Red light, Greenlight!
Have you ever been in a hurry to be somewhere, put your foot on the gas, and merged like hell only to be stopped at a red light? Or have you ever seen another crazy driver battling for possession thinking they are making progression only to find them next to you at the lights? Have you ever had that happen then a school bus pulls in front of you straight after and you become slower than a snail? And what! you just hit another red light! Sometimes people think this means some force is trying to stop you from being there when you want to be because something dangerous might happen to you, eg boarding a soon to be crashing plane or running into your ex, etc. Sometimes it seems like plain bad luck but what if it happens all the time? We have all been in a hurry and lucky, all the lights were green and we got there early and we left late!
Life is like the lights.
When I was 12 I started the long journey of trying to become a famous rapper, I recently retired from it at 23 but I learned a lot about the lights and a lot about life! I fought alone tooth and nail most of the time, however, some of it was spent alongside some of my greatest friends for several years. We received many accolades, notoriety, respect, and fans but we were looking for diamonds and we only managed to pan gold. More often than not and by that I mean like all the time, things would just go plain wrong, it was never a lack of effort on our part but in the things, we couldn't control. We were a highly specced sports car roaring through the streets only, instead of glory and prestige, we were met with red lights and highway patrols at every corner.
But why?
But why not, have you ever had a friend who was a sports star that was destined for the tv screen only to just well, not be destined due to a freak accident? I'm not going to go into destiny or anything like that but I know for a fact that you and your friend didn't have a choice in that scenario daddio.
I keep running reds!
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
For years and years, I refused to lose and never gave up. But things never gave up being the same year after year, I would slave away making these projects that barely were supported by anyone and most of the time that was my fault as I never wanted to share them full-heartedly. No one ever told me to quit but it just seemed all red to me, my quest did not seem blessed but cursed. I was just hanging for a few greens I wasn’t asking for much. Just before this year the notorious 2020, I said to myself I would quit rap for a year and do something different. This was just around when the bush fires were happening, Australia was hit with massive rain after which helped fill up our dam and unfortunately helped fill up the garage on our property too, which did not destroy anything important well except for my recording gear. It seems very poetic but this truly happened, and I thought, well this is going to be easier to commit to then I thought haha.
Starting again
After the fires we had the floods then we had the Coronavirus, Cheers.
During this time I analyzed the situation a lot, my head filled with a thousand thoughts, was it a conspiracy? was it all part of the plan? is it just a virus? Each day I woke up in quarantine, I got filled with this drive to write, just write about it! Share it with the people! I tried to ignore it at first but then it became overwhelming I just had to share my thoughts on it so I gave in and when I finally wrote boy did I write.
https://medium.com/@drdrifterone/corona-virus-3f8be53ceae
If you haven’t read it, here is a shameless plug but just the sheer length of it shows you what was in that big deflated brain of mine.
(side note) Did you notice I didn't plug my own music? the simple reason being you plug something when you want it to be full and you plug something of your own when you want people to be apart of it like you want the water to be in the bathtub, with rap I just let the water go down the drain. Sometimes I used to wonder why I did that, it felt wasteful but it felt like the most natural thing to do, and with these articles my most natural response is to plug them. It didn't feel right to plug rap at times maybe that's because rap wasn’t me cause truthfully it started as an escape from who I was as an individual to create a different identity/reality and the longer we keep that act up the more we identify ourselves with it and the harder it is to remember who it is you really are.
Ummm green?
What was amazing about this article wasn’t about how good it was or whether it is true or not, it was, first of all, the instinctual/spiritual drive to do it which I feel did not come from myself which made it feel like it was my true calling like it was a drive I was meant to be on.
“Where your drive is, well that's a drive worth taking”
Secondly, before I wrote it I prayed a prayer that it would just help or touch one person. Sure enough, just like when God brought the water he brought that one person. I received a message that day from someone I had gone to high school with but we had barely ever talked or known each other, she began to tell me that I explained in words everything she had been thinking and that it was a relief that someone else saw it the same way, and she wasn't alone in her theories and it was great that I wasn't either. If you reading this and I know you will one of these days just know I think your a magnificent, wise, and smart individual that has done and will do so much with your life. If I gain nothing else from writing these articles I'm glad I gained our friendship, God bless you.
