So growing up. Churchy growing up in a in a Pentecostal home in a Church of God in Christ, and the church experience that shaped me, made me the person that I am, and I often think about the stories that I heard and the things that I literally saw. Like I grew up seeing people walk in church with a hospital gown and an IV still in their arms, saying “Pray for me, they gave me days to live,” and I experienced them praying for that person, that person being healed, that person living and thriving for another 10–20 years. I’ve seen people be instantaneously delivered from drugs. I’ve seen families healed, I’ve seen all kinds of things, so when you know the power of God, it’s hard to it’s hard to to not know, love and trust God.
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I’m not talking about just an experience. I’m talking about a life changing experience, something that causes you to say things like, “I know, that I know, that I know that God is real,” but even then there have been some people who have had those experiences and still chose not to serve God, not to love God, not to trust God…not because of God, but because of people. I pray that the hold that God has on you is so strong that no matter what people say or do, you never let go of his hand, which was one of my father’s favorite songs to sing… I shall never let go of his hand, for he has done so much for me. I shall never let go of his hand. I heard my father sing that his whole life, even though you know our life was what it was; we were always in church, but we still have financial issues. We were always in church. My parents still got divorced. We were always in church. You know, my brother still was still, you know, in jail. Those conditions didn’t dictate my love for God. God’s goodness was never based on my condition or my circumstance. It was always based on his sovereignty. Him being Lord of the world, but telling us you guys, I put you on Earth to take dominion over the earth. So my relationship with Christ has never been, “God, can you fix this for me? It was Erica walking your authority. How do you rebuke the enemy? How do you get them up off your back? How do you say what God says about you? I just kind of miss those days. I miss that time. I miss, you know, people feeling like that about their walk with Christ being so confident in what he said, that their condition. It wasn’t predicated on their love for God. And so they could still witness still pray for you. Listen, I remember walking in the church and you know, I was, you know, kind of in kind of out, you know, I just gotten out of high school. I was in college and dating. And, you know, I felt grown and all that kind of stuff. And I this one of the old mothers came up to me. Well, she actually wasn’t that old. I was just 17. So. I thought she was, but she probably was only 41. And she came up and she shook my hand and she said, “how long you going to wait before you say yes?” I was like, “Yes to what?” And she just kept looking at me, shaking my hand and said, “Yes to God, baby.” She said you are doing what you want to do and God has a call on your life..when are you going to say yes? When are you going to stop waiting on some big, monumental moment? When are you just going to say yes and just trust him because you know that you know that he is God?
I’m telling you, those kind of experiences you just can’t get away from… I don’t care what happens in your life, when you have had a real God experience—an experience with the glory and the presence of God, where you could not explain it and you almost could not speak, it paralyzed you, but you knew something greater than you was in the room and it touched your soul and it changed you in ways you can never explain. I pray that you have those experiences. So the yes, that you give God is not based on conditions, it is based on his sovereignty, his goodness, his Lordship; him being creator and ruler of this world. I love y’all, and I mean, that’s my Ericaism for the day. I pray that you have a life changing God experience that you can’t shut up about and you got to tell the world about just because God is that good to you.
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