Unpredictable: Keeping The Faith Through The Storms of Life

By Keith Mosby,

This story is a true testament of how one can overcome the unpredictable obstacles in life. This book goes into great depth about how to overcome the perils that life throws at you. Dr. Keith Mosby Sr.'s journey is full of unpredictable situations-highs, lows, heartaches, disappointments, even family loss-but he never let these circumstances bring him down. Instead he prayed, persevered, and propelled his way to becoming a man of God that kept the faith! We start each year with resolutions, goals, and aspirations to become a better person. However, we do not account for the unpredictable. Perhaps an unpredictable situation has come into your life that has you at a standstill. The unpredictable does not mean defeat. After reading this book, you will know that keeping the Faith through the storms of life will ultimately make you a victorious believer in Christ!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Sep 8, 2016
• ISBN: 9781681975795

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UNPREDICTABLE

Keeping The Faith Through The Storms of Life

Dr. Keith Mosby, Sr.

ISBN 978-1-68197-578-8 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-68197-579-5 (Digital)

Copyright © 2016 by Dr. Keith Mosby, Sr.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

296 Chestnut Street

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Beginnings

Consequences

Chosen by God

It Rains on the Just and the Unjust

The Rain Won’t Stop

When Reality Awakens

Supernatural Faith

Fighting Fear

He Was There All the Time

Unpredictable

DEDICATION

I would like to dedicate this book to my mother, the late Norma Mosby, who challenged me, inspired me, loved me unconditionally, and prayed for me along the way.

To my loving wife, Lorraine Mosby, who has been there for me since 1978 and continues to be my soul mate.

To my three talented children, Keith Don Mosby Jr., LaKeisha Lorraine Mosby-Williams, and Kendrick Dezon Mosby.

To my three precious grandchildren, Lamonte, London, and Iden.

To my father, Bishop Willie Lee Mosby, and my Gethsemane Church Family. I have learned so much from all of you. Through all the storms of life, your smiles, love, and faith have inspired me more than you will ever know.

To my only brother, Byron Mosby, and sister, Cathy Mosby-Gillenwater, thanks for being patient with me throughout the many years.

1

Beginnings

There are so many discussions on when does life begin. So many people make their political choices based upon what the candidate believes about abortion. God is omnipotent, all-powerful, almighty, supreme. God is also omniscient, all knowing, all wise, all seeing, perceiving all things.

Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee; and before thou comest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations. (Jer. 1:15, KJV)

The Lord who formed us knows for what particular services and purposes he intended us, not merely by his omniscience, so he knows all men before conception and birth, but with such a knowledge as had special love and affection joined with it, in which sense the Lord knows them that are his and predestinates them unto eternal life, and which is not only before their formation in the womb but before the foundation of the world. This tells us that God knew us before our parents knew each other, before our grandparents knew each other, before our great-grandparents knew each other, etc.

The thief purpose is to steal, kill, and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life. (John 10:10, NLT)

Everything that God does or creates, Satan has always tried to destroy.

For you said to yourself, I will ascend to heaven and set my throne above God’s stars. I will preside on the mountain of the gods far away in the north. I will climb to the highest heavens and be like the most high. (Isa. 14:13–14, NLT)

Abortion is murder! I thank God that my mother didn’t abort me. I thank God she was a God-fearing woman.

I was raised in a small segregated town in Illinois, about five miles across the bridge of a major metropolitan city. We grew up poor but didn’t know we were poor. I was what is called a PK, a preacher’s kid. My environment was not conducive for following the predestined purpose God intended for my life. The sixties was a time that history tells us was not a good time for African Americans, but when I look at the parenting today, I appreciate the sixties and the early seventies. It was a time when you misbehaved in the neighborhood, it was the neighbor who would spank you, then call your parents, and then your parents would spank you again.

Whoever spares the rod, hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them. (Prov. 13:24, NIV).

For the lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes each one accepts as his child. (Heb. 12:6, NLT)

I’m not suggesting child abuse—those who do this, need to be punished—but I have no doubt that if my parents and my teachers would have spared the rod on me, I would have been more destructive than I was. I understand that every child is different, and there are other methods that may work best for that particular child, but to have the authorities to arrest a God-fearing parent for spanking their child (not abuse) is allowing government to tell us how we should raise our children. I received spankings from my teachers when I deserved it, and I came out sane. When one bad teacher or parent does something ugly, like abusing a child, they should be punished, but when the nation changes the law and punishes everyone for what a few people done incorrectly.

We allowed one person to solicit the courts and take prayer out of schools. Whenever you take God out of anything, you allow an open door for Satan to come in. Children today, at the tender age of five, understand that they cannot be spanked and know how to dial 911. When the nation took prayer out of public schools and punish those who continued to pray, it sent the message to our children that praying to God is not a good thing.

Never stop praying. (1 Thess. 5:17)

We now live in a society where young people do not fear God and have lost respect for parents and authorities.

