Giving it up for God

I think I was about 7 or 8 years old when my father first gave his life over to Christ. I don’t think I was surprised; my family (immediate and distant) had always been involved in the church. It was actually my mother, who guided my father to the Lord, not by her nagging and condemnation. But by the light that shined in and through her.

When my father first became saved, my sisters and I thought my father had gone crazy. His favorite saying was, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord,” and he meant it. My father then decided to purge his home from all worldly ties. He removed certain cable channels from our television; he removed certain movies, books and other influences of the “world” from the home. He forbade us to use God’s name in vain, we could not play cards or gamble (lottery) and every time a situation arose or one of us received a bad report from our teachers, he would sit us down lovingly and discipline us based on scripture. He would read to us from the bible and lecture for at least an hour before giving us our final punishment of standing in a corner, taking away our telephone and television privileges and/or grounding us for weeks at a time.

Of course, my sisters and I (and even my mother at times) thought Daddy was taking things overboard. There was no way that God would allow us to live miserable lives without ANY type of pleasures other than church, bible study and choir rehearsals.

Now that I have gotten older, wiser and have rededicated my OWN life to Christ I can now understand my father’s struggles with learning to be IN the world but not OF the world. See, the flesh (your body) is very weak and highly susceptible to sin. I learned this in my struggles in removing myself FROM the world. Think about it, when a baby is born, the child is born INTO sin, not OF sin. Babies are innocent and it is that child’s upbringing, environment, experiences and teachings that develop that child’s mind and influences their thinking. This is why, as Christians (new and old) we must be very careful about the evils our eyes see (television, the people we hang around, porno, etc), our ears hear and our mouth speaks.

A good example of this is when I first decided that I would only listen to gospel music in my car on my drive to work in the morning. I figure, what better way to start your day than spend it rejoicing in the Lord. Well, on my drives home from work, I noticed I began to listen to gospel music then, too (it's about a 25 minute drive from work to my home). After a while, I realized that I was losing an interest for my favorite radio stations, such as WPGC 95.5 and WKYS 93.9 (hip-hop and more)! I decided then I would not longer listen to anything but gospel, the bible on audio, and teachings. This may have seemed drastic to some, but for me, music has always been… my everything. It enhances my mood and gets me going in the morning. It has been there to put me in the right frame of mind when I had papers to write and even set the mood while I was getting myself primped to go out and party for the night! I have always depended on my music to get me through a tough situation, a break-up or even a breakthrough. But the more I listened to gospel music, the more I realized what type of garbage and chaos I was filling my ears with.

When I finally did turn my radio back on, almost every song I listened to was filled with sex, greed, money and cars, bitches and hoes. PURE GARBAGE! And what a lot of people don’t realize is that music is subliminal. If you hear something over and over again, eventually you will begin to believe it.

When I was younger, any music my sisters and I brought home, my father would make us listen to it with him first to gain his approval. Sometimes the music was so “out there” that I would cringe while listening to it with my father. I remember when I was about 13 years old when I brought home a tape of Wreckx-N-Effect’s, “Rump Shaker.” I loved that song! And I saw nothing wrong with it while I was participating in our middle school’s dances. When I listened to with my father, all the words of the song that were so harmless and cool became shameful to listen to with him. I could not believe the degree of embarrassment I felt as my father listened to the voice talk about “all he wanted to do was zoom a zoom zoom zoom in a boom boom, just shake your rump.”

That was somewhat how I felt in my car listening to the radio on and all the explicit words that were being used to describe “love,” women, and life in general. That was when I realized that drastic measure are often needed in order for us to deter from the sins we have been dabbling in and have even enjoyed doing so. But it is not until we take a step back and analyze what we do under God’s scope of things. He does not stir us in the wrong direction and I can probably bet that most of us have felt that sudden felling of doubt or remorse right before we do something that is not pleasing to God. This is the Holy Spirit at work, telling us and reminding us that we are about to do something (or listening to something, or watching something) that does not align with God’s Word.

As saved women of God, even those that have re-dedicated their lives or are struggling to adhere to God’s word when sin seems to feel so good, we must remember to remain in the world but not of the world. Spend time with God and He will always tell you the truth about what you’re doing. Even if you have to remove the television from your home, erase certain telephone numbers out of your phone, end a relationship not pleasing to God, throw away every DVD in your home and start all over again, it would be well worth it. In order to have a relationship with God, all it takes is to accept him and study his Word, pray and ask him for guidance and deliverance. But to whom much is given, much is required, therefore in order to expect certain things from God, we must be willing to give up and sacrifice some of our ungodly and unclean ways, if not all. And believe me Sistahs… if I can do, trust me, so can you.



© K. Johnson, January 2010