Earth. Now this is where the 2nd part of the proverb makes its impact and where I get excited.

Desire fulfilled is a tree of life. Trees are designed to bear seeds. They can’t control where these seeds go, but they produce them out of obedience to their Maker. It has one job… to produce.  The tree stands tall and bears seeds and that’s how forests are formed. When your desires line up with God’s will, not fulfilling that desire/dream will make you feel seedless, unfruitful. The key word is here is FEEL. You are not a sterile spiritual being. You weren’t created to be that.

Once you tap into that TRUTH, you’ll see a tree of life inside of you, not a death sentence. Then, like a tree, the life cycle of your dream will continue well after you’re gone and growth will be inevitable. Your purpose-filled dream will touch many lives after your hands (or “branches”) have aged and produced seeds of great service. Your hope and dream(s) can not afford you to be lazy, discouraged, or spiritually sick. When something is deferred, it is not canceled… so your hope can still be resuscitated.

Keep your hope alive and intimately near  so that your rich, customized life can be the gift that keeps on giving to the soil and air around you.

Have you ever felt like your hope was petrified?

Your dream is a gift, so what are you giving?

What can you do this week to oxygenate your hope and aerate your dreams?

Feel free to comment below.

Peace & Thanks for listening. ✌

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Water Proof

Caution: Let’s go swimming in our thoughts for a bit…. 622 words deep to be exact.

I don’t know how to swim (effectively), but I love the beach. I see a swimming pool and I want to jump in like an Olympic diver and scuba diving is on my LTD (life-to-do) List. With all of this enchantment over water, such a simple necessity, it would make sense as to why God would use it to get His points across.

THE LATSOL MOMENT

One morning while I was walking my dog Sammy, I noticed the dew on the grass. My dog loves to slurp it off the grass in order to prolong his morning ritual. It was nothing new, but the temperature had been consistently 90 degrees or more in Alabama for a week and even the evenings felt like a cough of heat from the daytime. On this particular morning, the dew arrested my attention. How was there dew on the grass in the midst of heat? I know the scientific answer, but that wasn’t satisfying at that moment. Then I heard God say gently…

“No matter how hot it gets, there’s always dew on the grass in the morning.
That alone should be proof that I will take care of you.”

Wow. That was my water proof.  Finally. See a few years ago, I asked for God to help me understand him more… to make himself tangible to my curiosity and satisfy my itch to learn Him in a deeper way. So in order to understand my excitement about this “theorem,” you must hear my “proof.” (Hey, math teachers… two points?) 

Although there are contrary beliefs, these is mine.

HERE WE GO…

Proof:
God is like water.
It is a representation of His deity and awesomeness and is not bound by circumstances. 

Lastly and personally…

To say that water fascinates me would be an understatement. The shower is my thinking place and a warm bath is a cozy envelope for my questions and feelings of frustration. I leave them there, in the envelope, to go down the drain forevermore. When I step out of the shower, I am new. I’m ready for the day or evening and mentally prepared for what’s ahead.

So, when I saw the blades of grass with dew and Sammy was enjoying the natural refreshment in spite of the heat, I felt like God gave my proof some recognition. More like I finally listened to what He had been saying all along. I am God. I will provide. I am not affected by your changes. I am always here. 

I took a deep breath that morning and my soul agreed… and I felt amazing.

Peace & Thanks for listening.

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Where’s North?

photogrid_1462683172881.jpg

A plan with no direction… What a sad plight. You’ve gotten everything ready. The paperwork. The people. The protocol. The capital. But where’s North?

Figuratively, I see North as the place where all other movement hinges. It’s the starting point. Once you know where North is, you know where to start moving. The next steps are predicated upon confirming that one direction and ignorance, in this case, is not bliss. Without this vital information, we travel in circles of frustration and become disoriented in our mistakes. Our former “Big Idea” becomes the bane of our existence and we sit on a pile of confusion praying for the answer to that simple question… “Where’s North?”

If there was just a glimpse of light, a twinkle of a star, a rudimentary clue, you could find your way out of the woods. Until that moment arrives, you wait and heighten your attention in hopes of finding out sooner than later.

The mind of a man has plans, but they are nothing without God’s direction (Proverbs 16:9). He is North. Your plans are well made, but they’re in a jungle of questions and uncertainty.

Find North first. The rest of your journey will make sense as you walk.

What forest have you been wandering in lately? When’s the last time you were still enough to hear where North is?

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Don’t Get It Twisted

1 Samuel 16:7 NASB:

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” – http://bible.com/100/1sa.16.7.NASB

It’s easy to see the good stuff on the outside. Oreo cookies let you see the filling in the middle. The right frosting can make the worst-tasting cake appear delicious. A glass of juice looks appetizing because the container is transparent. Any chef will tell you the people eat with their eyes just as much as their mouths. We believe what we see! But leave it to the Lord to test that carnal inclination with a little thing called faith.

Samuel is sent on a mission to anoint the next King of Israel. He has an idea of what the candidate will look like, but there’s a flag on the play when he realizes that what he saw as the best-looking choice (Eliab) was not God’s chosen King.

How often do we get suckered in by looks alone? That job offer pays more money, but you’ll have less time with the kids. That loan will help relieve some stress, but the interest rate is high. That lover looks like “The One,” but you always feel empty instead of full when he/she leaves your presence.

God knows that our eyes cannot be trusted,
even though He made two of them on our faces!

Our perceptions will lead us over a cliff every time. There are errors in our input that cause us to output in error as well. In the Communication theory world, they are actually called perceptual errors!

Don’t be fooled by what’s on the outside. Whether it’s a person, place, or thing, always ask God to show you the heart of it and act accordingly.

Be obedient to what He sees, not what you perceive.
That’s what faith truly is.

Peace & Thanks for listening.

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