Month: September 2013
Neighbors Know My Name…. (old post)
I bet the neighbors know my name
Way you screamin scratchin yellin,
Bet the neighbors know my name
They be stressin while we sexin,
I bet the neighbors know my name
My name my name
I bet the neighbors know my name
My my my…
I’ve been waiting to blog about this song for the longest, the truth of the matter is that I’m actually not a big fan of the literal lyrical content b/c I feel that there is way too much sex on the radio, but I do like the way I’ve interpreted the song for myself and for my audience to read and possibly listen to differently the next time they hear it.
It is clear from the lyrics of this song, that Trey Songz is “putting in work,” I mean screamin, scratchin, yellin….the neighbors must be irritated. I once had a professor say that sex between two people in love should be such an experience, that they should see God. Well, I doubt that these two are in love in this song and I doubt anyone is seeing God, but that is besides the point. The point is this, the sex is that good, that this woman is effected by the experience, as well as the neighbors. The clinician, Mr. Songz is making everyone bear witness to his craft of lovemaking.
What is your craft? What are you good at? We all have something that we are gifted at that may make some yell in excitement, scratch their heads, and scream your praises. Their is something that we do so well that may also disturb your neighbors too, thats okay, we all need haters…it just lets us know that are doing a good job. Do you do it so well, that the people know your name? I bet if you continue to work hard, be persistent, and consistent on your craft, people will begin to recognize you, people will begin to know you by your gifts and talents. People will know your name, it may not bring you fame and fortune, but I bet you NEIGHBOR will know your name, besides if they are you neighbor, then all that means is that when you’re performing their in your NEIGHBORHOOD so they can’t miss you! So who is your Neighbor?
Keep doing you! I bet the Neighbors Know Your Name!!
-bInSpired
Did You Realize? (old post)
“Did you realize that you were a Champion in their eyes? Yes I Did” These are the words rhymed by Kanye West in his song “Champion” Kanye says he realized that he was a champion in their eyes, but for most of us, we can’t say the same thing. We say, “No I Didn’t.” The reality for a lot of us is that we don’t know we’re champions, we don’t fully know what we’re capable of, and the possibility that lies within us. A lot of us have an inkling of what God has put inside of us, but we end up confusing humility with self- deprecation and too often negate our gifts. We sell ourselves short and think we’re not worthy of certain things God has in store for us. Did we realize? Nope we didn’t? There are countless stories of persons who sell themselves short and lack the confidence needed to “seize the moment.”
Just like the song says, ….”you were a Champion in their eyes.” Simply stated, in the midst of negative reports on TV, people dying, violence in our communities, money troubles, post recession, oil spills, felonies, and other realities, there are a host of people out there, who see the CHAMPION inside of you! Who see the potential inside of you! Who see the greatness! Who see that your an overcomer and much more! They see it inside of you!
A Champion is someone who has defeated or surpassed all rivals in a competition, or an advocate for a cause.
All of us are champions, b/c we’ve constantly had to defeat rivals and surpass things and people in our way. We’ve advocated for something, for someone, for ourselves, our dreams, our communities, We are all Champions! All you have to do is change the way you view yourself from the inside and your outlook will change. We will see things much different.
God saw a king in David, an economist in Joseph, father of nations in Abraham, liberator in Moses, leader in Esther, and a savior in Jesus!! What do people see in you? What do you see? What does God see!?
Did you realize that you were a Champion? Yes We Did!!
-bInSpired
The Right One(1)…..(old post)
In my 26 years of living, it seems like a lot of life has to do with finding the right one! We grow up looking for the right school to attend, the right friends, the right toys to play with, the right sport to play, and the right activity to get involved in. And as we get much older life starts to become more serious and we take on more responsibility.
For some of us, this starts with going to the right college or university, the school that has the best reputation, best programs, best professors, and perhaps the best dining halls. We look for the job that is the right one as well. We want the job which pays the most, offers the best benefits, most promising opportunity for career advancement, and best work schedule. We’ve seen sports teams such as the Miami Heat or Dallas Cowboys, who seem to have all the right players and coaches to win the big one. We look for the right one when it comes to finding a car to purchase, the car with the right size, fully loaded interior, right color, best consumer reviews, right price and best financing. When it comes to companionship, we too want to find the right one! Right height! Right size! Right shape! Right complexion! Right zodiac sign! Right job! Right income! Intelligent! Yada yada yada……..you get my point.
