It would be an understatement to say that my recent journey back in time — while walking in the segregated streets of Jena, Louisiana with Jesus Christ– resurrected old memories long forgotten. Seeing the vast sea of beautiful faces that spiritually blinded white supremists hated to see coming created new memories I will not soon forget.
“You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” — 1 John 4:4 kjv
The video, “Jesus Walks With Me,” by award winning artist, Mr. Kanye West, speaks for itself. Watching this provocative video reminded me of the reasons why we, as civilized human beings, can never go back to the way it was back in the days when the “good ole boys” — who hid the heinous face of hate beneath dirty, blood-stained white sheets thought that they alone ruled the world. But they “thunk” wrong!
Click on the highlighted words, “Jesus Walks With Me,” to see why Jim Crow and all the nefarious descendants of this pernicious predator must never again be allowed to live above the law while perpetrating and perpetuating hate under color of law. If you’ve never ever been unfortunate enough to experience first-hand the collateral damage from a discriminatory, dirty deed done to impede Change, be grateful.
If you’ve never had a head-on collision with the hideous face of hate, keep living. As a final act of desperation, the enemy within our midst is busier than ever before marking God’s children for destruction. Nevertheless, it will take much more than the misguided stroke of a pen in the mortal hands of D.A. Reed Walters and a few myopic, men to prevail over the children of God’s kingdom.
To impede Change, acts of desperation predicated upon systemic, institutionalized ideologies protected by fortified, fatally flawed strongholds of perceived superiority are increasing at an alarming rate. A clear and present danger is stalking our gifted souls as evidenced by the recent rise in the proliferation of hate crimes against the actually innocent people still walking the perilous playgrounds of humanity’s culturally diverse global village.
During divisive, subversive seasons such as this, the “voice of reason” and “cooler heads” will prevail if all God’s children remember to pray while trusting only in God and loving to love one another like never before until the day God wipes the tears from His eyes, rises when least expected, agrees with all of us who are sick and tired of the hate and shouts,
“Not On My Watch!”
Copyright © 2007 by Roderick O. Solomon. All Rights Reserved.
Popularity: 24% [?]
September 25th, 2007
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It’s no secret that Christian marriages are still failing at an alarming rate. Why? I honestly don’t know. But today’s provocative post about love, sex, and relationships will present a few questions about the monogamous relationship Adam shared with Eve to provoke thought. Like many of you, my heart’s desire is to make love work, maintain an intimate, healthy relationship with my wife so that our marriage will last till death parts our paths.
I, too, am still searching for a few answers in a proactive attempt to help our generation break the generational cycle of divorce that’s destroying our families. Doing the reading and research required to prepare for the “Women Of The Bible” series revealed something that I’d like to share with you today. I’m still searching the Scriptures found in Genesis 2 and 3 to discover specific details about the health of the intimate relationship Adam “allegedly” shared with Eve while living in the Garden of Eden.
Since Eden means, “place of pleasure,” here’s a perfect man and a perfect woman that God made for each other who had it all. Adam and Eve had a legitimate “marriage made in Heaven,” a sanctified, sexual relationship that was holy, ordained, and blessed by God.
According to the Scriptures, the Master Potter deliberately, and with premeditation, tailor-made a woman for Adam and nobody else. Since God created Adam, it’s safe to assume that Adam was perfect in every way before his great fall from grace.
Since our Creator doesn’t make any mistakes, one can only imagine how beautiful, how blessed, and how alluring Eve must have been to Adam. Adam had the perfect partner to share his life with for all of eternity. Imagine how much Adam must have loved and adored Eve. Since God created Eve while Adam slept, this woman literally became this man’s “dream come true.”
But what about Eve? Here’s where this epic love story gets interesting because some traditional, long-standing assumptions have been made about the first family’s divinely ordained marriage. Has anybody else out there in the blogosphere ever ponder the possibility that Eve never felt the same way about Adam?
Nowhere in the Scriptures does it ever say that Eve “loved” Adam. But don’t take my word for it, take a look for yourself and tell me what you find. Can it be that Eve just wasn’t that into Adam? Maybe Adam didn’t “fit the profile,” didn’t “measure up,” didn’t meet her expectations.
Ladies, how would you describe the man of your dreams, the man you’d ask God to tailor make just for you if given the opportunity? Only God and Eve know if Adam was tall, dark, and handsome, if he had a six pack, if he was a good hunter, if he could sing a love song like Luther Vandross. But what if Adam wasn’t all that Eve expected from the man of her dreams?
