All it takes is a single spark to burn down an entire forest.
And the danger is not so much in the initial spark, but in the subsequent firestorm which ensues when the spark is not contained.
As it is with nature, so it is with human nature.
America is playing with fire and it's not only our nation which is the forest; it’s also the world.
You can be a parent without being a parent. And you may already be a parent without even realizing you're a parent.
Have you considered that it’s not about you?
The issue, the blowup, the distance, the silence, the thing that’s making you believe it must be about you, have you considered that it’s not?
Everyone, especially now, is dealing with life.
Why You Need to Learn How to Love “Today” More than “Tomorrow” by Lawrence E. Adjah
Today is yesterday’s “tomorrow.” Do not continue to put off important matters like you (and I) own or could buy time. There are conversations you need to have, work you need to start, forgiveness you need to extend, advances of love you need to make, there are things you need to do which the Spirit (of the Lord) has prompted you to do.But you put it off like tomorrow is guaranteed, like today wasn’t the grace of God saying, “I love you and am patient enough to give you more time.”
Stop wasting your dreams. Did you know, God uses your dreams to speak to you.
All throughout scripture, from God appearing to Solomon in a dream and offering him any request, to God, through an angel, assuring Joseph, husband of Mary (Mother of Jesus), to take her as his wife — God uses your dreams to speak to you.
But not all dreams God allows you to have are dreams God wants you to have.
How to Keep Your Heart Warm in an Increasingly Cold World by Lawrence E. Adjah
Do not let the condition of this world change the condition your heart.
When you look around at what’s happening around the world, what’s happening across your social media feeds, and what’s happening around our nation(s), it seems, increasingly, that there has been a uptick in wickedness and a growing frigidity of our hearts.
But the good news is a cold heart is no match when it sits under power of the s(o)n.
Have you given up expecting the best because you consistently keep experiencing the worst?
Have you resolved yourself to having “low to no” expectations to avoid the pain and disappointment of having high expectations?
It’s real and it’s human but what if it’s divine to resist?
In the book of Matthew it is written, Jesus “did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.” (Matt 13:58)
Said another way, because they didn’t expect miracles, they didn’t get (many) miracles.
Pray like you believe it works.
You can’t expect the power of prayer yet reject the power of prayer at the same time.
How many of us ask people to pray for us expecting it to make a difference, yet often lack urgency when others ask us to pray, assuming though the thought or intention of doing it is enough and don’t follow through with audible prayers. It’s as though we don’t believe it works.
But for those who do believe it works, yet haven’t found a consistent approach that works:
A helpful recommendation is when someone asks you to pray: Take 20 seconds to pray right then.
“Can I take 20 secs to pray for you right now?”
It helps you avoid forgetting and it trains you to acknowledge the power of prayer in real time, not only when it’s your time or turn to seek it.
Lord, your word says the prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective (“availeth much”),
May we recognize its power,
May we experience and seek its effectiveness,
not only for ourselves, but for others,
in the mighty name and the mighty power of Jesus’ Name, we pray, Amen and Amen. 🙏🏿
God is always speaking to you.
He does’t only speak when you need an answer for some things, He is always speaking because He is the answer to all things.
The God who never sleeps nor slumbers is never too tired or too busy to speak to you.
Whether through a still small voice, or through the thunders of life, God is always speaking to you.
Creation speaks to you, your body speaks to you, His Word speaks to you, His Spirit speaks to you, your circumstances speak to you, right now God is speaking to you.
4 Questions for Spiritual Reflection:
- Do you hear Him?
- Are you listening?
- What is He saying?
- What are you doing in light of what He’s saying?
Lord, help us to hear you, Holy Spirit, help us to heed you, in Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen and Amen 🙏🏿
What if your work may be planting seeds for the trees your great grandchildren’s generation will sit under? Not everything God calls you to do will be fully realized in your lifetime.
Family, do me a favor: Type in Google, “Black Man and Black Woman in Love” and go to “Images”…
…Do you notice anything? Scroll down a bit more. See it now? Now go to the search results…
Interesting isn’t it.
