Day: September 24, 2015

When my daughter was an infant, I found myself going through a terrible separation and later divorce from my husband at the time, I had traveled to NC to be with my mom and dad; while here I found myself to be in many up and down moments, the enemy was fighting daily because my baby was a preemie and really needed to be around a doctors care, she had just been taken off a breathing machine like two weeks prior to my departure, I struggled with the fact of taking care of her away from a two parent household and finding a job to support us. The only thing I knew and was sure of what the fact that I had to get out of the situation that I was in and no matter the insecurities, I knew I had to indeed trust God to take care of the both of us in the process.

A month swiftly moved by and I had began to apply for services for my daughter and I, God blessed me to find her a doctor and come to find out, there was a developmental place right up the road from my parents house, they had not too long opened up and accepted my daughter into their program so she could finish developing – To God be the Glory for that….but I was being plagued by another situation – MY THINGS!! I had so many extremely nice things and worked really hard to have a nice house – if only I could’ve brought “ALL” my stuff with me…is what I constantly said to myself; because it’s hard starting over when you have accumulated so much material goods. I began to think about my things, day and night – I became frustrated and began to doubt God and question my mental health. How are we supposed to live now, here I was stuck at my parents house with a sick baby, no job and living off of her social security check monthly which was cut short from 588.00 a month to 383.00 a month – What seemed like a good escape from turmoil was beginning to feel like a ship sinking very fast – did I make the right decision?…..No matter how much the enemy came to me, I held up my head and travailed through…..But…..I still wanted MY THINGS!

If I could have had the whole house sent to me by FED-EX; I would have been excited!! A couple of months went by and  after trying to come to some type of reconciliation with my husband (that didn’t work) I asked could I come back and retrieve the rest of my things; So, I booked a flight with baby in tow and went back to where we were living, I was so excited to be traveling back; I took a very big suitcase with me (as a matter of fact, I took several) the first thing I was concerned about was getting all of my “nice” things and cramming them into these huge suitcases and bring them back with me. Once I arrived at the place of where he was residing, The BIG! Kool-Aid smile I had plastered on my face was immediately wiped off when I walked into the house and viewed my belongings. MY NICE THINGS, didn’t look like my things anymore, I went to touch a picture that I had paid good money for and the feeling that I got from that picture let me know that, I didn’t need to take it. I went to get jewelry, shoes and other things and received the same “cold and lifeless” feeling. What was happening?? I thought to myself – Finally God spoke to me and told me whatever was left there, leave it there and to not take anything, I became devastated, disappointed and angry – Did God really want me to leave everything behind????…

Thinking of this brings to mind the story of of Achan (Joshua 7:1-12, 19-26) When the children of Israel, led by Joshua, crossed over the Jordan River, there were thousands of them. They lived together as families, as we do, but each family lived in a tent instead of a house. All the families of one tribe camped together. When they marched, they rolled up their tents and carried them. When they stopped for the night they put up their tents. God had commanded them to destroy the entire city because it was so sinful. God had told Joshua, and Joshua had told the people just what they were to do. The Lord told Joshua that when the Israelite’s conquered Jericho they were to burn everything in the city that belonged to the people of Jericho except the silver, gold, brass, and iron. These they were to bring to the House of the Lord. Joshua had carefully instructed his soldiers, and every man knew that these were the orders. Achan was a soldier who disobeyed the orders and hid a beautiful garment, and some silver and gold in his tent. Achan felt sure no one else would find out about this.

Afterwards, when the Israelite’s went to war, every battle they had won previously, were lost battles in which they lost soldiers, Joshua didn’t understand why things were so bad for them because he had a close relationship with God and did as he was instructed, but there was sin in the camp; soon the Lord revealed that sin and exposed Achan, because of his sin and disobedience, he was not only destroyed but everything that belonged to him – his children, wife, oxen, belongings – everything was destroyed all because someone chose to not only go backwards but dismiss the voice of God.

So needless to say, I finally obeyed the voice of the Lord; it wasn’t easy because I still wanted to take just one pair of earrings and almost did; but when God says “Leave it alone” you better let it go….the only success that have been proved in going backwards is helping someone up that has fallen, but to go backwards because of “material goods” or even to go backwards to an individual; can be costly. We’re not moving forward in God’s plan for our life but instead moving back to all the unjustly, ungodly and sinful things that he blessed us to get out of in the first place – going backwards only brings your full destiny to a complete stop…while venturing out into the unknown of the how’s, why’s, I don’t knows and the when’s of things is very uncomfortable, (almost like going through a big dark house without any lights) – It’s worth the journey to just trust God and believe that everything you had before, he guarantees you to have even greater things going forward; which can all be yours only if you follow the path of FAITH & TRUST.

I can honestly tell you that God did bless me with way more and better things than I had before – so much so until I actually had to give things away. Before you take the detour and travel backwards to get what you left behind, think of Achan and his family and let that be the driving force in helping you to move forward – because the backwards game not only affects you, but it has a way of affecting everything around you. The word FORWARD was not put in the dictionary for nothing – but It was meant to be put there and read as a stepping stone to your DESTINY!

IN ORDER FOR GOD TO MOVE YOU FORWARD…YOU CAN’T BE STUCK ON BACKWARD..

Roshonda N. Blackmon