“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength and my Redeemer.” – Psalms 19:14
I’ve learned that whenever you quote Scriptures, it will grab people’s attention in a way like no other. A lot of this attention will come from people who don’t read or study the Bible, they just figure it must be a pretty good book, cuz so many people study it religiously and they usually seem to be pretty good folks.
These people are ‘Bible curious’. Not ready to drink deeply themselves, but whenever the Word crosses their palate, they always taste a hint of familiarity. Their spiritual creature is yearning for more, but their flesh is still in control of their domain, so they abstain from any heavy infusion of the Word because they know it’s going to change them and they’re not quite ready to swallow that red pill of truth.
They might listen to an entertaining televangelist from time to time, but they’re not in the frame of spirit to follow ANY theology religiously. I call these people spiritual spectators. They’re on the sideline or in the stands, but they have yet to suit up in their full armor of God and get in the game. Spiritual infants don’t last long in the trenches, if you’re going to get on that frontline of the battle; you’ve got to get suited up. (read Soldiers in the Hood).
On the other end of the spectrum, are the Believers who see the Scriptures, so they take a closer scrutiny of the words that I write around the Scriptures. There’s supposed to do that too. if you are a part of the family of God, then it is your duty to defend the gospel. Whenever you see someone misspeaking, or taking Scriptures out of context, then you’re supposed to call it out.
I have a public Guestbook/Comments portion on this website that I read from time to time, especially those times when my spirit is running low. If you go through it, you will see a nice assortment of family and friends who have stopped by www.servinemup.com and showed love for their homie, brother, cousin, son, husband or friend, D.E. Washington.
There’s even more people who I’ve never even met before who got turned on to www.servinemup.com from a friend, family member or co-worker and they show their appreciation for the way that I get down with my pen. Thank you.
I read a lot of other blogs and websites out there on the web and a lot of writers (or bloggers in this case) have people coming at them kinda foul. Making very rude comments which are quite disrespectful in a lot of instances. Fortunately, all the people that have taken an issue to my writing style have done so in a private manner via email (dwashington@servinemup.com).
My biggest criticism (to date) comes from the people who take offense to my use of curse words, especially my casualty with the ghetto euphemism, ‘n’ga’. Some people live in worlds were they rarely (if ever) have to hear that word. In my house, we treat the word ‘n’ga’ as a curse word. Our children aren’t allowed to say it. not to each other or not when referring to another person.
When I’m on the phone with some of my podnas that I grew up with, the kind of strong brothers that I can be all the way real with without worrying about being offensive. I still use it. I’m from the Southside of Houston, Texas mane. If you’re offended or throwed off by the word ‘ng’a’, then you’re not going to make it through your day without being upset.
It’s not an excuse to use it, but rather a clarification. My mother and my sister, pastors, preachers, deacons, Sunday School teachers. there’s a large mix of folks that come check out www.servinemup.com regularly. When I do use curse words, I feel that I keep them in proper context, there’s a time and a place for everything.
Almost all of my non-black friends that read www.servinemup.com usually are a bit surprised..
“I’ve never even heard you talk like that before D.”
I have a tendency to jump in with the Romans and do as they do, when it comes to communicating, but I am mindful of the audience to which I am a part of. When you adopt the pure dialect of a region, and its part of your native tongue, then there are some things you’re just not going to see the same as an outsider who didn’t grow up or live within your given sphere of communication.
Are you feeling me mane? Tu entiendes?
Si yo empezar habla espanol, mis compadres de el barrio (Southside!) no estan etienden, pero las gente que hablar espanol como dice, ‘Orale, Ese!’
That’s probably one of the most messed up sentences ever written in Spanish. But those people that can speak Spanish,like my podna and brother in Christ, Luis (pictured) can feel it. It’s a thing that I’ve had to wrestle with for a minute now. If you’re going to shine the Light for a darkened world, how are you going to make them FEEL you??
People get it a bit twisted, I don’t write for folks who already go to church. I don’t write for people who have already bowed down, people who have already repented and turned from their wicked ways and followed the gospel of Christ.
God sent me down here to serve these fools. At least, that is the latest instruction that He has issued to me. Before you even ask, no, He didn’t appear to me in the midst of a burning bush. He didn’t write this down on a wall for me to read. God spoke to me through His Word.
Once you bow up and swallow that red pill of truth, you know it’s just an analogy for drinking from the cup of our LORD.
Everybody ain’t ready to take that shot to the head and drink all of it. Instead they’re sipping on it, taking their time..easing into the faith. Because they’re not ready for any BIG change in their lives, they just want to take baby steps.
It’s funny how a lot of people who only want to take baby steps toward God always seem to be the same ones that want those BIG blessings from God.
“Protect me LORD, save me from these haters.”
“Heal my body LORD.”
