When Least Expected™

Pimps, Prostitutes, and Preachers Part I

January 3rd, 2007 at 11:52pm Manchild

Congratulations!  Give yourself a hug for getting up and showing up on day 3 of this “year of firsts.”  Thank yourself for loving you enough to take another step closer to making your biggest dreams come true as you proceed to excel, succeed, and achieve great things in 2007.  Now that I have your undivided attention, how many of you have decided to dig deep enough to unearth the truth that will inspire you to finally face the real reason why your gifted soul didn’t birth the dream you forgot about or deliver the vision you abandoned in a valley now littered with the remains of what God gave you to save your peers from a clear and present danger?  Don’t worry if you failed to deliver to the world what the greatest Giver of all uniquely gifted your soul to birth during you stay on this earth.  God willing, you still have another 362 chances to do so in 2007.

Absent your willing participation in the pending emancipation of your gifted soul from the shackles of your unduly burdensome bad habits, only God will know how to inspire you to conquer your biggest fear and embrace Change.  As you stand on the brink of your greatest comeback during this history-making “year of firsts,” how many more reasons can you think of today that will inspire great people like you to appreciate something as insignificant and as little as the number 3?   Here’s one of my favorites.  What occurred on the “third day” after the greatest Preacher and the wisest Teacher to ever live rose from the dead is the first of many reasons that come to mind.  Reading the Gospel according to John is well worth the time it takes to discover at least one good reason to inspire great people like you keep getting up and showing up to participate in this history-making season of new beginnings. 

Because Jesus lives, I can choose to remain hopeful even during such a heart-breaking season as this. But it’s the reasons why “Jesus Chose Nails,” as so eloquently expressed in Max Lucado’s book, He Chose the Nails, that we can believe 2007 will become the first year great people like you with great weaknesses like ours finally achieve great things as our biggest dreams come true.  For those of you who don’t already know, there’s absolutely nothing impossible to God as evidenced by the undisputed material fact that Jesus Christ still lives.  In other words, doing the impossible is still nothing to the Great Architect sitting high, but looking low.  Because of the reasons why Jesus chose the nails, I’m inspired to get up and show up everyday to share in the light of a sunny-side-up day what Adversity taught me in the darkness of all those sunny-side-down days when all appears lost after our worst fears come true. 

Only the Creator of all things possessed the supernatural ability and the unimaginable intellectual acuity to perfectly design a celestial universe now populated with imperfect people where all things will always work together for the good of all who love God and exercised their free will to respond to His call to help fulfill our Father’s perfect plan and sovereign will.  But please don’t blindly believe me since it’s not wise to let any person deceive you.  If your busy schedule permits you to do so, take a moment to open the Good Book and look a little deeper and a lot longer at Romans 8:28- 39. God willing, you will also become inspired by the unparalleled power of God’s mature love to dig deeper and climb higher than you ever did in 2006.  As we struggle to dig deeper and climber than we did in 2006, it’s my heart’s desire that God’s love will also inspire you to get up and show up on those day when you think doing so is impossible.  When I think it’s impossible to get up and show up, I remind myself about the miracle that occurred on the third day after Jesus Christ was crucified and died on an old rugged cross He didn’t have to bear but chose to do so anyway.

Here’s yet another reason why I can still appreciate something as insignificant and as little as the number 3.  I am a survivor of at least “3″ near death experiences that I know about. I almost drowned while still in grade school.  As shared with me by witnesses of the event, the father of a childhood friend, Bruce Jacobi pulled me out of a swimming pool while my Daddy was stationed at Fort Sill in Lawton Oklahoma.  I don’t remember much after diving off the same diving board all my friends used to propel themselves into the air before making a big splash in the same water that almost ended my life.  How many of you honestly didn’t think you’d live to celebrate your 21st birthday; your 30th; your 40th; 50th; or your 100th?  How many of us personally knew people who didn’t live long enough to celebrate any of those historical milestones?  Only God knows the reasons why I lived to see another day when so many of my high school classmates from MacArthur High School, in Lawton, Oklahoma, didn’t live long enough to see the rolling out of 2006 and the rolling in of 2007.  May their souls rest in peace until we can meet again.

“For now, only God knows the eternal reasons why Bruce Jacobi’s father exercised his free will to risk losing his life just to save mine?” is the unresolved question that will serve as my segue into the title of today’s thought-provoking message.  What do Pimps, Prostitutes, and Preachers all have in common?  Go ahead.  Think about it.  The answer may surprise you.  Oh, come on. Enough already!  Just answer the question.  Hurry up!  Get to the point! Don’t leave me hanging.  I’m out.  I can’t take this anymore.  I just don’t have time for this.  Besides, the suspense is killing me.  But doesn’t at least one of the aforementioned statements remind you of the way many of you responded not that our minds have been over exposed to the residue of the 30 second sound byte microwave mentality that permeates every molecule of the toxic air we breath?

