The Tribe of ‘ouda’ and ‘ida’
This is an excerpt I ran across from a book that I am writing. This brought back a flood of memories. I would like to encourage you with the same encouragement that I received from the experience. I hope you are strengthened in your path, and resolved to not only desire an Outcome, but rather an Opportunity to Overcome! If this is a blessing to you please share!
From the Book…..I am Joseph:
My father was a great man of God. He had more kindness and character than any man I know up to this point. He was a man that I always wanted to grow up and be like. He was just, caring, and always looking out for others. He always put others needs before his own. In 2005 my father had a challenge of prostrate cancer. He was a tough old bird. He was one of those old school guys that would never go to the doctor until he was about dead. This was one of those times. Unfortunately he battled for a couple of years and finally went home to be with the Lord in July 2007.
In the last stages of his journey for the last four months I would come and just spend time with him and we would talk. Now you have to understand in the final stages of his life he was still cheerful and upbeat. One thing I noticed though he was having visitations of angels and the Lord himself! I remember talking to him at times and he would be staring up and the ceiling behind me just smiling. I would ask him what he was seeing, and he would say it was the angels of God. I will never forget on my last visit before he passed on we had a conversation that really changed my life. I never thought it would be the last time I ever talked to him but I’m grateful to God that we had that time together for the last few months of his life. Even on his death bed my dad was still sharing the mysteries of the Kingdom for all who would hear him. I am forever grateful to the Father for allowing me to be so blessed to have him as my earthly father.
I was talking to my dad that July afternoon. I asked him, “Dad I thank God that sometimes He allows us to circle back around in our lives and redo the bad choices we’ve made in our lives. And I think it’s His grace that allows us to sometimes undo the wrong choices we’ve made as well.” I was not prepared for the wisdom that proceeded out of his mouth. I was expecting the patented Christian response of the power and grace of God to allow us some sense of redemption and redo the wrong in our lives. What came out his mouth by way of the Holy One just shocked me and awakened me to another depth in God’s ways that I had not known until that point.
He said, “Son you have got to stop worrying over the choices you made in your life. The choices you made were the only choices you could have made at that time in your life. As a matter of fact God knew the choice you were going to make in that certain situation and made a plan for you according to the choice you had to make. So the choices that you made that you somehow think now were the wrong choices were actually the only choice for you to make. But what you must do is overcome the tribe of ‘ouda’ and ‘ida’. You know the tribe of woulda, shoulda, coulda, and if ida! More people get tripped up by those enemies than any other thing in their lives! If you live your whole life wondering if ida only said this, or I wished I coulda done something different here. And also if I wished now I woulda or I shoulda made a better choice in my life. If you don’t overcome these things you will never enter into the life that God has intended for you!”
Wow such wisdom pouring out of this man; it was like it was straight from heaven. I could sense a holy sensation fill the room as I listen to this great wisdom. I realized as I meditated on these words on the plane ride home that he was absolutely right. We have to overcome the tribe of the ‘ouda’ and ‘ida’. We must not spend wasted time and energy focusing on these enemies of our souls. These enemies keep us locked into the past. We spend tremendous amount of our lives trying to redo and change the effects of our past.