Steven Furtick - Fight Your Feelings With Praise
This is an excerpt from: Delayed Praise
Do I need to put a seven-second delay from when it comes to my mind and when it comes out of my mouth so I can start bleeping some stuff and sensor myself so that I don't stay stuck in what I feel, but my soul can speak and say, "No, no. No, no. No, we don't lie down like that. We don't fight back like that. We don't get nasty like that. Are you crazy"?
My friend who works in radio said, "In radio they call that the dump button". I said, "What is the dump button"? He said, "If you say something you're not supposed to say live on the air, you go, 'Oops!' and you hit a button. It takes out the last few seconds of what you said to protect the station from the liability". I said to him, "They have that in radio? Do they have that in real life too? Can I have a live dump button in my life"? You know, you get a little sharp with somebody. You don't mean to get sharp. You say a little something. It was reserved, and you're like, "Oh no. I think that went out of thought bubble-ville and went into mouth bubble-ville, and I didn't even know it happened. Where's my dump button"?
I want to challenge everybody who is struggling this week… If you're not struggling, you can do it next week, because you'll be struggling then. You ain't perfect. I want to challenge everybody who struggles with magnifying the wrong thing in your life, everybody who is struggling with how you're speaking about this season. "Oh, it's just a hard season. It's just a horrible season". I know. I get it. That season is called life on this planet. Now, tell who you need to tell. I'll bring up Holly as a positive example. I used her for an illustration earlier. I'm going to use her for a good one now. She did this last night. She goes, "I just… I'm not going to say it". And she didn't. Y'all don't know her to know what a miracle that was that she hit that dump button.
I knew I was preaching about the dump button. She didn't. She was giving me a real-life illustration. She was about to criticize somebody, but she wasn't going to call it criticism. No. We were praying for them. But something in her knew… That Holy Ghost said… That Holly Holy Ghost said, "Are you really praying for them right now"? Can I get a dump button for the dumb stuff the Devil tells me? Can I put it even before my mouth? Can I put it where it's like, "Oh, I'm not going to think about that longer"? Can I put a seven-second rule on that, like, "Okay. We're going to worry about that for seven seconds. Seven, six, five, four… I wrote it down. I didn't even need the last three. You can have your three seconds back, Devil. I wrote it down. I put it there. I'll deal with it later. Now I'm going to do this".
Wow! David found his dump button. He knew to bring that stuff to God and to do the next best thing. He knew there needs to be a delay between what you feel and what you do. If you're thinking about going to see a therapist soon for your problems, one thing they're going to teach you that I'll just give you for free, and then you can go on to see them and break it all the way down… They're going to tell you you need to put a bigger gap between the thoughts and the feelings and the actions so you can process it and go like, "Is this how I want to respond"? Or a dump button, as David and I like to call it. I think it's important that we get this, because when he says, "His praise will continually be in my mouth," that doesn't mean that's everything that was going through his mind. It was a decision.
I'm going to give this personally because, somebody, it's going to be just for you. The thing he was so afraid of, God was already lining up to take care of it. The thing you are afraid of God might already be taking care of. How much time do you all have? Okay. I'll make you a promise. I will do at least one bonus teaching this week from the Basin on this subject, and I will put it on my YouTube. At least one. I may need to do two. This is so good. Where did David go to escape from Saul? To the land of the Philistines. Who was the first person he defeated that elevated him to a place of prominence in front of the nation? Goliath from Gath who was an uncircumcised Philistine. You're like, "Uncircumcised? Is that really necessary to include that part"? It's in the Bible.
I'm not bleeping this. It's in the Bible. When David eventually became king… You have to get this. He was the first one who delivered the nation from the Philistines, and the Bible says he subdued those enemies. How did he do it? What did David know that Saul didn't that enabled him to defeat the Philistines, and when did he learn it? I suggest that in those 16 months he went to be a mercenary, he was learning what time they ate breakfast and what time they went to bed. David saw those 16 months as a time where he was trapped. God saw it as training.
Can I tell you a time God did that to me? When we started this church, there were three different people (two of them were ministries, one of them was an individual) who said they were going to pay my health insurance and my salary so we could start the church, because the church didn't have that many people. They said, "We don't want you to be burning yourself out, traveling and doing all this. We're going to pay it". One by one, they all backed out for different reasons. And no hard feelings toward them, but what I felt having a little baby… Elijah, my oldest, is the same age as the church. We had that baby, and we were moving.