However, as with everything, a lot of time we think we’ve found the right one, but something ends up missing. The right university ends up not being the school you thought it was, food is terrible and the weather is way too cold. The job ends up being stressful, a long commute, long hours, and just not worth it anymore. The Cowboys, don’t even make the playoffs! The car ends up being a lemon! Lastly, the person that you thought was the one, ends up having you singing, “Fall For Your Type.” They’re nothing like you thought they would be.
I wish I could to tell you what to look for or pay attention to when searching out the right one, but the honest truth is, we’re all in the search for our own “right one,” whether it be a career, car, house, school, soulmate, or something as simple as an outfit to wear on Friday night!! All I can say is you know when you’ve found the right one(1)!! Good luck!
-bInSpired
7 Steps to Living a healthier lifestyle, physically, emotionally, spiritually, and mentally. (Old Post 2011)
- Keep God first in your life, work on your personal relationship with God, because God is the base and core that keeps everything in tact!
- Keep a Diary or journal so that you can chart your progress for the year. We all need to find moments to reflect on what we have accomplished, what goals we need to revisit and revise, how the year has going thus far 2b. Plan for war in a time of peace; when things are not chaotic and crazy, be proactive so when things are crazy, you will be better prepared. Prepare for the obstacles.
- Invest in yourself emotionally and mentally. Don’t be a bag lady or a bag man, carrying drama and baggage into 2011, leave that behind! People with drama, bad habits, bad memories, get rid of it! Mentally is key too, educate yourself! Learn something new that will help you grow and become a better person.
- Get involved in the community, church, or a helping organization. Stop sitting on the sidelines, be a positive advocate. Pay it forward and give back.
- Get your financial house in order! Create a budget!! Pay yourself first, put some money aside for yourself, at least 5-10%. Pay your tithes! Pay your bills on time and try to pay more than the minimum balance, so you can get out of debt.
- Health!! Commit to living a healthier lifestyle, look lets be real, if we’re all overweight, high blood pressure, diabetes, can’t move…how are we going to live a healthy lifestyle! God did not create and design for us to be overweight and get life cut short. Some of this is b/c of our poor choices. So Eat healthy, meaning water, fruits and vegetables, and exercise at least 3x a week for 30min at a minimum. Put down the blunts, trees, earth, whatever you call it. Stop smoking, limit unhealthy consumption of alcohol, don’t eat too late, no sex or safe sex, we don’t want STD’s going around. Live Healthier in 2011
- Develop a vision and mission statement for your life! The vision is the ultimate goal, the ultimate dream, the thing that you want soooo bad to do, have, and become. The mission is comprised of the action steps that you are going to take in order to see the vision realized. We all need this because we need to have direction and a plan for our life. If we don’t have a road map, where the heck are we going!! Get organized and Have a game plan.
-bInSpired
Sunday Morning Highlights: It’s a New Year (Isaiah 43:18-19)….Old post from 2011
It is a New Year! It’s a new day! New month! New season! New minute and new second! This text is so fitting for this moment and time, because we crossed over into 2011 from 2010 and God has given us another opportunity to do some new things this year! As we look at the situation in the text this morning we encounter a group of people who are presently in bondage. The children of Israel have been in exile from their home country for some time now and they are now ready to go back home. They have been living in someone else’s land and territory, enduring hardship, under going cruel in unusual punishment, not being treated like they deserve to be treated and they are ready to go back home!
There was a great chance that things were not going to go their way! If we read the beginning of the chapter it says, “When you pass through deep waters, I will be with you; your troubles will not overwhelm you.When you pass through fire, you will not be burned; the hard trials that come will not hurt you. The people were going through some tough times, the waters were deep!! But God is with them!! Pass through the fire, but they won’t get burned!! Hard trials will come, but not get hurt!!! God told the people no matter what may happen to you in this captivity, do not be afraid! However, in the midst of everything God promised to do a NEW thing in the people and I believe God has a wonderful, awesome, magnificent, bright, lovely, exciting, and amazing new year planned for us!!
However, while I am a man of faith and hope, I am also a realist. If we keep it real, the majority of people enter into the new year with renewed hopes, dreams, aspirations, goals, and fervor and by the time January 31 hits, we have already stopped and broken the resolutions that we made just a few weeks ago. Then there is the group of people who won’t set any goals or do anything new, they just enter into the new year, just like its another day! There are a lot of those type of people who say things like “I just want a better year! I’m not making resolutions, I just want to be a better person.” If thats your thing, then that is your thing, but I personally believe that the problem with this type of mentality is that it keeps us from expecting any good and blessed to happen to us, for us, and in us during the new year.
