Recycled Evil

09/27/2015
Sunday
Timothy Clark

Genesis 50:15-21

Back Story

In this scripture, the bible is talking about the story of Joseph. Joseph was the youngest of 12 brothers, who were all the sons of Jacob. Joseph had the gift of interpreting dreams. If you had a weird dream, Joseph could tell you what it meant. He had a dream that one day everyone and even the sky would bow down to him. This mad his brothers very angry. That plus he was  favored by his father amongst his brothers. They were very jealous of him. So much so, that they wanted to kill him. One brother convinced the others not to kill him but instead to throw him down a well and leave him for dead. They did so. But after days of being in the well, some passers by (Ishmaelite) found him. He thought he was saved but his brothers sold him to the Ishmaelite and he became a slave in Egypt. While a slave, he started to work for a man name Potiphar. Potiphar had a wife, who wanted to be with Joseph but he declined. This upsetting her, she lied on him and had him thrown in jail. While in jail, he meet a butler to the Pharaoh and explains the cause of events that had happened in his life thus far and that he could interpret dreams. One day the Pharaoh had a 2 very strange dreams and no one could tell him what it meant. The butler remembered that Joseph could interpret dreams and told the Pharaoh. The Pharaoh called for Joseph and he explained what the dreams meant and Pharaoh was very grateful, so he made Joseph the Prime Minister over Egypt. Now mind you while all of this is going on, his father had passed away and his brothers and their families were going through a famine. They heard about the new status of their brother they had left for dead, and they went to him to ask him for his forgiveness and his help. After being reunited with his family Joseph had forgiven them for what they had done and brought them to live in Egypt.

Notes

How did God Recycle Evil in Joseph's/Your Life?

    1) Never Leaving. God never left Joseph. God was with Joseph the entire time he was going through all the different obstacles to get to the promise. God gave Joseph a promise that one day he would be a ruler. Joseph held onto that promise because he knew God would always keep his word.

    2) Lifting You Above Whatever You Face. Sometime we pray that God will take us out of a certain situation, but instead he gives us the grace to go through it. I'm sure Joseph  prayed for God to deliver him but it was all apart of the process. If God takes you out of the situation or removes the problem, you wont have a testimony and He wont get the glory. So God will give you the grace to rise above it, so people will see how you came out of the situation and God will get all of the glory.

    3) Never Letting His Word Fall to the Ground. God gave Joseph a dream, and that dream was a promise for what was to come in Joseph's life. He didn't give Joseph a specific day or time when this dream will come to past, but God keeps all his promises. Just when you are about to give up on a dream that God gave you, or a word that He spoke in your life, He will always do something or send someone  to keep you hanging in there and keep you motivated. Just when Joseph was about to give up on God's promise, he sends the butler.

 Believe it or not everything that Joseph went through was all apart of the process for him to become the Ruler of Egypt. What the enemy meant for evil God turned around for good. Think about it. If his brothers weren't jealous of him, he would have be thrown down the well. The particular well he was thrown down, just so happened to be empty. If it was full of water he would have drowned. God was with him. If he would of drowned in the well the Ishmaelite would have never found him and sold him into slavery. If they would have never sold him into slavery, he would have never ended up at Potiphar's house. If he would had never been in Potiphar's house his wife would have never made a move on him. If Potiphar's wife would have never made a move on him he would have never ended up in jail. If he had never gone to jail he would have never talked to the butler. If he had never talked to the butler, the Pharaoh would have no one who could interpret his dream. And if no one could tell the Pharaoh what his dream meant then the land would not be prepared for the 7 year famine. If they where not prepared for the 7 year famine, then Josephs family would not have come to him for help and they would of died of starvation. If they died of starvation, there would be not descendants of Jesus, and without Jesus we would all be lost.

Joseph's story shows us that life is not always easy, but God is always good. Sometimes as Christians we believe because we love God and he loves us that we wont have to go through anything. That's not true we will face storms but God will stay faithful and help us to make it through.

