TD Jakes - Stumbling Into the Place
Ruth knew in a very generic, open sense, that she wanted to go somewhere but she didn't know how to get there. She is a foreigner, she's from Moab, she's not used to the area. But she says to Naomi that she wants to go, and Naomi says to her, "Go". Look at this young girl who goes out there and starts gleaning. She doesn't know where she is, she doesn't know what she's doing, she's in the vicinity of the place but she is not in the place. It's something about getting close to the place. You're not even there yet, but you innately sense in the depth of your spirit that something is about to happen. You're in the vicinity of the place. You know with broad strokes that you're getting nearer to it. I can't even tell you how you know. You just know that you know. You can't even explain that you know. You just sense it in your spirit. You realize it your mind, "I'm getting close".
That's why the devil has a terrible time discouraging you. He has a terrible time discouraging you because you have this innate sensitivity that you're getting close, and you don't even know how you know you're close. You just know that you're close. And every time you're ready to give up, you say, "No, I can't give up because I'm getting close to the place". Some of you have gone through mishaps and setbacks that have broken your heart, and people didn't understand why it broke your heart. It broke your heart because you knew you were close, and you said, "I can't go for a setback right now, because I am so close to a breakthrough, that to set me back now would break my,I don't mind being set back if I wasn't so close, but when I get in the vicinity of the place that I've waited all my life to get, don't mess me with me now. If you gon' act the fool, act the fool while I'm still in Moab. But once I'm about to get in the field of my destiny, and eat the field of my dreams, and harvest of hope of my life". Touch your neighbor and say, "You're in the right field".
You might not be in the right spot but you're in the right field. You're on the right property, you're in the right location, you're in close proximity. Something is about to happen in your life, your adrenaline is mounting, your blood is racing, your heart is pounding, your fingers are tingling, your hair is standing on your head, you're excited about stuff you don't understand, you can't have sleep at night because excitement is running through your body, your veins and arteries feel like a highway, cars are flying up and down the highway, you feel like something is about to happen, thoughts are swirling around in your head, because for once in your life after years of being oppressed, repressed and depressed, you know that you're getting close to the place. And so she says, "When it finally, I was in the field of my dreams and I was just gleaning whenever I could in the field, just catching what I could, enough to sustain me. I wasn't really prospering but I was surviving. And I had to survive even if I didn't prosper because I was in the field of my dreams, and I encouraged myself 'cause I knew that something was about to happen".
Look at somebody and say, "Something is about to happen". I don't know the details but something is about to happen. And she says, think of this with me. She says, "While I was just going through the motions," she said, "I happed upon the particular field that belonged to". But she wants you to understand, and this is from a human perspective. Last week, I preached from a divine perspective. From God's point of view, nothing just happens. But God is looking from heaven and we're looking from earth. So Ruth tells us from a human perspective, "When it finally happened to me, I just sort of stumbled upon it. I didn't even". What her statement says to me when she says, "I happed up on the field," what is says to me is, "that don't think I got there because I was so sure of myself. I wasn't so directed. I didn't have details. I had broad strokes. I didn't have detail. When it, I just sort stumbled into the place. Didn't even know that this was the place. I stumbled into it". Now, now, now, look at, look at, look at, look at, look at this, "I was just surviving, and in the process of chasing whatever wheat I could find, I came into this area and I didn't even know that this was the place".
Let me explain the place. Everything in Ruth's life was spiraling downward, until she'd come to the place. She is a young woman who had lost her husband, left her home, impoverished, frustrated and confused, weeping and forlorn, doing whatever she could in a country where she was not particularly welcome. She was a second-class citizen in a first-rate nation. She's frustrated because she knows that she is not legitimately authenticated nor accepted within the confines of the social system to which she aspires. She is in a critical dilemma because she is there but she is not really a part of them. And so, she's a survival mode, making the best of a bad situation. Her faith in on trial, because the question is not can God bless, because God was blessing mightily in Bethlehem, but the question was, can God bless a woman who's been through hell? Can God bless a second-class citizen? Can God bless somebody when the odds are stacked against them? Can God take jobless person who's doing day work and take them from the background to the forefront? Can God take somebody who's cleaning the office and they end up owning the office? Can God shift your life?
