Hard Lessons

Day 24: Hard Lessons

Hebrews 5:7-9 During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.

"The Call" by Isabel Davis https://youtu.be/aSW8ZcEldgQ

Happy Twenty Fourth Day of Thanks Everyone!

Today, I stand in so much awe of God! The word of God tells us that Jesus learned obedience through His suffering. Many of us don't want or welcome suffering or the hard lessons in our lives, but it is through those hard lessons that we learn to pray the fervent, travailing prayers that get heard. It is through the hard lessons that we learn obedience to the father and align ourselves back to His perfect will for our lives.

I told you all that my friend's brother was arrested several days ago. Today, he was finally released into the custody of his mother and father with all of his family in toe, watching a miracle of God happen right before their eyes. My friend's brother, who I will call Jose, was forever changed by that experience.

The judicial system tried to tack on an attempted murder charge to this innocent young man and set bail at $200,000, claiming this poor, cognitively challenged black teenage male was a flight risk! (I won't even start to rant about the corruption of this system and it's attempt to destroy our young black and brown youth. Tell me how someone who is poor and cognitively challenged a flight risk?)

Upon his release, he asked his mother and sister if they could bring him to see me. Jose and I had an encounter a year ago and I've been in the background on his cheering team ever since. I have been actively praying for him and his family before our first in-person encounter. But, I imagine Jose and my in-person encounter is what solidified his connection to me.

As he got out of the car and I hugged him, he broke down crying in my arms. I reassured him that he was okay, he was loved and supported, and with this experience he had learned a lesson that changed his life forever. This experience taught Jose who his true friends were; the experience drew him closer to God and taught him how to pray; he also learned that those of us who have been trying to guide him were telling him the truth the entire time.

Jose couldn't stop crying. He was hurt that he put his mother and sisters through the pain and hurt of him getting locked up. He apologized to them and his father profusely. Jose was hurt that the gentlemen who claimed to be his friends and who he had stood up for and supported left him completely alone. He declared how unfair it was that he was trying to pin charges on him that someone else did. I saw this young man, who just a year earlier told me that he didn't really pursue a relationship with the Lord, fall on his knees multiple times and start praying and thanking God during our encounter.

This hard lesson woke him up and made him privy to the straight and narrow path that he was avoiding for quite some time. Jose realized that the voices he heard, as the walls of the jail felt like they were closing in on him, have been voices that he had given too much power over his life. He was finally ready to resist them so they could flee from his life.

The most important of this hard lesson was that it brought Jose's father into the picture. It made his father realign his priority and stay around to support his son. God allowed this entire family to be unified and together for prayers of deliverance to start in the lobby of my building. Mother (wife)/father (husband), both children, and unborn baby on the way, were anointed, received prayer and chains of bondage were broken. Spiritual eyes were open, demonic hedges were broken and cast out of the lineage and renounced so they could not pass to another generation. Minds were completely restored as we prayed.

It is truly through suffering that we learn the importance of obedience. I look back over my life and see all the many hard situations/circumstances that refined my character and thought process and aligned me back to God's plan and agenda for my life. One of those moments--im thinking of when Lilah got sick and her 17 year journey with autism and seizures-- drove me to the feet of Jesus to pray bull's eye prayers that TKO the enemy and his posee. Sacrificing and waiting on the Lord, when it has been very hard to see complete lack, has taught me obedience and strength of character. I have experienced betrayals in some of the worst way; these experiences taught me how to better choose my friends and know who was reliable or not.

It was in the suffering that I learned to obey God. So, I give thanks for the hard situations that invoked the hard lessons. I am who I am because of all of it.

Love ya,

Have a Great Day of Thanks!