Magic Carpet rides have a shelf life shorter than strawberries!!

Magic Carpet part II


Jennifer took a deep breath and looked around down the hallway at school! Well, there seemed to be no one following her! "Mom, where are you?" thought Jennifer as the bell rang, signifying that school had been out for 5 minutes! When Jennifer realized her mom was not waiting for her by the curb, a deep, dark feeling ran down her spine and stopped right in the pit of her stomach! Recent threats from certain groups of people plagued Jennifer's mind as she decided to quickly go back inside the school and call her mom. After all, maybe mom just forgot the time! To Jennifer's horror, she saw two girls from the group that had threatened her standing at the end of the hall! In fact, Jennifer had not fit in from day one at that little, Kansas Junior High School!! Surprisingly, the very standards Jennifer had always followed from her parents were making others in the school more than annoyed!! Shaking, Jennifer just turned the other way and started walking briskly toward the principle's office...! Saying a quick prayer, she began to run as fast as she could down the hall! "Come on carpet, let's fly" (Aladdin..says that to the carpet when there is a lot of trouble chasing him).  However, the two girls started running faster and faster behind her! "No", thought Jennifer, "Please! Lord..help me!!" Although she almost made it to the door, almost was not good enough. Like a train, two girls brought her to the ground and grabbed her arm and held it behind her back while threatening, "we don't need 'goody two shoes' like you around here..got it?? Say you're sorry and we'll let you go!"  Jennifer looked up frantically wondering why no one was around and hoping to find some help somewhere! Suddenly, the principle opened the door and looked out into the hall way, "what is going on" he asked?  Jennifer was let go quickly and she then proceeded to go to the principle's office and ask to use the phone...!!  The sounds of the other two girls were mocking her to tears!! Tears inevitably started to pour out of her eyes as Jennifer dialed her home phone number! Trembling, and crying, Jennifer hung up the phone when there was no answer! Within a few moments, Jennifer saw the car pull up to the curb from the Principal's office window. The principal said, "I want you to be in my office tomorrow after school with those two other girls to discuss fighting in school!"  Choking back the tears, Jennifer nodded and left the office, darting for her mom's car: safety! No, Jennifer had not started a fight, but there was a fight for her affections that was going to do battle really soon!! There are moments for all of us when we have not felt safe, comforted, or understood! At that moment, I will never forget feeling so alone, terrified and confused! Oh how my thoughts began to race that night!! Even though there was comfort in knowing that mom and dad told me how sorry they were that this happened and that they would help in any way they could to talk to the school, the problem was eating at my core! Every ounce of self esteem was under attack as the day's assault yelled into her mind that Jennifer was not accepted; Jennifer was not protected.  For sure, my only crime was the fact that a group of girls didn't like me or my morality!   How on earth was I going to fit in, or feel safe?? Remember when Jafar knocks out Aladdin and he sinks down to the bottom of the sea?? Without the Genie stepping in, and the exchange of a second wish, Aladdin would not have survived!! Why didn't they like me?? Just because I wasn't allowed to date, or swear, do drugs, have sex and pick on others, get bad grades ect, did not mean that I was trying to hurt them!! More than the fact that my body ached from being knocked to the ground was the ache in my heart! Why wasn't I accepted?  The devil seemed to whisper, "maybe it's not your standard, but you?" Wow..! "Maybe, I was not good enough to be accepted," entered my thoughts as I cried myself to sleep! "Oh Lord! I want to be liked and I want to follow you too! "Genie, I wish for you to make me a prince!" Don't we all remember that scene in Aladdin where the Genie warns Aladdin to just be himself?? Well, I think we all can admit that being yourself starts with knowing that God does not make junk!! Truly, many adults still do not understand that God, who has ultimate cosmic power and who is not limited to small tiny living spaces, (Genie reference) made you the way you are on purpose! When you are under attack for your standards, or for the little things that make you who you are, I hope you know that your attacker is picking a fight with the Lord Almighty! Not only does every battle belong to the Lord, but the Lord is the Victor over every fight and the greatest defender of all!! Tragically, many do not know that the Lord is a strong tower! What's more is the fact that even when we know that the Lord is a refuge and a tower of strength, we don't always know how to hear His voice and follow His lead!! Whenever we have difficulty hearing the Lord's love calling, the reason is because we are listening to the voice of another: the world! The hidden agenda of the devil is always to mislead God's children to take the wrong path and to think in a fallen way!! Now we are going to bring in the "Jonah" of it all!! We make our own plans and we have our own agendas, preconceived ideas and conceptions about how life is supposed to go!! Jonah had every intention of growing up to serve the Lord and to serve Israel...ooopse...and who?? Who was Jonah going to serve??? And Israel??? Uh ohhh!! Jonah! Jonah! JONAH!!!!! We serve the Lord our God and He alone sets our feet upon the rock of Salvation, the path that leads to life everlasting!! We simply are not created to tell the creator how we are going to serve or live or be accepted by certain people. Now, before we start picking on Jonah again..because we will do that allot a few blogs from now, let's look back at Jennifer! Jennifer had an agenda to "fit in" didn't she?? In fact, we can all remember believing that fitting in was the idea in school, right? If you are reading this knowing that you are in a situation right now where you would really like to fit in and to be accepted by someone, then please hear this verse,

"Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ" (Galatians 1:10, NIV).  