Perhaps one of the reasons that a lot of us don’t expect anything great or different to happen for us in the new year is because of the idea of “newness”, a new thing, means that some things may change and when we’ve been doing the same thing and the same routine for a signifiant amount of time, words such as “change, new, and different” might as well be curse words. Change is not a bad thing!! If anything, change is inevitable, things are always changing around us!! Change is divine!
Not only do we have a hard time embracing a new year because of change, but a lot of us have confused our location and situation with our ultimate destination. We get lost in our location, where God has us at right now, what job were in, and what our environment looks like. Our situation looks bad, things are not going our way, times have been rough, we’re not satisfied with our current state and we get discouraged. We want to embrace the new year, but our past won’t let us! We want to expect great things, but all we see are our problems!! We want to move forward, but people keep trying to hold us back!! We’ve been through so much and seen so much, that we don’t expect much at all! We allow what has happened to us, to taint our belief in what God has for us!! So the question is…….
How can we allow God to do a new thing in our lives this year??
The first we must do in order to allow God to do a New thing in our lives is not to get stuck dwelling in the failures and success of our past! Too often, we are not able to progress and move forward in our lives because we’re stuck looking backwards when our focus should be on what lies ahead of us. God has an awesome year in store for us, but we’re steady looking in the past. The text says, “Do not cling to events of the past or dwell on what happened long ago! In the King James it reads, Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old.” But you know what we do, we walk forward while looking back in the past.
We also need to move past the success of the past too. God told the people in the text, “long ago I led you through the red sea, I defeated the Egyptian army, I brought you out of the wilderness , but remember not the former things, neither consider the things of old!!” God is saying, yea I did those things for you, celebrate it, keep it as a testimony, but don’t get stuck on that because its a new year, it a new season, I’m doing a new thing!!
* How can we allow God to do a new thing in our lives this year?
The second thing we must hold on too is the proclamation of a new thing!!! In the text God uses Isaiah to make a bold proclamation! He says, “Watch for the new thing I’m going to do, its already happening–you can see it now!!” God has already said it, its a NEW YEAR and I’m going to do a new thing in you, new thing in your finances, new thing in your family, new thing in your health, new thing in your life, a new thing in your church!! I’m going to do a new thing and it’s already happening, you just have to expect it, you just have to believe it, we just have to look for it!!
How can we allow God to do a new thing in our lives this year?
This one blessed me right here!! See a lot of us, including myself get excited off of the promise and anticipation of something new happening!! Some of us this year have met new people and we wish we never met them. We’ve had new opportunities and they turned out to be disastrous! New relationships and the people were a mess!!! However, the text says in verse 19, I’m going to do a new thing, I will make a road through the wilderness and rivers in the desert!! What!?!? A road in wilderness and rivers in a desert!! Wilderness means an uncultivated, uninhabited, and inhospitable region, a neglected or abandoned area of a garden or town. They don’t have roads in wilderness, your lost, GPS won’t work out there!! The children were in the wilderness for 40 years, wandering!! But God said, I’m going to make a road in the middle of the wilderness! Basically what God is saying in my opinion is that
“I’m going to make a way….. out of no way!”
“I’ll never leave you….. nor forsake you!”
The text says, there is a river in the desert!!! A desert by design and definition is a very dry and arid place. But God is saying that there will be streams of rivers flowing through the desert!! God is not only going to do a new thing, but he is going to prosperous us!! God wants to do a prosperous new thing!!! I didn’t say that God is going to make us rich, give us big cars or houses, but God is allow the new thing to be fruitful, life -giving, rich, prosperous, a blessing. This year God wants to use you to do a new thing and a new thing in you!! We should just claim the new things of God!! Speak it by faith!! Write the vision and make it plain!! This new year…..
You know my Glory, but you Don’t know my Story!! (old post)
So today a friend of mine came across a YouTube video of Lauryn Hill on Showtime at The Apollo when she was 13 y/o and the crazy think is that she got booed in the first few minutes of her performance. When I saw this, I was amazed, I mean I know of them Lauryn Hill from the Fugees (best selling rap group ever) and the Lauryn Hill from the Mis-education of Lauryn Hill, Sister Act 2, and all her other accomplishments! It just goes to show, that hard work and perseverance does pay off if you keep on working and while we may not get the cheers now, if we keep working on those things we love to do, someone will appreciate our art.
