Food for Thought

Sanibonani is a Zulu greeting in Africa which means "I see you", but the actual meaning is "I recognize you as a person". The Hope Movement is complex in many ways because of the years of social and spiritual problems and oppression that we face today in our world, but nothing is impossible. There is also a simple side to the Hope Movement which is to step out of your comfort zone, put on your spiritual x-ray vision to see past the exterior, and see others around you and the message of their eyes the window to the soul. A simple smile, embrace, or inspirational word can transform a life. The moment that you are no longer blinded by self, you will see the need of another, and hope in the eyes of our Creator. God is longing for us to be the reflection of His hope, for we are His hands. If we do nothing, we are cutting off the hands of God. 

Each day don't just greet another person, but see them, the very heart of them. First you must see them for where they are at and where they have been, before you can see where they are destined to be. One act of hope towards another creates a ripple effect which will form a flood of hope transforming families, communities, and nations into havens of hope.

The day has arrived for a change. God is tired and it is time for a heart decision. You only seek God when you need something from His hand. You never take time to seek His face, and you don’t understand why you never see a movement of His presence. He feels forgotten, and His tears fall to the floor. This is not a relationship. A relationship is when you love without condition. You twist the definition of relationship, to justify your actions. A relationship seeks the face of God, and desires nothing from His hands. In the nights you cry from the pressure of life. God caresses your face to dry your tears. Because lack of connection, you never felt His presence. In the mornings God tries to speak with you, but you tell Him that you don’t have time. You spend your life empty, filling the hole in your soul with the poison of the world.

With every sin you penetrate the nail again through His hands. Causing extreme pain in the one who only gave you love. In the evenings God illuminates the heavens with stars like diamonds to show you that He is with you. But you ignore Him, for you’re consumed by your selfishness. The tears of God fall like the rain. His only desire is to be with you but you chose the incorrect path and your hurt your best friend. God is here waiting for you with arms open wide. Imagine the wounds in His back, exposing His flesh. He took the pain in an act of love. But you repay Him with only more pain, but He continues to love you. You will never find another love in the world like His. Today God has a message for you, run to my arms, look into my eyes, and see all that I see in you. 

You sit in the corner of life. Hiding your pain, searching for love in different forms. Walls from your past block your vision of purpose. Today is the moment to break your hearts walls, to reconcile with God the one who gives your life definition. If you want a transformation, start with your heart. God does not want a religion for religion is a man made creation of opinion. God wants a relationship. But your traditions are blocking your connection with God. Storms of life consume you. You open the doors for independence to enter, removing your eyes from the presence of God. The moment when you think that you can live without God, and do everything on your own, is the moment when you lose all hope. Eternal flames wait for those who divorce their relationship with God. Eternal punishment is not your destiny, but it exists. Everyone falls, but a sincere relationship with God gives you the strength to stand up once again, and carry on. Today God has a message for you, run to my arms, look into my eyes, and see all that I see in you.

Your life is empty; you do what the world tells you to do. You act like another person. You feel lost, far from your destiny. Leave your past in the past. For the moment has arrived to change your future. Abused woman, used like an object without value. Rise up for God see’s you as a work of art. Man you believe that the definition of life comes in the form of seduction, alcohol, and macho mentality. But you are so unhappy; peace is what you search for. Your pillow is stained from the tears that you cry at night. You try to hide how you truly feel, and you put on a masculine facade. You use women without respect, but you are never satisfied. It is time to remove this mask, for a real man is sincere, sensitive, and has integrity. Today is your opportunity to change your reality. Child I know you feel abandoned, but God is with you always. There is hope, for you have a purpose. The definition of family is in a state of elimination, but there is a hope for reconciliation. For God is the solution to the heart contamination. A family connected to God, is a connected family. Where God exist, nothing can separate.

