Pastor Bell's Words To Live By

The character of Joshua is fascinating in that he seemingly had no airs and graces; he just got on with the job at hand. Throughout his time spent serving Moses there are no instances recorded of him meeting with God or having a personal encounter. He was an ordinary young man who had a desire to serve the man of God. This was the practical outworking of spiritual intelligence. He exhibited the natural gifting and traits that will serve anyone well. They are: the ability to be loyal and trustworthy; the ability to act justly with equity and the ability to behave oneself wisely. Joshua saw firsthand the power of God and was the recipient of some of Moses’ anointing in Numbers 11.

We are living in a system which was built on the back of slavery and colonial imperialism. Our ancestors were treated as objects and had ingrained in them the tenets of ‘the Willie Lynch’ theory. This was drilled into them.  I will reproduce an excerpt from his letter to slave owners in Virginia, USA in 1712 almost 300 years ago.

“In my bag here, I have a fool-proof method for controlling your black slaves. I guarantee every one of you that if installed correctly it will control the slaves for at least 300 years. My method is simple, any member of your family or any overseer can use it.

I have outlined a number of differences among the slaves, and I take these differences and make them bigger. I use fear, distrust, and envy for control purposes. These methods have worked on my modest plantation in the West Indies, and it will work throughout the South. Take this simple little test of differences and think about them. On the top of my list is “Age”, but it is there because it only starts with an “A”; the second is “Colour” or shade; there is intelligence, size, sex, size of plantations, attitude of owners, whether the slaves live in the valley, on a hill, East, West, North, South, have fine or coarse hair, or is tall or short. Now that you have a list of differences, I shall give you an outline of action–but before that, I shall assure you that distrust is stronger than trust, and envy is stronger than adulation, respect, or admiration.

The Black Slave, after receiving this indoctrination, shall carry on and will become self refuelling and self generating for hundreds of years, maybe thousands.”

Today as recipients of the power of God and the spirituality that comes from a personal knowledge in and of Jesus Christ, we should all jettison the ‘Willie Lynch’ theory and use our spiritual knowledge to support and build up each other starting with our own community first. And because of ignorance, many of our young Black men are still reeling under the curse that the ‘Willie Lynch’ methodology placed on our ancestors.  As our eyes are opened and our spirits as awakened, we need to put off envy, colour prejudice, ageism, sexism and so on and like Joshua, display, loyalty, justice trustworthiness and wisdom and so make our spirituality a practical one of upliftment.  Today we can do one of two things, complain about our situation or tap into the limitless power of Yahweh. Read Number 11 is you dare particularly v.23!