Voice Recovery

  This morning, I woke up with a heavy feeling. I genuinely felt like I didn’t want to get out of bed. But it wasn’t because I was tired. It was because I felt like, “what is my life.” For a moment, I felt empty. I felt like a mess. Here was the weird part about it though; I was doing all of the “right” things. My apartment was clean and spacious. My clothes were clean and I didn’t need to iron them. I knew what I was wearing. I was getting work that I needed to get done, done. I woke up at a decent time and even as I am writing this, it looks like I would get to church on time, if not early.   I scrolled through YouTube for about 30 minutes and then finally shut my phone off and got up to shower. I had food in my fridge, I literally was not lacking anything. The worse thing that I did was order Burger King last night - the impossible whopper with cheese and large fries - and I ate it all. I mean like how dare I? I then realized something. The sense of heaviness and depression...

You Don’t Ever Have To Be Lonely During The Holidays If You Know Jesus      The day started off with a movie of ‘Julie and Julia’, tofu scramble, with a slice of avocado, fried banana, and two slices of dragonfruit. It was delicious. But I was somewhat apprehensive to cook for Thanksgiving because I was concerned that the food would not come out so well. This was not because I have never cooked before. But it was because I had not cooked in a while and I was going to do a fruitarian feast. Long story short, I was not super enthusiastic because some of the ingredients that I was going to use did not give the same type of flavor that I was looking for that I would find in other ingredients. But I did not believe that I would get paid again until Friday, as usual. Therefore, I thought that I was stuck with the ingredients that I had.       I still remained optimistic and said to myself that it might not be perfect but it will be a great day because I will...

  So, you’re tired. You feel drained. You feel like quitting. Well, no one understands these feelings more than God himself. Why? Because he has been through the same thing when He came down to Earth and wrapped himself in flesh. Jesus lived a life of sacrifice. He made a sacrifice when He fasted for 40 days and 40 nights. He sacrificed His time whenever He walked with the disciples and taught them, He sacrificed His time when He preached to the public. Lastly, and the most obvious one, Jesus sacrificed His life for us by willingly submitting to God’s will and allowing Himself to be crucified.  Therefore, when we sacrifice things in our life or when we sacrifice ourselves, we must remember that God has done this as well. This means that He gets it. God gets how hard it is. He knows the struggle. However, this does not, by any means, make Him feel sorry for us. This is simply a part of our walk with Him and it is His expectation of us. Why? Well, sacrifice is actually a form of...

  I realized today that I had made a mistake. When I realized this, so many thoughts filled my mind. Almost all of them were negative. “How could I make such a mistake? Where was my head? Why did I not realize this before?” Then worse thoughts began to arise. “How could I be so stupid? I am angry with myself!” I did not think to comfort myself with positive thoughts. Not once. Then God spoke to me and told me that I was chasing perfectionism and needed to stop. I didn’t believe that I was doing this because of my views on perfectionism. “How could I be a perfectionist if I keep messing up and not doing things properly?” I thought to myself. I caught myself arguing with God about this. “I don’t think I am wrestling with perfectionism.” The audacity. For a split second I forgot that God knew my soul better than me and could see my soul far better than I can. I humbled myself and submitted and became open to listening to Him. I was fighting my tears back and I did it well until… Well,...

     Now this one is short and sweet but a much needed reminder for all of us...      Whether we are fasting, praying, giving, or showing kindness to others, we must realize that we are doing these things for our own good and all of this will ultimately bring glory to the most High God. But we sometimes seem to forget that God is already glorious and God will do what is in His will with or without us. We are not doing God any favors when we are obeying Him and His Word. When we think like this, we are thinking from a place of entitlement, religiousness, and pride.      This is equivalent to what the Pharisees and Sadducees believed. The evidence of this is that they questioned God instead of being submissive to Him and taking advantage of the fact that the Most High God was in the flesh standing right in front of them! They missed a major opportunity to fellowship with Him and glean from Him.        So what is the mes...

  Don’t Think That What You Do is Too Small Sometimes I feel that the things that I want to do or can do, when it comes to God’s Kingdom work, are too small. I have also spoken to other believers that also either believe that their abilities or gifts are too small or that they don’t have a gift or talent at all. But God gave each and every one of us something and if He gave it to us, then it’s useful.  I was reminded of this last night when I did my most recent episode on my podcast “Dannie Are You Okay” talking about the Python Spirit. I genuinely was not confident about doing that message. I felt like my experience was small compared to others and that I was not as well versed in the topic of deliverance as many others seemed to be. I just did not feel qualified to deliver such a message. But God told me to do it anyway and He will guide me. So, I let Him guide me. The message turned out to be 40 minutes long. I posted it on Facebook and went on about my business.  Late...