BeyondSeeLevel

Some of us are trying to enter into the peace of God by being in the proximity of God. You’re around Him, but still not in Him; still not close enough. But peace is found in the presence of God; not just in the proximity of God. The enemy will fool you into believing that just because you’re reaching for God in your prayers, in your church attendance or in your noble deeds, that you actually have God. The enemy also recognizes that your ignorance, your faithlessness, your carnality and your disobedience keeps you from entering into God’s presence. Even the enemy knows that Light has no fellowship with darkness. Get closer to Him. But understand that God determines how we get closer to Him; not you or the world. So if you want a God product you have to be willing to submit to a God process.

*Tressa Jo

I’ve learned that many people just want to feel better when they come into the presence of God. They don’t necessarily want to be filled better. They open up and cry their eyes out, thinking that their tears will provoke God to intervene and change their circumstances. God IS concerned about what concerns you. But it’s not your tears He’s looking for. It’s your faith. What if God decides not to change those circumstances you keep crying to Him about? What if you remain single? What if you stay sick? What if he/she won’t change? What if you keep struggling? What if they leave? What if??? Even if God chooses not to change your circumstances, trust that He can change you. When will you understand that God is not primarily concerned about fixing the things in your life? He wants to fix you. You can’t keep surrendering your stuff to God, without surrendering your heart and expect Him to act like your Shuga Daddy. He wants to be your Heavenly Father. But that’s up to you. God desires you. Do you desire Him or just what He can do for you? If you want a God-product, you have to be willing to submit to a God-process. God’s process is ALWAYS purposed to draw you closer to Him. And as you draw closer to Him, you become more like Him and you learn what really matters. And when you learn what matters, it may even change what you cry and pray about.

*Tressa Jo

Today is a hard day. I’m sitting at my pc trying to work and I can’t seem to stop crying. My timeline has been flooded with pictures of Botham Jean. But today I see live videos of his lifeless body lying in a casket. I see several familiar faces that are there to say their own goodbyes, to show support to his family and friends and to stand for a cause.

I’m reflecting on how I’ve been managing in my own spirit dealing with all of the social injustices around us. And I’m looking at how others are dealing. And I have to admit, that sometimes it’s just too much to deal with. Some are on the front lines representing us as a whole seeking change. Others have a less aggressive approach. Then, there are some that have chosen to retreat all-together because they just can’t handle it. Whatever the case may be, I’m realizing that people are struggling. I was talking to a friend the other day about everything that’s going on. I revisited the time when it was Travon Martin. I remember being so heavy in my heart. I made my best attempt to encourage others with what God had poured into my spirit to comfort me as I laid at His feet in grief. But I remember feeling like I was holding my breath waiting for one of my brothers in Christ to speak a Word to the people—particularly, the ministers. But the majority of them were expressing their own hurts, frustrations, anger, fears and hopelessness. It was too much in that moment even for the strong to handle. But then, one would speak. And his words were life giving to a broken people looking for hope. But I’m sure, even he had his moments at the feet of Jesus full of despair, looking for a Word for himself first and then for the people that were waiting on him to do or say something.

And again, just this week, the voices spoke. And again, they spoke of their own hurts, frustrations, anger, fears and hopelessness about the problems of this dying world. And again, I find myself broken at the feet of Jesus seeking comfort for my soul. But in spite of me knowing that my brothers are struggling too, I’m still waiting to hear from them. Like a wife looks to her husband or like children look to their parents to give them hope and to speak peace. What am I looking for? I’m not looking for a solution to the problem. I’m not looking for a plan of action. I’m not looking for a herald to gather the people together. I’m not looking for a call for unity. I’m not even looking to feel better in this moment. I’m not looking for a superman or a superhero. I’m not looking for a preacher turned politician. I’m not looking for a Christian civil rights activist. I’m not looking for a legal expert. I’m not looking to foster relationships with the local police or government officials.

I’m looking for someone to show me how to simply hold on in spite of things not getting better. I mean…..we’ve been in this fight a loooooong time. I’m looking for someone to show me how to deal with this tug-o-war between what I’m experiencing in the flesh and what I know in the Spirit. What I see scares me and leaves me feeling helpless and hopeless at times. I’m looking for someone to show me how to fight in the Spirit and not in the flesh when that’s what I really want to do because I feel like it would actually make a difference. You know? Fight fire with fire. I’m looking for someone to show me how to use my spiritual armor to fight; and not use my fist. I’m looking for someone to show me how to struggle but be sustained in the Spirit. Because it’s a strong possibility that God may not choose to snatch us out of this chaos (until we die). But He can sustain us while we’re here. I’m looking for someone that can show me what it is that I need to have hope in beyond this world and these experiences. The world is doing exactly what its nature demands—deny God. I’m looking for someone to remind me that this little light of mine won’t always illuminate a room. But it can expose the darkness. I’m seriously looking for someone to show me how to pass through this wicked world and stay saved because I’m not here to stay. 

