I Don't Know it All

What up family,

I hope all is well with you all at this current time! God is Dope yo, and although we shouldn't need to be reminded of that we almost always need to be! Frail, helpless, miserable human beings we are! I'm grateful that God is mindful of that! Psalm 78:39

Anywho Let's get it peoples!!!!!!! God has provided me with a great team that surronds me, brothers and a sister that Love God with ALL their heart and who have a desire to serve others and they are VERY missional minded! One of them is my brother who was a missionary overseas for 13 years! He is really a blessing in that God is using all that He poured into him to pour into me. I'm learning sooooo much of what to do and what not to do through him. It's truly a blessing to be walking with and learning from him.

Now, the thing is this, he's a white country boy who's 30 years older than I! (No offense brother! Love you!) and I'm a hood dude. And he has frequently stated how he would have never thought he would be doing ANYTHING that involves rap! But praise God that he has a heart for God because as longs as it promotes the gospel and reaches the lost he's down with it! But lately I've been seeing myself get kind of aggy, irritated or frustrated with some of the stuff he has suggessted or asked me to do.

For instance, we are putting a project together for his missional organization and he asked me to give him a copy of ALL the lyrics to the songs. Mind you, I don't type my rhymes on the computer, so I had to go through all my songs on the cd and type them up. But my feeling was, "man he's doing too much. That's unneccassary. People aint gonna pop the cd into their computer and read the lyrics. He buggin."

Another thing was he suggessted that we put together a certain kind of booklet for kids in the hood (I don't want to let the cat out of the bag!). And my response was, "thats wack, kids aint going to want to read that! They could care less, he doing too much blah blah blah." But I didn't mention any of this to him, it was all stuff that I was wrestling with internally and talking to God and my wife about. I didn't want to be prideful so I would talk to God about it, then my wife (or vice versa) and my wife would always be like, "it won't hurt anything. And it's worth looking into." So I would then give my feelings to God and humbly submit to what was asked or suggested.

And one night as I was praying and pondering on some things God smacked me and said to me, "You don't know everything. How do you know I won't use this?" And that stopped me in my tracks and humbled me, especially because I had a similar incident like this months ago when I first met this brother. A lot of us were doing mulch at our church and I was working with 2 guys I knew and 3 or 4 I didn't. So one of the guys I knew just kept telling the other guys about my testimony and what I had going on in the inner city etc etc. And I was like, "why he talking so much, I don't even know these dudes etc etc." And lo and behold one of the guys who he told about me was this brother and we have put in extensive work since then. God has used him mightily in my life and in the life of my ministry. So that day I was humbled like, "dag! I'm saying dude was talking too much and God was using that the whole time!!!!!!"

So, I truly humbled myself in repentance and confessed that I don't know everything and that I would really take in his as well as other peoples suggestions and the like And I had a meeting with the team a few days after to confess it to him and the whole team. It wasn't a big deal to him but it was to me. It was a BIG lesson learned.

God is able to do over and above, beyond all that we think and/or imagine. More so HE is able to use anything! Especially what we think HE can't use. In fact He loves using the weak and foolish things to confound the strong and wise things! Read it yourself:

1 Corinthians 1

27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

Now, in no way am I saying that my brother or his ideas are weak and foolish, not by a long shot!!!!! And I do know the proper context of this so don't stone me (to all my biblical scholars and theologians lol)! But it's a principle here, and that principle is this:

God uses not what we think HE should use or even what we think HE HAS to use to reach the lost or make something happen. He would rather use something that makes NO SENSE at all so that NO ONE can get the glory but HIM!

I don't know it all, neither do you. I don't know know what God wants to accomplish, HE let's us in on some of it but not to all of it. So my encouragement to you is to humble yourself and to accept counsel, look into what they say really. It doesn't mean that everything is something you have to do, but really look into it with a humble posture and be open. It can't hurt anything! (S/O to my wife Tiesha! Love ya!!!)

Proverbs 11:14

Where there is no guidance, a people falls,

   but in an abundance of counselors there is safety

I know I was all over with it today, but cstch the principles people!!!!!!

Until next time (LORD willing)

God is dope,

Israel