LET GOD BE GOD

Let’s go head and get it out the way in the beginning. Follow me on Twitter @Big_Dusty. Get at me on Facebook.com/BigDusty. Alright?

I want to grow. I want to grow mentally as well as spiritually. To be honest with you though, lately I feel that I’ve been on hold. I’m not being stupid and putting the blame on God, but I feel like somehow or another I’ve put myself on hold. I see God moving in my family and amongst my friends, yet when the camera zooms in on me, it’s like I’m walking slowly backwards while everyone else is moving past me going 100 mph. If you look at my face, I’m smiling thinking I’m moving forward blind to the fact that everything around me is going on in the name of the Lord, and I’m going backwards and sinking at the same time. Song writer says, “I was sinking deep in sin far from the peaceful shore. Very deeply stained within sinking to rise no more. But the master of the sea heard my despairing cry, and from the waters he lifted me. Now safe am I.” That’s from one of my favorite hymns, Love Lifted Me. Search for it on youtube. My suggestion is a BeBe Winans and Donnie McClurkin version that was done like back in ’93. Anyway, let’s get to the part where it says, “…the master of the sea heard my despairing cry..” What is despairing? Looking it up in the dictionary, it simply means to be without hope or hopeless. So the writer here was at the point of no hope. He had nowhere to go, so he cried out to God. I would go on to say that he was crying out to anything or anybody that was willing to help. When you’re hopeless, you’re desperate for just about anything. If you’ve ever been desperate for anything, you know that you sometimes get to the point where you’ll take help from just about anything or anyone. Why? Because You’re past the point of what Kurt Carr said, “I almost let go.” You did let go, and once you do let go, you lose focus. Once you’re lose focus, you get to the point of desperation. That’s where the danger comes in.

“…the master of the sea heard my despairing cry, and from the waters he lifted me…” What that says to me is when you cry out to God, he will not only save you but he will lift you out of the sin you’re indulged in. That means it doesn’t matter what you’re struggling with, the master of the sea, God, can lift you out of sin no matter how deep. So that tells me also that there’s no sin too deep that God can’t lift you out of. Now here comes the question. Why do we put a limit on what God can do? I said, we because I will admit that I do it. I put a limit on God. All my life growing up I heard the old saints say, “There’s no limit to what God can do.” Yet, here and now, I’m struggling in a rut of habitual sin. Why? It’s not God’s fault. His hand is there to lift me up, but I’m not reaching up. We’re not reaching up. I remember the old saints used to sing, “God’s got a blessing for you. If you want it, reach up and grab it. God’s got a blessing for you.” Seems too simple, right? You’re telling me that all I have to do is reach up to God, and I will blessed? Psshhh, please, right? It can’t be that simple, can it? Why do we put limits on God? Why do we make elementary math hard like calculus? We’ve gotten so educated and technology savvy, that when something as simple as just reaching up to God for help, we can’t comprehend it. When a baby wants to be picked up, what does it do? It reaches up or out to you. Crying out to you until you pick it up. Interesting concept. Crying out to someone bigger than you that can pick you up and make your world seem better. Interesting…

“…the master of the sea heard my despairing cry, and from the waters he lifted me. Now safe am I.” Safety. Protection. Not only safety and protection from the sin, but protection from yourself, right? So here’s what I got to do better with. Here’s what we all got to do better with. We got to let God be God. Again, it seems too simple, but obviously what we’re doing now ain’t working. I know what I ‘m doing now ain’t working for me. I used to lead a song talking about God is…well I got to let him be….God. The video of me leading a song that says, “For the rest of my life, I’m going to praise You.” I listened to that last night, and I had goose bumps. We are not living what we’re singing about. Let’s keep it real. We got to do better. We got to let God  be God. Bottom line. Once we do that, the stress we put on ourselves will be lifted before we know it. I’ll end this with another old song that says, “Take your burdens to the Lord and leave it there.” Simple.

Stay Saved,

 Daniel Richerson aka Big Dusty