My God, somebody help me preach 'cause I feel something in this place. I don't even care about the sermon, I care about the message. There's something that I need to tell somebody in this place today. I've got get a Word to you, don't let the devil push you back, don't let him push you sideway. You' have been through too much to be intimidated. You about to stumble into something now, that's about to rock your world. And so she says, "This is the place". This is the place where her destiny shifts. She stops going down and she starts to go back, because now she's in the place, and she stumbled into it. Is there anybody in this room, whoever just stumbled into something that completely revolutionized your life? Just stumbled. You still can't figure out how you got that job. You know that there were other people competing for the job that were more qualified to get the job. You can't for the life of you, understand how you ended up in this position, and every now and then, you got to pinch yourself because how you got that doesn't even make sense to you. Is there anybody in here who got something you wasn't even looking for? You wasn't even expecting the position. God just put you in the place. You wasn't even looking for no car. You just happened to be over there. You wasn't even trying to get a house. God just put it in your path. And all of a sudden, you end up in a situation.
"And My Lord, I don't even know how. If you'd of told me five years ago that I'd of been doing what I'm doing right now, I'd of told you, 'No way in the world,' but I stumbled. I stumbled". That's why the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, because every now and then God will let you stumble upon something. Touch your neighbor and say, "Don't get jealous. I just stumbled. Don't hate me, I just stumbled. Don't roll your eyes at me, I just stumbled. Don't try to hinder me, I know you don't understand how I got here, and you don't think I deserve it and I don't think I deserve it. I can't even explain how it happened. I just stumbled". Oh, God, "See, if you're gon' follow my leadership, you got to understand my mantle. Everything that God ever blessed me with, I just stumbled into it. I happened to be at the right place at the right time, happened to meet the right person at the right time, didn't even know who the person was," but God has a way of just tripping you into stuff. She said, "I happen". O, my God. I feel the roof about to come off of this place. Somebody's about to stumble in this place. That's why the devil's been trying to kill ya and destroy ya because he knew.
Yesterday, I was rushing over to speak to the partners, and I was going through one of the corridors that normally it's not a lot of traffic going during the day, and the lights were off, there were no windows. It was quite dark, and one of my attendants that were with me, said, "I'm going to run ahead and turn the lights on". Well, it was dark and I was in a hurry. So while he was going to run down and turn the lights on, I know this building you know. I've been all over this building. I was on this building when it wasn't a building. So I said, "I know this building pretty good, and I know just about". The corridor has about 24 feet, and then it has about 5 steps, and you go about 24 feet and then it has 5 more steps. And I know that there are steps up there but it's dark, and I don't know exactly where they are, and I'm not willing to wait on him to turn on the light, and so I was trying to feel my way. I'm too stubborn to wait. I got too much to do to wait on somebody else to turn my light on, so even if got to do like this...
See, some of you have been sitting by, waiting on somebody to turn your light on for 20 years, but I refuse to wait on somebody to turn the light on my path. I got to go if I got to broken, if I got to go feeling my way, if I got to go pressing my way. I didn't know exactly where the steps were but I knew I was getting close. Have you ever just about known, you know it's out there. You don't know exactly where it is, you don't want to hurt yourself but you got to keep moving. Touch somebody and say, "I got to keep moving. I don't know the details but I got to keep moving. I don't know how I'm going to pay for it, and if I press my way". And so, I didn't want him to see me 'cause you know how I am. I like to have myself together, but it was in the dark. He couldn't see me no way, and there was no dignified way to grope. So while the lights was out, and they couldn't see what I look like... I'd of done real dignified if I could, I'd of done it like that, but see, it was in emergency mode. And when it's in emergency mode, you don't have time to worry about dignity. You got to go ahead and get in whatever position you got to get in, to get the breakthrough you got to get. You just got to do what you got to do.
