legacy

Strong People Burn Out When They Fight Outside Their Assignment

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Being Strong Isn’t the Same as Being Called to Everything

There’s a kind of tired that sleep doesn’t fix.

Not physical tired.
Not even emotional tired.

It’s the exhaustion that comes from constantly engaging.
Constantly responding.
Constantly explaining.
Constantly standing in fights that don’t actually move your life forward.

Lately, I’ve been sitting with a quiet realization.
I’m not tired because I lack strength.
I’m tired because I’ve been spending strength where it was never assigned.

And that hits different.

Because strong people are expected to handle everything.
We become the voice of reason.
The truth-teller.
The fixer.
The educator.
The one who can “take it.”

So we jump into arguments.
We correct misinformation.
We absorb people’s projections.
We carry conversations that were never meant to be ours.

And slowly, our spirit starts to dim.

What makes it heavier is this question I keep turning over in my heart:

If I stop engaging, will people think I’m weak
Or scared
Or avoiding truth
Or backing down

But here’s the truth I’m learning.

Silence is not surrender.
Boundaries are not fear.
And disengaging from chaos is not the same as abandoning purpose.

When I look at Scripture, I don’t see God applauding constant engagement.
I see Him honoring focus.

Nehemiah understood this long before we had comment sections and social media timelines.
He had one assignment. Build the wall.

And while he was doing exactly what God called him to do, the noise showed up.
Mockery. Distraction. False urgency. Invitations to argue. Invitations to explain. Invitations to come down and address people who had no intention of helping him build anything.

Nehemiah didn’t insult them.
He didn’t defend himself.
He didn’t debate motives.

He simply said he couldn’t come down because he was doing a great work.

That one sentence carries so much wisdom for today.

Because the moment you step into what God has called you to do, the distractions come dressed as responsibility.
As righteousness.
As “speaking up.”
As “educating.”
As “standing your ground.”

But not every fight is a calling.

The Ethiopian texts echo this same truth quietly but powerfully.
Baruch, who walked closely with Jeremiah, wasn’t assigned to fix the people’s rebellion or convince everyone to change. His responsibility was to preserve the word. To protect what God placed in his hands.

When Baruch carried that responsibility alone, he grew weary.
Not because the assignment was wrong, but because the weight around it was heavy.

And that feels familiar.

We are living in a time where outrage is rewarded.
Reaction is expected.
And disengagement is misunderstood.

People want your energy on demand.
They want you to explain history, politics, race, faith, and morality in a comment box.
They want access to your emotional labor without offering respect, curiosity, or growth in return.

And strong people keep showing up.

Until they burn out.

I’ve started to recognize when I’m outside my assignment.

It shows up as constant irritation.
A heaviness before I even open an app.
The feeling that I’m responding more than creating.
That I’m explaining more than building.
That I’m defending instead of resting.

That’s not weakness.
That’s misalignment.

Purpose energizes.
Distraction drains.

Here’s the part that’s uncomfortable but freeing at the same time.

Some people are not meant to understand you in this season.
Some conversations are not meant to be resolved.
Some arguments are not meant to be won.
And some battles exist solely to pull you away from what you’re actually called to do.

Strong people burn out when they fight outside their assignment.

Not because they aren’t strong enough.
But because strength was never meant to be used everywhere.

I’m learning that my peace is not optional.
My focus is not negotiable.
And my assignment deserves protection.

I don’t owe everyone my voice.
I don’t need to attend every argument I’m invited to.
And I don’t have to prove truth to people who are committed to misunderstanding it.

This isn’t avoidance.
It’s wisdom.

This isn’t silence.
It’s discernment.

This isn’t stepping back from truth.
It’s stepping deeper into purpose.

When I stay in my lane, my strength returns.
When I stop fighting unnecessary battles, my clarity sharpens.
And when I honor my assignment, exhaustion no longer has the final word.

Strong people don’t burn out because they’re weak.
They burn out because they’ve been carrying what was never theirs.

And I’m choosing, intentionally, to stay where I’m assigned.

Raise The Bar

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Let me start with something we forget far too easily.

Just because somebody in authority sets the bar low and their own fear keeps them from raising it does not mean we have to stay chained to their limit. Their ceiling is not your ceiling. Their fear is not your boundary.

We have to stop waiting for people with small vision to define how high we are allowed to climb. If they set the bar low that is their business. Raise yours. And then jump over it.

While I was thinking about that I stumbled across the story of Stephen Bishop. A man I never learned about in school. His story hit me like truth wrapped in fire. Because what he did is the exact picture of what it looks like to refuse someone else’s ceiling.

The Boy The World Tried To Limit

Stephen Bishop was seventeen. Enslaved. Assigned forced labor inside Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave. His life was not built on opportunity. It was built on commands.

Lead the tourists.
Stay on the familiar paths.
Do not explore.
Do not ask questions.
Do not dream.
Do not become anything more than the box you were placed in.

That was the limit placed on him.