*Tressa Jo

I wasn’t feeling very well. I tried to yell into the next room to ask for help. But my help didn’t come. I yelled again and again. No one came. Everytime I yelled, I felt weaker and weaker. So I decided to get up and move closer to my help so she could hear me. All I had to do for her to hear me was go to the door. I didn’t even have to go all the way. It took less strength to get up and get closer to my help than it took for me to keep yelling for her to come. I thought to to myself, perhaps this is a message for the people of God. God may be telling us that we’re wasting our time and energy yelling for Him to come to us. We’re misusing our strength. God may be telling us that we need to use our strength to get closer to Him. And after we get closer to Him, He’ll get closer to us. Draw nigh unto Him and He will draw nigh unto you. God is reminding us that He desires relationship with us; not arrangements to take care of our business.

*Tressa Jo

In Isaiah chapter 39, King Hezekiah had been sick on the verge of dying. But the Lord promised to give him fifteen more years of life. After the king recovered, the king of Babylon sent King Hezekiah letters and a gift because he had heard that Hezekiah had been sick but was now well. Hezekiah was so pleased that he showed the Babylonian messengers all of his wealth. When Isaiah, the prophet, asked Hezekiah what exactly did he show the messengers, Hezekiah told him “They saw everything in my palace. I showed them all of my wealth.” Isaiah then told Hezekiah what God had to say about the matter. He told Hezekiah that in the future, everything in his palace and everything his ancestors had stored up until that day, would be taken away to Babylon. Nothing would be left. Even his own children born to him would be taken away. Hezekiah thought that was a good word since God promised him more years of life. But Hezekiah failed to realized that the promise was for a longer life, not for a longer life without any hardships or problems. When Hezekiah asked God to save his life, he reminded God of all he had done right in his lifetime. He told God that he had given his entire life to Him and obeyed Him. He wanted God to consider these things and heal his body and let him live. God did just that. Perhaps, Hezekiah felt that God allowed him to live because he was so worthy and deserving after he laid out his resume’–instead, of the fact that God was simply merciful and gracious enough to preserve Hezekiah’s life to be a vessel that would testify and bring glory to God, Himself. King Hezekiah did what many of us do when we’re proud of what we have. Some call it boasting. Others call it testifying. Instead of Hezekiah taking that opportunity to boast about the goodness and mercy God has showed him, he chose to boast about his own wealth. In that moment, God got no glory from Hezekiah because he was too busy glorifying himself and his own possessions. Hezekiah could have capitalized on that moment to testify how good God had been to him. He could have painted the picture of just how sick he was and was about to die. He could have told the messengers about how he cried out to the Lord and how the Lord had heard his cry. He could have told them about how when God makes a promise, He keeps it. But he didn’t.
Whenever God chooses to bless us or preserve our lives, He intends to use us as vessels to glorify Himself. Hezekiah would be stripped of his possessions because he allowed pride to come in and cause him to make his life and his blessings about himself. He was too busy boasting as one king to another, flossing all of his possessions to prove his own power. He said nothing about the power of God that gave him those possessions or that saved his life.

We can learn a few things from Hezekiah in this biblical account.

1. He was preserved to glorify God, not himself.
2. He was promised a longer life because God was so good, not because he was so good.
3. It’s ok to expect God to reward us for our obedience. But don’t cross the line of feeling entitled.
4. God’s promises are very specific. Read the fine print. He will definitely do what He said He would do–not what you assumed He would do.
5. God can fulfill His promises to do good in your life and punish you for doing wrong at the same time.

So the next time you ask God for a blessing, make sure when you tell Him, “Lord, I’ll be careful to give You all the honor, all the glory and all the praise”, that it’s not just religious rhetoric. Make sure you’re not praying a lie to the Lord. Make sure you keep your promise, cause He will definitely keep His. God makes the promise for His own praise, not for our personal pomp.