Now that we’ve established a shared foundation and have gotten that out of the way, I’d like to introduce myself, my name is Lawrence Adjah and I believe in the redemptive place and power of Black Love.
Family, if you know me in real life and from everything I’ve written and spoken about publicly, you know I am a big, “celebrate God glorifying Kingdom Love” brother.
To find someone, of any race, to do life with, is a gift from God. A divine gift from on High, one you could not earn, deserve or privy yourself to outside of the radical favor of God upon your life.
In the same breath, I’m also here to say, I believe it is just as much “good news” and redemptive kingdom love to see married #blacklove couples together (in the face of a fallen world which has stoked enmity between them) as it is to see barrier breaking interracial couples (in a world which has distorted our view of image bearers to the extent that the blood of Jesus has systematically and individually been subjugated to the color of one’s skin).
For me personally, throughout my life I’ve been uniquely drawn to the unique gospel illustration of enduring black love. And most black men and women are, statistically, as nearly 90% of both black men and black women marry each other, even when you toggle for income levels. With that said, I’ve observed the conversations around God-inspired barrier breaking relationships and redemption often intuitively cites interracial relationships as its sole evidence, but rarely have I seen there be a gospel-centered discussion around the redemptive power of black love. It’s as though we forget the picture in Revelation 7:9 about “every tongue and tribe” means there are still distinct tongues, tribes and nations praising before the King of Kings when He returns.
And it makes complete sense because one, racial division as a challenge in society has been at the forefront of our civil discourse and two, because as noted, statistically, there really isn’t a black love issue (if you define black love as marriage rates between black men and women). However, as evidenced by the google search from above, if you let broadcast, print, the web and social media tell it, you would believe the exact opposite.
Which is partly why I am writing this to begin with. I wasn’t planning on writing this today, in fact, there was another letter I wanted to write about love this week, but in a “deep work” break I happened to go on Instagram for a second and right when I opened the app I see a post from Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay, regarding interracial relationships, which posed the question:
|| Does your opinion of a Black man change when you see him with a white woman? Is this toxic? Is it just how things are? Should we change? ||
I was curious to hear Rachel’s perspective as a black woman married to a white man, but like most of you, I wanted to read the comments to get a temperature check on where we are on the topic. I came across one from a sister which sparked me writing this after she shared the following:
“Yes it does and always will. A black man choosing a white woman is not the same as a black woman choosing a man outside of her race. Black women prefer black men but accept men of other races to survive. Check the statistics of divorce and fatherless children. The divorce rate for black men and other races do not improve but they sure do for black women and that’s just a fact.” - @tiffaniielle
While I recognize the first sentence as being a common sentiment, what really drove this piece is the second sentence.
Let me make this plain: Given what’s at stake, I take our dialogue around this subject seriously, as such, it is my prayer in the year of our Lord 2022, that all the non-empirically based talking points, tropes and logically inconsistent narratives used to stoke enmity between black men and women will perish like Nature’s Valley granola bars in the hands of all who seek truth.
Now, I have been open about sharing it is my plan to love and marry a black woman (aka a woman of the African diaspora), and as much as it is driven by my natural attraction to black women, as well as the redemptive mission I’ve been most drawn to in marriage, it is also about me exercising my political agency to choose a black woman, even though as it is the case for many black women, the option to choose a spouse from another race (by grace) is possible and present.
With that said, if you are one who finds yourself in the cognitive milieu of “looking down” upon black men who marry white women (not to be confused with championing black love), then you must keep the same energy with black women marrying white men.
This is where the spiritual forces of evil around this issue find its resting space, capitalizing upon the systematic and interpersonal trauma levied against black men and women. What’s resulted is hurting women and men portraying the extremes at the center.