Impoverished souls, in impoverished conditions. More slavery today than in all of history. Wars, floods, street children, adictions, sadness cosumes life in 2008. But we are called to be the hands of God. Governments cannot change the situation until they change their heart. It is time for the people of God to rise up, united as one. This is the formation of a generation of transformation. You can remain seated complaining, or dedicate your life to serve God to transform the world. The day has arrived for a change. God is tired and it is time for a heart decision. Today God has a message for you, run to my arms, look into my eyes, and find the purpose that I have created for your life.

Fatherless, Motherless, Hopeless the result of selfishness. Longing for a loving caress. Drowning in the abyss of society’s lack of knowledge that I exist. Imagine you in my place, the result of human disgrace. 100,000,000 like me. More slavery now than in history. In the U.S. alone 50,000 women and children are trafficked annually. They abide where you reside. But you never heard their cry. This is an emergency for a movement of hope. Psychological contamination fed into the blood stream from generation to generation. Family disintegration. The definition of family in a state of disinagration. But there is a hope for family reconciliation. Impoverished souls, in impoverished conditions. Self medication suffering from hope malnutrition. The face of racism changed from segregation to immigration. But there is a hope for the purification of the heart pollution.

Non-profits profit from words without action. One-man show motto has left the innocent in a never ending ghetto. While awards are past out to the new Philanthropist hero. An illusion of transformation. Four walls blind the church. They remain in the comfort zone of their seats while children cry out “Help me I am tired of being beat”. Titles for the leaders to make them into more then what they are. Religious super-star. Drive their Bentley on the church dollar. While spiritual and physical genocide lead millions to slaughter. Religiosity mixed with hypocrisy, denominational barriers, lack of unity. Groups of terror will die for their cause. Yet we won’t unite to reach out to those on the other side of our four walls. But the Hope Movement is here to cause those walls to fall.

We have a vision of the elimination of self concentration. A flood of hope, flowing through the streets like a mighty river. Consuming all in its path, so powerful that the walls of your comfort zone begin to quiver. Raising the seeds into blossoms of hope from the ashes of despair. Changing the atmosphere from oppression to the formation of transformation. Imagine a thousand a month taking over a community. Not a thousand organizations and denominations, only unity. Transforming a street a week. Once known for dope, is now a haven of hope. I am tired of all that is going on. We are reaping what we have sown, trapped in our comfort zone. No results because nothing was done. But today that changes for a hope movement has begun. The world is God’s canvas, and He gave us the brush. To develop His creation into a work of art. Yet we abused our responsibility, creating a cycle of hypocrisy and physical and spiritual poverty. Over half a million gang members in central America alone. The result of not reaching out to youth longing for hope.

It is time for us to unite as one. Every individual, Church, orphanage, business, social organization, and government from around the world. Encouraging one another, supporting one another, communicating with one another, creating plans and ideas together, collaborating in street outreach, and together providing a solution to the heart pollution. Medicating the heart infection with education, inspiration, and arms of love. Transforming the darkness into light. One becomes a thousand. A ripple in the sea of troubled waters forming a flood of hope. 

There is much to be done. Because much has not been done. There is so much need in the world today that the people need an army reaching out to them, not just an arm.

Dear Lord,

Help me spread your fragrance where I go. Flood my soul with your spirit and life. Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly that all my life may be a radiance of yours. Shine through me, and be in me, so that every soul I come in contact with may feel your presence in my soul. Let them look up and see no longer me, but only you.

Stay with me, and then I shall begin as you do; to shine so as to be a light to others. The light will be all from you; none of it will be mine; it will be you shining on others through me. Let us praise you in the way you love best, by shining on those around me. Let me preach you without preaching, not by words, but by my example, by the catching force, the sympathetic influence of what I do, the evident fullness of the love my heart bears to you.

Reaching out to people to only help them spiritually is like seeing a person drowning in the ocean. You are standing on the shoreline with a life raft, and you say to them here is your salvation now come to me, and I will give you the life raft and you will be saved. God’s people often watch people drowning in hopelessness and they stand in the distance of their comfort zone saying I know you’re hurting, here is your salvation, Jesus; all you have to do is come to us. Or we tell them about what can save them, Jesus, but we leave them in their social situation and wonder why that person could not maintain their walk with God. They could not because we informed them about salvation, but abandoned them in the crack house, the brothel, the street, the abusive marriage, or the poverty consumed life. We rescued them spiritually but did nothing to help them socially, creating a never ending cycle of hopelessness. The moment we change our mentality and methods is the moment when we will see a world transformed.