Self-discovery
In the name of self-discovery, I have stared into the eyes of the jaguar, I have seen the shadow of the devil and I have crossed lands and searched far and wide. I have always wanted to be the hero, also wanted to find out or become something great, but who truly can measure greatness, and what does it really take.
It's all in your name
Unless in a rare case it doesn't, most names have a specific meaning or you were named after someone who was someone they had meaning. My name is Luke, and Luke was a writer SPOILER ALERT! I have read a lot in the bible and I'm like, trust me to be a character who isn't in the book. But when I thought about it more deeply I realized that without Luke some of the most important messages of all time would have never been recorded, messages that have brought hope and strength for generations to come. Some of the world's greatest heroes were motivated by Jesus which was written by Luke!
Luke 11:9 And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
Luke 18:27 “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”
It is not all about you
You may not be a hero but you may be a maker of heroes, and you may become a hero but not the hero you want to be or thought you would become. We become the heroes the world needs us to be, and there are plenty of things that need saving. Everyone likes the hulk and Thor but you might end up being that trash panda from guardians of the galaxy, and that's okay they all play there part sometimes big and in his case, small.
Get in where you fit in fool!
Better to be a hero no matter what that looks like than to not become a hero at all. After that big green light, from the first article, more and more greens came in and I had people messaging me saying they enjoyed them or that they were great, and that I should think about writing for a job, etc.
GREEN GREEN GREEN!
Reaching out for what they need not what you want
My music was always about my own life my own struggles and my own experience of what rap music is, My articles are about how I can express ideas that might help people think differently about things or encourage them or bring them closer to God. Which one is pro-people and which is pro me? Even if you read back what I just said look at the words being used. During the explanation of my rap music, the word own is used 3 times, and describing my articles the keywords are, help and encourage.
I believe that God has created us all for a unique purpose and he knows what it is we have to do, we just have to discover it. Can you blame God green lighting the article idea and red lighting the rap idea? I cannot as I found that people who were close to me got the diamonds I was chasing for in my music career only to have there own blood on their prize. I'm not saying that now that I am hitting green lights all the time that all of sudden I am successful and that the greens have lead to millions of dollars the girl of my dreams etc, but if we use the analogy I am heading somewhere, I don't know where and I don't care cause I have to live my life rain hail or shine but the destination that is prepared for me, I am on my way quickly and making the right turns the right decisions the right choices. When I kept hitting reds sure,I was on my way somewhere but slower. Life is long but if we want to be able to reach our peak, our destiny, we must not let a second go to waste. Each day, each week, each month, each year is important!
It's bigger than you!
One of my favorite UFC fighters Dominic Cruz once said
What you realize is, when I hit my low and I'm in the dark and your depressed and you having nothing and you can't train and you're fat and you cant go train to feel better cause you're broken, your confidence is gone cause its intertwined with your reality that your just a fighter and a champion and now your not that either, and I was separated from my girlfriend at the time cause I was focused on my fighting, I wasn't seeing family either, during that time when you hit the dark you have a choice you can either stay in the dark or find a way to make things work and when you start focusing on something bigger than you ya realize,
We have a lot more that we have to give then we ever have lost.
And when you start to focus on that it takes you out of the dark, there's only one way when your hearts failing you its when your focused on your self that's what depression is, depression is a selfish emotion, so if your focused on nothing but you and what you want and what you can get and what you don't have I, I, I your dying I was dying. Someone asked me a question when I was feeling miserable “who are you making a difference for today?” what a question ay? and when you go into that thought you completely stop thinking about what you don’t have and then when you give what you do have to somebody, that fills you up, and your not so focused on what you don’t have. (not worried about being the big hero in the movie happy with a smaller role as long as it's meaningful)
Watch out for roadblocks
If you're doing something day after day year after year, and nothing gives, well give it up for a bit and experiment with something new. Before I tried writing an article I made comedy skits and tried all types of stuff, you never know till you try. I was so determined and stubborn I thought to be successful all it took was to continue to grind and use all your energy and eventually it would pay off. Not saying that isn't true, my hard work did pay off just not how I expected it to, and there were so many dividends from rap music that paid later on. I was so caught up in becoming the identity that I had created I was ignoring the identity that had always been there that I was born to realize.