I plan to put the myths which feed this view to rest below, but before I do, here is the reality (please read slowly and with grace, assuming the best with my words):
*Some sisters* have been conditioned to believe, unconsciously, black men do not love you. Black men will leave you (abandonment, from Father to relationships). Black men will abuse you. Black men are not trustworthy or reliable. In contrast, they have been conditioned to believe (unconsciously) white men are stable. White men are safe. White men embody redemption of being unloved, because black men didn’t and don’t (or didn’t) love (me/) us. There is more preparing for the worst than there is believing the best in black men and it’s soberingly sad.
*Some* will project their personal experiences (overlooking their own agency, realistic access to men as well as their own fallibility, and capacity to inflict harm) and will use it to color all black men and justify tropes like this. So naturally when they see black men with white women, it’s the great betrayal. But when they see black women with white men, it’s portrayed as the great redemptive love story (“she will be loved, finally she is seen and appreciated and loved” akin to a white knight in shining armor), it’s the liberation of her mating pool, despite statistics affirming black men and women are equally loyal in marriage to each other, which is why you see the stark difference in how brothers and sisters engage with stories about celebrity marriages of black women and white men and celebrity marriages of black men and white women.
This is important to discuss because it’s why black men and women loving each other and content attesting to the same is so powerful, because there is a lot betting against us being together. It is as much a spiritual matter as it is a social, political and economic matter.
And just as Jesus is (The Way), the Truth (and the Life), the only way we can find redemption is through the Truth about Black Love, which means redeeming lies like:
The problem is: Black Men Being With/ Marrying White Women:
88% of black men of all education and income levels marry black wives.
Black men since slavery have had to endure seeing their black women with white men (by force) taken from them by white men with power and means, while also being intentionally emasculated and castrated physically and economically in front of black women then and over time. It’s all to say black men have had to see their black women with white men, even if secretively, since time in memorium, but the trope is black men being with white women is the sole original sin.
The problem is: There are no “marriageable” black men especially if you are highly educated and employed: (For the record, I do not support / affirm this term, “Marriageable”)
Women across *all* races outpace and outnumber their male counterparts in the pursuit of / enrollment in higher education, yet marriage rates remain high among them except for us. Furthermore…
While black women are more likely to graduate from college, black men still out-earn black women, at all levels, more earn at least $75K per year and once you cross $250K, double the black men earn that than black women, which means, there are more than enough financially stable men for black women, assuming one defines financially secure this way, which is most.
To our sisters point about Fatherlessness, it is an issue we must acknowledge, but we can’t assume divorce or a man not being in the home is only as a result of a broken man, forgetting that women are equally fallible in contributing to relationships failing.
Women and men commit adultery at comparable rates ~20% pushing down the trope of the lone cheating black male destroying relationships.
The fact that these beliefs have persisted for so long in the face of empirical fact underscores the reality of spiritual warfare, where truth is denied at all costs. But the costs are way too high. It’s costing our families, our communities and our collective well-being and we cannot move in this way any longer.
I’ve heard it’s been said that information does not change people, inspiration does.
While I recognize that this information will not change (all) hearts, I believe the redemptive power of black love points us to the good news, of Jesus Christ, whose life, death and resurrection narrates an eternal love story of restoration, healing, and reconciliation between us for all…including black men and women.
May it be so and so shall it be.
Let me begin by sharing, admittedly, anytime I hear someone use the word “settling” in speaking about being with another human being made in the image of God, whom they did not die for, nor could they ever earn, it is challenging to me. Very, challenging.
The phenomena of grieving the living.
New children do not cause a parent to love their older children any less, rather, they expand their parent’s capacity to love. While prior love of the living is not something one should look to maintain, I am realizing part of this fallen experience of life, is there are ailments you receive that you don’t necessarily choose. There are injuries that never fully heal. There are people who walk the journey of life, with a limp and just as grief is defined as loss, not all loss results in death, like the loss of a limb, your health, a job, and in this case, the loss of the living.
You can be whole and hurting.
You can move forward, but periodically be moved, by the past.
You can be strong and courageous, yet still embrace this weakness.
