“But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me”. 2 Corinthian 12:9
Using the above scripture, I was reflecting this sun rise about my youthful adolescent’s, how I seem to be fixated on being in a mush world without options or opportunities. Was it due to the lack of action on the part of my parents? Was I a victim, “When the state became God”,” Making me/us a victim of my time during ghettoization”? Many of my thoughts were strained by how I viewed things, a lack of cultural intellect maybe, a significant lack of financial resources. All because of being marinized because of my ethnicity? Ah, I soon realized it was a social construction of perception verse reality for the group, that has no objective but rather is what people decide about self-esteem, “oh really”? Insights, different of opinions, “our whatever”, my guidance in a question, “what is the object of the faith by which one should live in this world”?
Yet John 3:16 begins, "For God so loved the world. . .." So, God loves the world, but we are not supposed to? Why the apparent contradiction? A peradventure of sin crosses my mind as one of Satan’s demons were offering me/you a deal? In any case, the idea of forfeiting one’s soul in a deal with the devil is much more cultural and literary than it is biblical.
There comes a time to draw a line in the sand and take your lumps and take a stand to,” Live for Christ”. Loving the world is idolatry 1 Corinthians 10:7, 14). So, while we are commanded to love the people of the world, we are to be wary of anything that competes with God for our highest affections.
There's no magic formula thought out our journey of favor, blessing and kindness mournfully blurred.
I ask myself is it the change in the way you grasp, “the greatest gifts of grace”. How could you ever accept, as you rummage for meaning in self? Coexisted within the concrete landscape in a daunting City, merely existing in a make-believe utopia, with no practical relevance to “Truth”?
Let the illusions and falsehoods—of who you thought you were and what you thought your life was supposed to look like wear themselves out. Stay a little longer with pride, you might end up finding yourself? Instead, we are to be selfless, to die to self, and to deflect any attention given to us to the great God who created and sustains us.
The maze of life! You have the word of God, which is the lamp for your feet and the light for your path. Just as you would have been lost without a light, in that maze of life without God’s word. It sheds light on all your decisions, so you wanted to see clearly what you ought to do. The scene was high on the delusion with a fiery intellect landscape, “I've never been there, but the brochure looks nice”. So, do you have the audacity for curiosity?
“It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out. As the heavens for height, and the earth for depth, so the heart of kings is unsearchable”. Proverbs 25:2-3
I stood in a cornfield at sunrise just outside the group of buildings, called the Towers, near where my dorm room was as a freshman. Yet for me as an African American student who entered Iowa State University that fall was an awkward experience. A trip through fertile Iowa cornfields on my football recruiting trip, a kid from the projects of the West End in Cincinnati, I had been both captivated and felt weirded. The warmth of the morning sun offset by a refreshing breeze rustling through the cornstalks. The air was perfumed with the cleansing scent after a light shower, enriched by the fertile soil and the earthy aroma of fresh Iowa corn. I had never seen corn growing up that close so, it’s glistening for a moment, reminded me of “The Fruit of the Holy Spirt”.
I stood before a single corn plant and was struck by its beauty and majesty as it grew purposefully toward Heaven. Its emerald leaves were lined with countless tiny grooves, sparkling with dew like complicated crystals, reflecting prisms of light. Glistening white, and pale and bright gold, kernels peeked through the parted husks sheathing the untouched ear of corn. At the top of the ear, flaxen strands of cornsilk shone in the sun like a young woman’s light-colored afro braids.
“You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him”. Romans 8:9
Athletic programs pour resources into making the adjustment of their freshmen as seamless as possible. But you see in the heartland of Iowa some nine years after the 1964 civil Rights Act the live “corn” was utterly in capable, I thought of seeing the source of my human being side of inquisitiveness. I remembered my coaches were always in my ear. They observed me once in the mist of those fields of wonder. Next thing I knew I was invited into the office of worry; being asked are you lonely, because we saw you over by the corn fields. I quickly replied, no, I had never seen corn up close before.
Sounds corny (pun intended), but there really are some takeaway points from this misadventure that parallel nicely to our Christian walk. I share these with you now in the hopes that you will glean some fidelity for the future harvest.
First, you cannot begin your journey if you do not know where you should start, and you can’t complete your journey if you don’t know where the finish line is. You have got to know where you are and where you are going. How do you know this? Depends on your, corn maze. A life of faith in God with His wisdom.
You simply note the “start” and the “finish” on the map and use that as your guide. It’s the same in your Christian walk. Only the start and finish are one and the same, “Christ Jesus”. The Bible says that He is the “author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2), “the Beginning and End” (Revelation 21:6, 22:13). We must get this right, because sometimes we think life begins and ends with us or our self-esteem. This does not mean that Christians should have low self-esteem. It only means that our sense of being a good person should not depend on it, but rather on who we are in Christ. We need to humble ourselves before Him, and He will honor us. Psalm 16:2 reminds us, “I said to the Lord, ‘You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.’” Christians attain self-worth and esteem by having a right relationship with God. We can know we are valuable because of the high price God paid for us through the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ.
“Like a much-loved mental picture of a cornfield”. This shaped my approach to victimhood, not just live and play the part. But always have hope in God, which will stand out from the rest of the world’s cornfields as we take up the cross and follow Jesus. Luke 9:23, we will not forsake our first love.
“May we plant the good seed of his word within our heart and sow it to others, that we may all be transformed from the defeat of death to the victory of eternal life in Christ”.
God Bless You and This Ministry!
