Reach Gospel Radio Presents A Healing Moment with Dr A'Shellarien

Welcome to A Healing Moment with Dr. A'Shellarien Addison Addison. This is your respite from life to steal away to take care of you. Trauma continuously collides with our faith. Let this 15 minutes be my gift to you as I walk with you on your healing journey. So today we are talking about empowerment, empowerment, and our topic today is, if if was a fifth, we'd all be drunk. I know I'm the chaplain, I know I'm the reverend, I'm the doctor, and our topic is still, if if was a fifth, we'd all be drunk. Now why is that? Why do I say that? Because we always say, if I was taller, if I was shorter, if I was prettier, if I was smarter, If I had more money, if, if, if, then this could happen. If this happened, then that happened. If I would have had more time with my person, I'd have been nicer. You know, we have all of these expectations that are unmet, all of these expectations that are set, and then we also have some expectations that are just flat out unrealistic. And so that's why I said if if was a bit, we'd all be drunk. So let's talk about some empowerment. Let's talk about what are you saying to yourself to get to the place where you need to be when it comes to coming. Only you know what you need. The Bible says, in all thy getting, get understanding. What do you know about you? What do you know about your strengths? What do you know about your weaknesses? I like to call them growing edges. What do you know about your goals? Have you set any goals? And so what areas in your life need mastery? Is it time? Is it empowerment? Is it focus? Is it employment? Is it a relationship? When it comes to empowerment, you have to choose a path. You've got to choose a path. We talked last week, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. So when it comes to empowerment, you gotta know that you know that you know that you have a plan, you have a path, you have a focus. Now, you might not have all the pieces, you might not have all the pieces, you may not have all the answers, and that's okay. That's where mentoring comes into place, that's where coaching comes into place. But at least you have an idea of what you want. And so part of my role is to help you kind of think out loud about about the things that you want to do. You know, you can't go through life with happenstance. You can't go through life with setting unrealistic expectations for yourself or other people. And so sometimes we struggle because of 3 things: missed opportunities, misaligned relationships, and matters of the heart. 3 things: missed opportunities, misaligned relationships, and matters of the heart. Now, why do we struggle with those? Because there's always an internal conversation going on. There's always something on the inside that's either pushing us one way or pulling us from something. And if you don't master your own internal voice, then you're going to be led. There's a saying that says, if you don't stand for anything, you'll fall for everything. So that's what I mean when I say that you have to have a path, you have to have a plan, you've got to have some sort of vision for your life to say, this, this is what I want and this is what I don't want. Think about it this way: if you have no boundaries, if you have no plan, if you have no goal, Goals. If you have no outlook, you have no vision, then people can lead you anywhere. They said, okay, I want to go left. Sure, we go left because I don't, I don't care. Oh, we can go right. Oh, I don't care. You know, the same way you have no vision, the same way you have no boundaries. That means anybody can say anything to you, and then at some point you may get frustrated and it's going to manifest in anger. Now anger can be a beast. Now the Bible says be angry and sin not. So, so anger in itself is not the problem, it's how you manifest the anger, what you the anger. Missed opportunities cause us to be angry sometimes. Remember, coming up in ministry, and the prophet used to say, you know, if you tell God no, then you'll have to sit and watch that same anointing on somebody else, and you'll watch God bring them above and beyond, put some super on their natural, and then you'll be looking like you be sucking on lemons because the very thing God told you to do, you said no, but you had to watch somebody else do it. Missed opportunities. Missed opportunities can come when you act like you don't know what God's saying. You act like you don't know the voice of God. You act like, you know, we tell God no in so many ways, so many ways. You know, your silence, that's a no. When God says go left and you say I'm not ready, that's still a no. A missed opportunity would be God opening the door and you not walking through because somebody's not going to go with you. You don't want to go by yourself. That's a missed opportunity. God said, okay, go through this door, I got you covered. But you want to bring your girls, you want to bring your bros, you won't bring your cousins, you won't bring your mom, you won't bring your pastor, don't bring your dog. But here's what's interesting: sometimes the door is only cut out for you. Everybody can't go where God is taking you, and more so, everybody don't want to go. You ever notice that sometimes people will hold you back because they don't want you to go because they don't want to go, right? So this goes back to discernment. This goes back to if God told you to do something and you listening to other people, or you're waiting for other people to say yes, that's your missed opportunity. And God is not obligated to wait on you. God does not have to wait on you. I'll say it again for the people in the back: God does not have to wait on you. Here's an example of that. Elijah was up in the mountain. I want to say it's 1 Kings 17, 18, 19, around the story of when he was running from Jezebel. There was this big old, um, competition whose God was bigger. God won. And then Jezebel was like, okay, got you, I'm gonna kill you by this time tomorrow. So Elijah got scared, he ran, he found himself in a cave. Earthquake went by, or earth— oh, storm went by. God wasn't in any of that. It said a small, still voice, that's where God was. God was like, Elijah, what you doing here? He was like, I'm your prophet, I did this for you, I did that for you. God said, hold up, bro. Now listen, this is the