Seeing With Redemptive Eyes!!!

I was sitting in a men’s Bible study that Alonzo Brown started in one of the barber shops of our neighborhood. We were rapping about the prodigal son (Luke 15) and how we’ve all rebelled openly against God in different ways in our lives. Then this man Irvin made a comment that just sent a thunder clap to my heart,

“I thank God for prison! Prison saved my life!”

Being able to look back on our lives with Redemptive Eyes and see all that God allowed us to go through… and to thank him for it is something the Lord has really been teaching me these last few months. Irvin has Redemptive Eyes! Eyes that saw the Big Picture! Eyes that weren’t looking to complain or blame God for the things he went through, but to learn from and worship God for the things he allowed to happen.

This makes me think about the movie Signs (alien movie with Mel Gibson in it). All of these strange things are happening throughout the movie (girl leaving water everywhere, kid has asthma, brothers a baseball player) that don’t make a whole lot of sense until the end of the story. Then they all come together to make complete sense, Mel Gibson sees the Big Picture and he‘s able to use it to save his family. God wants to use all the things in our lives for His Redeeming Purposes!

I can think back on my life when I was just oblivious to Christ working in my life. The times where I only came to him during sports and prayed for a win, but didn’t care to know God and lived in complete rebellion to Him.
The times where I should have died driving home drunk or being in the car with friends when they were getting blazed, or breaking the law and the running from the police or fornicating and committing adultery because that what makes you a man……..
I can look back on all these things and say,
“God, I’m so thankful to be alive…. And that You didn’t kill me back then….when I deserved for You to strike me down, You loved me despite of where I was. You didn’t leave me there! You loved me and were merciful to me! And God some of the biggest things you allowed to hurt me are some of the biggest things you used to help me! Thank you God!!!!"
As believers we must put on Redemptive Eyes. God does not want to be divorced from any area of our lives. He wants to use our lives, and I pray he would continue to use mine, as a soundtrack, a commercial for his ultimate Redemption of His people.

And that’s my prayer for our neighborhood. That God would use the bad around us to teach and help people. That the families and boys and girls we love and give our lives away to would be able to see God’s Big Picture in their lives, even in the mist of pain and worship Him for the love and mercy he’s shown them, even when they were oblivious to His work in their lives!

JESUS THANK YOU FOR SAVING MY LIFE!!!!!!

Will You Not See?

This past month, time after time, my heart just breaks with joy and amazement when God reminds me that He can take what the world says is the worst of situations, the worst of places and even the worst of people and use it for His glory, My Good and the Advancement of the Gospel! A few examples:

The worst of places---When moving out of my apartment in West Montgomery called the Prado, I realized I was leaving a place with great need. Drugs everywhere, women and men drink all day while their kids, who should be in school, run around a parking lot barefoot looking for someone or something to past the time. God did allow me to build some great relationships in my 6 weeks there, but it hurt my heart to think of all that I would be leaving. Then as I was walking through the parking lot, I looked down in the gutter and saw....flowers! Flowers were growing out of this gutter! Random, but it made me stop, smile, and praise God because it was a way for me to see that God can take the worst of places, even the most unexpected places and use them to bear fruit. Lord use the Prado and the people there to bear Your fruit and to make Montgomery stop, smile and praise You!

The worst of situations---Common Ground is working on a new Community Center. I was a part of the first clean up crew on the building and thought to myself, like many others, why not just tear it down and start over? Fast forward about 3 months later....It was my first time back in the building since that day in January. The building got a new paint job, all the trash is gone and we walk inside....it's spotless! The boards are all up separating our different rooms and offices, the sheet rock's up on most of it, ready to be painted, getting closer and closer to the day when the kids in our neighborhood don't have to hang out on the streets but can come and use and grow in our center. Sounds like the normal process of remodeling a building, but for me it was a time God used to show me His transforming power, even when our work seems hopeless and we should just "tear it down and start over." Lord as you've transformed our community center use it to help transform our community!

The worst of people---I was in church one Sunday in January! The news has just come out and is surprising to most....Joshua Conley, a white male will be working at Alabama State University, a Historically Black University! It doesn't make sense to a lot of people around me. In fact one older man grabs me by the arm and says, "Do you really think you'll make any difference over there with those people?" I am probably the worst candidate (in the eyes of the world) to take up the ministry going on at ASU!
Praise God that He isn't constrained by our preferences and can use the worst of candidates to bring the good news of the Gospel to the lost. This semester God used me to share the Gospel with tons of African American college students during our weekly meetings, and blew my mind when He used me to lead 5 freshman (1 girl, 4 guys/ 1 Mexican, 1 Puerto Rican, 3 African Americans) to trust Christ as their Lord and Savior!
And just a few weeks ago, in church, the man who once thought that I wouldn't have any impact on the campus at ASU, grabbed me and told me, "I'm proud of all the work you're doing over there!"
Father praise you that you can use the worst of situations, places and people to transform this world and to build your kingdom. I pray that you would continue to use me at ASU and that you would use ASU to rock this city and this world.

The passage of Scripture God's reminded me of during these times is Isiah 43:18-19-"Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert."
Where there is no clear path before us, God creates one. Where there is no natural refreshment, God provides it!
I hope that as you finish reading this, you would watch as God, through the worst of places, situations, even people around you makes a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert!

Soli Deo Gloria---God's Glory Alone!!!