All about that GRACE... (to be grounded)

Hey there, it's me again!  By the time you read this, it will be March- this year is going by! 

I want to begin by saying thank you to the overwhelmingly positive response to my super transparent post on Monday.  That was not an easy thing for me to do, but, I am, and have always been a firm believer that the things we go through are to bless others with our testimonies and I felt led to share it (uh, not when I first started writing, but well, yeah, you get the idea!). 

My class is progressing; we skipped a week because our instructor was unable to make it, so instead of Week 6 we just finished Week 5.  And let me tell you this - it is a lot of work to truly study the Bible!  It's a lot of reading, re-reading, homework and outside books.  A lot of reading!!!  This first leg of the class (10 weeks) will end this month, then we have two weeks off, pick back up in April and go through June.  Y'all just pray my strength in the Lawd - 34 weeks total!!!

Anyway, my attempts at humor aside, today's post, in keeping with the theme of the previous two, is still about being grounded - we will take a look at Bishop TD Jakes' watch night sermon from 2015, "Grace to be Grounded."  Now, of course, he started his series with this sermon (and there are two other "grounded" sermons that I won't discuss here but they can be found on you tube or on his website), but I wanted to talk about being grounded first and work my way backwards.  Hopefully it will make sense to you as you read on...

Like my play on words?  I have young people in the house, so I have heard the Meghan Trainor song, "All about that Bass," and so I thought it would be pretty cool.  I assure you that both the Tween and Teen think it's kinda lame... Anyway, I digress - GRACE.  

It is defined in the bible dictionary as follows (found here):

Biblically, grace is unmerited favor. It is God's free action for the benefit of His people. It is different from justice and mercy. Justice is getting what we deserve. Mercy is not getting what we deserve. Grace is getting what we do not deserve. In grace we get eternal life, something that, quite obviously, we do not deserve, but because of God's love and kindness manifested inJesus on the Cross, we receive the great blessing of redemption.

Grace is God's Riches At Christ's Expense. Grace rules out all human merit (Rom. 11:6). It is the product of God that is given by God because of who He is and not because of who we are. It is the means of our salvation (Eph. 2:8-9). We are no longer under the Law but under grace (Rom. 6:14). (See 1 Cor. 15:11, Rom. 5:2, 15-20, 2 Cor. 12:9, and 2 Cor. 9:8).

Got it?  So let's move on to the sermon - Grace to be Grounded.  You can watch the sermon here.  The sermon text was Psalm 1:1-3 (sidenote- I have such a problem remembering when Psalms should be plural or singular, so if I'm wrong, roll with it...).  It's short, so I will actually include it this time.  

Psalm 1:1-3 (NASB):  

1 How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, 

   Nor stand in the path of sinners,

   Nor sit in the seat of scoffers!

2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord,

   And in His law he meditates day and night.

3 He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water,

   Which yields its fruit in its season

   And its leaf does not wither;

   And in whatever he does, he prospers.

I love this passage of scripture, by the way.  It is not something I was overly familiar with prior to hearing this sermon, but afterwards?  It has joined the ranks of my faves and hopefully you will see why in short order!

Sermon Notes (beginning with scripture overview):

• Meditate day and night = consistency
• He who does this shall be like a tree; God will put you in a spot to have an unlimited supply of what you need to finish what He set before you to accomplish
• Deeper roots = more and more raw resources 
• Like a tree with roots: position to connect with the resources needed to sustain everything He will bring out of you
• Stabilize yourself - it's closer than you think it is
• Live in position, not condition
• His fruit, His season
• You need to hear you say:  "Blessed is the Man"
• Blessed= position
• We sometimes don't recognize grace because of our problems
• The presence of trouble does not destroy the potential for triumph! (you'd better say that again, Bishop!)
• Your leaves shall not wither, He will stop the loss!
• We have to be a guard over grace; it tells a blessed man what not to do:  
• Grace must be guarded - be quiet sometimes!
• Stay out of the counsel of the ungodly; anything that doesn't line up with God's purpose and people who don't understand your destiny
• Be careful who you let influence you
• friends mean well, trying to protect you, but God can bless you in the storm (though he slay me, yet will I trust Him (Job 13:15))
• Be more disciplined
• Don't be bitter
• For what God is getting ready to do, you need to be GROUNDED
• Moving around is cancelling your blessing
• You need to be grounded in faith, behavior and in the Word
• Put on the whole armor of God to stand still!
• Just stand there, no matter what comes
• If your feet are planted in the house of the Lord, you will flourish in his gardens (See Psalm 92:13)
• The enemy is trying to fight you for your ground
• God has given you things that don't look like they're yours, but stand your ground!
• The more you stand, the more fruit you will have (gifts):  
• finances, relationships, opportunities
• God's going to put and position you around something too big for you (and it might scare you)
• Specific instructions for being grounded:
• Faith
• Prayer life
• Commitment
• Settle down!
• You can't get to His will your way
• You need to be grounded for the harvest; it's coming!

