In my morning devotional today reading from my new Transformation Study Bible I was lead to the story of Abraham in Genesis, specifically Gen 18:2 and Gen 22. In this story we read about this man who trusted God so much he left everything he knew, the place of comfort where he had security, success, servants and wealth to go out into the wildnerness not knowing where he would be going “because God said so”. He was three days from “some place” but I’m saying he was three days from no where in particular.

In Gen 18:2 Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw three men at his tent door. One of them was God, and he fed Him a meal. At that point, God starting giving promises. He said (Gen 22:17) “As the sand…upon the sea shore,” so shall your seed be.  That made me think that in our lives there are promises God has made to us, that is the first level.

But then the scripture says again in Gen 22:4, “Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off.” Now it’s gone beyond the first level of receiving the promise. This is the level when you begin to step into the destiny that God has for you. 

Then there’s the next level that you get to, though, and that’s in Gen 22:13 “Abraham lifted up his eyes…and behold behind him a ram…” You only get that level of blessing when you go through a “three days from nowhere” experience. When you go through such a severe trial of a lifetime, it feels like everything is gone, you were lost, you have missed God, you somehow have messed up and feel there is no way you can make it back.

The truth is, God has to bring all of us whom He has a destiny for to a place called “three days from nowhere.” It’s the place where you’re saying, “I know where I am going but I sure don’t understand where I am right now. I don’t have a clue what is going on. This is not what You showed me, Lord!” Scripture says that God proved and showed Himself to be Jehovah-Jireh at that place (Gen 22:14). Abraham did not call Him Jehovah-Jireh when he got to the mountain and saw the provision. He called Him Jehovah-Jireh down at the foot of the mountain when his boy asked him, “Father, where’s the lamb? And Abraham answered “God will provide himself a lamb” (Gen 22:7-8).

Anybody can call Him Jehovah-Jireh when you get on top of the problem, but when you’re three days from nowhere and you don’t know where to turn, you don’t know what to do, you don’t know why you’ve had this x-ray come back the way it did, and your husband left you for another woman, or that boss who never did right by you still gets promoted and you don’t even get a cost of living raise…that’s when you’re “three days from nowhere.”

You don’t know why you paid your tithes and now you’re laid off, it makes no sense. Sister, you are three days from nowhere. You didn’t think you would be here at this stage, and this point in your life you never dreamed that you would be a widow, or starting a new life with a new man, or here by yourself. But I’ve got to tell you in this  Mentoring Moment that you don’t wait until you get on the mountain to call Him Jehovah-Jireh. Abraham called Him Jehovah-Jireh when he was still three days from nowhere!

If you are three days from nowhere, God’s letting you know that He’s with you. You may not know where you’re going, but you know who’s going with you. And if He’s with you, no matter what you are going through you know you will get through it!

I am confident of this because I myself have been three days from nowhere more times than I can count. I know you’re confused, you’re stunned, maybe even feel a little hurt by God. Let me share something I learned back when I had the two hardest trials of my life. The biggest room in your brain had better be reserved for things you don’t understand. If you have to understand everything before you will trust and serve God with everything you got, then sis, you don’t understand the concept of faith. God doesn’t always give us explanations.

You are probably three days from nowhere but hold on sis, God will come through for you as he did for Abraham. Just keep proclaiming Him as Jehovah-Jireh and soon you too will see the ram amidst the bushes.

With love and appreciation for all you do for the Kingdom.

One of the greatest things people of God get to do is “ministry” or service unto God. But this very same thing  has a way of giving us spiritual A.D.D. and we can’t seem to sit still and just be silent before the Lord and LISTEN. Most of the time it is because silence is uncomfortable but as people of God we need it just as much as we need other disciplines in our Christian journey. For 2012, I’ve made it a point to schedule 1-2 day retreats 4 times next year. Richard Foster, the author of Celebration of Disciple mentioned in the summer 2011 issue of Leadership Journal that “if superficiality is the curse of the modern age, the curse of the postmodern age is distraction.”

With all the gadgets that are so cool to have and keep us connected to our peeps, they are also keeping us “logged in” way past the time we should have already been giving to God, family or friends. Churches are buying into this distraction as well by making sure that there are no times when there is too much silence in a service. But I think we need to rethink this just a little bit.