“I’m broke LORD, and I don’t know where my next meal is coming from..save me please.”
Some people like to sugarcoat and deliver that gospel-lite to non-Believers..
“It’s go be alright, just try to do the best you can, the LORD loves you no matter what.”
Yeah, the LORD does love all of us no matter what, but if you continue to have a hardened heart and if you continue to refuse to bow down and submit to the ONE true and Almighty God? Then you’re going to find yourself locked up.
Not necessarily in jail (although He might come into your heart then), but when I say locked up, I mean locked up in life. You might even have a nice job, nice family, nice house, nice ride, good health..but you will still have emptiness in your life. You’ll be tossing and turning in your sleep, unable to find rest. You might try to exhaust yourself through your career, or through your kids. but you’re still going to have that emptiness.
Some people even think they just need a mate. They think they need a husband or a wife to complete them, to finally bring them their happiness. But what they don’t understand is that there are a lot of married people that have the aforementioned pedigree..beautiful people, sexy couples, but yet they have a chasm that is keeping them from reaching happiness.
No matter what they do, or how they switch the money up, or how they handle the kids, they will never be able to reach that point of bliss until they swallow that red pill of truth and become real players in the game.
Society and common etiquette will make you believe that happiness is gained by worldly possessions and worldly status. Get educated, get paid, raise your kids, acquire assets, stack that paper and retire at 50.
If ain’t nobody told you yet, earthly possessions ain’t what the game is about. That’s something that the enemy throws out there to distract all the attention deficit n’gaz. Get them n’gaz caught up into worrying about bills, cars, promotions and distract them from focusing on that real.
If Hurricane Katrina and it’s aftermath hasn’t taught us anything else, it should teach us that the most important things in life do not have a price tag. But what is invaluable, what is more precious than diamonds and platinum, is your soul.
And until you start feeding your spiritual being (read Soul Food), until you put your entire essence under submission to the Almighty Creator, you shall never be complete (no matter how much you THINK you’re ballin.)
So what now? How do you know if you’re one of those spectators on the outside of the game looking in?
Look, when you study the Bible, God will reveal Himself to you. He will prick your heart and once that Spirit moves in..be ready to ride baby. Because there’s much work to do out here in the game.
The beast is roving to and fro seeking to devour our children, seeking to ravage our wives, seeking to destroy our husbands. If there is a frontline to the battlefield, if there is a critical boundary which is being assaulted, it is our family structure.
God’s plan for marriage and God’s plan for the family are very descript. The men are to be the priest of the family. Just like the Levitical priesthood, the men are to serve as the one who goes before the LORD to give accounts and prayers for the entire family. The wife is to work with the husband in unison. That’s why the Scripture says, ‘And the two shall become one flesh.’ Once you get married, ‘we are one’.
Teddy Pendergrass got a lot of people off track, making you think it was a ’50-50’ love that was required. But if you’re going to step into the family, and call upon the full blessing that the LORD has prepared for you and your life, then you have to put that 50-50 thinking away, and realize that the real ratio is 100-100. Both the husband and the wife have to go all out in the paint if it’s going to work.
Imagine you’re in one of those 2 person canoes, with the man paddling and the woman paddling. Instead of both working together diligently trying to get to that Promised Land, you often have two people too worried about what the other one is doing instead of focusing on what more they can do.
“You ain’t paddling enough! I ain’t about to do ALL the work!”
“Aww n’ga! I ain’t about to waste my time paddling and you don’t even know which direction you want to go in!! One minute we’re going here, the next minute we’re going there! Make up your mind!!”
And instead of making their way to the other side, they’re stuck out in that vast deep, looking at each other crazy. Arms folded, knots all in the forehead, both of them pondering exit strategies..
“I would be better off paddling by myself, she ain’t nothing but dead weight, a lot more weight than I married..that’s for sure..hmph!.”
“I don’t even know why I got into the boat with this weak n’ga..I shoulda got in the boat with that other dude, at least his boat had a big motor! Hmph!”
As long as you have one foot out the boat, ready to bail out, then it’s going to breed feelings of insecurity and instability. You gotta have some trust. That’s going out there on faith, some people just can’t do it, even though they’ve been married for years.
But I know that if I can write one word that will plant a seed, that God will give the increase for one man to realize the error in his ways, and repent and submit himself to the will of the LORD? Then I know that my work has not been in vain. All it takes is one..no matter how small. It’ll cover a multitude of sins too, and I’ve got a lot of em.
Some people get ‘saved’ and all of a sudden they become holier than thou. Acting as if they’ve never done anything wrong in their life. All Christians have a past and all sinners have a future. I’m not on a pedestal like that, instead God put me right down here in the pit on the Southside of Houston, Texas. Just like most other hard heads from this area, I’ve broken all 10 of the commandments at some time in my life.