Dr. Addison version, we're not gonna find this in the Bible. God said, hold up, bro, I got people who haven't even bowed. I got folk you don't even know about waiting in means. And so don't ever think that you're the only person that God can use. When you say no, absolutely, that's gonna be your missed opportunity. So think about that— missed opportunities. Next, we have misaligned relationships. That goes back to everybody can't go, everybody don't want to go, everybody don't want to see you go. Here's the truth: everybody doesn't want to see you prosper, everybody doesn't want to see you succeed. And you have to have enough self-assurance, enough of stick-to-it-ness, that you would be able to stand flat-foot on God's word and do what God said regardless of who goes. That takes a level of confidence. Now, there's a difference between being conceited and being confident. Conceited says, this is all about me, what I want, what I'm doing. Confidence says, this is all about what God has put in me. When I go places, I stand flat-foot on God's word in confidence, knowing that everything I need God has given me to do I need to do. So misaligned relationships has to do with being distracted, being distracted by people, being distracted by voices, being distracted by what other people think, being distracted by your own fear, right? Because sometimes it can be more comfortable to be connected to dysfunction than to walk in freedom because you're not accustomed to it. I'll say that again. Sometimes it's more comfortable to be connected to dysfunction because that's your new normal. You know how to— you know how to function in dysfunction. What you don't you don't know how to function in is normalcy. You don't know how to function in peace. You don't know how to function in those areas. So these misaligned relationships sometimes are necessary for us because we're not ready to stand on God's word. We're not ready to walk and launch out into the deep. And so these misaligned relationships, they can be our problem. Finally, matters of the heart. Now, what do matters of the heart have to do with empowerment? The Bible says, who knows the heart, right? That is deceitful. So, so People say, I'mma follow my heart, I'mma follow my heart. Well, what happens if your head is saying one thing and your heart is saying another? Which one are you going to listen to? That's a good question, because clearly the Bible says, let this mind be in you that's also in Christ Jesus. What you say to yourself leads to your emotions, which leads to your behavior. Your emotions are never ever driving you. It's always what are you saying to yourself in that moment that drives that emotion And real quick, I'm going to prove it. There was this man on the train and his kids was running around. They was running around, they was talking to people, they was bothering people. And they was like, man, get your kids, get your kids. But he was just sitting there. It's like, come on, man, get your kids. They talking to people, they bothering people, they touching stuff. So finally somebody got up and was like, sir, really, your kids is all over the place. Can you just get your kids? Now, if you're a mom, you're thinking, where they mom at? You thinking, get somewhere to sit down, beat they butt. I mean, that's just kind of where we go when we think about unruly kids. And so She went over and she was like, sir, did you get your kids? Because they're disrupting the whole train. And so finally he said, well, their mom just died. We just came from the hospital and I don't know how to tell them that she's never coming back. Now, boom, right in that moment, if you were one of those parents who would have got angry because these kids running around, as soon as you heard their mom died, your emotional response changed. That's how— that's proof that what you say to yourself leads to your emotions, what leads to your behavior. Matters of the heart are things that can manipulate you based on emotion, manipulate you based on emotion. You, you in love and all this kind of stuff, but they punch you in the face, okay? Your head is telling you get out, your heart is like, oh, but I'm in love. Or as a guy, you like, she's amazing, she's beautiful, she's this, she's that, but then she doesn't trust you, she doesn't respect you. So your head is saying, nah, she's not the one, but your heart is like, oh, but I love her, I want to be with her, blah blah blah. Matters of the heart can get in the way because we are not thought to think about what we're thinking about. So I guarantee you, in any emotional space in your life, if you pause in that moment, capture the thought, and say, what am I saying to myself right now? When you get to a place where you can retrain your brain to change the thought, then your emotion is going to follow and your behavior is going to follow. Think about it this way: if you're in a domestic violence situation, you're like, but I'm in love, I'm in love— whether male or female, male or female, because men get beat too— you're saying to yourself, you know, I 'Maybe it's my fault.' When you change the tape, it changes the emotion, and then it gives you the ability to get out. Okay, so we got to think about what we need to do in our life. We got to think about our goals. We got to think about what's going on. We got to think about where is my future going, what do I need, do I need a mentor. Every person needs a mentor. You need a coach. Some people need a psychiatrist. Some people need a psychologist. Some people need a therapist. You know, all of these things. You got to be mindful of what's happening. All right, so that's our time for today. I pray something you heard today has blessed you. I would love, love, love to hear from you, so I want you to consider go to my website and leave me a message. My website is desakajosflow.com. Desakajosflow.com. D-E-S-A-K-A-J-O-S-F-L-O dot com. D-E-S-A-K-A-J-O-S-F-L-O dot com. And if you like, you can hit me up on Instagram at Dr. A'Shellarien Addison Addison. So until next week, may the love of God hold you, may the peace of God keep you, and may the joy of the Lord keep you in the rough times. Next week we're going to be talking about nutrition, so you continue to hold on to God's unchanging hand, and you tell that devil, get somewhere and sit down. Hello everyone, this is A'Shellarien Addison Addison Addison.