Stuck: Living in Denial Will Prohibit Your Mobility

By Dr. James Banks Jr.

During this time of a pandemic season and beyond, I hope to articulate a message in my book that you do not have to be stuck when you find out the root cause of your problem(s). Many situations arise because there are so many variations of sin used by the enemy to deceive people into thinking they have what they do not have. Today, not tomorrow, quit trying to please whoever it is that does not appreciate you on your job, church, school, college, team, family, relationship, or marriage. God has a door appointed for you to go through. Living in denial will delay/prohibit your mobility. Do not suppress your innermost feelings when you know you were once free, but now it feels like a trap within everyday life because of what somebody does or does not do. Life is meant to bring about trials and tribulations; however, if you can unravel the hidden truths, you are destined to be set free. Take charge and put action to your repetitive thoughts of what you constantly think about doing continually. At some point in life, you have to ask God for the revelation to say enough is enough. Otherwise, through time, you will accumulate multiple regrets which will cause you to be incarcerated from your choices. Today, please break free and move into your destiny. Do not bury yourself while you still live. Please act upon a solution, get away from denial, and make that long-awaited change that gets you away from being stuck. Hence, that level of immobility will penetrate your mind until you take action. After you conclude to take action, you will not have to look back anymore: ". . .Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord. The Lord will fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace" (Exodus 14:13a-14 KJV). Remember, sometimes, if not all the time, you must take feasible action for change. Failure to do so could result in being STUCK: Living In Denial Will Prohibit Your Mobility.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9781662473289

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Stuck

Living in Denial Will Prohibit Your Mobility

Dr. James Banks Jr.

Copyright © 2022 Dr. James Banks Jr.

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2022

ISBN 978-1-6624-7327-2 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-6624-7328-9 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Stuck

Chapter 1

Village Life

Chapter 2

Please Change Your Mindset

Chapter 3

Spinning Your Wheels

Chapter 4

Hunted like a Game

Chapter 5

Get Up, Get Out, and Keep It Real

Chapter 6

Be Holistic, Not Partial

Chapter 7

The Fiery Trial

Chapter 8

What Must I Endure before Parousia?

Chapter 9

The Hope of Society

Chapter 10

Living in Denial Will Prohibit Your Mobility

Chapter 11

Cognitive Incarceration

Chapter 12

The Residue of Brokenness from the Victim and Perpetrator

Chapter 13

Bound for Friction

Chapter 14

A Contentious and Conflictive Attitude

Chapter 15

Only for a Moment

Chapter 16

A New Trajectory

Chapter 17

Mortify and Edify

Chapter 18

Elmina Castle of Ghana

Chapter 19

You Can Do It

Chapter 20

Conclusion and Next Steps

About the Author

To my wife, Shirley Denise Jackson Banks, for her love and prayers for us to be life partners until death do us part. To our sons, James Nicolas Banks III and Jackson Nehemiah Banks, you two are a father's dream. Continue to blossom and make the world a better place by staying willingly and being obedient. Also, I dedicate profound gratitude to my mother, Mattie Lou Bertha Jackson Banks. Because of y'all, I am that I am. May you soar to higher heights in our time left on earth. Thanks for teaching me about the essence of love, where I am prohibited from being stuck. No matter how difficult life may become, all things work together for those who love the Lord. Thanks for who you are in my life. If you continue to carry bricks from your past, you will end up building the same house. Thanks to all of you for giving me bricks to build a new house of peace with unconditional love forever.

Stuck

This is not the life I intended for you, but because of your sin(s), I allowed things to happen to you. Think about what you did to get into your current condition. Go back into your youthfulness, and search within your lustful ways, and you may find the core element(s) to your problem.

Now, if Satan brought something to you, you have to alleviate and eliminate it according to my will for your life. If you know what you have to do to please me, do it. You are not ready to do it if you are consumed by what family members or people will say.

Remember, without faith, it is impossible to please me. If Satan brought something or someone to you, do you need to let that something or someone last a lifetime? From this, you should have a conclusion based upon your life, not somebody else's life. I pray blessings upon you in your future.

Your life is based on the choices you made. Some were good, but many were not so good. You still have your life, health, and strength. If your latter days are intended to be greater than your former days, why trust others instead of me? When I talk to you at night, you need to listen and be more obedient.

Obedience is better than sacrifice. So why are you compromising and sacrificing, failing to obey my voice? I have given you the vision. You have tarried long enough. The vision is plain. Your future actions will determine your next level of blessings.

Are you stuck? Now is the time to be released from what has you bound physically and/or spiritually.

Chapter 1

Village Life

Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what they have been through.

