Brick By Brick

We made it, Beloved! To God be the glory!

Everyone starts the new year setting goals, forming resolutions, and planning the next 365 days. Ideally, we reflect on the prior year’s successes, failures, wins and losses to frame the What, When, Who, Where and Why of our lives going forward so we don’t repeat previous experiences. At least, that’s been my routine for the last couple of decades. The reality that has often played out for me is I put all this time and energy into forming the life I want to live and making choices accordingly only to have everything go COMPLETELY different by the time day 365 is closed. And that got me thinking…

We exhaust ourselves planning out so much of our life. Each day we open our eyes we perform tasks that most of the time are aligned with some part of our life’s plan. We have an idea of Who we want to be, What we want to do, Where we are going and When. But Why? Let’s go back to Marquita two years ago for a Q&A about her new year’s plan for life:

You – “Marquita, Why is your plan written as so?”

Me – “Well, I have a responsibility to myself and my family to be the most successful, knowledgeable, wise, accountable version I can be at any given moment.”

You – “So, you’re basically saying your plan for your life is for your benefit?”

Me – “Ummm, I mean that’s kind of correct but I do what I do for my family.”

Now you’re probably thinking there’s nothing wrong with the Why I provided as an explanation for my life plan. Plenty of people make decisions all the time with the ultimate purpose of impacting their loved ones for the better. But if we look at my response through the filter of God’s discernment, nothing about my Why was for Him. I’m not ashamed nor am I proud to admit that for every moment of my 34 years on this Earth, I’ve been known as stubborn. That stubbornness has allowed me to avoid and also kept me in situations that were not for my benefit. I think some time about 5 years ago, God tired of my hard-headed self and put in place irrevocable, forceful action of His Plan for my life which culminated in a head-thumping “Ah Ha!” moment at the end of 2017. It was at that point I learned an extremely valuable and humbling lesson – I was spending year after year planning my life off a Godless Why.

In order to truly live my life, I had to submit my Why to God.

Just like that, I knew that my plan for 2018 would be different. For the first time in my life, I was setting goals and forming resolutions for God’s Why. The only portion of His Why that I was given was incredibly simple and beautiful – His Glory. And Y’all, that was the most freeing gift to receive because it released me from all the fear, all the anxiety, all the stress that comes with planning. The only goal I had was to keep my focus on God so that His Glory shows in my every action and word. The details would work themselves out according to His Plan.

For any of you feeling uneasy about the thought of submitting your power and control to God, I understand. It is the weakness of our flesh that convicts us to believe we ever had that power and control in the first place. That weakness is grounded in pride and ego and self-centeredness and it’s completely natural and expected! That’s why the choice to pursue and strengthen our relationship with God comes with the ultimate requirement of supplication of your spirit. You have to put all Faith, Hope, Trust and Love in God. And your flesh fights every step of the way. This is the part I wish was discussed more openly – your flesh will try at all times to hinder your relationship with God. It’s its nature. You shouldn’t and can’t think at any point that your weakness in your flesh is unknown to God and that He will reject you because you are weak. He planned it so you would never be tied to your flesh’s weakness. The sacrifice of His Son on the cross, His death and resurrection finished it all.

“After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, “I thirst!” Now a vessel full of sour wine was sitting there; and they filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on hyssop, and put it to His mouth. So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.” John 19:28-30

There’s so much to take in from those three verses but the Love of God flows like a river from it all. Jesus cried out in thirst and was given the sour wine to drink. He knew it was sour and that the taste would be hard to swallow and even so, He took it in, fulfilling His purpose and finishing the plan of God to give us all everlasting life in Him.

I’ve always believed in God and there are definitely stages in my life where my relationship was stronger than others. Even in those stages when I was far from Him, His favor and blessings and mercy and grace was always close to me. In my closer stages, I wouldn’t completely submit to Him. I was scared. I didn’t want to relinquish my power and control. When I was baptized on February 11, 2018, I stepped out of that baptismal pool with one clear purpose – to do exactly what God calls me to do. Is it easy? Nope. And for the reason I already gave – the flesh. However, my prayer every morning that I open my eyes is that He keeps me. From that point, I take it moment by moment. Which reminds me of a two-hour block of time I recently spent with my sons…

The kids were on Winter break from school and because of Christmas, the whole family was at home last week. I was off work but my husband (who is a general contractor) needed to do some quick tasks at a site. Not wanting to be stuck in the house with three sometimes bickering boys, we thought it’d be a good idea to accompany him and maybe let the kids help too. We arrived at the property and walked to the back yard where we saw a rather large pile of bricks. My husband asked the boys if they’d like to help move and stack the bricks closer to the back porch. They excitedly agreed. Well, after about 30 minutes, monotony and boredom set in. They began to complain about the size of the remaining brick pile. To them, it seemed no matter how many bricks they brought over, the pile just wouldn’t dwindle. As I listened to them whine and start to bicker with each other, I was inspired. I called them over to the stack of bricks we were putting together and said “Listen, that pile of bricks and this stack we’re building is the perfect representation of life. There are going to be plenty of moments when you are facing a situation that looks so big and great and you just don’t know how you’re going to get through it. You can’t see the end so you think it’s so far and long away and you’re working hard for nothing. But, don’t give up. Every brick we move lessens the pile that looks so big and builds this stack right here. Until all of a sudden, you look up and that pile of bricks is gone and you see the result of your hard work in front of you.”

Our relationship with God is like that pile of bricks was to my sons – it seems so great, so big, so hard until you walk over and just take it brick by brick.

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I love y’all. Be good to yourselves. Be good to others.