My mentality changed when I read a book from Terry Crews called “Manhood” a major, and the most important part of the story for me was that he tried so so hard to become an NFL star which he kept failing over and over but he wouldn't quit, he did become a star but never got to stick around long. He would constantly get drafted to other teams having to move his whole family from one state to the next. Living paycheck to paycheck he eventually, to pay for the deficit would do security gigs, one of these just so happened to be at a movie set. Ice cube happened to be there and he noticed Terry's tremendous size and said “Hey man you wanna be in the movie (Friday After NEXT)” as he looked the part, of course, he agreed who would turn down Ice cube. But see Terry kept training to be big and strong for the NFL which then led him to stand out when it mattered in order for him to get a green light. If your not familiar with Terry Crews he still to this day is a successful actor with green lights coming in abundance. What I'm trying to say is that everything you have been doing isn't useless, sometimes without even knowing, we are preparing ourselves for something else by doing something else. I was writing rap music which helps me write articles to this day, and all the experiences I went through due to that, I can reflect on and now share them as ideas AMEN.
Pay attention to the lights
Notice in your own life what works and what doesn’t, now this article isn't relevant to everyone as you may be seeing green in abundance and if you are good for you! And if you aren’t, try to be patient, try out some experiments, and ask God for guidance. I should finish this article here and feel free to bounce out now thank you for reading, I just have a few more things to say about the plans we create in our hearts vs the plans God creates for us.
The heart
A popular philosophy that runs through many pop songs and movies is the idea that one should follow his or her heart. But is there a better way?
The storyline of many feel-good movies often goes like this: A girl (or a guy, for that matter) is unhappy in life, and a friend or family member advises her to follow her heart. Afterwards, she finally goes after the relationship, job or whatever she has been wanting but denying herself. It ends with her living “happily ever after.”
Does it really work that way? Is this good advice? It does seem like we would know better than others what would make us happy, doesn’t it? After all, we know ourselves pretty well, right?
But God says something different and shockingly counterintuitive. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?”
That’s a shocking statement! Let’s break that down. The heart is:
Deceitful — causing us to trust ourselves and thus believe or see things inaccurately.
Wicked — perhaps by prompting us to make choices motivated by selfishness, which can often hurt others — and ourselves.
And on top of that, this scripture asks, who can know it? In other words, we do not always really understand our motivations and inner intentions. We should also remember that it is not just our heart alone that produces deceit and wickedness, Satan and his influence play a major part in influencing our heart towards deceit and wickedness (2 Corinthians 4:4, Ephesians 2:2).
If not the heart, then what?
If relying on just oneself is such an untrustworthy guide for our future course of action, where do we turn for direction that will lead us to a fulfilling and joyful life? The answer is that we need to start with the One who can and does know our heart.
The Bible tells us that God knows “the hearts of all” (Acts 1:24). He also knows exactly what we need (Matthew 6:8) — what is best for our physical and spiritual well-being. After all, He did create us. So, rather than following our heart, we should diligently study His Word to understand what He has to teach us on every type of choice we may face. With God’s help, we can begin to know our heart and more accurately evaluate where it is leading us.
Read the full article here https://members.cogwa.org/young-adult-blog/dont-follow-your-heart-get-a-new-one/
Posted by Jennifer Cox on June 27, 2013
Jennifer Cox is a member of the London, Kentucky, congregation of the Church of God, a Worldwide Association. She is a 2013 graduate of Foundation Institute.
GOD BLESS.
Written By Luke Gaymer (Luke Residuos)
ALL GLORY BE TO GOD.