I think we need to make time for silence in our services or maybe even have a gathering that is just for that! I remember hanging out with some of the founders of the Emergent movement when it was in its hey day and that is one thing I learned from them that I loved. Prayer time with stations signifying different things, silence at the altar ministry time, reflection opportunities before altar time, etc. Why is it that most Pentecostals can’t seem to integrate that into their service times? I think most pastors think people will get bored. I am not saying have it for an entire service (that would be weird) but it would be nice for us to acknowledge that we need to be STILL sometimes. I think when a church acknowledges that it reminds its people that spiritual A.D.D. ain’t a good thang!

However, whether a church makes room for silence is or not does not mean you can’t. I find the best time for me to be silent and just listen is between 7:45 AM-9 AM. My son gets picked up for school at 7:30 AM then I go into my kitchen, get my cafe con leche and read His word and look outside my window, contemplating God’s beauty and waiting to see if His spirit will nudge me about something. It’s amazing how centered I feel after this time with God in SILENCE without my Iphone, Ipad, Ipod, etc. Spiritual A.D.D. doesn’t impress God, us being all over the place with no time for him actually saddens him. Yes, even if everything you are doing is FOR HIM.  Our service FOR Him shouldn’t keep us FROM Him. One of the ways we show thanksgiving to God is simply to remember Him. Here is a good article on How To Do Quiet Time. 

What do you think about this? Do you have spiritual A.D.D.? Are you spending some quiet time with him? How can you commit to spending that time in the next 62 days before 2012?

The CEFL Warring Women Weekend in NYC was absolutely incredible. God moved. Women were refreshed, restored, set free, committed to keep fighting and most importantly most determined to keep moving forward.

Pictures are up on my Facebook account and of course I’ll be putting some up on my CEFL website but I just am so grateful to God for His goodness this weekend.

If you went to the event, tell me what you thought?

The Church in the West today presents too easy a target for Satan. We do not believe we are at war. We do not know where the battleground is located, and, in spite of our weapons, they are neither loaded nor aimed at the right target. We are unaware of how vulnerable we are. We are better fitted for a parade that for an amphibious landing. Ed Silvoso

Next month (August 27-28) I am hosting a Warring Women Weekend through my organization the Center for Emerging Female Leadership. The reason I feel God lead me to host this weekend is that we are losing ground in this invisible war we are in. Some people have forgotten that we are in one!The event is for women of all ages and in various levels of kingdom assignments. This event to me is probably one of the most important events I have ever put together. Obviously the reason is simple: the enemy of my soul YOUR soul does not want you to “get it” he doesn’t want you to get that you have a choice to make about not just whether you will serve him but how you will serve him! I am mad right now. Not mad at you but mad at the enemy because he is just having way too much fun destroying men and women of God!

Leaders, especially beware. Don’t think you ever “got this!” I was reading through I & II Samuel last week and two thoughts hit me HARD enough that I got out of my hiatus in writing to blog about it, and it is this:#1 – The Enemy Will Always Come After The Leader! God hit me in the face with this truth in I Samuel 31:1-3 (where the enemy came after Saul) and II Samuel 5:11 (where the enemy came after David.)  In both instances the enemy came hard after the leader because they knew…take out the leader and you can stop the movement!Here is a truth about every leader you know in church world…we are all under an intense amount of spiritual attack.  And…the larger the ministry grows the larger the target on his or her back!

I’ve had leaders talk to me about this in the past as if they were surprised!  The false mentality that seems to exist is that the higher we climb on the leadership ladder the less temptation we will face. Uh no! NOTHING could be further from the truth. How many men and women of God do we know who have succumbed to the great liar!

David was at the top of his game when the enemy came after him and took him down with an affair. Elijah had just accomplished one of the greatest victories he had ever seen in his life–then Jezebel sent word that SHE was coming after him (and he freaked out…many times as leaders we lose perspective when under attack!) 

In my church we just started a new sermon series called “The Heat Is On” and I told the church, the heat is going to go hotter. The intensity of this war is going to get heavier. I am not saying this to scare anyone–heck…it’s a fact of life. There was a chant I would sing with my sorority sisters in college and it used to go like this “It’s hot in here, It’s hot in here, it must be the Delta’s in the atmosphere” Well, I need to paraphrase that for our purposes right now and “it’s hot in here, it’s hot in here—it must be Satan in the atmosphere!”

