Testimonies

---

"IF"

Just for a moment I’d like to talk about “if”. You know... “If frogs had wings”…that “if,” “If I had a million dollars”…usually there is some kind of negative connotation associated with “IF”, “as if!’ and all that, but as I was thinking recently about some recent events which seems to prevent me from following the path I feel God has called me to, I am confronted with that …what is it, a verb?
See, I feel strongly that God has called me to preach. This in itself wasn’t a decision I was reached easily, nawh , you see, I was raised in the church, around lots of preachers, my grand-mother’s brother –In-law (my uncle) and since to a large degree, my grandmother raised me, I was around him a lot. Then my dad…who at 70 some years of age, and supposed to be retired by now, is still somewhere trying to preach. Then to make matters worse, my aunt, who took me to live with her and her family when I was 13, was the director of House Keeping for a large Denominational collage, and so I was made to attend church service every weekend. So by the time I became an adult, I had had my fill of Church, God, and all things associated with religion.
Being a PK I set out to prove that I could be as much fun and as much of a trouble maker as the next man. And so, needless to say my actions eventually caught up with me, and it came time for me to pay my debt to society in the form of jail. I don’t remember the exact number of times I was arrested, or the number of years I have had to spend away from my family because of jail and/or prison. But I think the turning point came for me when I was in prison, in New York State when my grandmother died and I was unable to attend the funeral. I remember telling myself that if, and when I did get out of prison that I would never go back to that place, and that I would become the man she believed I could become, and dedicate the remainder of my life to serving the God she believed in so strongly, and taught me to believe in.
It all sounded good, until the reality of life struck me full in the face. You see, after getting out of jail and prison, I went to school to learn more about God, Church and all that. Then I joined a church that had a great mission statement. And set about attaining the goals I had set for myself. I want to be a preacher!
Then I was told that because of my past I was unsuitable to be a preacher. As I sat and stewed on these words, at first I said the hell with it. That it was all a dream, that it was me telling me that this is what God had called me to do. But then life has a way of opening one’s eyes. I sit on the bus and I hear the young girls on their cell phones with the young boys, making plans….I walk in the streets, and I see the young men with no future, and the old ones with shattered dreams. I go to the welfare department, and I have to walk around the baby strollers. I talk to other ex-cons and realize that they are on their way back inside because there is nothing out here for them . The same old streets with the same old game.
Hustling…the money is good, the money is fast. They don’t do a background check, they don’t ask for references, they don’t take out taxes, and you don’t have to wait to for Friday to get a paycheck.
But the reality is there is no retirement plan. Well, actually I guess there is…jail or the cemetery! No 401k, no ROTH irc…..nawh, just a prison number or a cold spot in a lonely plot of land full of death…
People talk a good talk when it comes to persons in our jails and prison (the current prison population is like over a million), they talk about paying debts to a society that no longer wants them, and make it next to impossible to co-exist once this alleged debt is paid…but is it ever really paid?
The “world” is one thing…but when you cannot find a place in the church of God, then we really have a problem. And so I was told that I was not suitable to be a preacher because of my past. But as I read my bible I see a different picture…
+ The majority of the New Testament was written by a convict as he sat in a prison cell.
+ If Paul had never been a Saul, he would have not become the great mouth piece for the kingdom that he became.
+ Moses was a murderer, wanted for murder!
+ Abraham was a liar, remember when he lied about Sara being his wife, and told people she was his sister?
+ David was a lying, cheating, back-stabbing, murdering…KING! Yet a man after God’s own heart!

No these few are just that, a few of the many men and women in the Bible that had a past, yet God found use for them and used them in the furtherance of the building of His kingdom. God looked beyond these peoples faults and saw their potential. We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God! How dare we get so saved that we forget that! How dare we get so saved that we forget that God saves us all from something, unto something!
The song writer wrote some time ago...that “if’ I had never had a problem, I would not have not known what faith in God’s word would do. And so I thank God for my mountains, and I thank God for my valley’s, I thank God for the storms he has brought me through, cause if I had never had a problem, I would never have know that God could and would solve them.
Anyone remember that old standard….Amazing grace?

---

PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE