Between You And ...

BETWEEN YOU AND GOD

I conclude with a story that I heard Pastor Larry Booker tell in a sermon he preached on August 4, 2007 at the First Pentecostal Church of North Little Rock, Arkansas. The title of the message was "Three Attitudes of Jewish Babylon."

I understand just as you do that holiness is far more than dress, but this story very succinctly provides for us the testimony of a young lady who decided she needed "corn" more than the seasonings of the superficial.

There was a young lady in his church named Naomi who was in ROTC. Brother Booker was unaware that she was in the program until after she had endured the difficulties she would be forced to endure. She was made a captain, the highest in her class, and had apparently excelled in the program. One day she was called in by the people in charge of the program and they informed her she was going to take a trip. They informed her that she would have to wear pants. She politely declined to do so, to which they told her that she would have to. They called her in numerous times almost to the point of harassment, and each time she would tell them that she was not going to go if she had to wear pants.

Finally, the told her that they were going to call in her parents and pastor. She told them that would be fine if they wanted to talk to them. She told them that this was not an issue with her parents and pastor, and no matter what they said she still was not going to wear pants. She said that it was not a parents thing, pastor thing, church thing, it was a God "thing" and she would not wear pants. She said this is between her and God.

So then they told her that they were going to dismiss her from the program. She told them she understood that if that was what they had to do, but it was not going to change her stance. They told her she wouldn’t have enough credits to graduate, and she continued to kindly deflect their attitude and told them it would be alright if they did this but she still could not consent to it. It was a matter between her and God.

(SOURCE: Philip Harrelson, "Trading the Superficial for the Substantial" 6/30/08, SermonCentral.com)

Shortly before the trip, she was called in one last time and they told her, "Look Naomi, you can go on the trip and you can wear your dress. Furthermore all the girls in your troop have notified us that if we ’can’ you that they will be quitting too. So we have decided to let you wear your dress, and all of the other girls have decided that from now on as long as you are in this program, they are going to wear dresses too!"

Brother Booker also said that he watched this girl in a graduating class of over 1,200 give a valedictory address to 6,000 people. In that speech given in the same place that Madonna and Britney Spears had performed, sixteen times she brought up the words, God and the Lord Jesus Christ.