Trying Times - "Increase" Series

Trying Times - “INCREASE”

by

Dr. Gale A. Ragan-Reid (5/29/2013, 6/1/2013, 6/15/2013, 6/18/2013, 6/22/2013)

“Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer” (Psalms 19:14, KJV [God's manifold blessings]).

Giving honor to our Lord and Saviour, Christ Jesus,

We pray “Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer”(Psalms 19:14, KJV [God's manifold blessings]). There comes a time, in a woman's life, when she must feel the need to confess her sins before God, to receive forgiveness. We think why good works planted in supposedly good ground, the manifold blessings do not COME FORTH as the blessings SHOULD COME FORTH, THE YIELD FROM THE SOWING IS MINIMAL, in comparison to what was reaped in proven and tested good ground? Is sin blocking the flow of God's blessings or is sin blocking the faith of believing that God's blessing will yield a bounteous harvest for abundant living?

Is that why we judge ourselves by praying, Psalms 19:14, to qualify ourselves, in redemption of sins, to receive what we have prayed for? We ask God to prove our words and meditations as acceptable so that we might receive blessings from a God of strength (Jehovah Chatsahi, The Lord my Strength, Psalm 27:1, KJV) and a Christ, who redeems (Jehovah Go'el, The Lord my Redeemer, Isaiah 49:26, 60:16, KJV) us from sin and to accept the words of our mouth and the meditations of our heart as proven by a God of strength and Christ of redemptive power. Why would a friend say, “She never has any money? And, everytime you do one thing for her, she jumps down on you and wants you to do something else.” I overheard a friend say this to someone else and in my heart I felt the pain of betrayal so much so that it rendered me speechless, stilled me, for a while.

I delivered back to this friend the same betrayal of overhearing and the sting of betrayal, rendered him speechless, as well. We always think our friends are loyal and respectful of us and at best would hold us in high esteem and at least would prefer to say nothing rather than trash our good name. Nowadays, that thought simply was not true. We can count on less people than we thought we could and the ones we thought we could are not for sure that they can be or want to be responsible to us, in faith, as we go forward in good faith works.

The coldness and blackness of his words struck my heart an underhanded blow of inconsistency that I did not think I would ever have to face or deal with. He did not measure my works as I measured my works. In his perception many of the things I did amounted to nothing.

The works he measured for value were the delivery of money to his hands, only. I cooked, cleaned, prayed, worshipped God, helped in church services, attended many different churches in fellowship with him, talked to him and made myself available (By this, I mean, I adjusted my schedule to his arrival, which took away time already set forth and put in place, for my good works). All those tasks held no value to him. I thought about all the meals and plates I prepared amounted to no value. He did not want to hear about Christ Jesus even though he attended his church and other churches, every week, and participated in all activities, to the point that his personal BEST task was that he was driven by the collection of money.

If, he could not dominate the talk session, then, frustration and hatred set-in, to vindicate his manhood. He could not tolerate open and liberated, freely flowing words of God, Christ, the disciples or anyone else. He merely wanted cash money or to know I had a way to make cash money. For him, money answered all things. “The Preacher (Ecclesiastes 10:19, KJV [Wisdom better than strength]), sought to prove the vanity of everything under the sun, firstly, announcing the truth as fact, then,

2

proving it by the Preacher's experiences and observations, notably said, “A feast is made for laughter,

and wine maketh merry: but money answereth all things”(Holy Bible, n.d.).

This was a man, who believed in money, cash receipts and the competition to amass as much as

he could each day, to meet payroll of his family's business and his daily expenses, knew little of common decency. Even though his money bought all the things I delivered to him, he held little regard for the delivery of the things money bought before receiving the cash. He had a great need to see the money first, before he used it to buy goods and services. He had to SEE the money. I thought to myself, if, he would pay for the goods and services, he received from me, instead of regarding everything I did for him, as free, my earned wages would speak volumes to his rejection because then, I would have cash money.