It’s not a boast, but rather a reality. Because I know a lot of people think that they’re just too ‘throwed’ to come to God. It really threw me off when Jesus broke off that part about thinking about sinning was just as bad as the real act, I threw up my hands in defeat!
“I MUST be going to hell, cuz I can’t control my thoughts and I be thinking some WILD stuff!!”
I almost was resentful about it, because I felt that God gave me this brain that thinks all this throwed off stuff, why would he hold me accountable for a natural thing that I can’t control??
But the thing about this Christian walk, is that it is not a static position. It is a journey. We move from glory to glory. It’s kinda like those little toys, where you can take off the top half of the egg shaped doll and it will reveal another smaller doll inside, which can be taken off and so on.
Everyday in the Christian walk, is like looking up to see that the world is a lot bigger than what you initially perceived. I see things on the level of the universe, the globe, the continent, the country, the state, the city, the hood, the family, the marriage and right there in the core, the only iteration that doesn’t ring of hollowness, that one level you have to get to reach a solid peace, is that relationship you have with the Father.
If you don’t have a personal relationship with the LORD, then whatever you do in life will be like building a house on sand. You have to anchor your soul in the LORD if you’re going to be able to withstand those storms that pass through life, there is no other way. You can’t buy your way to happiness. You can’t work your way to happiness. You definitely can't drink or smoke your way to happiness. The only way you’re going to get that everlasting peace, the only way you’re going to have that joy, is by accepting the gift that the LORD has extended for ALL to partake of.
Just because nobody else in your family or in your circle of friends doesn’t believe that God manifested Himself here on earth in the form of the Son. Just because all your homies are too afraid to take that REAL ride and jump in the battleship of the LORD, don’t let their reluctance and unbelief keep you from accepting the invitation that God extends to all of His children.
We’re getting closer and closer to that day when everybody on the face of this earth will have heard the gospel of Christ. Those who are passed away without ever hearing about Him will be judged by the law that they believed in. But those who are alive and who have been repeatedly preached, taught, sung, told about the goodness and mercy of Christ? There will be no excuse for them.
“I didn’t swallow that red pill cuz I didn’t KNOW it was YOU!! If you would have just given me a sign or something to let me KNOW that it was really you God, then I woulda done right! Can’t I just have that chance for a special sign so that I will know?”
I dunno, maybe God will give you a special sign that you request, but there have been others who asked the LORD for a special request for their people still alive and the LORD just shook His head and told him that they already had a sign, He gave us all the Law and the Prophets.
Everybody has a Bible in their house, but few are actually studying it. When you read the Bible, you will see it is divided into two parts, the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament is what is referred to as the Law and the Prophets. It’s what the Jewish nation refers to as the Torah. Jesus ain’t a new thang, He was already around, even back in the Old Testament, even before the formation of the earth.
“Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our own image, according to Our likeness.” –Genesis 1:26a NKJV
That ‘Us’ is a singular word with plural representation ‘Elohim’, an early indication of the triune nature of God. A lot of people have all kinda excuses of why they won’t seek, why they won’t study that Word to show themselves approved unto God. In the end, they’re just that ‘excuses’ and until you bow up and stand up to be the soldier that God had planned for you to be since before you were even formed in your mother’s womb, you’re going to be stuck.
I’m not telling you this is a preacher, or a man of the cloth. I’m telling you this as another soul that found himself trapped within the belly of the beast and it wasn’t until I got down on my knees and repented and called on the name of the LORD to save me, to guide me, to deliver me, to redeem me that I found my peace.
It wasn’t until I gave up my pride of who I thought I was and instead submitted myself to the LORD’s will..not my will, HIS will.
It wasn’t until I gave myself to the battle, that I actually knew who I was. But now that the LORD has delivered me (Thankya Jesus!), I know I can’t sit on my hands. There’s much work to be done out here. And I know if I can pimp my pen and sow these seeds into these fools heads and let them enjoy learning the game, but at the same time knock em upside the head with that REAL?
I’ll be doing what the LORD commissioned me to do. The LORD has a way of letting you know that He’s right there with you too. It’ll be like being a pit bull in a fight with another dog. All the while that you’re taking those bites from the enemy, you know the LORD is right there by your side, soothing you, motivating you, making you impervious to the pain. After awhile, you start liking the pain, because every bump, bruise, scratch and wound that you suffer for the kingdom is another crown.
Everyone who reads Job can realize that Satan definitely has the power to choke you on out of here. But Satan can only go as far as God allows him to go. If God says that Satan can’t touch you, then he can’t touch you..period.
God didn’t give me a protective hedge like that, me and my family are living in this wilderness with crackheads, dope fiends, child molesters, robbers and rapist just like everybody else. We stay prayed up and we go about our work uplifting the kingdom of God here on earth.