—Sam Cawthorn

In many ways, it takes a whole village to raise a child. Nothing in a village remains private. Only secrets behind closed doors should remain confidential. The names of everyone down to the birth order are known by the people who make up the village. During my childhood, two Hammocks gave pedagogical meaning to and for my people who are Sapelonians. Land retention or sale of the property was never an issue during my beginnings of knowing who did or sold what. We never were concerned about a moratorium to put a halt to selling what was inherited or completely owned. All I knew early on was that Johnson and Hog Hammock were two sacred areas that gave a sense of ownership that everything belonged to those minorities who were descendants of slaves.

In today's language, why does a person sell out on their heritage? Where did the lack of interest come from? Is the value of one different from the value of another person? Is money that great a necessity that we sell instead of leasing because the immediacy of financial gain becomes primary in a person's life despite who gets left out, or who may be hurt? Are we as minorities rational when we think of selling what we inherit? Why not, in place of selling to a stranger, flip the blessing by willing it to someone else who is responsible and/or next of kin?

Regardless of the times we live in currently, who gives ownership to the exchange to a foreigner to take charge of something that his bank account afforded him the right to purchase? Those that have become lacking in interest will say, I do not need it, and I do not want anything to do with that area. And for some, I am not going to ever live in that village, so let me get some money from it. This type of mindset has hurt the island. When an owner is not interested but sells out, you have just hurt the owner who wants to stay. Plus, future generations will have it hard to relish the culture of love for the island from our forebears through this time we are in presently.

Do you not know the sense of belonging that existed from people who never had much? Yet because land that was gained through property passed down helped to empower others to never be stuck on mediocrity but the unveiling of appreciation to care, nourish, and to be grateful of this old place that a freed slave would sing it this way:

Ole down on Sapelo,

Ole down on Sapelo,

Ole down on Sapelo by the sea.

Ole in the winter,

Ole in the summer;

Children, this is the luckiest place to be.

Oh, you can get Dr. James Banks Jr.,

The ole raggy car out on the beach—

You can make ninety miles an hour,

I bet you won't meet any police.

Ole down on Sapelo,

Ole down on Sapelo,

Ole down on Sapelo by the sea.

Deacon Ronister Johnson would sing this song in a happy tune to let us know that although you are on a barren island, you are not stuck in desolation but in ecstasy, in beauty, in a place where you can call home. It may appear lonely at times, but live to enjoy every moment. Deacon Johnson was the greatest comedian and spiritual uplifter during the essence of my teenage years that I have ever seen to make others laugh from the camaraderie experienced in our village. For me to think that inheritors would sell what he fought for by displaying a character to remain free makes me know that in this life, you do not have to spin your wheels when you know where you are going.

In other words, do not allow people to muzzle you when you know your village leaders died so that you may live. In the process of a village, we had hand pumps that were primed to bring about water. We had kerosene lamps to bring about light. We had smelly outhouses to get rid of dung or waste. We had a big tub with a scrubbing board to get our clothes clean. We hung the clothes on a line to get them dry. We had no HVAC system for cool or hot air. We made do with a wood heater and kept the windows open for a fresh breeze.

In the village of Sapelo, we relied on each other to avoid being stuck in a dry place. We had no phones as a means of quick communication. There was one pay phone in our community. When the word got around in the wee hours of the night or the next morning—if we had alarming or strange news—Deacon Sam Hillery would ring a loud bell, which was our equivalent of 911. The ringing of the bell reached the entire 434 acres to call for representatives to come to St. Luke Missionary Baptist Church to find out what was going on. This leads to a fascinating tool: ring the bell.

Ring the bell

In our village, ringing the bell was a very unique and transitional method of communication. Residents got to the church increasingly fast to gain access to the news that would populate our community virally. Sometimes it would be an indication that a loved one had passed away or was severely hurt, or a ferry was needed instantly to commute someone to the other side for medical assistance. During those times, ringing the bell made others become on edge because you did not know right away what was going on. Your patience had to be increasingly long due to no phones in the house.

For me, as a five-year-old child, that sound of the bell would bring about fear because the atmosphere might call for an abundance of weeping and gnashing of the teeth due to someone close departing this life. I am glad that I grew to know that the bell was not meant to evoke fear or harm but an overwhelming level of awareness to the citizens of our island. At the sound of the bell, you had to, at times, face the inevitable. This primarily gave residents a tool to communicate and extend love to show concern for whatever might have brought about good or bad news. Everyone knew that the bell was like an emergency notice to all residents to allow feasible communication to find out what was happening. During those times, no one became angry with each other, and now, as I reflect on the meaning of the bell, I conclude that way of communication was relevant and transparent. The language of transparency dictated an open method of recognizing the approach utilized to keep everyone abreast of what was happening at that hour. In a sense, we had Fox News and CNN all disclosed from the sound of a bell. Whatever was disclosed made a new meaning to the life of believers that at this time someone had transitioned from labor to reward or someone's health had plummeted so bad a need for help was mandatory because the person was near grave conditions. Many times, at whatever hour, the bell brought about prayer and a necessity to turn the situation over to our God in recognition that we need our Savior to step into what we could not see. Therefore, our village life entailed casting our anxieties and worries to Almighty God before we suspend judgment on a condition that no one had any control.

