"..because I'm scared"

            He enters the train and says "I am an angel of the Lord”. I look up from my game of Candy crush to see a man I've seen before. I recognized his West Indian accent laced with words of scriptures, judgment, wit, and yet obedience. 

Have you ever noticed how people react to the gospel being preached in public? There’s this weirdness….like all of a sudden everyone is antsy. No one makes direct eye contact and if they do, there’s a bit of a sarcastic eye roll. Then you have the Christian listeners who either nod in agreement so he doesn't include them in the sea of other sinners not listening lol , or try to blend in with everyone else sipping their coffee nervously. Some push their ear plugs deeper into their ears as if God doesn't know our heart, but strangely enough it’s like they can still hear the words over the music .Disclaimer: I’m talking about the REAL gospel, NOT the words of an angry man or drunken woman .You know the difference.

Don’t you just love God? I’m not saying that EVERYONE who preaches in the subway is sound, but this man, seemed to be a God send.

So he goes on about how our bodies are NOT our own and how unlike animals we have to give an account. He goes on about the realities of Hell and how hell is a real place. He made his way through the cart with his tattered bible and Jesus fitted cap smiling and delighted about sharing he gospel. I studied the woman next to me who was all fidgety and kept looking down at her phone. It’s like as soon as someone hears the name Jesus something happens...just like His word says.” At the mention of His name…”

So now it’s time for me to exit the train and go about my day and I wondered about the man and the message he had and how and if a soul in that train cart had somehow connected ,and quickly interrupting   my thought “ tsk …religion ….fear based” a woman sternly says to her friend as she exits the train.

That stuck with me.

“Religion …fear based” now, we can get into the truth that RELIGION is fear based but relationship is LOVE based….and what starts out as religion with law and order turns into relationship when we dig deeper and fall in Love with the God of the universe when are hearts are turned and all of a sudden we desire to please Him and live for Him above all. So why did her statement stand out? How much of our reason for our chastity fear based?

I don’t want a disease, I don’t want to get pregnant, I don’t want to be ashamed, I want everyone to know I’m a virgin and that’s what a young lady should be. I don’t want to be like her. What will my parents say? What would the church say?

Do you know what happens when that’s your sole reason for withholding? You don’t hold on. It’s so interesting that the people, who fear man most, fall the hardest. The fear of judgment begins not to matter anymore because you realized that you've based your sole purpose of staying on course on the options and expectations of man. SO you giving in to temptation because of curiosity or the realization that you’re human and being horny does not make you wrong but human, becomes anchor that sometimes drops down in the middle of no where.

At what point does you purity (mind, body, and soul) become MORE than religion, but relationship?

How much have you said no, not in fear of crotch rot but grieving God? Not in fear of people, but the truth that like a child who’s run away from home, your distance would hurt the God you serve.

Don’t get me wrong, FEAR is real. We know in scripture that it clearly states it is NOT of God. There’s the fear of reverence, that is very appropriate for this conversation, and then there’s the fear attached to punishment, superstition and/or tradition.

Which one are you allowing to make you whole?

I do fear God, I’m not going to lie that I know I’m but a breath and at any moment He could decide that Keoka’s time is DONE...”LIGHTS OUT BOO!” .lol. Im VERY aware of that reality and can positively say with no eloquent theological terms that ,that fear is true. However when I REALLY fell in love with the Lord the first go round, I was all in! Then when I fell in LOVE with my fiancé, I was and am STILL all in but I realized that what kept in regard to rules or religion when I first found out about dating and courtship is not in tandem with my love for the Lord making me understand a WHOLE lot more about being WHOLE.

What do they see when they look at us?Fear?When you look at you relationship with God and WHY you continue to hold on...by a thread or a rope(I KNOW it's tough) what is keeping your grip? Are you scared of the eyes that be or have you really gone past religion and said,” FATHER I'm all in because I love you not just because of consequences and people. Keep me even when I don't want to be kept"