Yeah, It’s on folks! War big time. Are you complacent?  So I was just reflecting on all this and asked myself how do we guard ourselves?I will tell you in a minute, but I wanted to get this out into the blogosphere not because I have many readers but because it is stirring up in my spirit. I am just like you, yes I am a leader, some would say I am well-regarded, others well LOL; yes I am a pastor and yes I have been serving the Lord for many years but and I want to clearly state this, I too get attacked and sometimes the heat is ridiculously on! Some of the things that pop into my head are crazy! Seems to me the devil works overtime with people who can help scatter other sheep away from the great shepherd. So I try real hard to not just walk away but “run” away from situations like Joseph did with Potifar’s wife!

So getting back to what we can do, here are some suggestions:

a – Consistent time with the Lord!  Find out what brings you close to Jesus and DO IT A LOT!

b – Memorizing Scripture – if Jesus defeated Satan three times by quoting Scripture then we should learn to do that as well! Do you think you’re better, cooler than Jesus? Huh, really?

c – Intense accountability – not some lame meeting with a group of guys/girls where you share popcorn and talk about what you are learning…but rather an invitation for people to “get in your face” and call you out when they see something unhealthy and destructive. I have a group of 3 women I love and we have journeyed together for about 10 years. Truth is we haven’t met much like we used to because one is still in NYC, the other two and I while living in the same State have very different schedules. But I miss the “in your face” meetings we would have. I have cried with them, yelled at them (in a nice kinda way) and vice versa but we grew and we grew a lot! I need to get that happening again and ASAP, those ladies helped me look at the ME I didn’t want to be and the ME I was becoming. What an awesome group to have. I encourage you to get one going. But you have to be committed to being called out as well as calling someone out. If not, don’t waste your time!

d – Becoming a FREAK about personal integrity – no one knows your thoughts, feeling and struggles but you…and YOU are the only person who can establish correct boundaries for your personal integrity.  If you don’t make integrity a priority then it will fall by the wayside as important…which makes you ONE stupid decision away from losing what it may have taken YEARS to build. As the old saying goes “It takes years to build a good reputation and only a second to lose it” so please don’t be a knucklehead and guard yourself!The enemy IS coming after us…which should not cause us to fear but rather to FOCUS more on Jesus… WE WIN because JESUS wins…HE IS IN US!!!  Isaiah 54:17!!! And remember what the enemy shows us is never real, it is always an optical illusion. So don’t fall for it folks. It is NOT what it looks like. We got to learn to take our authority and kick satan right in the cojones!

#2 – The Enemy Will Always Come After The Leaders Family

Once again, take a look at I Samuel 31:1-3…and notice that the enemy first killed Saul’s sons before they got to him!

DANG! Why they gotta mess with our families!

Church leader…here is a fact…the enemy IS coming after your marriage! He did it to me exactly this month (July) ten years ago! My 20 year marriage is a miracle. I could have ended up being only a 10 year marriage.  The enemy has a plan, do you have one? His plan is for you to:

• Take your marriage for granted
• God will lift you up higher if you keep ignoring your marriage.
• Have high expectations of them but they better not have any expectations of you
• Be a Jesus freak at church but God forbid you mention Jesus at home.
• Take most of your time investing in this grand ministry of yours but not give any time to investing a god’s vision for your marriage.

AND…trust me…he WILL come after your spouse! What better way to break your heart than to have the person who has your heart break it for him. And if that doesn’t work he will go after his/her health and go down the line from there. Your spouse is a target…and that is why we must LOVE THEM and LEAD THEM through this minefield!  If we think our spouse is immune to this we are idiots!  When we are married the two become one…period!

Question…what steps are you taking to SHOW your spouse that they are important to you…and you will do whatever it takes to love and protect them.  (Date nights, back rubs with NO strings attached, conversations about what they are reading in Scripture, etc.) I’m sorry but this is a hot button for me not just because I have experienced it but because as a pastor I see so much dysfunction in marriages and its in the homes of people who profess God is a God who can do anything. But why aren’t we letting him? Why aren’t we doing our parts to work our marriages and not give the devil a foothold?