In essence, in this life, when a bell is rung, it tells us that someone is at the door. Also, there is someone to open the door. For me and my ancestors, when we rang the bell, we were saying to God, We are knocking at your door. Father God, please give us an answer to our problem or concern. We need you because we are asking you to give us a solution. We seek you because we want to find the best conclusion. We know that you may not come when we want you to, but you are always right on time in life-or-death situations. Thanks to God for giving us the sound of a bell, which kept us from being stuck or in denial toward reality. Our answers were always made known following the sound of our sacred bell housed at St. Luke Baptist Church. Today I thank God for it as I reflect on how God used that sound to enlighten our community of what has happened. There is nothing too hard for God.

If you can't be good, be careful

Psalm 37:1 says, Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity. At times in life, we know we may be headed in a direction that will call for us to do bad instead of good. It is like an omen in a sense because in my life, sometimes you can go out looking for trouble. Also, there are times when trouble knows how to find you. Sometimes you can always find someone who acts like a fool.

In a discerning spirit, my auntie Ernestine had a way of telling us at the end of our conversation before leaving her house, If you can't be good, be careful. I believe she knew that she was sending us out like a lamb among wolves. During this departure, she was saying that there are some fools out there who can and will present an evil operation toward you, so please be careful. That word careful always stuck with me. I learned to substitute a new word for careful later in my life by saying, be meticulous.

Psalm 23:4 says, Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadows of death I will fear no evil for thou art with me. This is what my auntie was saying to all of us. You are going to go into places, but fear no evil, for the Lord will be with you. Exercise the premise of being careful because you will not always be good when you have to walk through the valley. There will be times when you have to be on alert for the adversary. You yourself may want to do good, but the situation may call for some uncomfortable walks, yet I want you to be careful wherever you go.

When I thought about not always being good, it prompted me to know that I needed to exercise the mindset to meticulously endure some things to get to a life of joy, although sometimes I felt stuck in discord due to being impulsive instead of practicing safety. Notwithstanding the negativity in this life, I believe the premise that being careful to not bring harm to others is a good practice to keep all things good by being careful without making erroneous decisions. Being careful will cause one to think before he/she acts, which will eliminate impulsivity. Every day of life will require a desire to be at ease and, at times, on the edge. Nevertheless, it is a good practice to be careful as you strive to please Almighty God.

To whom much is given, much is required (Luke 12:48)

I shall allow nothing to separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:39). If I proceed in my journey to let someone steal my joy or take away from my relationship with Christ, I become a person in allegiance or being within bondage to the circumstances of life. In this mortal realm of the living, persecution and exoneration will increase the capacity to overcome what may be devastating toward your growth. When you as a person have been given a plethora of stuff, whether materialistically or socially, get ready for the enemy to be on the attack. Your mindset has to be one of increasingly graciously forgiving in order to counter the requirements of crushing that Satan will place upon you as he did to Job. Yet he can only do what God allows him to do.

In my village, one of the greatest honorary professors of the Gospel was Deacon Fred Johnson. He had a rigorous method of getting you to think about the Bible in a profound level of comprehension, where you left him knowing more than the way you came. His questions required a level of thought before proceeding with an answer. The requirement for a valid conclusion would make you understand what you were talking about without saying something that would be concluded as vague. Deacon Fred Johnson made me think about Christianity in a fashion that no one else could. He was born in 1913 to Emmitt and Emma Johnson. He was one of sixteen children, and I consider all of them to be good people.

For me, I gained knowledge from Deacon Fred's tutelage. He encouraged me to study. Later in life, I understood 2 Timothy 2:15 much better because of the exposure to a rigorous background from an approach that made you learn when you did not know it at that time: Study to show thyself approved unto God; a workman that needed not to be ashamed to rightly divide the word of truth. Yes, when we say, To whom much is given, much is required, we are not always indicating money. I received much information about life from Deacon Fred Johnson. Nowadays, I am thankful for the benefits of being obedient to him because my parents agreed with him teaching me more and more about God. See, it takes a village to bring out the best in more ways than one.