If Eve was just as enamored, infatuated, and as in love with her ideal man as Adam was with his ideal woman, how in the world did the “original down low brother” manage to get her undivided attention? Maybe Adam didn’t satisfy Eve, didn’t listen when she talked, didn’t know how to communicate with her. Maybe Adam didn’t have what it takes to make the heavens and the earth move when they made love together.
Maybe Eve “felt” lonely, bored, and had grown tired of living a mundane existence with a nice man, a good man, a predictable man who never made her cry, never gave her any drama. Did Eve need Adam as much as he needed her since it wasn’t good for a man to be alone? If Adam was indeed the perfect man for Eve, how did some charismatic snake in the grass manage to successfully seduce his woman?
What empty promises did the father of lies proffer to distract Eve while Adam was “allegedly” standing right beside his woman? Had Adam become so emotionally disconnected from Eve that he didn’t know Satan found a way to get his hedonistic, misogynistic hooks into her? Do you ever wonder if Eve cried out to her man for help or ask the question, “Adam, where are you?” because Adam was missing in action?
Why didn’t Adam intervene, do what real men do, and kick Satan to the curb before a bad thing could happen to these good people? Before God created Eve, did something go terribly wrong with Adam? Maybe Adam had issues that didn’t get revealed until it was too late to reconcile their intimate relationship with God. Have you ever pondered the possibility that Satan had also attempted to seduce and deceive Adam before God created Eve to be her husband’s helpmate?
Do you ever wonder what prompted to God say that it wasn’t good for a man to be alone? Did Adam develop some type of pathological, dysfunctional behavior because he walked alone in the garden of earthly delights long enough to become too lonely for his own good? I wonder why God never said the same thing in the Scriptures about a woman. Do you?
What did Satan say, or do, that Adam didn’t say or do? What were the persuasive, albeit deceptive, words that flowed out of the perverted mouth of this fallen, false angel of light that convinced Eve to “doubt” God’s words in the first place? Did Satan convince Eve that Adam “wasn’t good enough” for her? Can it be that Eve didn’t appreciate Adam, wasn’t content with the perfect man God created, and secretly desired a “bad boy,” “a gangsta,” a “street thug” that she could hate to love for more than one night?
Quick question. How many married people do you personally know who are living with a person they secretly hate to love? Can it be that sharing a love that’s worth receiving and giving is an act of faith that a person chooses to do without ever expecting anything in return. I wonder if God is the only one who loves a cheerful giver? Think about it until the next time we meet.
– To Be Continued –
Copyright 2007 by Roderick O. Solomon. All Rights Reserved.
Popularity: 50% [?]
September 6th, 2007
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“Be the better person. Let your actions be your poet. Be the bigger person. Everybody will know it.”
–The Leadership By Example Collection™
This bookmark is a brief excerpt that comes from a poem I penned shortly after the 1992 “civil unrest” that erupted in South Central Los Angeles after the pugnacious gang of Los Angeles police officers — who brutally beat Rodney King in 1991 — were all inexplicably “acquitted” and found “not guilty” by an “all-white” jury from Simi Valley, California.
Only by the grace of God, did Mr. George Holliday, an innocent bystander armed with a camera, have the presence of mind to capture this egregious act of police brutality on video tape. Hmmm. Let’s talk about innovative ways that we can become “proactive” instead of always being “reactive.”
Never forget that the cunning one who knows how to “make you mad” will become the oppressive agitator who will always — deliberately and with premeditation — find a way to “control” you and your mind to evoke yet another impulsive, knee-jerk reaction.
It’s time for the next generation of leaders to learn how to “turn the tables” in a proactive, non-violent manner so our dignified, unified actions can steer all God’s children away from the clear and present danger that’s still relentlessly stalking their gifted souls.
Quick question. Do you have the “inner core strength of character” that’s needed in order to take a bold, courageous stand in the menacing face of Adversity without fainting? Has “Struggle” made you strong enough to take a stand long enough to be the better person during such a heart-breaking season as this? Difficult? Most definitely! Impossibe? Not!
“Impossible ain’t nothing but a word to God.”
It’s a crying shame that, after so many years and wasted tears, power still concedes nothing without a struggle. I don’t know about you but I’m so sick and tired of watching our grieving mothers crying over the lifeless bodies of little children who are still dying for nothing.
Copyright © 1994-2007 by Roderick O. Solomon. All Rights Reserved.
Popularity: 21% [?]
September 1st, 2007
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