AND…church leaders…the enemy is coming after your kids…UNFORTUNATELY many pastors kids become “wild as hell” because they spend all of there time looking after every kid in the church except his own. My NUMBER ONE discipleship responsibility are my kids!  Yet the enemy will tempt me with…

• You’re tired…you can play with them tomorrow.
• Vacation time is coming, you can spend time with them there.

Every mom and dad  MUST take their children seriously…the enemy does!!! But Pastors and Leaders even more so… He IS coming after them…and so we must raise them to love Jesus and walk in victory…and then they can grow up and kick satan in the cojones…just like we did!!!

So you see, it’s a war folks and dang we need to get with it already. This is a conflict that won’t end until the Lord returns for His peeps. I pray God gives you the wisdom and grace to handle that dirty devil every day of your life. You can’t do this alone. AndI’m just sayin…cause I care!

“Too often we think that if we can impress others, we will gain influence with them. We want to become others’ heroes – to be larger than life. That creates a problem because we’re real live human beings. People can see us for who we really are. If we make it our goal to impress them, we puff up our pride and end up being pretentious – and that turns people off. “ John Maxwell said that and I think he was right on!

I don’t know about you but I really dislike it when preachers go on and on about what “they” did. How they healed that kid, how they laid hands and someone’s foot grew out of a stump or whatever. I dislike it because if what they said is true (let’s be honest a lot of so-called faith healers or evangelists, revivalists, and all the other “ists” have been known to exaggerate uh just a bit) but again, if what they said happened, it wasn’t THEM it was a GOD thing. GOD does all the healing. When I hear a litany of “I did this” and “I did that” it reminds me of Satan before he was cast out of heaven due to his pride and his desire to be on the same level with God. So needless to say, I totally turn off when I hear a preacher like this.  I don’t know is this just me?

As I get older I realize more and more who I am, what I truly believe, who I want to be surrounded by, what type of church I want to be a part of and with that clarity comes choices and decisions that are hard to make because as you try to be true to the you God made you, decisions you make still affect other people. I have to wonder about the leaders who think these type of preachers are ok for the body of Christ. TBN has some great people on but it also has some people I have to change the channel on.

I feel like most of the Christian community is so easily impressed! Geesh its actually appalling to me that the people they are who-ha-ing about have learned the art of pulling on people’s emotional strings. You know what I am talking about…enter a church, it’s boring as heck, the preacher obviously didn’t prepare a good sermon and is winging it and then he/she tries to draw up some emotion and starts proclaiming the “Holy Spirit is Here…stop being so hard,” “you know you are going to hell, get up here right away and get right”, or some other extreme call.  People start falling, crying, etc. Could that be the Holy Spirit moving? Yeah, sure. But what gets me is that some people think that is the ONLY way God moves or that that is THE way to know if someone is anointed. Uh, not really. I could go on about this but I don’t want to get into a theological discourse on the subject, besides other people could do a much better job than me on this. If you are reading this and can add some perspective feel free to do so.

Now with all that said,  I do believe that the Holy Spirit works in spite of us (even me) but I guess I find it sickening all the people who “depend” on ministry jobs who are phony baloney. For example, it seems that some of  the 21st century pastors and  teachers don’t  believe Jesus got up, some don’t believe Jesus  can make a-way out of no-way nor do they believe He’s a healer either…In other words they don’t believe what they preach in the pulpits… That’s according to a recent study out of Tufts University….This study paints a less-than-attractive picture of the church. Sad but true. So all this to say…don’t be so impressed with a preacher just because they said ”they did this or that” and if you are that preacher…don’t be so impressed with yourself, who would you be without the POWER of Holy Spirit who is the one who actually DID DO “this and that”. Get over yourself.  I’m just sayin’

Tonight I start a bible study growth group with women on the book “Every Woman’s Battle-Discovering God’s Plan for Sexual and Emotional Fulfillment”.  I have always felt that churches should be relevant in what they teach and preach and this is surely a relevant topic! Although many people are in denial about just how much battling they go through when it comes to sex, sexuality, the marriage bed, sexy and singleness, etc.

I am surely no expert but I walk alongside my sisters to fight this battle.  “One out of every 6 women struggle with an addiction to porn. (Today’s Christian Woman, Sept/Oct 2003). This is real and it impacts Christian leaders as well. We have already seen what it has done to some great men of God we looked up to

Anyway we start our introductory session tonight April 20^th but our first chapter review won’t be until next Tues, April 27^th so if you are in the SoFlo area, please come by and join the group of women who are taking this on! We expect to win second by second.

