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The Grace of God
“And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”
II Corinthians 12:9
My Momma used to quote this scripture to me all the time and I never fully had revelation of it until more recently. God telling us that His grace is sufficient for us, implies that is all we really need. That’s a hard thing to understand especially when we have circumstances, bills, situations, etc that weigh so heavily on us and what we’re actually thinking is that a quick million dollars would fix most of our immediate problems.
Grace is a gift that God has freely given us that is undeserved and unearned. He simply gives it to us because He loves us. Even this may be hard to understand fully until we understand what it looks like in our lives on a personal level.
We will never be perfect, we will always fall short but God loves us unconditionally anyway. There is nothing we can do that He will not forgive us for if we repent. Every situation or trail in our life He works together for our good, even the bad ones. He is so awesome that even when we find ourselves in a consequence of our own doing? He still works it together for our good. That is grace folks, unearned and most often times so undeserved. Doesn’t make sense to regular human reasoning that if we did something truly terrible, He’d still loves us and make a way out of no way. Good thing His ways aren’t our ways and His thoughts not our thoughts because not one of us could ever do a better job then Him.
Life has painful moments
Rest in knowing God works ALL THINGS together for your good… even the painful. Pain will teach you more then pleasure ever will. Every great victory or next level comes after intense pain, pressure, sacrifice, or struggle. You are not running the race of life against another person, so all you have to do is finish the race.
Perseverance
Perseverance produces character. You can’t persevere without a continued effort to achieve something DESPITE difficulties, failures, or opposition. Too many times we hijack the time table to our blessings because of the way we are responding.
Spiritual Maturity (Lesson 1)
There is a HARD lesson in life that earning an upgrade of spiritual maturity comes with. Not everyone is going to love you, and not everyone is going to like you. In fact, the #bible actually tells us that people will hate you for the stand you take for Christ. (Matt 10:16-33, John 15:18, 2 Tim 2:3-4) But when you understand that ALL things work together for the good of those who love the Lord and were called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28) you’re able to digest those harder lessons. See when someone hates you, it forces you to look at yourself and figure out what it is that they’re seeing that they hate so much. In the words of Bishop Jakes, “folks have hated me on a level I didn’t even know I was on.” Did you catch that tho? Sometimes YOU don’t even fully know the power of the weight of the call and the impact of the anointing God has placed over your life until it causes someone to hate you at a level where they sacrifice moments of their own life just to engage in hating you. There are people in this world who are so miserable in their own lives, instead of fixing what’s wrong with them they invest their time and energy into trying to make other people just as miserable as they are. However, when you can look at yourself and understand exactly what it is that God has given you? When you can get before God and actually genuinely pray for people who do you wrong? You won’t ever spend another moment worried about what someone else may or may not think or say about you because all you will truly care about is at the end of it all hearing the words, “well done my good & faithful servant”.
Setbacks & Set-ups by @queentheprophet
It’s been a minuet since I’ve blogged one of my infamous rants but honestly it’s because believe it or not, I go through things too family. Behind the glitz, tweets, mix tapes, albums, interviews, blogs, music, shows and all of that (which honestly profits you nothing at the end of the day if your mind isn’t in tact), I too am a real person that has real struggles just like everyone else. I think one of the hardest things that we can all relate to is when things don’t go according to the way we plan them, especially when you put time, work, effort into a plan or you feel like you’ve finally come to a place in your life where you have a sense of comfort, schedule, or control and then the whole entire thing gets knocked out of whack. This is something that when you get taken for an unplanned roller coaster ride in life (i.e. a natural disaster, loosing a job, death in the family, etc.) it tends to feel like you are alone and it’s only happening to you. The truth is, it’s not. Every single one of us has had or will have these times or moments in life where it feels like nothing’s happening at all or on the flip side, it’s all happening at once.
One of the most important things to remember is that when these things happen? It’s a part of life. If things didn’t change, you would become complacent and you wouldn’t grow. Many of the wisdom’s you’ve accumulated in your own life are from what? Experience. We in our own human nature are selfish beings instinctively. Most of the time our first reaction to a crisis isn’t a celebration. How many times at the moment you hit a crisis you immediately were grateful? How many times have you looked back after a crisis was over and been grateful? Learning how to navigate life and see the wisdom and beauty in situations often requires us to die to our natural selfishness and step outside the situation and ourselves in order to see what’s actually happening.
We are entitled to nothing. The truth of the matter is, you are not born with a guarantee that you will have any certain kind of life or luxury. Things like your health or your home can honestly be here one day and gone the next and somebody always, always, always has it worse then you do. We say that, but we don’t really get that because it’s very easy to forget that there are people in this world RIGHT NOW displaced from their homes, never had a home, don’t have anything to eat or don’t have any idea where their next meal is coming from, or are freezing to death sleeping under a bridge. Not one of us is guaranteed or entitled to anything simply because you had it, used to have it, want it, feel it belongs to you, or whatever else. Every single breath you take, moment you spend in good health or your right mind is a reason to be thankful. These are often the times people like to blame everything on God. Sometimes the very thing you’re angry at God for is the very thing He has a plan to flip in a 360, all in your favor but you’d first stop have to complaining to find it.