That doesn’t mean we can’t be in a car accident, or in a plane crash. That doesn’t mean we can’t lose everything in a hurricane. No, for it rains on the just as well as the unjust. But the peace that I have is knowing that I have a God that will never leave me or never forsake me. When He comes and saves you from a pit of despair and desperation, when He soothes you through your time of troubles, then you know that you will always be His and it’s a Grace that no one can ever take away from you.
The storms can’t wash Grace away, the floods can’t drown Grace out, even that fire will only prove Grace, and it won’t melt it away. Once you have the blessed assurance of knowing that absent from your body, will mean present with the LORD? (smiling) That’s when you’ll be ready to get on the battlefield!!
So my prayer for my 1st book, Real Game, is that it will serve as a training program. It will put more people up on what’s real. Especially those who have never heard it before, especially for those people who feel themselves out there sinking in deep waters and they know they’re going to drown if they don’t clutch on to the hem of His garment.
I can’t save anybody. I can only tell you what the LORD says and pray for God to give the increase. Some of my friends are tripping, because they don’t know how to take this. Since I’m one of those people that they used to do dirt with, they don’t know how to take my conversion.
They know how I get down in different arenas, how real my game is on the basketball court, they know how I get down when a 90 mph fastball is coming down the pipe, they know how I get down when it’s time to hit the club and pick up women, they know how I get down when it’s time to get that ‘hookup’, they know how I get down on the dominoes table, they know how I get down on the golf course, they know I know how to roll a blunt so big that they think I’m a Cuban, they know how I get down when it’s time to jump on I-10 (or I-Sin, as we say on the Southside), but they don’t believe in Jesus. Yet there’s nothing about me or my walk in life that would make them think that I’m not being real about what I believe. I’m not perfect, but they see me striving.
And it kinda throws them off. Because they find themselves being faced with the truth from a real n’ga and they don’t have anymore excuses of why they can’t believe. Most of my friends that have problems like this with me and my public profession of my faith in Christ rarely call me anymore. They don’t want to hang out with D. Wash, because that n’ga act like he trying to make a n’ga change his mind or something.
I would hate to drive anyone away, or make them feel that they’re unwelcome company. But it’s just as well that those who don’t believe take a few steps back from me if they feel too much heat. It’s crucial out here ya’ll. The time to repent is now. Although no man knows the day that our LORD will return, you would be a fool not to realize that we’re in the 4th quarter baby. Some of ya’ll are procrastinating, hoping it goes into double overtime..but tomorrow is promised to no man.
You better load up and ride or die baby. The Scripture is very descript, either you are for Him or against Him, there is no middle ground. The beast will try to convince you that Jesus is ‘a cool dude’ and all, but He’s not the ONLY Way. If there was another way to Heaven, then that would mean everything Jesus did was in vain.
Unlike a lot of religious zealots, I don’t trip on denominational exclusiveness. I’m not telling everyone that they should be Baptist or Methodist or whatever. I just encourage every one to come to God, He will reveal His truth to you as you move toward Him.
Brother C.S. Lewis broke it down very well like this:
““I hope no reader will suppose that ‘mere’ Christianity is here put forward as an alternative to the creeds of the existing communions- as if man could adopt it in preference to Congregationalism or Greek Orthodoxy or anything else. It is more like a hall out of which doors open into several rooms. If I can bring anyone into that hall I shall have done what I attempted. But it is in the rooms, not in the hall, that there are fires and chairs and meals. The hall is a place to wait in, a place from which to try various doors, not a place to live in. For that purpose the worst of the rooms (whichever that may be) is I think, preferable. It is true that some people may find they have to wait in the hall for a considerable time, while others feel certain almost at once which door they must knock at. I do not know why there is this difference, but I am sure God keeps on one waiting unless He sees that it is good for him to wait. When you do get into your room you will find that the long wait has done you some kind of good which you would not have had otherwise. But you must regard it as waiting, not as camping. You must keep praying for light; and, of course, even in the hall, you must begin trying to obey the rules which are common to the whole house. And above all you must be asking which door is the true one; not which pleased you best by its paint and paneling. In plain language, the question should never be: ‘Do I like that kind of service?’ but ‘Are these doctrines true: is holiness here? Does my conscience move me towards this? Is my reluctance to knock at this door due to my pride, or my mere taste, or my personal dislike of this particular door-keeper?
When you have reached your own room, be kind to those who have chosen different doors and to those who are still in the hall. If they are wrong they need your prayers all the more; and if they are your enemies, then you are under orders to pray for them. That is one of the rules common to the whole house.” – Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis, 1952
Ya’ll betta come inside the house mane, because when that last storm hits, it’s not going to be with water, it’s going to be with fire..ride or die.
