but because in my mind, all I could think of was this question, Who Is Going To Be My Father Now? I desired something I never thought I really had and I felt that a father would be needed in my life for me to take the next step to become a man.
To think back, it’s amazing, my earthly father told everybody I was not his son and even took my mother to court when I was younger, but my heavenly Father took me to court when I got older. Dropped all the accusations I had brought up against Him growing up by neglecting His words and being a disobedient son. Then He waited patiently for me to ask the question, “who is going to be my father now?” He was the first one to stand in heaven and say, “Son, I will be your Father, for I have always been your Father even when you had not been a son.” That’s the picture I see when I think about how he saved me.
Now after graduating from high school, I went down south to play basketball for Alabama State University, but I never ended up playing. I was more interested at this point in chasing young pretty women. I spent three whole years down there before dropping out and didn’t accomplish anything except meeting some really good people who I try to keep in contact with even today.
I left Alabama State and came back home and hooked up with some of my cousin’s friends who were known as the Brick Boys in the nineties, some of Detroit’s biggest drug dealers. Three months after we connected, we went to Vegas on a business trip that involved some drug trafficking, money laundering and I couldn’t tell you what else. I was connected because somebody at all times needed to be with the two top dealers. They allowed me to be a part since I could be trusted, I was smart and I knew the streets. This was different from what I was used to; they really were connected and lived almost all of their life in the game.
Almost everything that I didn’t see in the World while I was growing up in the hood and in school, I saw with them. From unloading semi- trucks of weed and cocaine in warehouses to driving the most expensive cars and even living in a mansion for short period of time in Vegas, I did it.
We were living the so-called life, I was twenty-two and I felt like Scar Face, “The World is all mine!” I would come home from Vegas to Detroit and drive downtown in an all white 500 Benz with 20 inch Lorenzo rims on it with a twenty thousand dollar kit, with cream leather interior, and looking better than a scrumptious box of chocolate, with a fresh hair cut, red gold chain around my neck and with diamonds in my techno watch. There wasn’t too much anyone could tell me at this point. I was where I always wanted to be; ON TOP.
This all happened within an eight month period; all after I left from college at Alabama State in 2003. I get the impression that God wanted me to see the best this world had to offer me in order to be able to declare and proclaim that the life God has for you is far better, more abundant and it last much longer. I believe He wanted me to see that “There Is No Comparison between The World and His Kingdom.”
I get the impression that God wanted me to see the best this world had to offer me in order to be able to declare and proclaim that the life God has for you is far better, more abundant and it last much longer.
On one hand, I started feeling disappointed with life as I traveled back down south to Alabama. On the other hand, I was excited because I was on my way back down south to shut the whole city down by showing off the new creamy pearl Lexus 430, with 20 inch rims. I’m telling you, it looked like a spaceship and I knew all my boys were going to be stunned and the girls would go crazy when they saw me driving a Lexus.
Somehow, the eleven hour trip from Detroit to Alabama took longer than I expected. I felt something very valuable was missing in my life and without it my life was useless, but I couldn‘t figure out what it was. Can you imagine being in a place in this world where everybody else you know is trying to get and your soul begins to call out for something more. It even begins to scream out on the inside of you that there must be much more to life than this. That’s something else isn’t it; okay let me get back to the story. When I arrived in Alabama, they reacted just like I thought; they went berserk.
I thought they would be happy to see me, but they were happy to see the car, the chain and the watch. When I drove on campus, everybody stopped what they were doing; all the girls in the dorms stuck their heads out of their windows and all eyes were on me. I thought I would love the attention, but on the second day there, it was too much for me to handle. I saw the hatred, jealousy and envy in most of the young men’s eyes. I felt the intentions of the young women trying to find their way to survive. I was fed up with my life and the World.
I left Alabama State and as soon as I got home, I stopped by my cousin’s friend’s house. This was the guy who put me on and connected me with the rest of the crew. I then knew something was wrong; my mother had been calling my cousins a lot because she was really worried about me, seeing that I had not been home for months, and she was wondering where I was. Therefore, I ended up dropping the Lexus off at his apartment and going home for a while to my grandmother’s house.
Now at my grandmother’s house, my mother, my uncle, my brother and my sister all lived there with my grandmother. We all moved in together when I was in the eleventh grade on Bliss Street when my grandmother’s house on Longview caught on fire. Nobody was hurt by the fire although my grandmother was in the house her dog Polo jumped on her bed and woke her up and she made it out of the house with the dog safe. Thank God, I loved my grandmother.
On Bliss, my grandmother, mother, uncle, brother and sister all stayed upstairs and I stayed in the basement. When I came back home from Alabama, I stayed in my old room in the basement. One night, I was in my room and it had to be close to midnight; I picked up a Bible that my mother bought me some years back for Christmas. I begin to read the book of Proverbs. What happened next is the reason my life has never been the same.
God spoke to me. Yes GOD spoke to me. He said, you have been lied to; you have been tricked and everything the world has told you has been a lie. Then I went to sleep, and I woke up in the morning and confessed all of my sins and asked Jesus to come into my heart, and that is exactly what He did. I was completely changed. I told God everything that I did wrong that I could remember. I told Him about all my sins and even sins I planned on committing in the future. He forgave me, and from that day on, I was never the same.
In John 10:4 it reads, And when he (Jesus) brings out his own sheep (His children), he (Jesus) goes before them; and the sheep (His children) follow him, for they (His children) know his voice (Nkjv).
God speaks to His children.
Jesus was sharing with His people that those who He has called, who have received Him as their Lord and Savior, that they hear from Him and they know His voice. When a unbeliever gives his life to Jesus and becomes a believer, Jesus comes to live on the inside of the believer and the believer is able to hear Him speak to him, to feel His presence as he prays to Him and is able to sense and experience His love. Jesus said in Mathew 7:7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeeth findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened (Kjv). He was telling believers that as they continue to seek His face, they would eventually hear His voice, experience His presence, and His love.
The Key to hearing God’s voice is to receive Jesus as Lord and continue to pursue God. He wants every believer to know Him personally.
To get back to the story, I went upstairs the next day and my mother looked at me and she said something that I didn’t know exactly how to reply to. She asked me, “Who Are You?” She had seen the change that happen in me and saw that her prayers had finally been answered. I know now the answer to that question that my mother blurted out at me. I am a son of God. My Father sent Jesus to bring forth many sons, and now I am one of them.