 BTW, the men are doing it too! Visit www.savethenations.com for more info.

I check my Facebook account a few times a day as I do my email and a thought came to mind, “when was the last time any of these folks gave a status update to God.” Yes we check FB to see what is going on in people’s lives it makes us feel connected to people we haven’t seen in ages doesn’t it? Yet many of us ignore God and haven’t given him a status update on our lives in days, months or even years. God wants us to stay connected and many times our theological mindset is that we need to close ourselves off from the world, kneel down and pray in order to give God a worthy status update.

HOWEVER, I believe that God would love status updates just like we give status updates to our Facebook friends…

“Hey God was on my mind today and I thought he’s been so good to me, Thank you Daddy God.

“Wow, God you just blew my mind with that miracle of a bonus at my job. I love you”

“I need you right now. I don’t think I can make it out of this one without your help God. I need you to protect me from my enemies and let your justice roll Lord.”

I am not saying that you have to close down your account on Facebook but I do think you need to reflect if you need to open up a line of communication with your Maker. God is way better than the creator of Facebook, He can give you way better advice than an FB friend can and He surely will be your best cheerleader. So tell me when was your last status update to God…if its been a while, he wants to know “what’s on your mind?” just like the little Facebook box does.

I think about the seasons that are coming upon us. This is my favorite time of year. Thanksgiving and Christmas displays are everywhere you turn these days. I really like holidays. They are times when people share conversation, laughter, dinners, and gifts.Although I look forward to my time with family and friends, there are some concerns. What if someone doesn’t like what they get as a gift? What if the dinner I prepare is not to everyone’s liking? What will I do in these situations? The thought came to me that it really is a matter of the heart, so I guess we all need to check our “Tudes” (that’s slang for attitude).

I remember a song we used to sing in my home church in NYC years ago, “Give Thanks with a Grateful Heart.” In this song it says, “Give thanks unto the Holy One for He’s given Jesus Christ His Son.” If we are grateful to God for what He has done for us, and given us, then everything else shouldn’t really matter. We can enjoy one another’s company and thank God for family and friends, no matter how big or small our gatherings are or the contents of a gift.

Jesus is the best gift we could ever receive or give. When we bow our heads to give thanks over a big fat turkey, a juicy ham, or a small chicken, pernil (pork for us Puerto Ricans) or when we open a gift, we need to have our hearts right with God and be grateful.

There will be so many people this year facing an empty place at their tables some may not even be able to afford a Christmas tree. We need to pray for those families and then our wants won’t be such a big concern. There are people fighting for their lives and praying for protection over in the Middle East and at home.

Every year most of us say we will have a change of heart and be more loving and giving. NOW IT’S TIME! I recently went to see a Christmas Carol in the movies and I cried. I love all that stuff. Afterward my son said to me, why did you cry? I said because I love it when people remember to be kind, get in the Spirit of Christmas and show love toward one another. He said “Yeah, but that shouldn’t be once a year!”. My son the philosopher! I wholeheartedly agree. That is what I hear the Lord say in my spirit as I pray for others near and far. It’s time to be concerned for others. We should reach out in any way we can. It isn’t that any of us want to be selfish or into ourselves, but we have to try harder so that the world sees the compassion, the mercy, and the love of God. This is how they can get the best gift from us, “Jesus.”

He can be found wrapped up in a smile, an encouraging word, or a baked apple pie (ok for some a pie picked up from Publix, A&P or Fine Fare) for your neighbor. That will do wonders for you and them. I am going to work on an attitude adjustment and be more grateful. Will you join me? The season of giving is just around the corner.

But thanks be to God, who made us his captives and leads us along in Christ’s triumphal procession. Now wherever we go he uses us to tell others about the Lord and to spread the Good News like a sweet perfume. Our lives are a fragrance presented by Christ to God (2 Corinthians 2:14, 15 NLT).

Youth all over NYC. Wearing God belongs in my city tshirts made a statement. They didn’t even give people months and months of notice yet everyone who wanted to make a statement, everyone who knew God could work with anything but silence, got involved with this and their voices were heard.