And he closed with having the congregation say this:  "My fruit, My season!"

As usual, I'm sure I didn't do the sermon justice, these are just my notes that I'm sharing with you.  But do you see why I felt that this was such a powerful sermon??? And I have to stop here and thank my birthday twin, Charlotte, again, for sharing this with me.  This was such a powerful series that literally changed my outlook on 2016.  I really do encourage you to go check out the sermon itself using the link above.

So what did I take away from the sermon?  I'm glad you asked (my favorite Rev. Meeks' statement from my days at Salem)!  So here's what Darvi got out of it (besides the notes above):

1) Pray.  Always.  Without Ceasing.  Always.  Pray.  This is how we develop relationship with God; prayer is a conversation.  I promise when I was younger and used to hear the old folks say that, I had no idea what they were talking about!  But, I'm older now, and I get it, I truly do.  As your prayer life grows, it will indeed be a conversation - He will speak to you.  You just have to learn to listen and be open to the many ways in which He speaks.

2) Read the Word.  Not just a cursory, random glance, but really read/study.  I've found some really nice devotionals and bible studies on Pinterest; you can do a search by subject matter and that is one way to get going with it.  

3) Believe.  There's a song that goes "what God has for me, it is for me."  You can hear it here.  You have to truly and deeply within your heart of hearts believe that.  No matter what it looks like now.  If He told you it was yours, it's yours.  But you have to activate your faith and not falter in your belief in His word.  This is hard and I stumble here all the time.  Just being honest... I always want to believe, but then something will happen that causes me to doubt and I have to start all over again.  I'm sure I have missed out on some things just because I faltered at the last minute.  

4) Be committed.  To prayer, to reading/studying, to your faith, in your church attendance, in your tithing - whatever it is, be committed to doing it.  Your commitment should be evident; no one should question it.

5) Stand!!!  Every time I hear this, I think of my good friend's mother, Auntie Barbara, singing this at church when I was younger.  "After you've done all you can, you just stand."  Here's the Donnie McClurkin song, because it is such an awesome song, here.  What does that mean?  It means, get out of the way, sit yourself down somewhere, get rooted and stay there.  Stand does not mean do nothing; it means to do whatever God has told you to do while you wait on Him to bring his promises to you to fruition.  Also a thing I struggle with, because I'm impatient.  But I've learned, just as I'm sure many of you have, that He has a way of making you sit still. I'm just saying... Remember, His Fruit, His Season...

So my friends, if being grounded requires us to activate faith, prayer, commitment and to stand in order to receive things that we don't deserve, how does it happen?  Because surely we all know that we don't deserve anything, right?  The answer is simply this:  Grace.  It is by his Grace that we can even get in the position to be grounded to receive His blessings of our faith and finances.  If you missed those, you can read them here (Grounded in Faith and Grounded in Finances).  

So, my question for you is this:  Who is ready to be like a tree, firmly planted and bearing fruit????  I know I am!  If that's you too, Holla @ Darvi and let's talk about it!  As always, Be Blessed!!!

xoxo 

Hello, 2016!

Happy New Year, Blogland!  Like the graphic?  It is from "Graphics by Pininkie at Mygrafico."  I thought it was pretty cute!  The end of 2015 found me in church with the tween (she had to dance at Watch Night Service).  It was the first time in a long time that I brought in the new year at church (I wanna say the last time was NYE 2003...)!  The young people did a wonderful job!  We were home before 12:30 and I didn't even try to stay up much later than that.  Times have definitely changed...