*Tressa Jo

Relationships are contaminated because people are contaminated. I don’t think it necessarily started with this generation either. But I do think it’s been severely “contaminated” and influenced by a shift from biblical standards for (marital) relationships over several generations. Whenever people do come together, the foundations are so shaky and insecure, they seldom last. More specifically, for people of God, we have allowed the world’s systems to shape our views and relationship goals, more than God’s purpose and plan for woman/man relationships. There’s been a major conforming to this world’s systems. (Romans 12:2) And it started with us first allowing the world to shape our views, goals standards and expectations for the womanhood and manhood. We’ve deviated from the biblical design of masculinity and femininity so much that we’ve lost touch with our purpose. And because we’re so disconnected from our God-design, it makes sense to me, that we’re not able to produce God-relational products–the kind that last and glorify Him. I also think that we are so pleasure-driven, carnal minded and shallow, we can’t even identify qualities that would even make for lasting relationships anymore. We’re too busy trying to be a “Power Couple” but don’t even have “Self Power”. And we sure don’t have any Holy Ghost power.  Individually, we may be secularly successful, have status and money. But  we also have so many character deficiencies. And instead of us working on those, we search high and low for someone that will accept our crap, enable us in it and won’t challenge us to do and be better. And whenever someone has expectations of us to change, grow or do better, (or at least measure up to God’s expectations of you) we X them out as just not being for us, thinking they’re too good or say they’re judging us. In other words, we don’t want to be in relationships of accountibility that mandate growth. But we seek out relationships that enable our dysfunctions and weaken our character.

Many want to blame the area of technology and social media. But we can’t blame it on social media.  Social media is just a display. But it’s not the disease.

I think that dialogues about woman-man relationships are often consumed ( and further contaminated) with “how” we come together (talk, text, FaceTime, hookup, meet at church, at a party, etc.). Which will only touch the cosmetics of the relationship. Then we talk about “when” we come together. Talked for 3 months, dated for a year, engaged after…etc. Which addresses our controls. But we need to zero in on the “why” we come together. This is the only way we will connect to the Purpose of our relationships–Our purpose and God’s. This is when we have to face the reality of our own agenda vs God’s design. We’ll be fixed on trying to figure out who the next one will be. But won’t give time to dissect our “Why”. If we did that, we’d realize that we’re motivated by things that should only stimulate us, and stimulated by the things that should actually be motivating us.

Now, we have to consider what’s motivating us as we pursue relationships–even in our marriages. Are our intentions contaminated? Is glorifying God the goal? Do we really expect to keep desiring and developing relationships outside of God’s will, design and plan, and get a God product at the end?

*Tressa Jo

A man can be wow’d about a lot of things about you as a woman. He can be wow’d about your pretty hair. He can be wow’d about your pretty smile. He can be wow’d about your body. He can be wow’d about your success and accomplishments. He can be wow’d about your status. He can even be wow’d about how much you’re wow’d about him. But as a woman of God, when a man is wow’d about the God in you, you got something worth building on. The man that recognizes and values the God in you and not just the part that keeps you faithful to him, will value you when all those other things fade or fail because he was never motivated them. Stimulated? Yes. He’s a man. But he was motived by the kind of heart you possessed and how it was exemplified in your life and lifestyle. He values the part of you that points to heaven and will encourage and assist you in building on it. And when he finds you, he recognizes that he obtains favor from the Lord. That’s for the man that’s looking for a wife, not just access to a woman.

Just because a man wants you really bad, doesn’t mean that he’ll value you. He can appreciate all of your attributes, but never really value you. But in order to make sure he values you, you have to value yourself first. Everything that you ARE and everything that you ARE NOT, is enough for the right man.

*Tressa Jo

A lot of us make the mistake of trying to validate people’s loyalty to us when we’re going through hard times. But when we’re going through hard times, it’s not about validating other people’s loyalty to us. It’s about God validating our loyalty to Him. Sometimes, God will kick the people crutches right from underneath you in order to show you the validity of your reliance on Him. In other words, don’t consume yourself being upset with human, fleshy, fragile, inconsistent and unpredictable resources when you have the Source–God. And always keep in mind that you are someone else’s resource too.

It’s about focus and intentions. The enemy will always attempt to consume us with what and who’s on the outside in order to pull us away from the God inside of us. And when this happens we fight against flesh and blood. There’s no Holy Ghost power there. We only position ourselves to be yanked around in the flesh by the enemy as he sets us up for our demise. But focusing on the God in us and dealing with things in the Spirit allows the power of God to rule in our circumstances. Even if the process hurts, God will still be glorified and we will still be strengthened.