My friend Jeremy Del Rio did a great job sharing what happened, my job is to let my readers know about it because it was just awesome and when I saw the video I was moved to tears. So here it is folks a play by play on what happened in NYC that made this Latina proud.

I was talking with a dear friend of mine the other day and we got to talking about our lives without sharing too much of our private conversations we basically came down to this theory. In almost every other arena in life, people are ok with leaders saying I’m done, I’m out, I want to do something else with my life. But when it comes to ministry, it isn’t that easy.  We talked about how maybe that is what happened to many people we saw growing up and then they vanished from the faith-based scene. Maybe they said enough. Made me ponder….

Then on our way back from a business seminar this weekend in Orlando, my husband shares with me that the next 10-15 years of his life has to count for something. I feel the same.

I found this post on why pastors may want to quit, how musicians dream of quitting, how this guy started a teaching series on the entire foundation of people who are leading when they want to quit. But I found this guy who reminds me to ask a good question, not why should I quit but why am I doing this?

For some reason, many people think a leader doesn’t hurt, doesn’t feel the sting of betrayal or the passive-aggressive person’s silent whip. Most of my life I’ve been a rebounder. Yes it gets tiring but still I rise. Proverbs 24:16 reminds me that the “Godly may trip seven times but they will get up again…” So to help my soul sort out things I’d like to share what makes me want to quit and why I still do what I do…

What Makes Me What To Quit

1. People who use me but don’t care to know me (yet think they do!)

2. People who say they are with you but when push comes to shove -they shove the knife in real good

3. People who don’t dare tell you the things that I did to hurt them unintentionally but freely share with others

4. People who think running a church/ministry is only about time and talent

5. People who think I don’t want to enjoy my life but want me to spend 24/7 only on their needs/wants when they don’t even spend 1 hour with God to cry out for HIM to help them or to address their own continual dysfunctions

6. People who smile in my face but don’t realize I know what they really feel about me cause I heard it through the grapevine LOL

and there’s more but hey none of us have all day to read that list…

Why I Continue To Do What I Do?

1. There are people who do care (even if that is a minority) and are changed by the programs, sermons, events that God inspires me to do for THEM

2. I know God purposed in me to be an encourager, equipper and educator of people and by some of the testimonies I have heard throughout the years, I’ve made a difference blessed be the name of the Lord

3. I love building things from nothing to something or from something to something greater

4. I know I would not be content doing anything else–worshipping God by utilizing the gifts He has given me brings life to me.

5. I honor God with my life when I work with the Trinity to bring another soul to the Kingdom or re-connect with their Abba

Earlier today I was sharing with a little sister in the faith how important thick skin is in the ministry business. Another fact I’ve learned throughout my years in ministry in various environments is simply choose your friends slowly and carefully and do the same for your leaders. Proverbs 25:19 states “putting confidence in an unreliable person in times of trouble is like chewing with a broken tooth or walking on a lame foot.”

I think what keeps me from altogether walking away from everything is my support team. Bill George in the book True North shares the following:

“Leaders do not succeed on their own. The loneliness of leadership has been well documented, but the remedies have not. Everyone has insecurities; some are just more open about them than others. Even the most outwardly assured executives need support and appreciation. Authentic leaders build support teams that will counsel them in times of uncertainty, be there in times of difficulty, and celebrate with them in times of success. Strong support teams provide affirmation, advice, perspective, calls for course corrections when needed, and, above all, love. After their hardest days, leaders find comfort in being with people on whom they can rely so they can be open and vulnerable. During the low points, they cherish the friends who appreciate them for WHO they are, not WHAT they are.”

So that’s it my friends, when I want to quit because I feel nobody cares (ala the movie Bronx Tale), I don’t because aside from my GOD who always has my back, I have a great support team who is around me holding me up singing the song to me that I have forgotten to sing and bottomline I’ve seen the hand of the Lord at work in the things I’ve done and it blesses my heart when someone “gets it” with the Lord.

Tip: Encourage a leader you know in your circles. They need to know that want they are doing, the time they are sacrificing doing the things that you don’t even know is being done so things look so great you think it “just happened” –was appreciated. They already know it was “worth it” for the Father. But its nice once in a blue moon, hell freezes over world, that someone, somewhere noticed. Will you be a noticer? It’s important because somewhere someone in leadership wants to quit.