Friday, December 03, 2004

Friday, December 3

Friday, December 3, 2004

(telephone rings..that’s how you know you have a call)


Hello?


D!!!?!!


Heyyy..wazzup?


Man..I didn’t know you knew Ms. Washington?


Huh?


That lady standing next to you on the front page of servinemup.com today..that’s Ms. Washington, she was my math teacher in high school!!

Yeah..a lot of people tell me that. That’s my mother.


What?? Ms. Washington is YO MAMA??


Yeah..I thought you knew?? Between all the years she’s taught math in HISD, with most of those years at Sterling and Hartman, she’s taught math to almost 10,000 Southside hard heads.


Mane! When you go into Ms. Washington class, you better have your stuff TOGETHER!! Cuz she didn’t play! You couldn’t even chew gum in her class!


(laughing) Hmph! Ya’ll think ya’ll had it hard in her CLASS?? Imagine what it was like growing up in her HOUSE everyday.


No wonder you ended up being so good in math and stuff, you had her to teach you the whole time.


Yeah, my mother helped me and my sister with our school work, but the most important thing was that she kept good relationships with our teachers and made sure they communicated regularly. Wasn’t none of that ‘Didn’t DO my homework’ in our house. My parents never pressured us to be straight A students or anything like that, they just focused on conduct and effort. If you were going to live under their roof, you had to obey their laws. You might not know one thing going on in the class, but you will NOT be a disruption to the class and you WILL pay attention and ‘getcho lesson‘.. My mother made sure ALL my teachers knew they had her full support..


"And if he cut up, you need to GET him, and then tell me about it so I can get him when he gets home too!"


So once you have this joint partnership working with the teacher and the parents, then you have a more stable base to train and teach a child properly. That‘s where so much of my spiritual journey began, as I watched my son and daughter sleep at night, I knew that I wanted to give them the best foundation as possible. Parenting can be a very difficult task that requires us to go outside of our pre-defined limits and really concentrate on what our role as a parent is supposed to be. Some people have children who will never be able to live independently, they will always rely on someone else to take care of them to varying degrees. Some of this is due to mental capacities, some physical, some emotional, but we all are dealing with various issues in life, that‘s just part of it. But I strongly believe that the ultimate goal for us as parents, is to train our children in the way that they should go, so that when they grow old, they shall not depart from it. That‘s not mine, I ‘jacked‘ that from Proverbs 22:6, because the spiritual truth that I live, is that all the law and direction we need, is found in the Holy Scriptures.


There is no ‘chaser‘ or ‘addenda‘ that needs to be attached to it either, if you read the Statement of Faith, then you‘ll know that I‘m one of those ‘Sola Scriptura‘ folks..the Scripture ONLY. Of course that‘s when some Catholics and Mormons start backing away and saying ‘That isn‘t quite correct‘, just like the Muslims and thousands of other religions and sects that interpret Revelations 22:18-19, differently than Protestants such as myself:


18 For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book, if anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book; 19 and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the Book of Life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.


The Holy Scriptures cover from eternity past to eternity future. There are no new revelations of Christ, the plan is written and in action, the Scripture is sealed and the Lamb shall return as a roaring Lion. Until then, all those who believe are summoned to take part in the Great Commission. The battle that rages everyday is not ours, it is the Lord’s. But as the people who are His children, those called by His name, we are bid to put on the full armor of the Lord and live our lives as a living testimony to His Grace and Mercy. The Holy Spirit is here with us as our Lord prepares a place for those who believe in Him. For the scripture says that absent from the body, means present with our Lord. A lot of folks have a problem with the Holy Trinity, thinking that God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are 3 different things. But my father explained this to our Sunday School class with the analogy to the sun in the sky. With God representing the sun itself, Jesus being the Light that is emitted and the Holy Spirit being the warmth that we feel from the sun. That’s 3 different essences of the sun, yet it’s still ONE sun. Now those who want to go even deeper, cuz it’s a lot of folks who recognize PARTS of the Scripture, but choose to ignore or invalidate other parts..


‘God didn’t say that..Paul did"


"Even David and Solomon had a lot of women..God ain’t tripping if a man has more than one gal."


A lot of Bible scholars will show them the hundreds of prophecies of the Messiah, of the Lamb, of Emmanuel, throughout the Old Testament Scriptures and they usually start with the reference to Christ that the Lord directed toward Satan the serpent in Genesis 3:15


And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise His heel."



Jesus didn’t just ‘show up’ when the angel appeared to Mary and told her she would bear the Son of God. Jesus has always been with the Lord and if you don’t believe me, back up to Genesis 1:26


Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on earth."


Didja get that? Let US? Plural. That’s not let ME. God is a lot deeper than people thank mane. But heyy..there are doubting Thomas’ everywhere, some folks that actually saw Jesus perform miracles still didn’t believe..so it’s understandable that some folks won’t believe today, no matter WHAT you tell them or show them. That’s just how it is. But I’ve found that most people who don’t believe the report of Christ, who don’t believe in their heart that Jesus is Lord, most of them hate on Him because they don’t want to bow down and obey His law. Just like some spoiled kids,


"Can’t NOBODY tell ME what to DO!!..humph!..I’m GROWN!…You ain’t MY daddy..you can’t tell me NUTTHIN!!"


Most of those folks who act like that don’t have a father that trained them properly. There’s a lot of sorry father’s out there who didn’t take care of their responsibilities toward their child and now there’s a bitterness in them. Them folks who act like the world owes them something. Well, my prayer for my 1st book and every book that the Lord will bless me to write, is that my words will find a way to touch the hearts of a wayward father or a prodigal child that is seeking refuge from the wilderness. Cuz anybody that’s alive with their eyes open in 2004 knows that it IS a wilderness that we’re living in. Full of all kinds of wild animals and pits to fall into. True players know when it’s time to come in out the pit and live under that covenant of the Lord where your soul is safe. And the best part about it all, is that it doesn’t matter WHERE you are, or WHAT family you are in..the opportunity to accept Christ is open to the world, there are no barriers by blood or ritual, the curtain to the Holy of Holies is no longer a dividing partition, we ALL have access to the Spirit of the Lord, all you have to do is believe.


That's what my parents taught me and that's what I teach my kids. I guess everybody just ain't ready to go out on faith like that tho.