I'm Waiting on Rhianna

Numbers 12:15

So Miriam was shut out of the camp seven days, and the people did not journey till Miriam was brought in again.

We live in a throw away society. WE throw away good things and good people simply because we’ve had our fill, or we think that it or they have become defective. It’s amazing how fast we give up on people especially those in the limelight. We forget they are human and we almost get “secret satisfaction” out of their demise, because deep down we want them to fail. Many of us are not as brutally honest as Rush Limbaugh to outwardly say, “I want him (President Obama) to fail,” but we have thought it about others in the cowardice of our own silence.

Chris Brown & Rhianna have been on my heart for the past couple of weeks. With the surfacing of the photos capturing her face battered and bruised, I feel that I can’t move on without praying for them both. It’s too easy to move from one sensational report to the next without thinking this is somebody’s son & daughter. It’s easy to rush to judgment and say she must have did something to deserve it, which sheds light on our own twisted sense that violence is an acceptable means of retaliation regardless of the conflict.

In the movie “Madea Goes to Jail", Keshia Knight Pulliam who plays Candy and Derek Luke, who plays Joshua, are old friends who are reacquainted after five years. Since that time he has become a successful lawyer and she has fallen to the depths of prostitution. It hurts Joshua to see his old friend as a prostitute and he tries to help her out. His Fiancé wants him to move on and tells him, “you can’t help those people out, they got themselves into this. You made better decisions; it’s up to them to get themselves out.” Joshua would not leave Candy to her demise, he was her friend. We have to stop treating women like Candy, something to be enjoyed and to be thrown away if it falls to the ground and gets covered with grime. We as men are Joshuas. We are leaders who have been charged to lead the next generation, and we can’t leave Candy where she is.

Moses’ sister Miriam and his brother Aaron criticized Moses because he married a “Candy Girl’, an Ethiopian soul sister. They didn’t like that too well so they started an argument with Moses that didn’t have anything to do with what they were really mad about. They challenged his leadership. After all the miracles God did through Moses they challenged his leadership by asking is Moses the only one that can hear from God. God heard the conflict and showed up in a cloud and stood in the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. He asked them how they could argue with the man of God who he speaks with directly. When the cloud lifted, there was a photo released of Miriam’s face covered with Leprosy. Aaron cried out to Moses, please don’t let our sister die like this. "I’m sorry Moses please do something.” It’s amazing how we figure out what really matters after a crisis. Moses and Aaron forgot about their argument once they saw their sister’s face. Moses could have said, “That’s what you get!” but love wouldn’t let him. Instead he did three things that we need to do when our loved ones are in trouble.

1. He prayed for her to be healed.

2. He helped her with the consequences. Miriam had to sit outside the camp for seven days because that was the Law.

3. He had the whole community of believers to wait on her until she got better.
Before we move on to the latest gossip. Before we throw Rhianna out and Chris under the bus, stop for a minute and pray for them. Maybe you have your own Candy or Rhianna in your circle of friends. Have you thrown them away or are you waiting on them to get better?

Dear God help us all to be more compassionate than condemning. I’m glad that when I messed up, you didn’t leave me. You had a believing community that waited on my recovery. I pray that you would heal Rhianna and Chris. Restore them after you heal them from the inside out.

In Jesus Name,

Amen.