*Tressa Jo

One of the most debilitating things in life is when we seek yesterday’s peace in today’s reality. Many of us have gone thru major hardships in life. Before the hardship in your life, your comfortability and peace of mind came from a certain level of familiarity, accessibility and manageability of specific things in your day to day. But after your hardship, those comfortabilities where compromised–if not all together eliminated. And now the new normal of your today seems unsure, chaotic and out of control. You want to feel the same joy you felt yesterday. You want to have the same access and comfort today as you had yesterday. The fact that you’re trying to hold on to yesterday’s peace is the very reason you can’t take possession of today’s peace. That relationship is over! You can’t get that job back! You can’t reverse time to avoid those experiences! It is what it is! Today comes with new mercies and new blessings. God will give you new peace for your new normal. But the only way for us to obtain this new peace is to stop chasing old peace that no longer exist. The ability to move on in life is first realizing that there in a time and a season for everything. And the second thing is understanding that God controls the seasons. If you’re struggling with embracing the new peace in your new normal-your new season, ask God to help you let go of the past so that you can take hold of the present. He wants to give you new peace for your new season.

*Tressa Jo

I’m not far removed from this struggle. But I am definitely connected to it. After walking in the shoes of single parenting for 21 years, my compassion keeps me connected to the experience.

A word of encouragement for single mommies!

I just wanted to say that many of you make this single parent thing look easy. But I know it’s not. Often times, we stay in survival mode, attempting to give our children a sense of peace and not expose them to the urgency of the struggle. It’s one thing to be responsible for self. But it’s a whole other animal to be responsible for someone else all the time; day and night. As Christian mothers, our burden isn’t just limited to providing food, clothing and shelter for our children. We have a relentless concern for the spiritual welfare of our children; as it should be. You may find yourself burden, buried & bruised by life’s circumstances. Sometimes, you laugh to keep from crying. And sometimes, you cry to keep from crashing. You deny yourself & sacrifice so much to ensure your children are taken care of. You don’t pursue luxuries because you’re too busy trying to survive life. Sometimes, your lack of participation & recreation is misunderstood as a lack of desire & being boring. Many don’t know that limited resources, scarcity of available and reliable help with your kids & maturity keeps you keeping the main thing the main thing; them. What you want will always take a back burner to what’s needed; even if it means learning to appreciate sitting still & going without for the sake of peace in your life. You fight at times, not to be consumed by the things that concern you. You’re troubled on every side. Even your desire and pursuit for love can become a burden. Sometimes, to the point of choosing to abandon it because all the variables and unknowns just don’t seem to be worth the worry. I can’t risk failing these children again by getting with a man that won’t be a good father or that won’t be around for long. They’ve been through enough. They’re going through enough. In other words, you give up every part of you for those babies. You’ve neglected your health. You’ve denied your desires. You’ve given up on love. You’re stuck in survival mode trying to make a life for your children and at the same time, you’re losing yours. You’ve stopped dreaming just to stop being disappointed. What you’re calling contentment, may very well be complacency. You’ve stopped living just to survive. On the real, it hurts wanting what you don’t feel or can’t see is within reach. It’s just easier not to want. If they haven’t been there, most don’t understand the depth of our burden anyway. And that’s ok. God understands. Sometimes, the world will even place a scarlet letter on you and crucify you for not being needy. They refuse celebrate you for having the courage to do it by yourself and be happy doing it. One of my good friends told me a while ago, that it was time out for me wanting and that it was time for me to have. She told me that I deserved it. It brought me to tears. Not because I really feel that deserve it, but because I was relieved that somebody understood what I refused to say out loud. This thing isn’t as easy as I make it look. And I know that it’s not as easy as you make it look either. Be encouraged that God hears your spirit groaning & He sees your struggle. One thing that I’ve embraced that keeps my head above water is the fact that everything in my life happens for my growth & God’s glory. I am an intentional vessel for God’s glory. Whether on my mountaintop or in my valley, my desire is to glorify God. When I focus on the fact that my life was purposed for God’s glory, I don’t consume myself with where I am. But I think about where I’m going. Endure the process in order to get to the promise. His credit is good with me.

**Iwasdownyesterdaybutimuptoday**

Lamentations 3:21-24

19 The thought of my suffering and homelessness is bitter beyond words. 20 I will never forget this awful time, as I grieve over my loss. 21 Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: 22 The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. 23 Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning. 24 I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in him!”