Joseph was sold out and hated on by his own family. If he was able to forgive, we all should be able to forgive. God maybe waiting on you to forgive before he can bless you, and by not forgiving you maybe be holding up the blessing for that other person. If Joseph would have forgiven his brothers, the whole family would have died. The blessings that God had for their children and their children's children would have been held up by Joseph. Don't hold up your blessing and most of all don't hold up a blessing for someone else.

Joseph had to go through the process to get to his destiny and God promise. You have to go through, so God can get you to where he needs you to be.

'It Works For Me"

9-20-2015
Sunday
Bishop Jakes


John 9:8-25

Back Story
(This is my translation on what happened)

There was a blind beggar that was sitting outside of the temple when Jesus and his disciples walked by. One of the disciples asked how did the man become blind, and the response was that he had been blind since birth. Jesus said "I must work, the works of him that sent me" (John 9:4). Basically, Jesus says, I'm going to heal this man. So He made clay out of dirt and His spit. Wiped it in the blind man's eyes and told him to go wash it off. When the man did so he could see. The Pharisees (High Priest) did not like this. Mainly because they did not like Jesus, but theydid not like the fact that He healed (work) on the Sabbath day. If you don't know, your not supposed to do anything on the Sabbath but worship God. Anything else is considered a sin. So the Pharisees befriended (fake-friended) the blind man, who which that they ignored for most of his life, to ask him questions about Jesus. After lots of interrogation finding that they could not get the man to change his story about what happened nor bad mouth Jesus, the blind man left the Pharisees with this statement, "Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see" (John 9:25). Translation, he told them I don't know if Jesus is a sinner or not, but I DO know I was blind and now I can see. I don't know what he's doing and how he did it, but it worked for me.

Notes

The enemy will try to attack you 3 way:

Methodology
The Pharisees became friends with the blind man, for the sole purpose to use him to get to Jesus. The wanted to find dirt on Him so they could condemn Him. Some may be trying to use you, just so they can destroy someone else. Beware of gossip, and bad mouthing. The enemy will try to use your mouth against someone else. There's a method to the madness.

Economy
Not only was the blind man, blind, he was poor. If he could only see, maybe he wouldn't be poor. On the other hand, if wasn't poor, maybe he could have go to a doctor to fix his sight. Have you ever been in a situation where you had one problem, then once you fixed it another problem popped up, then once you fixed that problem came up. You know how it goes: if its not one thing, its another. That's an attack of the enemy to distract you from the will of God and to keep you down.

Identity
We never knew the given name of  "The Blind Man". He is associated with his ailment and his short comings. Sometimes what you are going through will rob you of who you are. The enemy will attack you, and try to steel your identity. He will use people to put labels on you or try to put you in a category just so they can hate you better. Have you ever been called these names: The Drug Addict, The Girl with 3 kids and 3 different baby daddies, The Failure, The Low Life. This is an attack on your reputation. There is nothing that can kill a positive sprit more than someone that keeps bringing up a past that you are desperately trying to move on from.

There is something/someone in your life that affect all areas of your life. That one thing can take away our identity and make you feel like giving up. That bad breakup can have you so distressed that you may feel like you may want to end your life. The one bad decision you made may make you feel like you will never be able to recover. But God is about to give you your name back. You are in a season your life where you don't have to explain anything to anybody. All they need to know is that, whatever God is doing in your life, Works For You.







These are the words of Bishop T.D. Jakes, with a slight translation from me. These are the notes I took from Sunday's service that God put on my heart to share. I hope it make sense, and touch your heart.

Your Character Is Showing

Whether you are working for a living, going to school, or raising your kids, whatever you do, please take pride in it. Don’t do anything half-assed. Excuse the language, but that’s the only phrase that will best describe what I am talking about. Your work ethic says a lot about your character.  