I come to tell somebody, you just got to do whatever you got to do. Put that pretty stuff in the closet and go ahead and get to the next place, because something is about... Now, the thing, the thing that's important about is the place, is that there is a time and a season for every purpose under heaven. There is correlation then, between the time, the season and the place. It's not just getting to the place, but it's getting to the place at the right time. See, the miracle of the story is this, she happed up on the right place, and she got to the place at the same time that Boaz, the owner, happened to have left the city of Bethlehem and he happened to be coming out to visit the field, and he happened to be looking in her direction of the field when she happened to stumble up in the place. Had she happened up on that place any other time, she would have lost her miracle. But because she was in the right place at the right time, time and purpose slapped their hands together. I don't know if you can catch what I'm trying to preach.
Boaz looked out across the field and he said to his staff, he said, "Who is that woman? Who is that damsel over in the corner"? She was over in the corner of the field. He says to Ruth, "Come on out of that corner". My word to you is come on out of that corner. Partners, I'm beckoning for you 'cause it's time for you to come out of that corner. This is your hour. This is the moment of your destiny. Do you hear me? For the people who are the least likely, we're going to do the almighty, not because everybody was on our side, but because God was on our side. And if God is for you, he's more than the world against you. Snatch somebody and say, "Come out of that corner". You know, when God brings you out the corner, he'll bring from the background to the forefront. People don't even know who you are or where you came from, but all your life God's been preparing you, he's been getting you ready. He's been demonstrating his Word in your life. Everything you ever went through in your life is getting you ready for one shining moment. When it is your moment, don't let nobody steal your moment. Don't let nobody have your moment. Let 'em have your car, let 'em have your keys, give 'em your hat, give 'em your coat, but don't give anybody your moment. This is your moment.
And so, Boaz says, "Bring her out of that corner". And he spoke to his staff and he said, "There's going to be a woman coming out of the corner, and she's going to be behind you in the shadows, gleaning. All of her life, she's been gleaning whatever she could but I'm getting ready to make things easier for her". Said, "She coming". Touch somebody and say, "I'm coming. I may not be there, but I'm coming. I haven't arrived but", And he said, "If you see a comer coming, if you see a comer coming, then leave handfuls on purpose. Don't leave it for anybody, but if you see a comer coming". touch somebody and say, "I'm coming". He said, "I want to leave". So what they did, let me show you what they did, in case you don't have no video screen in your head. The gleaners didn't take everything off out of the field. They started just dropping handfuls of wheat on purpose so that when Ruth started coming behind them, she started getting these unnatural blessings. Things that didn't even make sense had been left laying on the ground for her. Whoever I'm talking to, all of sudden you're starting to get stuff that doesn't even make sense, and you say, "I don't even know where this blessing is coming from. I don't even see how. How could this be left laying here"? You wasn't even supposed to get it, but God is leaving you a breadcrumb trail. He's just dropping stuff, and all you got to do is keep coming.
Touch somebody and say, "Just keep coming". I tell you what I'm going to do; I want you to see this. I believe that the reapers in the Old Testament symbolized the angels in the New Testaments, for in the New Testament, the Bible when it says, "The master spoke to the angels," and said, "mind them in bundles that they might be gathered," he's talking about reaping the harvest of the earth. I believe, this is me, I believe. I believe that the angels, who are the staff of God, have been commanded to leave handfuls on purpose for commerce, so that when you're on your way, you hit this place. After struggling to catch whatever you could, you hit this place where it starts just be in drop to you. That's why when we worship, we throw our hands up, 'cause we believe that when praises go up, blessings just come down. And I believe that God has a way from heaven of just dropping you stuff if you're open to receive it. Hear me good, he'll hand you a business. If you don't sweat the small stuff, and you don't take life too seriously, and you don't worry about things, you stumble upon stuff, and God begins to bless you.