Trying Times - “i Don't Know Why You're Calling On The Name Of Jesus” Series

Trying Times – “I Don't Know Why You're Calling On The Name Of Jesus”

by

Dr. Gale A. Ragan-Reid (5/29/2013, 6/1/2013, 6/15/2013, 6/18/2013, 6/22/2013, 6/29/2013, 7/6/2013, 7/11/2013, 7/15/2013, 7/21/2013, 7/30/2013, 8/07/2013, 8/8/2013, 8/9/2013, 8/17/2013)

“For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:” (Exodus 34:14, King James Version, KJV [God's covenant with Israel]).

Glory be to His Holy Name!,

In the Name of Jesus! In the Name of Jesus! In the Name of Jesus! I don't know why you're calling your son? I don't know why you're asking your cousin for the family reunion brochure?

I don't know why... ? Have you ever lost all your patience when challenged on the front of faith? Has anyone tested you to call only him or her, to ask only him or her questions, to put all your faith only in him or her? The word of the LORD says, “For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:” (Exodus 34:14, KJV [God's covenant with Israel]).

What a testing ground? How about that faith! How about your faith! Most importantly, without reservation, that sort of interrogation easily sends you into a huffy; a fit of anger; piquing. A challenge of this nature, not only offended the God you serve, who is Jealous but it also offended your self-esteem, crushing you to nothing.

More importantly than crushing you, this sort of tinkering around with your mind, challenged your relationship with God, made it non-existent and the person, who used that strategy placed himself over you as your god, and considered you worthless, not fit to think or reason for yourself, which provoked your thought process, to consider the same blighted hopelessness in a weak conscious, which weakened even more, in the challenge to not only slight your God but also you. What an offense of slight? Do you remember when the joke was, “Where was, and a name was called out; someone's name was called out, who was right there yet they questioned, “Where was so and so? Now, they ask, “Where was your God? Where were you?”

I don't know why you're calling on ...? I heard this challenge twice in my lifetime; firstly, from a dying soul who practiced hate on me, so I could stand strong against those who stood against me, after she died; it was my sister; secondly, from a power player cousin desperately fearing the outcome of a family reunion, that I might slight her, crush her and slap her to the ground with my words, telling and revealing to the family her treacherous, deceitful nature, of hate, in order to take leadership from the founding-family; it was one of my first cousins. However, when she said, “I don't know why you're calling him to get the brochure about the family reunion?” She sought to outcast a second-cousin's sect from the family-at-large. Later, this same first-cousin, tried to power over me with false statements of my membership, with a family church, who my mother belonged to when she was a young girl. Of course, besides Sunday School, that same first-cousin's mother did not attend at the time my mother attended because my mother was able to attend church by going to her grandmother's house, to clean and gladly attended with her mother's sister, her aunt, who was the church's secretary.

What does this have to do, with God? What does it have to do with our relationship with God? What does it have to do with my relationship with God? What does it have to do with your relationship with God? Absolutely, nothing!

I would just like to say, that a strategy used in a leadership ploy, such as this, “I don't know why …?” was used to take over leadership from the founding-family, was just the sort of strategy that could easily goad you to leave your God by goading you to leave the church because

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of the malpractices of hatred; gossiping to spread false reports of membership in order to divide the church. If, it was not takeover from the founding-family, then, perhaps, it was takeover from a high-spirited leader, with vision for education, in an illiterate culture. Maybe, it was takeover

from a family member, who recently returned with good news from other associations and memberships, of the one body of Christ. This person, who sought to takeover all authority and power of the church, was a big-headed, power hungry beast of nature and sought to place her family sect, at head, cared no more about the one body of Christ and no less about the unity of her family church.

This first-cousin felt she had to head. She reasoned and said because she was the biggest in size. She continued that her family of all girls were the loudest ones. Quite frankly, I think any crack-a-mammy idea, she came up with, would do. She was possessed of a spirit of pride.