 Last Friday at work one of my coworkers displayed very bad work ethic. Instead of making sure he had all of his work done, he was more focused on rushing through his work day so he could start his weekend plans. As a result, his carelessness made me end up being behind on my work.

Here’s what happened. This particular coworker is our courier/driver. His duties are to drop off and deliver mail and run errands for the Administrator, which could include getting her dry-cleaning and lunch. Well, he usually delivers the mail to our office around 11 o’clock. But Wednesday and Friday he was late. He didn’t bring the mail until 4 o’clock. Mind you our office close at 4:30. It takes about an hour or more to process the mail depending on how much mail there is. But that’s not what made me upset. In the type of work we do, we get really busy sometimes so I can understand that maybe he just forgot to bring me the mail. What made me upset is that I asked him for the mail around 3:30 which would have given me enough time to process it. By the time he pulled away from is irrelevant conversation with another coworker, it wasn’t until 4 o’clock that he brought me the mail. Leaving be less than 30 min to process it. I was so upset that I was shaking. I was going to confront him about but God intervened, cause he knew I would have went completely off on this guy. It wasn’t until writing this blog post that I realized that God was teaching me a lesson about good work ethic and humility.

In the Bible Zechariah 4:10 says, “Do not despise small beginnings…” If you google the back story on the most successful people, you’ll find that not one of them gained success over night. They started from the bottom and diligently worked their way up. It was the pride that they took in working the small seemingly insignificant jobs that humbled them and also prepared them for where they are now. The courier/driver guy I’m writing about is college educated. His job only pays about $10 an hour if that much so needless to say, he probably feels like this job is beneath him. But that’s no excuse for him not to take pride in his work. His lack of good work ethic says that he is selfish, inconsiderate, and untrustworthy. His lack of respect for other people’s time show that he is selfish and inconsiderate. The fact that he doesn’t take pride in his work means he is untrustworthy. If you can’t be trusted to do small jobs, how do you expect people to trust you to be responsible for bigger more serious task?




I would love to hear some feedback on this. Do you think a person’s work ethic is connected to their overall character as a person? If yes how so? 

Welcome

Welcome to my Blog.

At the beginning of the year, in fact New Year’s Eve, I made a vow to myself that I was going to get my life together before my 30^th birthday. I would get my professional life (work), love life, and spiritual life together. I thought I was the only one who knew that I made that vow to myself but of course God was listening. After a series of event that happened the following month, plus a visit from my Aunt, I decided to write down everything that happened to me. I wrote down every mistake I made, bad day, or just whatever I was struggling with in my life. Instead of just letting it sit in my journal, I decided to create a blog.

While attending an HR training class for work, the instructor told us the story about the Trouble Tree. If you’ve never heard the story I advise you to Google it. Basically, it’s a story about a Plummer, who like me decided to make a vow. His vow was to never bring any of the stress or troubles from work home. So, before he walked through the front door he would stop by a tree in the yard and transfer all the worries and cares from the day off his shoulder and hang them onto the limbs of the tree. Instead of hanging my cares and views of life on a live tree, I had the idea of making this blog my tree. Hints the name Nydia’s Trouble Tree. I feel like I have so much to say and some words of wisdom to give that wasn’t fit for social media. This blog is not just for me. I would like to share my Trouble Tree with you also. If you have anything you would like to discuss, or get off your chest feel free to do so.

With all that being said, feel free to join me as I hang my troubles on my Trouble Tree.

                                                                Live, Laugh, Love More and Take More Risks,

                                                                                         Nydia

Church Notes

I go to Church most Sundays and take notes. I will share what I learned in Church, and how I can apply the message to my life. Hopefully it will inspire you to do the same.

Life's A Journey

The page is where I will share my journey to 30. All the lessons I've learned thus far in my life and different experiences I've been through or maybe currently going through. And of course little bits of inspiration.

The Trouble Tree

This section of the blog is dedicated to all the stress and worries that we may go through in out day to day lives. Its where we can rant, vent and get on our soap box.