We live in a day and age where there are over 100,000,000 children are living in the streets in the developing world. Half of this disturbing number is in Latin America alone. They are the future of the world, but have been forgotten. We live in a world where there is more slavery today than ever in history. Slavery, a 36 billion dollar business. Over12 million people are trafficked as slaves annually, and over 50,000 women and children are trafficked into the United States of America annually as slaves. They reside in our neighborhoods. Suffering from worst form of abuse. Take a journey through the streets of Latin America. Learn about the lives of our children who are suffering from poverty and sexual exploitation. See life through their tear filled eyes. And look into their little eyes. The window to their soul. Journey through the chambers of their heart. Witness the open emotional wounds. Listen to the stories of their scars. Remove the inner baggage, and open the door that has been locked for so long. Behold the light that has been waiting to shine. Take a moment to reflect upon these children and think of all they could have given to humankind had we shared our love and blessings with them.

I believe that God has destined this moment to remove the dark clouds of oppression over world. I see the gentle rain of love raining from the Heavens. Flooding love through the streets like a mighty river. Pouring hope into the lives of many. Imagine children rescued from the streets, and from desperate situations. Receiving the tools needed to grow and develop into the future leaders of their communities. Sharing the love with those starving for love to calm the spiritual and emotional hunger pains of their soul. Stabilizing the family structure. Transforming communities into havens of hope. A world of compassionate people united as one to bring social and spiritual change.

This world is the canvas of God. In the beginning God painted His vision on the canvas of the universe. Than gave the paintbrush to His human creations. Giving us the responsibility to develop His work of art into a masterpiece. A heaven on earth. Over time we have abused our responsibility, and we have created a world of chaos and heartache. But it is never too late to bring change. Erasing the mistakes of the past, creating a future filled with possibilities. We are a work in progress.

Those who are doing evil works were not born these moral flaws. These practices were taught. Injecting hate and greed into the blood stream. Causing a moral heart infection. Those individuals who are painting with the brush of greed are well organized. They are united in their cause. But those who try to live good and moral lives have been blinded by their comfort zones. Unable to see the realities of those living in desperate situations from around the world. Only aware of some of these realities by the media who only give half stories, or here today, gone tomorrow coverage.

Individuals, organizations, and Churches have not experienced major social success because of their inability to unite as one. Setting aside their personal beliefs and philosophies, to tear down the walls of their own selfishness. When we tear these walls we will see that we share one common belief. That belief is that there are hurting people in the world who are in need of love and hope. The evil doers are united, and maintain the ingredients for success. Passion, communication, and unification. If we the good do not unite as one, and obtain these important ingredients. We will lose this battle.

We the good out number the bad. Yet we sit in our comfort zones and do nothing. Those that are doing something have failed to unite with every social revolutionary to achieve wide spread success. An estimated half million gang members or mareros run the streets of Central America alone, often times outgunning local police. How can social revolutionaries in the cause to bring hope into the lives of many defeat a united army, if we are disorganized, and stuck in our selfish comfort zones. Or we want to make this a one-man show. At this time the evil doers are attacking the good one social organization at a time, and have been successful in threatening, and even killing social revolutionaries. But if we unite they will have to attack an army of social revolutionaries. We cannot do this alone!

It is time for us to unite as one. Every individual, Church, orphanage, social center, social organization, and government from around the world. Encouraging one another, supporting one another, communicating with one another, creating plans and ideas together, and together providing a solution to the heart pollution. Medicating the heart infection with education, and arms of love. Transforming the darkness into light. One becomes a thousand. A thousand a strong nation. United as one to open the windows of Heaven. Allowing the rain of love to flood though the streets like a mighty river. Consuming everything and everyone in its path. Removing the stains of the past. Pouring hope into the lives of many.

This is a call for Movement!