The early training, which gave birth to the word of God, was put so deep into my psyche I would not let anyone make me forget where I came from and how I had to be educated as a student, richly engaged in the word of God at an early age. In doing so, I now conclude that nothing shall separate me from the love of God. A backbone illustration would be in the concept of never letting anyone bring division to your home through gossip. Be real and be firm in your dealings with all families in season and out of season. The expectation of discerning others' flaws and shortcomings in a tactful way will illuminate understanding because you are a person who is held to a higher standard.

A higher standard is expected when you have been trained by the best in your eyes. For me, that training came from a number one source that God used to create me: Daddy and Momma—James and Mattie. These two people, my parents, set the tone to prompt me to like the theme of this section: To whom much is given, much is required. In my village of Hog Hammock, if you got stuck, it was your fault. You can take this physically or mentally. One winter night, my father and I got stuck in a place called Raccoon-Bluff, which is on the north end of the island. We had slick tires with no grip. We just spun around in circles, going nowhere. We were bogged down. Out of curiosity, have you ever got stuck in a vehicle or your life? In other words, you could not move forward, or even backward. You were not able to move anywhere. For my father and me, it was dark, and no one was going to be traveling at that hour of the night. By the way, we did not have a cell phone.

Immediately you have to use your resources. My father had a shovel, and we dug around the mud and got some tree limbs to put under the tires and behind the tires to see about freeing us up. In using a manual shift on our vehicle, we would rock it back and forth then put a punching, jerking motion that would make the truck leap forward aggressively. Blessing for us this night, we got enough traction to get out of being bogged down. In this life, if you are careful enough, you can get traction from someone in your circle or from something that God can use to relieve you from the pit stops, the valley, or a treacherous condition that may have plagued you for a long time. Do not get in denial about your inability to move. When a person is bogged down, you are immobile to movement. Yet there is a lesson to be learned from your requirement to advance because much has been given unto you. True talents come to the surface when your level of movement has been altered. For one, we have to be an improviser to the knowledge that we may have not tapped into. God is very strategic toward his servant. Always know that your delay in movement is only temporary. Go through the test and come out better going out than when you went in. Lessons are cultivated better when you go through something for yourself. Experience is the best teacher. When much has been given unto you, much is also expected, and much goodness is required. Handle your business throughout your life, especially when others' expectations are high about your growth as a person.

Bog the marsh

In the winter months, I had the privilege of going to Miller to gather some oysters. The marsh was very boggy at times, and you could easily get stuck in certain sections due to the moisture of the soil. The moisture would cause you to sink deeper in the mud, which could prohibit your mobility. Yet, using a certain technique, you could press your way through the bogginess by turning your feet in a certain direction. Also, staying closely pressed on the crabgrass would give you a harder surface to penetrate through the marsh. A lesson here would be to learn where you can move freely going down to the oyster bed because when you reverse your travel, you will have a croaker sack full of oysters that have more weight going back to your vehicle. You have to methodically plan your travel in getting back to where your starting point was. Sometimes, due to the temperature, you had to deal with the insects, weighted oysters, and the fatigue that would set in from bogging the marsh.

As a teenager, I liked this activity because it helped with building muscles and endurance, on top of cultivating patience. One thing for sure, you could not be slothful in trampling through the marsh because physically you had to exert a great deal of effort. A nugget from this activity brought about opportunities to give to your neighbor despite how hard it might have been to accumulate enough oysters for a multitude of people. I learned how to be resourceful because my parents would gather all of us to clean, open, and distribute to someone else out of love and respect for our neighbors. Bogging the marsh showed a level of consideration that your concern would bring a reward to keep you from traps unforeseen later in life. How we treat each other would be a cry of how we should show love through all the toils from being in the marsh, which will, directly and indirectly, display gratification into the community. In our village, we valued being genuinely concerned for our neighbor instead of engaging in covetousness.

Choices

No man is an island entirely to himself; we all should be a part of something. How do we decide what we are going to become later in life? If the playing field offers everyone opportunities for advancement, why do people get negative toward someone's success when they had the same or similar opportunities? Some things are predicated on choice corollaries. You become what you have worked for. If you want what I got, are you willing to do what I have done? If you are not willing to do or go through what I have experienced from life, please do not criticize me for where I am at currently.

The primary choice(s) that I have made started since I was anchored in my mother's womb. There is an abundance of crescendos, weaving, molding, and reshaping of my DNA to get me at the level I have attained today. Many choices of my being are predicated on decisions made despite difficulty because I have numerous scars from the battlefield of life without using a machine gun, bombs, AR-15s, or other types of destructive armor. My greatest