So, why did you make me wait so long when you knew I had places to go and people to see? you might ask.  But isn’t that what God does more often than we’d like, especially when we pray a desperate prayer for a “quick fix” that seldom comes when expected?  Have you ever noticed that God seldom does what we expect in the way we expect or when we expect it to happen?  No wonder our wise heroes and sheroes always loved us enough to tell us the truth because they already knew why God’s thoughts and ways weren’t like ours.  Do you?  I don’t know about you but the suspense surrounding the anticipation that comes while waiting on God’s answer to our prayers grows stronger the longer it takes for our Mentor to respond.  Now, the long awaited and highly anticipated answer you’ve all been patiently, but not quietly, waiting for is not that the words Pimps, Prostitutes, and Preachers all begin with the letter “P.”  The answer is “Choices.” 

God willing, I plan to elaborate more about the “Power Of Choices” at a later date if you’re patient enough to wait until I can do so.  How many of you thought, “God’s unconditional love” was the answer?  Since God is not a respecter of persons, our Father will indiscriminately bathe the souls of the great people who decided to become Pimps, Prostitutes, or Preachers with the refreshing and rejuvenating waters of His perfect love for as long as they shall live.  Maybe you thought the “greatest gift of all” was yet another great answer.  I, too, do believe that all these great people need to receive both.  But that wasn’t the question asked of you.  Besides, I don’t know these individuals well enough to assume that they have, or have not, already accepted the greatest gift of all.  Unless we choose to dig much deeper than the surface of the superficial mask that an obvious answer often wears, you’ll may never begin to see yourself, your peers, and the ever evolving world you thought kept revolving around your gifted soul the way God does.

How many times in 2006 did you get dissed and abruptly dismissed by somebody you loved and cared about because the truth you shared deeply wounded their soul?  How many times last year did you get rejected and disrespected for loving and caring the same person you pissed off after they became smitten, kissed, and bitten by a pretentious Pimp, Prostitute, or a Preacher with lots of charisma and charm who did more harm with their disingenuous words than good to the person you cared for and loved?  Perplexing, isn’t it?  Yes, it’s still true.  The unadulterated truth we all hated to hear last year that made us free still hurts a lot.  But so does the stainless steel scalpel in the gifted hands of a highly skilled surgeon that’s cutting away the cancerous source of toxic venom that almost killed our critically ill souls last year.  If the truth we all need to hear is wrapped in the spirit of God’s love, 2008 will not meet the same person 2007 met. 

The mountain moving, life changing power of God’s mature love will always inspire best friends, who refuse to remain co-dependent to challenge each other to dig deeper inside the cluttered place where secrets hide even if it hurts to do so we can all aim higher, reach higher, and climb higher than ever before.  But if you’re only interested in getting your ears tickled by a disingenuous Pimp, a Prostitute, or a Preacher with a “hidden agenda” instead of challenging yourself to become all God created you to be, getting up and showing up here everyday will only give birth to more of the same anger, bitterness, and resentment that haunted your soul in 2006.  However, if you’re ready to face your biggest fears and embrace Change, this year will truly be an unpredictable “year of firsts.”

“Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.”

Proverbs 27:6 kjv

Only God knows what your eyes will find after you dig deep enough inside the place where secrets hide to uncover the source of Pain’s power when you realize you made the same unethical choices Pimps, Prostitutes, and Preachers still make.  Do you now know whether you will choose to love or hate the complicit moneychangers in this group for raking in enough of your money to fund their next building project or pay for their luxurious lifestyles?  Did you discover that you had the capacity to turn a blind eye towards a pretentious Pimp, a Prostitute, or a Preacher and let them die for nothing?  I hope not.  Do you now know if there’s enough love in your heart to keep you from turning your back on a Pimp, a Prostitute, or a Preacher after discovering they also lack the wisdom to save their souls from a clear and present danger?  I hope so.

Hopefully, you now understand a few of the reasons why I can appreciate something as insignificant and as little as the number 3.   Until we meet again, may the divine love that inspired Jesus to choose nails also challenge you to keep digging deep enough this year until we all know whether we could forgive a pretentious Pimp, Prostitute, or Preacher for making the same bad choices we made last year.  If the metaphorical shoe or glove of complicity that I’m talking about doesn’t fit your actually innocent foot or hand, I must not be talking about you.  So, please don’t get it twisted and try to stalk me with a Bible in your hand as I walk the streets of Satan’s Paradise tomorrow because you still don’t understand the true meaning of today’s message.  Quick question.  What do you, or the people you choose to befriend, tend to see first:

(1) the mistakes or (2) the message?

– TO BE CONTINUED – 

© Copyright 2007 by Roderick O. Solomon. All Rights Reserved.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Add bookmark to:

Entry Filed under: Inspiration