I remember when Chunks said, "Well, we just need to step up and teach people to trust God with the tithe and build the church and trust God in this area". I thought, "Wow! Is that really what this is for"? And it was. If I had had those people do it for me, I probably would have trusted them. Who am I preaching to? This is not about me. I'm looking for you. If they did what I wanted them to do, I wouldn't have seen what God can do. Are you in a season right now (I'm asking) where God is teaching you to trust, but it doesn't feel like training; it feels like painting a fence. It doesn't feel like training; it feels like waxing a car. (I might as well finish off all of my references today. This is my last shot to do it.) It doesn't feel like training, but it is. But you don't know that until you look back on it.
You don't know that while it's happening. You don't know that while they're saying, "I think we need to see other people. It's not you; it's me. It's not me; it's you," or whatever the thing is. However they say it, it still hurts. You don't know at the time that. There is a that you don't know about right now that God does. While the Enemy is telling you, "You are never going to make it through this…" I don't even know what your this is. I wish I did, because I would speak straight to it. I would call it out by name and Social Security number. If I knew exactly what y'all were fighting about, if I knew exactly what you were taking too many pills about, if I knew exactly what you were asking God for and feeling the silence of a prayer that bounces back down, and you keep seeking, but it keeps eluding you, and it keeps slipping away, I would call it by name.
I don't know what your this is, but God does. There's something else you know that I want to remind you of today that you tend to forget in moments like this where you have tasted the sting of your tears about the situation God won't change; where you have tasted the air of hunger for the relationships that have left your life. A lot of times, while the Enemy is saying, "You're not going to get through this. What are you going to do about this? How are you going to handle this?" you forgot about that. You were singing about that. You said, "That's why I trust him. That's why".
I want an all-caps that in the chat right now from everybody. Put a that in the chat right now, and when you put it in the chat, I want it to stand for this:
T - Things
H - He
A - Already
T - Taught me.
Things he already taught…THAT. Things he taught you in the valley that you went through before the mountain that was on the other side. I'm talking about seasons when you were broke, but he fed you like a father feeds manna to his children. That. Yeah, that. The thing you pushed through, and you didn't even know you were that strong. You felt a little cocky for three days afterward. You were like, "Oh, whoa! Hey, man. That was hard, but I did it". That. You forget that every time you go through this, but today's this is just a that in the making.
So I came to preach today. This message is about delayed praise. "What are you saying, Preacher"? I'm saying thank him today for what will only make sense later. Give him praise right now for what you can't point to, for what you can't prove, for what you can't verbalize, for what you can't understand. Put a praise on that…on that situation, on that misunderstanding, on that step, on that question, on that intricacy, on that struggle, on that stronghold. I'm not done yet. God said we need to get you back to that. You're going through this. It's fine, but that's not why you trust him. That's not why you praise him. That's not why you love him. You don't love him because it's always a feeling. You love him because he first loved you. You haven't been who you want to be lately. You've been struggling with performance issues. There has been heavy guilt, heavy shame, heavy fear on you.
Well, it's a good thing you're not praising him according to your performance. You're praising him according to his goodness, and he is good all the time, and all the time he is good. O taste and see that the Lord is good. I'm not praising him for this pain in my body. I'm not praising him for this issue with my kids. I'm not praising him for this situation that won't resolve. I'm praising him for that. You want to go all the way back? Let me take you to Calvary where the precious Lamb of God suffered, bled, and died for me. See the crown of thorns on his head. Sorrow and love flow mingled down! Did ever such love and sorrow meet, Or thorns compose so rich a crown? I'm not praising him for a feeling; I'm praising him by faith. This is a faith praise! I'll praise him like that.
I've got it like that. I know it like that. I met him like that. He snatched me like that. He filled me like that. He raised me like that. He forgave me like that. That's why I praise him! I don't need a 30-second delay. I don't need to get out of this cave and see how it turns out. God already knows. I'm praising him for that! I got happy, because I look around today, and I see a big fat that. See, for months I preached in this auditorium, empty from a pandemic, and I promised God when the room got full again, I would keep preaching, and I would thank him. This is that! Praise him if you know him like that. The Lord is my shepherd, my light, and my salvation. O magnify the Lord with me! Ugly praise. You've got an ugly cry. Why not an ugly praise? Give him a praise that sounds kind of crazy.
"I did the ugly cry. Now watch this ugly praise. Hey! Thank you, Jesus! You did that. You delivered me from all my fears! You did that"! So, when that Enemy comes in like a flood and tries to remind you of the this you don't think you can get through, take him back to that. "I don't know much, but I know he's in control. I don't know what I thought I knew, but he's the author of my story. I don't know what I thought I knew, and God is not doing what I thought he would when I thought he would. I'm in the delay right now, but I went down there to that Elevation Church, and they taught me what to do until God lifts you. I fill that space with praise".