SCRIP-BITS

Isaiah 49:13.    Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains: for the Lord hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted.
 
Oh Friends, it’s two thirty in the morning and I’m not sure what I’m writing on yet. But whatever it is, it’s going to be something positive, joyful, uplifting and encouraging. Chuh! I’m tired of all the negativity and tales of woe we’ve been painting recently. So let’s rise up God’s people, and be happy, be thankful and give praises to our great, omnipotent, all-knowing God, who oversees every aspect of our lives and fills them with joy, peace, LOVE, mercy, forgiveness, salvation and eternal life! Wow! And all God’s people openly, loudly and joyfully praised and proclaimed His Holy Name! Yes mih people, it’s time to stop concentrating on the negative images constantly highlighted in our sad, evil and confused world and begin to focus on the positive. Let’s do what we can and let the rest go by. Why worry about it if we can’t fix it eh? Constant worrying on things outside of our sphere of influence only steals the little energy we have. Is only one set of energy we have yuh know. So it’s certainly better to turn it from the negative worrying kind to the positive enabling kind. And I have a quote here that gives us some inspiration and encouragement to go out and embrace life; boldly and brazenly kick it like a football. As Ralph Waldo Emerson advises: ‘Be a football to Time and Chance, the more kicks the better, so that you inspect the whole game and know its utmost law.’ Bravo Ralphie mih boy! Yes Friends, that’s why God gave us life and LOVE and all the other good things in existence; to occasionally step out of our close, cloistered, closeted, safe self and experience true life. And not simply experience it, but also experience it to the utmost, when and where possible. Safety is nice and all that, but every so often we have to let our hair down and step out to the edge of the limb, look over the precipice and see what’s down there. Now we don’t have to go foolishly, for as the old people always warned; ‘drunk or sober, mind yuh business.’ But we still need to expect the unexpected, and sometimes welcome it, to get out of the narrow, confining, boring, uneventful shell that most of live in day to day. It’s time for a li’l excitement. The Good Book says the Lord made the earth and all therein and gave us dominion over it all, to enjoy it. So why are we fussing and fighting, worrying and being unnecessarily anxious over things and situations we can’t control, and not enjoying it eh? Come my people, let’s heed the great prophet Isaiah’s advice when he declared that Israel would be restored to Zion, to its original godly, righteous place with its God, for so too shall we be eventually. So: ‘Sing O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains: for the Lord hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted.’ Ah mih breddren, doesn’t that sound great? And all the heavens, the earth, the mountains and God’s people broke forth into joyous song, because their God had comforted them in their affliction. Wow! What a mighty, faithful and LOVING God we serve and worship! Sing His praises my people! No Friends, I haven’t lost it, I haven’t gone crazy yet. But remember though, it’s been proven that crazy people are often happier than the supposed sane ones. No, the Spirit just infused a sense of …how to put it… a sense of letting go, of being relaxed and joyful, to stop being overly concerned with the sad state of our world, which most of us can’t do anything about anyway. The Spirit’s saying that we should concentrate on the problems and concerns in our own backyards, to solve those, and then we’ll truly be helping to turn our world around. You and I can’t do much about the wars and strife that’s currently overwhelming our world, but we can certainly do something constructive about the strife, violence, hunger, poverty, the lack of proper education and housing that’s affecting our individual neighbourhoods. At the grassroots level is where we need to begin the revolution, where we can see and feel that we’re making some difference in our world. Because yuh know Friends, possibly the first and only question Jesus will ask us when we get to heaven is: ‘What difference did you make on earth?’ And according to our answers, as He judges them, so shall our rewards be meted out. However, please understand one thing, we’re not doing good deeds here on earth just to gain rewards in heaven, but because we truly see a need and our righteous hearts, filled with the Holy Spirit, encourages us to help fill that need. That’s why Jesus came yuh know: to fill our needs; to enable us to refute sin and embrace salvation and eternal life. And as His true followers, those are the terms of our duty in His worldly organization, His Church. And remember Friends, we were recently admonished, encouraged to begin dreaming again, to dream large, and to put a li’l LOVE in our hearts, for all of that is part of Jesus’ desire and plan. So let’s get with the programme nuh mih people! And we’ll close with some beautiful, life-giving, redemptive scripture, that will bring untold joy to our hearts and enable us to embark on Jesus’ plan with renewed vim and vigour. ‘I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto me; for I have redeemed thee. Sing, O ye heavens; for the Lord hath done it: shout, ye lower parts of the earth: break forth into singing, ye mountains, O, forest, and every tree therein: for the Lord hath redeemed Jacob, and glorified himself in Israel.’ (Is.44:22-23) And all God’s people rose up as one, rejoicing, giving much thanks and praising His Holy Name! Now Friends, let’s go out and do His work! Much LOVE!…Jesus was sacrificed…so that we could enjoy life here on earth…not turn it into an earthly hell… P.S. Oh Friends, while editing the Bit, I was also listening to some sweet Caribbean gospel music out of T&T on WACK 90.1 on the Internet and happened to hear these words in song: ‘You are the Lord, the Lord of the dance, the Lord of the song, the Lord of my life. That’s why I worship you..’ Words to live and die by! And for those up early in the morning you can get sweet gospel music from Wack on Mondays to Fridays from 4-6 a.m. No music sweet like we W.I. riddims! Check it out. Much LOVE!