All I do Is Win… “Judges 20:18-35” (Old post)
War has always been a topic of hot debate, but in my opinion war falls in the category of “necessary evils,” amongst others topics, which I choose not to divulge in this morning. Nevertheless, in this biblical text of Judges 20, the people of Israel felt that war was necessary to avenge the brutal rape and murder of a Levite man’s wife.
And even though we may have never fought in a physical war, if we were to think real carefully we too would admit that we’ve been engaged in some personal internal battles and wars over our lifetime. Yes, we may have never picked up a gun to defend ourselves, but we’ve had to fight some internal struggles and we’ve been at war against some hidden demons that only we know about. Paul declared in the New Testament book of 2 Corinthians that he has a daily war with a “thorn in his flesh,” in the Old Testament David is a prime example of a man that was at war with his own lust and pride, but God said he knew his heart. The reality is, whether we like to admit it or not, we all have fought and will continue to fight the spiritual and mental battle against some of our bad habits and ungodly ways. The bible says in Ephesians 6, 12For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places,” We may not be in a physical fight, but we are in a spiritual civil war. We may be fighting depression, we may be at war with loneliness, we may be at war with our health, we may be at war with our with alcohol, we may be at war with drugs, we may be at war with anger, pride, or greed, but the BIBLE says we can win this war, if we keep God in the midst of everything.
How Can We WIN the War?
1. The first thing we need to do understand is that their is a benefit in “praising God in advance” before we go into battle! In our text, verse #18, the people ask God, “who shall we send first to attack the tribe of Benjamin?” If we flip back to Judges ch. 1, when the people were going to fight the Caanaanites, they too asked the Lord, “who shall we send first?” In both times, God responds, “send Judah first!” Going into war, send JUDAH! Going to fight a demon, send JUDAH first! What? Who is JUDAH?? The word JUDAH in its original language actually means, now get this, “PRAISE.” Let US PRAISE 1st!!
2. We are to be PERSISTENT! In the text, it took the people three different tries to defeat the Benjamites, they lost 40,030 soldiers! However, each time they kept fighting until they won! So while we may be struggling with issues, situations, habits, and people for many years now, I believe PERSISTENCE pays off!!
3. We are to always abide, bask, and seek the PRESENCE of God while in battle! In the text, the people kept seeking God for guidance, they went to the place called Bethel, which means “house of God,” and they kept the ark of the covenant with them which represented the PRESENCE of God! In war, have the PRESENCE with you at all times!
Be Blessed and Bold!!
RevBmack
Train Up A Child (old post from my former blog)
The Bible says in Proverbs 22:6…“Train up a child in the way he/she should go, And even when he/she is old he/she will not depart from it.”
There is a saying that goes, “Give me the child for the first 7 years of his/her life and I will show you the man/woman!” After working with youth and in the school system for the past 4 or 5 months, I truly believe that we need to seriously work to mold and shape our youth at a very young age, perhaps the first 7 years! We need to instill in them a love for God, respect, discipline, resiliency, critical thinking, manners, appreciation, work ethic, math skills, reading skills, respect for the opposite sex, a love for exercise, and etc. I’m sure there are so so so many more skills and character traits, but those are just a few that I’ve thought of. Preparing youth to change the world and make and impact begins at an very early age. Let’s get going!!
-bInspired
It’s Your turn to shine- Isaiah 60:1-3 (old post)
(Isaiah 60:1-3) Arise, shine; For your light has come! And the glory of the LORD is risen upon you. {2} For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, And deep darkness the people; But the LORD will arise over you, And His glory will be seen upon you. {3} The Gentiles shall come to your light, And kings to the brightness of your rising. Just yesterday I was walking in the frozen food section in my local Target and as I was approaching each section a light would come on an begin to shine, it was obvious that the lights detected my movement. It was a motion light. We all have seen homes and outside areas that light up when we come into its presence. The “motion sensing” on most lights is a system that can detect energy given off by our bodies. They can detect what we give off, they detect what is coming from us. We all give off a certain type of energy and light, but what type of effect do we have on our environment and the people we come in contact with. What happens to them when we come into their presence. Do we light up their situation? Do we change the atmosphere of the environment or does it remain the same? When we approach dark, gloomy, and dim situations we should be the ones that light the place up by our mere presence and energy that we give off. The light shined in the grocery store because of my presence, not the absence of energy. I challenge all of us this day!! What kind of light are we causing to go off? -bInSpired
Brandon O. McAfee 