The truth is simply put in black and white terms for us, but we continue to seek to please two masters!! We are such children of our culture and contemporaries of our time!! When in reality we need to be children of the most High God, the Eternal one who sits outside of time and seeks to deliver you from the world so that you can start being a part of showing the world the way, the truth and the Life: His name is Jesus!! Alright, by now I'm sure that some of you are resisting the fact that Jennifer somehow did something wrong by wanting to fit in with her school friends?? Friends, the one who we listen to is the one with whom we are in a relationship!! The voice of the world is subtle and its message is crafty; God really wants you to be happy!! What a hoax..!! Truly, the gospel of Jesus Christ is not that now we can have our fairytale because our Genie in a bottle lives in our hearts to give it to us!!!! God's good news is not that there will not be trials and that you will be liked and appreciated by humans!!!! God's good news is that because He lives, you can face tomorrow..in His strength, in His love, In His grace and In His timing and that in the end...Eternity awaits..!! 

“[Trials and Temptations] Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.” James 1:2-3NIV  


Jennifer was not expecting the trials and was not sure why any of the rejection was taking place!! The truth is that rejection hurts! More importantly is knowing what to do when you are rejected by man!! 

Remember how afraid Aladdin was? Aladdin kept saying in the beginning of the movie, "I'm not a street rat and I'm not worthless!"  Jennifer kept saying that night as the tears kept gushing from the day's assault, "I'm not worthless!" Yet, both were angry and scared to death that a lack of acceptance from the world meant that their value did in fact go down somehow!  Friends, your value is not measured by this world unless you give yourself over to the Prince of this world, His ideas and His schemes!! In contrast, we have a plan "B" and it's a beautiful plan!!  Even though we are trapped like live bait in the clutches of a roaring Lion, falling faster and faster into the sin that entered the world so long ago; there is hope.  No, it's not the magic carpet and it's not the Genie!!! The hope is that if we so choose, we can be saved and accepted into the family of God!! For God sent His one and only son, Jesus into the world to save us and to redeem us to the be the praise of His glory!! Yes, that no one should perish but have everlasting life!! Wait..!! The hope is even more juicy than the fact that Jesus came to rescue us from the Lion!! Jesus not only loves you enough to die for you, even while you were still sinning, but he purifies you from all sin!! You are accepted!! He was forsaken, and you are now forgiven..He was rejected and you are now accepted!! You are in the arms of a Savior that forgives you unconditionally, and then purifies you perfectly and then offers you every single bit of eternity with Him!!!  Yes, I'm not only invited to the big party, I'm going as Jennifer, dressed in white and ready to please the one I was meant to please; His name is Jesus!!  We simply need to accept the fact that when the world rejects you, you have the only living God, arms open wide, waiting with full acceptance of you, His creation!! Somewhere in the notion that we are all sinners, we sometimes loose the message that God doesn't see where we are today, or yesterday!! God sees the beauty that He intended to make us into from the beginning!! There is nothing you can ever do to please this world and this world can never give you the eternal and unconditional acceptance that Jesus offers!! Did the World create you?? Does the World know you or your potential?? Only the master potter knows how to work the clay, knows its impurities and sensitivities, its thresholds and breaking points!! The question is not whether or not we are the clay; the question is who do you want to be your potter?? Sadly, Jennifer was about to find out that no matter how much her desire to fit in, be liked or have happy endings seemed to be what God must want for her, there is nothing shorter than the shelf life of magic carpet escapes and fairytales promises! Finally, Jennifer still had to learn that God was the prize and not what God could do for her; God is treasure more than enough!! Of course, one must really know that God offers us Himself!! We always talk about what He did for us on the cross and how we should be thankful!! Not that we shouldn't be thankful and talk about the Lord's sacrifice, but we must also talk about why He did it!! God is completely in love with you and has a perfect plan for you to live happily ever after with Him, totally safe and warm and completely accepted.

 In part III we will discuss the Genie effect; God is not your genie and you cannot keep Him hidden away in a little golden lamp!!  Sometimes we do hope to just get away and escape, don't we?? When the questions we have in our hearts scare us so badly that we just cannot hear the answer, the world normally tells us it's time to hop on a magic carpet and fly! Jennifer's parents are about to sell the house in Kansas and move back home to California!! "Is it safe??" asked princess Jasmine  "Sure! Do you trust me?" answered Aladdin ( who was lying to her by the way about his ID!! )  I hope you read part III as Jennifer learns that the world's promises have a shelf life shorter than strawberries,

Isaiah 40:7-9

New International Version (NIV)

⁷ The grass withers and the flowers fall,
   because the breath of the LORD blows on them.
   Surely the people are grass.
⁸ The grass withers and the flowers fall,
   but the word of our God endures forever.”
 ⁹ You who bring good news to Zion,
   go up on a high mountain.
You who bring good news to Jerusalem,^[a]
   lift up your voice with a shout,
lift it up, do not be afraid;
   say to the towns of Judah,
   “Here is your God!”

When was the last time that you really wanted to be accepted? Have you ever been afraid that someone might think badly of you or not like you?? Realize today that you were created for God!! God made you and God sees you for your potential in Him; you were wonderfully and fearfully made!! God does not make junk; God is a master craftsman and everything you are has a purpose in Him!!