The end of 2015 was bittersweet in so many ways; if you will allow me to be transparent for just a moment.  This week has been a tough one.  Number 1, my heart is heavy for my friends/family who lost loved ones this week (right after Christmas and before the new year came).  So often we take for granted the things we "plan," often forgetting that the future doesn't belong to us... The worse part of it all is that each of these lost loved ones were only a year or two older than I am; no one was older than 50.  That is very sobering to me- this thing called life can be very fleeting...  And I just found out Natalie Cole died!  

Number 2, my heart is heavy for all that I have lost over the past few years in this season of loss in my life.  I don't do change well (remember that?  I wrote about it here).  I have been in this season of loss for 10 years now.  There have been big losses as well as little losses. The losses have been relational, personal, health, material, financial, professional, friendships, my grandma - you name it, I've lost it!  Some of those losses have knocked me down (on the inside, sometimes physically manifest on the outside).  And as difficult as it's been, I keep getting back up to try and pull it back together just one more time.  Although each time it seems like I stay down a little longer, I keep getting back up.  That could mean many things:  that I am a fool or a glutton for punishment or maybe, just maybe there's something better out there if I keep pressing on.  A lot of times I do feel foolish and I just want to quit and I let myself have a pity party for a few (kinda like now) but eventually, I get back up.  For as down as I might be, there is something in me that won't stop believing that there is "better" and that I can have it!

2015 was a year filled with some low-lows. I can't say high-highs; just mid-range highs.  I am happy to see it go, quite frankly.  There were lots of lessons learned, some I didn't want to learn, but they came anyway, whether I wanted them or not.  My beliefs were tested and some shattered.  My world was shattered and I'm still picking up the pieces and trying to find the glue to put it back together in a way that fits for what my life looks like now.  Let me be honest- it's downright frightening!  And what makes it even more frightening is that there are two not so little people looking at me to see how I manage all of this (the tween and teen) because surely that will shape how they manage hurts, disappointments, change and loss in their own lives.  For with each loss that I have had, it has affected them too.  And more than anything, I want them to be ok...

So here we are, on the first day of 2016, and all is quiet in my house.  Literally the only sound is me pecking away at this keyboard, and I'm doing that from the comfort of my bed! My mind and my emotions are all over the place - I've put off thinking and writing because I've been trying to get a handle on it all!  And it's just hard.  I was so disappointed in 2015 that I'm almost afraid to want anything in 2016 but survival.  There are things I want, sure, but I've been beat down so much that I'm scared to even put them in the universe lest they be taken away from me too...which is certainly not how I intended to start the year, but it's how I feel at this particular time.  That being said, I'm not quite ready to say any of that stuff yet, but I might be tomorrow - depends on how the rest of today pans out (real talk).  

All of which brings me to my 2016 Word of the Year.  For the past 10 years, a group of friends and I have participated in the One Little Word Challenge.  I originally learned of this in 2006 from Creating Keepsakes Magazine (one of my favorite scrapbooking magazines that has since gone on to glory) and we started doing it in 2007.  The concept is that you choose a word at the end of the previous year or beginning of the new year to guide and reflect on throughout the year as you go about this thing called life.  The concept was coined by Ali Edwards, and you can read more about it here.  Something that she wrote I wanna share here:  

"A single word can be a powerful thing... It can be the ripple in the pond that changes everything.  It can be sharp and biting or rich and soft and slow."  

I encourage you to go read the post, google it, and maybe you will be inspired to choose a word for your year.  Anyway, I've been doing this since 2007 and some years my words were spot on, other years I missed them like the Cubs missed going to the world series last year!  But, good, bad and otherwise, here are my past words:

2007 - Transition

2008 - Perseverance

2009 - Optimism

2010 - Reality

2011 - Renewal

2012 - Excel

2013 - Embrace

2014 - Restore

2015 - Be...

 And without further ado, my word for 2016 is:  WISDOM.  

Wisdom is defined as the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment; the quality of being wise.  Webster's defines it as knowledge that is gained by having many experiences in life; the natural ability to understand things that most other people cannot understand; the knowledge of what is proper or reasonable.  That's how I want to live 2016- as a wise woman.  One who has learned from her many life experiences and applies those lessons to her current life.  My grandmother was a wise woman and I strive to be like her, when it's all said and done.

That's it, that's all.  2016, we are here!  Ready to tackle all that you throw our way (I think)! So what about you - anyone else do a Word of the Year/One Little Word Challenge and is willing to share your word here?  You know the drill, Holla @ Darvi!  Be Blessed and enjoy this first day of the new year!

xoxoxo