But Stephen Bishop was not built for limits. He was not built for repetition. He was not built for the tiny world he was forced into.

Something in him felt pulled to the darkness of that cave. To the mystery. To the places no one dared to go. And not because it was a job. But because something inside him refused to settle for the boundaries someone else drew around him.

The Part That Shook Me

Stephen did not explore during the day with permission. He explored on his own time. What little time an enslaved teenager even had.

After a full day of labor. After walking tourists through the parts they considered safe. After the master went to sleep.

While everyone else rested, Stephen walked into a pitch black cave at night carrying only an oil lamp and a courage the world still talks about.

Then he reached what everyone else feared. The Bottomless Pit. The end of all known maps. The line where grown men turned back.

But Stephen did not turn back.

He stripped a cedar sapling. Laid it across the chasm. And crossed it.

A teenager balancing above a drop that could have taken his life instantly. And because he crossed it he discovered an entire world scientists did not even know existed.

He doubled the known size of Mammoth Cave.
He named chambers after literature he taught himself to read.
He mapped the system from memory. Maps that modern explorers still rely on.

He was legally property.
But spiritually. Mentally. Intellectually.
Uncontainable.

Would A Stephen Bishop Today Stop At The Line

And it made me ask myself.

If a person with a Stephen Bishop spirit lived today and someone tried to limit them or draw lines around them or hand them ceilings…

Would they stop?

Or would they walk past it the same way he crossed that cedar pole in 1838. With purpose. With boldness. With a quiet “watch me” in their spirit.

Because that kind of spirit does not disappear. It shows up in every generation. And it never bows to fear.

Be The Bar Raiser

Stephen Bishop did not wait for permission. He did not bow to ceilings. He did not follow limits set by people who feared what he might discover.

He stepped into darkness and came back carrying light.

So yes. Honor Stephen Bishop. Say his name. Tell his story. But also take the message with you.

You are not required to live under anyone else’s bar.
Raise your own.
Jump it.
Set the standard for yourself.

Be the bar raiser.
Be the one who refuses to shrink.
Be the one who crosses boundaries fear tried to draw.
Be the one who discovers what others never dared to see.

Because God puts a Stephen Bishop spirit in people He calls to do more.

And maybe today that someone is you.

The Biblical Connection

Stephen Bishop’s courage is the same spirit I see in Scripture.

Western Bible: Joshua chapters fourteen and fifteen. Caleb did not stop when fear spoke. He asked for the mountain everyone else avoided. He did not bow to small thinking. He raised the bar.

Ethiopian Canon: The Book of Jubilees. Chapters ten through fifteen. God calls His people higher. He reminds them of who they are. He pushes them beyond fear and into destiny.

God did not create you for small living. He did not design you for ceilings placed by someone else. He calls you higher. He calls you forward. He calls you to territory that fear tries to block.

Stephen Bishop crossed a line that everyone else refused to cross. Caleb climbed a mountain everyone else feared. Jubilees reminds us that God keeps calling His people into more.

Their limits are not your truth.
Their fear is not your future.
Their ceiling is not your story.

Raise the bar.
And climb.

When We Keep Lowering the Bar: Why “White People Get Food Stamps Too” Is Not the Flex People Think It Is

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Let me tell you what set this whole thing off.
I was scrolling through one of those so called Black Excellence or Black First pages I troll every now and then, and somebody tried to clap back at a post about food stamp statistics by saying something that made me stop mid scroll.

“Well more white people get food stamps than blacks.”

And the person said it like they just dropped a mic. Like that was the moment I was supposed to sit back and say, “You know what, you are right. Let me hush.”

No ma’am. No sir.
That is not the victory some people think it is.

I do not know when surviving became something to defend. I do not know when being trapped in a cycle became something to brag about. I do not know when we started matching our struggle to someone else’s struggle so we do not have to face what is keeping us stuck.

I am not fighting for us to be equal at the bottom.
I want us to rise from the bottom entirely.

Let us talk about the real numbers

Here are the current Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participation numbers based on the latest reports:

• Around 35 to 37 percent of SNAP participants are white
• Around 25 to 27 percent are Black
• Around 15 to 16 percent are Hispanic
• Around 3 to 4 percent are Asian
• Around 1 to 2 percent are Native American
• The remainder falls into the unreported or unknown category

Yes white people make up the largest group on food stamps. They should. They are the largest share of the population.

But here is the part people love skipping.
Black households are nearly twice as likely to need assistance.
That is not a bragging point. That is a warning sign.

It is like saying, “Well other folks are drowning too.”
Okay. But why are we still in the water when we should be building boats.

What frustrates me is not the struggle. Everybody goes through struggle. What frustrates me is when we protect the struggle and defend the struggle and call it normal because we are used to it.

Some of us want to lower the bar so far that anything counts as winning.
I want the bar raised so high we have to stretch to reach it.

And here is the truth.
If you know deep down that something is not good for your community, the answer is not to justify it by pointing fingers at who else is suffering. The answer is to break the cycle.
The answer is to climb.

