Higher Is Waiting

Higher Is Waiting by Tyler Perry            Audio Book:  4hrs., 30 mins         Hardback book:  224 pages                      

A wonderful sharing of Tyler Perry’s life, good times and bad times, nothing held back and how God got him through every circumstance and helped him to achieve the success he has today despite the nay-sayers that tried to talk him  out of his dream.    Nothing comes easy there are always lessons to be learned from the hard things we humans have to endure in this life, but, Tyler Perry tells us that Higher Is Waiting.   God is right there if only we acknowledge Him and give him precedence in all things.    Mr. Perry has endured a lot in his life, physical and verbal abuse from his father,  but good people, his mother, his Aunts, different people who were brought into his path as teachers, like, Mr. Butler, the blind man who sold penny candies on a street corner.    Friends and family have always been important in his life but many of these same people tried to talk him out of his dream of writing plays and performing them for huge audiences.   Even faced with so many people telling him he couldn’t make it, he held onto his faith he learned as a child from his beloved mother, Maxine.   Even in dire circumstances like when he was put out of his apartment because he couldn’t pay his rent and had to live in his car, he kept his faith and kept the lesson not the sorrow.    He prayed and kept his faith knowing that this was what God wanted him to do with his life.   He did without to bring his dream to fruition and even then the first show he ever put on – paying the actors, renting the auditorium – the whole nine yards – that first night only 30 people showed up in the 250 seat auditorium.   He kept his belief, kept on praying and word go out and spread and more and more people came numbers growing with each new performance.   It wasn’t an instant success but God was honing him and purifying him and allowing him to trust more and increase in faith and be thankful for that which he received.   Then God blessed him in a magnificent way – SOLD OUT performances!   Requests for him to come to more towns, name recognition got more and more fans to this day God keeps adding to his story and like Job his faith sustained him through the hard times and God blessed him with more than he ever hoped for so that now he can use what God has given him to help others.     There are such words of wisdom in this book.    Tyler Perry is a great author, thinker, performer and humanitarian.   He has helped so many people down on their luck, like the grandmother raising 7 grandchildren (their mothers’ lives caught up in drugs) whose house burned down and seeing in the news the grandmother just wanted God to provide a way she could keep all of her grandchildren together and get them back.   Tyler Perry bought her a house and provided for the family including education of all 7 children.   That is just one of the great things he has been able to do there are lots of great uplifting stories here.   One of his friends came over to visit and talked about how horrible one of her family members was and how they always did bad and wouldn’t try to do better.     He invited her out in his yard (it was a really hot day).    He showed her the green grass in his backyard and asked her if she didn’t think it was beautiful and green?    She agreed that yes, the grass was lovely but couldn’t they go over and sit on the bench under the trees now?    He said, “Didn’t you just agree that the grass here is lovely?”   She said, “Yes, but it is so hot let’s go over in the shade.”   He said, “but you just said the grass islovely and that you liked it"   She got a littled peeved with him and said, “the greass is lovely but I want some shade.   It will be cooler if we go sit in the shade.”   He said that the grass was like the person she was fussing about.    Grass is good, but, it is grass and it can’t offer shade.   That is not grass’s purpose it can only be grass.   It’s not a tree.    Just like the person she was mad at.   She knows the person well and knows what they can and can’t do, what they will and won’t do.   So grass can’t be a tree no more than the person she was angry with can be anything other than what he was so why should she expect him to be anything other than what he is?   Grass can’t be no tree- it is what it is.  Don’t expect the person to change into something he is not.   Loads of teaching moments.    The man is a mega evangelist.   He would have a wider audience than Joel Osteen if he ever decides to go that route.    Excellent book.