On March 8th, 1991, George Jackson and Doug McHenry released the now iconic movie, New Jack City. One of the main characters in the movie was Nino Brown. Nino was a drug kingpin and terror of the community. He was an ominous and obnoxious individual who was determined to make as much money as he could at the peril of the entire community; a community in which he was raised. This was at the height of the crack epidemic. This movie resonated with many viewers because it epitomized what we were all feeling at the time. You were either a victim of the drug or victim of the drug user. In this movie there was a character by the name of Pookie, portrayed by Chris Rock. Pookie was a crack addict who would do anything to get a fix. In one scene, he is caught beating a female addict and only stops when he is confronted by an undercover police officer. In this exchange, Pookie says. “This crack, it has a hold on me, and it keeps calling my name. I keep going to it. I cannot kick this habit. I need help.” Pookie eventually received help with his addiction and became an informant to demolish the strangle hold Nino Brown had on him and the community in which he lived. He eventually died for the cause.

The storyline in the New Jack City movie is synonymous with the struggles each of us have with the Nino Browns in our lives, who in essence represent the enemy of our souls. They can be represented by the overage of bills we have, the addictive eating habits we constantly engage in, the anger we insist on exacting on others, and many more aggressions. Knowing that if we continue, it will be detrimental to our health. We have developed habits that are debilitating and deadly. It hinders our motivation, inspiration, and innovation. It is time we say, “enough is enough.”

In the book of Genesis, we find Noah embarking from the arc to be instructed by God to be fruitful, multiply and replenish the earth. For over 100 years Noah’s main purpose was to build an Arc to God’s specifications. That is all he did for that period. However, when the flood was over, he had to be fruitful. How to accomplish this was already something Noah had ingrained in him. He just needed to be willing to do something different. The scripture says in Gen 9:20 that “Noah began to change his habits and develop new ones. The scriptures say in Gen 9:20 that “Noah began to be farmer.” The word began implies that he had never done it before. He knew that to fulfill the purposes of God, he had to be fruitful. In other words, he had to become a planter and sower.

I challenge everyone reading this blog to “Do Something Different!” Let us eradicate the habits that bind and stifles our gifts and let us develop new ones that will empower and accelerate our upward goals of spiritual maturity.

Like Pookie, we must come to the end of our pain and acknowledge our weakness and sell out to exposes the enemy of our souls even if it means we must die to ourselves in order to become alive in Him.