Do not tell me “white people do it too.” That is not the point.
It never was.

The deeper issue: Why do we defend the basement

What is happening is simple.
When people are tired of fighting, they start settling.
And when they start settling, they start defending what hurts them.

“White people are on it too” is not empowerment.
It is a coping mechanism.

It is a way to avoid asking the hard question.
Why have we accepted being under the bar for so long that we now measure progress by who else is struggling with us.

That is not liberation.
That is bondage dressed up as equality.

Western Scripture: Hosea 4:6

“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”

You cannot heal what you refuse to see.
You cannot rise from what you refuse to confront.
You cannot break a cycle that you are busy defending.

Knowledge breaks chains.
Truth breaks cycles.
Accountability opens doors.

Ethiopian Scripture: Jubilees 1:25

“And I will send my angels before you, and they shall keep you in all my ways, and bring you into the land of truth and righteousness.”

Truth and righteousness.
Not excuses.
Not cycles.
Not generational patterns we have decided to normalize.

God brings us into truth. The question is whether we will live in it or run from it.

A reflection for 2025

We are at a moment where some Black folks are choosing comfort over clarity.
Memes over math.
Feelings over facts.

I am not interested in defending the basement.
I am interested in building the exit.

And I will keep saying it loud.
Poverty is not our culture.
Struggle is not our identity.
Government dependency is not our destiny.

We are not meant to survive forever.
We are meant to rise.

If you are tired of living under the bar, stop lowering it and start climbing over it.

I said what I said.
And I will keep saying it until we stop normalizing what we are meant to overcome.

When Freedom Feels Hard: Why Comfort Can Be a Cage 

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Freedom vs. Comfort 

The Israelites were finally out of Egypt, free from Pharaoh’s system, but discomfort showed up, and suddenly freedom didn’t feel like freedom. 

We don’t always talk about this part of the Exodus story. We celebrate the miracle of the Red Sea, the confrontation with Pharaoh, the plagues, all the dramatic parts. But we skip over the moment after freedom came, when the same people who prayed for deliverance started complaining about what freedom required. 

“If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in Egypt. There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” (Exodus 16:3)

They were willing to trade freedom for comfort. They were willing to return to slavery because slavery was familiar. That is not just ancient history. That is a human tendency. Sometimes we choose bondage because bondage comes with certainty. It is predictable. It does not require growth or trust. It does not ask us to walk by faith. 

Mental Chains Today 

The Western Bible shows us the external rebellion. The Ethiopian Bible, one of the oldest surviving biblical records, shows us the same, but goes deeper. The focus is not just that Israel complained. It is that God was exposing that their minds were still enslaved, even though their bodies had been released. They did not just need a new location. They needed a new mindset. That is deliverance on a different level. 

Some Black people in America today are doing the same thing. They march and protest and shout about freedom but still cling to the very political party that benefits from keeping Black people mentally enslaved. Some of us hold on to the Democratic Party the same way the Israelites held on to Egypt, even though the whole system feeds dependency instead of empowerment. Handouts instead of ownership. Narratives of victimhood instead of victory. Chains of the mind disguised as charity. 

It is not a physical plantation now. It is a mental one. 

The Digital Plantation 

There are overseers today, but the whips look different. 

  • The overseer with the whip now is the Democratic Party that demands loyalty in exchange for crumbs of progress. 
  • The overseer with the whip now is the self-proclaimed Black leaders and influencers who are still mentally enslaved and try to drag the rest of us back onto the mental plantation when we start thinking for ourselves. 
  • The overseer with the whip now is the mainstream media and social media that constantly tells us we are oppressed, powerless, and dependent on government systems to survive. 

And let’s be real. Some of these “pro-Black” Facebook pages and TikTok accounts that stir up racial anger and political outrage are not even run by Black people. They are run by white liberals pretending to care, pumping out emotional bait to keep us angry and easy to manipulate. That is not empowerment; that is strategic slavery, updated for a digital world. 

Until we see it for what it is, we will keep defending Egypt and calling it freedom. We will keep voting for chains and calling them rights. We will keep blaming God for deliverance that does not feel like comfort. 

The Wilderness Choice 

You can be free and still love the comfort of captivity. You can pray for breakthroughs and still beg to go back to the moment life requires responsibility. You can vote against your own liberation because you have been trained to believe you are powerless without permission. 

But God is still saying the same thing He told Moses and Israel: 

“You were not born to die in Egypt.” 

So here is the real question: 

Are you willing to leave the system that keeps you fed but not free? 

Are you willing to walk into the wilderness even when you do not know every detail, but you trust God to lead? 

Because freedom will always feel hard when you have been conditioned to love the cage. 

Call to Action 

Ask God to expose every place in your life where you have accepted the chains just because they look like comfort. Freedom does not come from a political party or a social system. Freedom starts in the mind and finishes in the spirit. When Freedom Feels Hard: Why Comfort Can Be a Cage