No Challenge, No Change.

THE 4GIVENESS FACTOR

As I peck the keyboard typing out this final blog in the “4Giveness Factor” series, I am reminded of some things I didn’t recognize just 30 days ago. Like a dog with an old soup bone, I was carrying an issue in my subconscious that needed a proper burial. And my God, in his infinite wisdom, has increased my capacity to forgive in the present based on my capacity to forgive in the past.

How cool is that?

So, what will it do for my future?

Have you ever stopped to think about what your acts of forgiveness mean for your future?

Yes, it kills pride. Yes, it perfects peace. It activates promise and protects purpose. But most of all, because it is an act of giving, it positions us to receive the abundant, overflowing benefits of our giving.

How wonderful to know we can’t beat God giving, no matter how we try!

The More You Give…

You can’t beat God giving,

No matter how hard you try

And just as sure as you are living

And the Lord is in heaven on high

The more you give the more He gives to you

But keep on giving because its really true that

You can’t beat God giving,

No matter how you try

~From the iconic gospel hit, “You Can’t Beat God Giving” written by gospel composer and Smithsonian Honoree, Doris Akers

Born in May 1923, Doris Akers was the eighth of ten children born into a biracial marriage during the Jim Crow era, but she never let the rejections of society dampen her faith. Teaching herself to play piano, she composed her first song, Keep the Fire Burning in Me, at the age of ten. Later, she would co-write the gospel classic, Lord, Don’t Move the Mountain, with Mahaila Jackson.

One of her most notable achievements was her work as “director of the Sky Pilot Choir, an integrated choir, which was also featured on recordings, television shows, and radio broadcasts across the country”.*

Keep the Fire Burning

Doris was the product of a biracial marriage and divorce in the Jim Crow era oppressed by a society that would not accept her. But in the godly innocence of a ten year old she pens,

Keep the Fire Burning in Me.

Wanting to know what it meant for her to write such a song, I search the internet but could not find the lyrics. Ultimately, I think we all have write our own version.

Lord, keep the fire burning within us!

What will we miss if we don’t embrace forgiveness?

What dreams won’t come true?

What pain won’t go away?

What purpose might be thwarted?

What passions might be lost?

Living a life of forgiveness like Doris will keep our fire burning and the Spirit of the Living God working on our behalf.

Lord, keep the fire burning within us!

Don’t let our emotions drown out our destiny. Let us embrace the Holy Ghost fire that filters out the impurities of unforgiveness. Leave us with a pure heart so we might see you in our now and in our future. In Jesus’ name we ask, seek, knock, and believe. Amen.

As we enter into the holiday season, I pray that you see forgiveness not as the emergence of pain from your past but as an opportunity for your future.

He gives me health, He keeps me strong

He guides me when I would go wrong

He gives me everything that I need

My every hunger feeds

He gave me peace, He made me whole

And when in sin, He saved my soul

And what I give could never be compared

With the blessings that I share.

~”You Can’t Beat God Giving”

No Challenge, No Change.

Any hesitation you have to forgive is not worth sacrificing what God has in store for you.

No challenge, no change.

Keep your fire. Come out as pure gold.

Go get your blessing.

Happy Thanksgiving.

*Wikipedia contributors, “Doris Akers,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Doris_Akers&oldid=1114546530 (accessed November 16, 2022).