We have got to start changing the way we think. Everything you feed yourself (this includes the garbage you allow into your soul via your eyes on television, social media, the radio, etc) is going to shape and pre-determine the mindset that you’re going to have and the approach you’re going to take in a situation. It may look like a set-back, but nine times out of ten it’s a set-up for something far greater and better then you could have ever imagined. If you continue to feed yourself the ratchet buffet the world offers you then you’ll likely always be the egotistical whining baby in the corner blaming your entire life and whatever series of unfortunate events that have unfolded on everyone and everything else. I’m not saying bad things don’t happen, and I’m not saying uncontrollable tragedies don’t happen either. What I am saying is we can absolutely choose to allow those things to destroy us or we can use them to help ourselves and help others.
Be blessed –
QTP
People Pleasing by QTP
People Pleasing
Everyone claims to be so independent but in truth, they’re not. Most people are stuck in a highly contagious addiction called People Pleasing. There is a healthy form of People Pleasing then there is the kind that can rob you of your joy, peace, and in some cases folks hand over their entire self-worth. Nobody wants to be disliked, but let me clear something up (and anyone who tells you different is a liar) NOBODY likes EVERYBODY. Feel better? This is destructive to try and stay in everyone’s good graces to the point you eventually get so caught up in it that you lose yourself.
Everybody knows that one person that talks about EVERYBODY. Guess what? They talk about you. You see this kind of person has lost their own identity to the point that in order to avoid dealing with that, instead they keep a fully loaded clip of information about other people. The more information they offer about others, the less time they have for looking in the mirror. Don’t let people who operate like that bother you, pity them.
At the end of the day, you know right from wrong… don’t you? When you’re at a job, it’s healthy to “people please”. They pay you, do what you get paid for. That’s a safe form of people pleasing and it’s worth ethic. If you don’t do what you’re paid to do, then that’s an integrity issue that you have and has nothing to do with people pleasing.
No matter how wonderful your parents are, they messed up. Parenting doesn’t come with a handbook and NOBODY’S parents did everything the right way. I have seen folks at Grandparent status still twisted over what their parents think. I am in no way telling anyone to be disrespectful. I don’t care if your mother was a crack head, there is a parental line of respect and in lots of cases it ends there. Your life will never be your own if the opinion of other people define the choices you make. Anything you say or do has to be well with you. You are the only person that will grow or not grow, build or destroy, and you are the only person who has to deal with the choices & consequences of your life. They can impact other people, but ultimately they are yours.
Being able to set boundaries and limits is vital to your growth as an individual. Learning how to own yourself takes you to the next level in understanding. There are some situations where pushing past the past cannot be accomplished alone and you should seek help. In my opinion one of the most dangerous beliefs that currently circulates the earth is YOLO. You only live once. You only die once too. (We’re not going to argue reincarnation beliefs because they don’t apply. If you end up reincarnated you don’t come back the same… correct? Discussion closed.)
Be Blessed-
QTP
The Gospel of Q
Everyone has SOMETHING
Everyone has something to offer Fam. Good or bad they have something. Something I have learned over time (and again, this in no way implies that I got it during the first lesson.. some times it takes ten) that you can save yourself a whole lot of time and aggravation with other people if you do a few simple things.
- Be quiet. Listen. Some of us are the type of listeners that are always thinking about what we’re going to say as soon as the other person shuts up. You can get yourself in a lot of trouble this way. Here’s why, typically most people with ill intentions will let you know EXACTLY what their intentions are. It’s not their fault you’re not listening.
- History. Do you have a history with this person? Having a history doesn’t mean that people don’t change, but it means you should absolutely have a good idea of what the person is capable of. For example if the person has always been a selfish person in the past, and now all of the sudden they pop up randomly. It doesn’t make you a bad person to listen for the motives.
- Logic. Moving in logic is hard for people often times because they have no self-control and they move wildly about inside of their emotion. The problem with moving inside of emotions is dangerous. Emotions change all the time, and emotional decisions will get you in trouble with no logic that you didn’t consciously sign-up for. Don’t expect people to be like you, don’t expect people to not do things you would never do, etc. Take things as they come at face value. It’s like getting into an argument with an idiot. Trying to convince a stupid person why they were stupid, makes you stupid in the process.
- Self-Responsibility. We have to learn that when we make bad choices or impulsive decisions and they are OUR OWN fault. The wisdom comes when you realize, recognize, and re-group. Making a bad choice or decision doesn’t mean you’re any less valuable. You messed up. Learn, get over it, and move on.
Learn how to see situations & people for what they are. Don’t force unrealistic expectations upon other people, you’re the only one who will be disappointed. You can only ever hope to control yourself. You are responsible for setting your boundaries and limits of “what” is okay to do to you. People only do what you let them. Swallow your pride, resist the urge to get the last word in, hang up. Easier said then done, but like anything else, practice makes perfect.
Be Blessed-
QTP
The Gospel of Q
QueenTheProphet.com 