You should know this Timothy, that in the last days there will be very difficult times. For people will love only themselves and their money. they will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful. (2 Tim. 3:1–2, NLT)

Now our young people have the propensity to do things that they feel are common or deserved. We, as God-fearing Christians, must understand that our Redeemer draweth nigh. The small town where I was raised had every element that you would find in a major American inner city. What separates any small town from a larger metropolitan city is that everybody knows each other either by association or related. Growing up as the youngest of three was an advantageous position for me. Being the youngest, with the next sibling being six years older and the next sibling being seven years older, was also detrimental for me. When I reached the tender age of twelve, my siblings had already left our home. Although my parents were strict Pentecostals, I chose to follow my influencing environment. By the time I was fifteen, I had experimented with alcohol, marijuana, and sex, unbeknownst to my parents.

As Christian parents, we must talk to our children about anything and everything and not assume that our prayers and faith will get the job done.

What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? if a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, Depart in peace, be warmed and filled, but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. (James 2:14–17, NKJV)

I found myself being more and more resentful to my parents because I thought that I was missing out on life by being this Christian family young man . There is a saying that says hindsight is twenty-twenty. That is so true because when I look back over my life, especially my teenage years, I wish I could do it over again. I’m sure that we all have some things that we wish we could change. If we could change our past, then we would not be the person we are today. It’s the life experiences that have enabled us to have the characteristics that we possess. Our proclivity sometimes drives us to do things that we should not do. When I look back over those years, I realize that God was with me all the time. God is the one who knows our beginning and end. The doctrine of predestination is sometimes referred to as election, in the sense that God chooses people for his own purposes. For example, Abraham was chosen, or elected, by God, as were his son and grandson, Isaac and Jacob. Other chosen ones included Moses, Joshua, David, the prophets, and, of course, the Israelites were the chosen people. The apostle Paul wrote about predestination, or elections, in several passages. In Romans 8:28–30 and Ephesians 1:3–6, he emphasized that election is in Christ, and that it is a matter of God’s own choice for God’s own purposes. In Romans 9–11, Paul takes the topic of election further by exploring Israel’s rejection of her Messiah. In the course of his argument in Romans 9–11, Paul asks the questions,

What if God desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the objects of wrath that are made for destruction; and what if he has done so in order to make known the riches of his glory for the objects of mercy. Which he has prepared beforehand for glory, including us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? (Rom. 9:22–24)

As you might expect, this passage has been much debated over the centuries. Taken out of its context, it might sound as though some people are predestined to be saved while the rest are predestined for destruction, but that is not what the passage says, nor is it the argument Paul is making. Paul argues in Romans 9 and 10 that Israel has failed to be found righteous before God because they sought after righteousness their own way instead of putting their trust in Christ (Rom. 9:31–32, 10:3).

This does not mean that God’s covenant promises have failed, however, because God is free to have mercy on whomever he chooses (Rom. 9:15) and is using Israel’s unfaithfulness to draw the Gentiles to himself through faith.

Next, Paul asks, Have they stumbled so as to fall? By no means! but through their stumbling salvation has come to the Gentiles (Rom. 11:11).

God works in his own ways and in his own time, but his work is aimed toward one final outcome, his desire for all people to be saved.

For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all. O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God how unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! (Rom. 11:32–33)

Even if God were to predestine some to destruction and some to salvation, it would be his right; pots don’t tell the potter how to make them, but the good news, the gospel truth, is that even though God has every right to destroy us all, he instead takes sins on himself in Christ and forgives us and saves us.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle taught that God is the unmoved mover. God is not only the original source of all things, he is static, unmoved and unmovable because, Aristotle reasoned, in order to be the original source of all things, God cannot be capable of being acted upon or moved by anything else further. God cannot change since any change on his part would render him not God because, after all, God is that which causes change, not that which changes. Further, God is not only omnipotent or all powerful (sovereign), he is also omniscient—that is, all-knowing. In other words, there is nothing that can ever happen that God has not always known would happen!

By the time I reached twenty-one years old, over 50 percent of my friends and relatives had either been killed or had a felony or imprisoned. There was nothing on my behalf that kept me out of jail or being killed because I was involved in everything my environment had to offer for as criminal activity. I can only imagine the stress I put on my parents. Although I was raised in church and in a loving Pentecostal home, there were too many distractions around me.

I thank God for the word of God that says to train up a child in the way they should go so when they are old, they won’t depart from it. Every child need to have a foundation that consists of love and Christian values. It will act like an anchor when the ship of life starts to toss on the rough waves. Growing up in the Midwest as a young child in the sixties, one would think that segregation was only for the South, but I found out at an early age that America had a group of its people who, in most cases, was not considered equal with others. I was told by teachers of only certain professions I could be due to the color of my skin. When I was leaving the sixth grade, we had to be bused to the other side of town, across the tracks where African Americans did not live. While en route to school, we would have to put our heads down on the bus because of the rocks and bricks hitting our bus from white students and white parents! We would then get to school and plan to retaliate at the school. The news media would always be at our school for the wrong reasons. The reason