Divine Disasters & Holy Hell

Wednesday Wisdom

by Jay Jay Speaks

October 12, 2011

Divine Disasters & Holy Hell

Many of you reading this will find this thought provoking and will do nothing. Other who read this will find enough merit to consider action. While yet a smaller group will allow these seeds to grow in their lives to the point where the harvest will be action. I’m not sure which group you fall into, but I want to say thank you for reading.

It isn’t unusual in today’s times to find family, friends and acquaintances going through hard or difficult times. I’m sure everyone reading this column can think of someone going through an ordeal concerning their personal relationships, their career (work), their money or health. We can place a name and face next to each of those categories, including our own. For those of you who are people of faith, you have probably prayed about these concerns and asked the Lord, to guide you, strengthen you, and save you. For many you may have also decided to fast for a period of time seeking divine guidance from above to rescue you from your current turmoil. I’m not casting any stones at those seeking HOLY HELP or DIVINE DIRECTION as to the solution to their problems but I do want to pose this curious question.

WHAT IF IT IS GOD WHO HAS ALLOWED OR CREATED YOUR TURMOIL? What if it is God who has caused the personal disaster you are experiencing? If it is God, what do you do now?

If you consider that the “all powerful,” “all knowing,” “all seeing,” “all present” God many people profess to serve is allowing your marriage to be turned upside down, is allowing your workplace to become hostile and spiritually violent, is allowing your financial investments to tank, is allowing your personal relationships (romantic or platonic) to sour, one must ask the question…”WHY?”

Why would God allow me to suffer? Why would God allow my family to begin to fall apart? Why would God jeopardize my job? Why would God allow my enemies to prevail against me? Why? Why? Why?

Anyone raised in the church or who knows “church folks” has heard the phrase, “The Lord works in mysterious ways.” I’m not 100% sure what that means in every circumstance but here is something I have learned through my own recent hardships. People want to be comfortable. Most people if not 99% of the people out there want to reach a level of comfort where they can “seem” to be working and growing but “actually” have it on autopilot. Being comfortable usually means you stop moving forward. Being comfortable usually means you’re not as hungry as you were when you were uncomfortable. Being comfortable means it’s easy and likely that you are going to relax.

If you are not moving forward, not as hungry, taking it easy and relaxed God probably has something else, someone else, somewhere else he wants you to be. And being “ALL” that he is he knows that unless he troubles your waters and destroys the easy life you were setting up that YOU WILL NEVER GET THERE!

This doesn’t mean that God doesn’t want you to have a nice life but let’s be honest (here is where you’re going to get upset) there are many people who:

·         Married the wrong person

·         Had a child with the wrong person

·         Have gotten in the wrong job

·         Settled for the first opportunity that came along

·         Have allowed insecurity to make their decisions

·         Have let selfishness influence their life

·         Have decided that they want what/who they want

·         Have allowed other’s expectations to dictate their behavior their entire lives

·         Or perhaps are SIMPLY AFRAID TO LIVE WITH COURAGE

If you consider the possibility that your storm may be divinely created, then you are praying to the person who created your trouble. You are asking that person to stop the storm, but why would he stop what he created without achieving his desired effect? What if God doesn’t want your storm to stop until, you stop. Until you stop doing it your way, stop living your way, stop living safely while professing Philippians 4:13, stop watching life pass you by.

Evaluate your trouble and ask yourself, if you have become lazy and soft. If those adjectives don’t suit you then ask yourself if you have become “COMFORTABLE.” Comfort isn’t a sin, but perhaps being comfortable with the wrong person, at the wrong job, in the wrong situation, in the wrong relationship at the wrong level, is the sin that he is trying to save you from.

Consider that today don’t wait until Monday, do it today (Wednesday) on HUMP DAY!

One Heart Many Pieces

One Heart Many Pieces

Whitney Houston, probably my favorite singer of all time, bellowed out the song Where Do Broken Hearts Go, back in the 1988, her voice melted the over the track as she sang the chorus..

“Where do broken hearts go
Can they find their way home
Back to the open arms
Of a love that's waiting there
And if somebody loves you
Won't they always love you
I look in your eyes
And I know that you still care, for me”

So my question is, where do broken hearts go? What do you do when you find yourself with a broken heart?

Heart break is defined by Dictionary.com as – (n.) great sorrow, grief or anguish. Webster’s dictionary defines heart break as – (n.) crushing sorrow or grief. Regardless to the exacting definition, when your heart is broken it extracts an enumerable toll on your physical, emotional and spiritual being.

We find it easy perhaps to offer remedy to the heartbroken spouse who discovers his wife has been unfaithful. We often find a quick formula to cheer up the girlfriend who finds out her “two timing” boyfriend was spreading his wild oats all over everyone else’s field. We take them out of their house/apartment, make them socialize with other people, insist they turn off the sad “heart break” music and blow out the candles. When we visit them we open the curtains to let the rays of natural light come in, all in the belief that a little sunlight, some good food and a new relationship is all they need to get back on the road to relationship bliss. We may even encourage them to “shake it off” and “get back in the game.” Sometimes our sage advice includes saying, “There are other fish in the sea” or “She/he wasn’t a good fit for you anyway.” And actually this advice and formula often works.

But what do we say to the broken hearted person who has been disappointed by God?

GASP!!!!!!!!!!

Did he really write that? Ummm yeah he did?

What do you say to the person who feels as though they have been disappointed, let down, struck with grief and anguish to the point of soul-felt-pain, by God?

What witty words, pithy phrases or sanctifying scriptures can be offered to the person who’s soul has been crushed, who’s spirit has been silenced, who’s faith has evaporated because she/he believe so wholly (not holy) that God would provide what he said he would, only to feel that they have been humiliated and abandoned by the Lord?

Where does this broken heart go? Can this heart find its way home? Can this heart go back to the open arms of a love that’s waiting for them?

When heart break moves beyond just finding another lover, how should we respond? When a broken heart comes from too much belief and not enough results, what do you say to that person? If you feel you’ve done all you can do, and believed more than you ever thought possible to believe, only to see the same circumstances standing boldly in front of you what do you do?

Where do broken hearts go when?

      It can’t find another job and it desperately needs a new one

      It can’t find the faith of a mustard seed to believe that anything good is ever going to happen

      It doesn’t understand why it’s allowed to sustain devastating blow, after blow, with no rest

      It only had one more round of fight in it, only to realize that there are more opponents lined up to fight

      It sees too much month at the end of the money

      It realizes that the parents who birth it, don’t care enough about it to help pay for a future that it has studied and fought for since beginning elementary school

      It realizes that the father it longed for its entire life is never going to come home/come back or come around

      It realizes that life is just hard and bad things often happen to good people

      It sits and watches the evil doers and selfish people get promoted and rewarded while the goodly and Godly get over looked

      It moves away from home on faith to follow a dream only to find out, some dreams are not deferred but denied

      It concludes that the prayers, tithe, sacrifices, vulnerability and principles it has sowed have yielded nothing

Where do broken hearts go? Can they find their way home? 

I don’t know yet. Perhaps I’ll let you know if I find out.

That’s what I think.

Now what’s your reaction?