I usually watch the BET Awards so that I can enjoy a little coonery with my friends via Twitter and Facebook. But this year was different. When I finally laid my head down around midnight, I had grown as a person, and I had BET to thank! No joke! Before you write me off as a loon, hear me out, and give my Top 10 lessons a chance.
#10: It is Important to Respect the Seasons—The Bible lays it out plain and clear, "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven" (Ecclesiastes 3:1). And what the BET Awards pointed out is you will look a CRAZY running around acting out of season. I'm not too sure what Drake's stylist was thinking when she sent him down the red carpet in leather jacket in June or what Soldier Boy's stylist was smoking when she had him perform outside in a cardigan, but both Drake and Soldier Boy looked loony in mid-summer dressed in their fall and winter attire.
This made me think about how many times I had tried to act outside of God's timing or seasons. Like the time I was convinced I was going to marry this guy, but it couldn't have been God's season because neither of us were comfortable enough with ourselves to commit forever to someone else. Or the time I kept searching for a huge harvest (financial blessing), but I hadn't done a significant amount of labor. In both of these situations, I must've looked just as crazy as Drake and Soldier Boy. From this point forward, I'm going to make an effort to understand God's timing and seasons, so that I can work with Him and not against Him. Nothing productive can come from going against God's grain, but supernatural things can happen when you work with Him! J
#9: We Must Grow Past Our Human Complexities—How odd was it to see women waving panties at Tyrese in one set immediately followed by gospel greats performing a tribute to Haiti? It seemed a little out of order. A number of my Twitter friends pointed out that the producers at BET should've done better planning to ensure that a smoother, more respectable, segue could've been implemented. But how often do we, in our lives, do things that are similarly out of order. How often have you lied before you prayed, cursed someone out before going to church, or been stingy and selfish before telling God how much we loved Him?
We use the phrases that "God knows my heart," or "No one's perfect; everyone sins" as our excuses to have sin and out of order behavior in our life. In reality, that's just not good enough. While sin and mistakes are a natural part of life, as people who are completely in love with we should do everything in our power to live sin free and seek God's forgiveness when the complexities of life do cause us to fall below the mark of God.
#8: Good Writers Are ALWAYS Needed—Writing is my passion and my craft; however, recently, I have not been doing as much writing as I should. Watching the BET Awards showed me the necessity of having good writers. Some of those skits were utter fails and painful to watch. We all deserve to have good television, and my work deserves to grace bookshelves, televisions sets, and movie screens. I must IMMEDIATELY stop playing around with my God-given gifts, and further develop them so that I can become the great writer God desires me to be, I deserve to be, and the world deserves to read and see.
I encourage all of you to respect your God-given gifts and talents. He didn't give them to you to for them to sit stagnant. In fact according to the Parable of Talents that Jesus told in Matthew 25: 14-28, if we do not use our gifts to glorify God, He will take them away from us. The world needs what God has placed in you. Make sure you grow and develop your gifts to a level of expertise where you are prepared to share them with the world. Someone needs what you have; make sure you give it to them. J
#7: Less is Sometimes More—Monica is a BAD CHICK! Love her, respect her, admire her! But WHAT was she wearing during her performance? I thought she was doing some type of skit that required her to be a demonic angel based on the size of her shoulder pads (or whatever you called those things). I'm sure she thought wearing that outfit was a great idea in her dressing room, but the elaborativeness of the attire somehow got lost.
Lesson learned: sometimes less is more. Drake has hyped you guys up thinking everything has to be fancy, huh? Everything does not have to be big, fancy, and extravagant to get your point across. Sometimes simple is good enough! Follow your gut and don't draw excess attention or you may end up looking like Nicki Minaj, a complete attention whore. I'm just saying.
#6: Don't Insult the People that Help You Be Great—Did anyone see Diddy, Filthy Change (sorry, that was sooooo unnecessary J! Shouts out to @christopherbw for coining the phrase. Follow him on Twitter. Pure entertainment!), and crew completely suffocate in the fog during their performance? It looked like a performance failure, but if you watched the after show, you have a better understanding of why there was sooooo much fog. During rehearsal Diddy complained about there not being enough fog during their performance. He went as far as to insult the fog tech mocking that BET didn't have enough money to produce the amount of fog he needed. So once they hit the stage Sunday night, the fog tech decided to really SHOW Diddy how much fog BET could really produce! Diddy wanted to give a great performance, but he forgot that he couldn't be great by himself. He needed the people working with him to help him be great so that he could reach his goal of greatness. Unfortunately, he forgot to build up those around him.
In order for the people working with you to put 100% into helping you reach greatness, they must be completely invested in your greatness. They must believe in your vision, and they must want to see it happen as much as you do. This does not occur when you are overly critical or harsh towards those working with you. And it doesn't happen because you write someone a big check. However, if you pray for divine connections and focus on building up those working with you and helping them become great, they will bust their tail to make sure that you reach your standard of greatness as well.
Log in tomorrow to see the Top 5 Lessons Learned from the BET Awards!
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