TD Jakes - Recognizing God's Answers (12/26/2022)
God's answers to our prayers often don't look like what we imagined or expected, because His thoughts and ways are far higher than ours. Drawing from Isaiah 55:6-9 and Exodus 16, the preacher urges us to forsake our own limited thoughts, surrender our expectations, and trust that God will reveal His perfect plan in His timing—"I will show you."
What Is Recognition?
Misplaced rage makes you a victim of something that you had nothing to do with. Tonight, I'm talking about recognizing God's answers because, to a large degree, God's answers don't often look like our prayers. Recognition could be defined as the brain's ability to identify stimuli or like situations, places, people, objects, et cetera, that you have seen before. Recognition, in the word recognition, is cognitive—your brain's ability to relate what you see to something you have seen.
Re-cognition is a cognitive ability that makes it possible to recover stored information and compare it to the information being presented in front of you. Like you look at somebody and you say, "Oh, that's Freddy, I didn't recognize you. How you doing?" Re-cognitive, recall-cognitive, because I saw you before but I didn't recognize you at first. I have a terrible problem with names, and when I have to remember somebody's name, it is easier when I tie it to something that I remember. So if somebody says, "Hi, my name is David," I think, "Psalmist David." If I can remember the Psalmist David, I'll say, "Hi David, how you doing?" because I need to tie what's in front of me to something that's behind me: recognition.
Why We Miss God's Answers
When we come to recognizing God's answers, often the only image we have in mind is what was in our head. So when God answers and He delivers something different than what we saw in our head, sometimes we don't know how to handle it because the answer doesn't look like the prayer. Let's go to Isaiah 55:6-9. "Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake their ways, and the unrighteous their thoughts." I understand "the wicked forsake their ways," but when he gets to the unrighteous, he says forsake your thoughts. That means the unrighteous have to be careful because your thoughts may betray you.
"I thought I would be here by now, I thought I would be married by 30, I thought I would be out of debt by 50, I thought..." and the Bible says forsake your thoughts. Forsake what you thought marriage is, forsake what you thought church was supposed to be, forsake what you thought you deserve in a companion, forsake what you thought you should be paid on a job, because God did not promise to pay you according to your thoughts, but according to His. How are you going to "let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus," while you hold on to your own? There has to be a moment in your life when you go blank and say, "Not my will, but thine, be done. You know what's best."
"Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will freely pardon them"—for thoughts? Yes, He will pardon, forgive you for thinking like a fool. My mother would say, "You're thinking like a fool." She didn't call us fools, but she said, "That don't make no sense, you're thinking like a fool," because she understood parenting is about teaching how to think. You can't teach a child how to think when your answer is, "Because I said so." I have a tendency, when frustrated with someone, to say, "What were you thinking?" Because the root of your ways is in your thoughts. Anytime you see somebody acting a certain way, the action is the fruit of their thinking.
God's Thoughts vs. Our Thoughts
God says, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways." There is a ribbon tied between thoughts and ways—His thoughts justified by His ways, your thoughts justified by your ways. God declares, "I'm not thinking what you're thinking, and my ways of getting you there are not your ways. I swore I was going to bless you but I didn't tell you how; I swore I would bring you out but I didn't tell you through whom." "I thought it was gonna come through the Bishop, I thought it was gonna come through the music, I thought..."
Your thoughts—get them out of the way. If you can surrender your thoughts to God, rather than building a shrine around your opinion and worshiping at the altar of what is fragile, and open yourself up—that's what "I surrender" really means. "I surrender all" means I surrender what I had in mind, what I had planned, how I thought it would turn out, my definition of success at this stage in my life. Somebody says, "Oh, you're such a successful pastor," and I think, "Are you talking about quantity or quality?" Who says the most successful pastor is the one with the most members? Perhaps God goes by quality and not quantity.
We like it big; we do it big in Texas. I want to see big. God wants to see quality. "I'm a big man," but are you a good man? You can be strong in your body and weak in your will, physically strong and emotionally weak. Some little old girl who weighs 90 pounds soaking wet can be tougher than nails. When you talk about strength, are you talking about outer or inner? Outer strength is deceptive—you can be strong outwardly and fragile inwardly, or fragile outwardly and tough inwardly. Toughness can't always be quantified by what you thought.
"As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." God is teaching them to forsake what they had in mind so they can recognize His answers. Seldom in my life have His answers looked like my prayers. His answer came in such a way that it confused them.
God Says, "I Will Show You"
God's answers cannot be merely cognitive. God says over and over, "I will show you," because where He's taking you, you have no predetermined picture. You have no point of reference for what He's about to do. God is going to do a new thing in your life. The former things have passed away. Because God is going to do something in you that you never saw in your mother, father, grandparents, or neighbors.
It cannot be cognitive and still be divine. God is going to do something like you have never seen before, so He says, "I will show you." I can show you better than I can tell you. I will show you that I will provide, heal, bring you out, supply all your needs. I will show you there's a method to what looks like madness. I will show you why your family rejected you, why your father forsook you, why your mother didn't raise you.
Stop murmuring and complaining just because you're hungry for something you didn't get. I already considered what they weren't going to be in your life. Not your mother, not your father, not your sister, not your brother—I will show you. Keep walking with me, and I will show you, because you will not recognize what I'm getting ready to do. You have never passed this way before. If you can put up with the trauma of uncertainty, eventually I will show you I have a plan you haven't seen. It's not on your blueprint, not on your schedule. I am going to do something new in you.
Look at somebody and tell them, "God's going to show you." You don't understand it right now—that's okay. God is going to show you. It doesn't look like God is with you, but He is going to show you. You feel forsaken, but He is going to show you. You're at a stage of uncertainty; you have never been this age or season before. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. "I will show you." When it's time to know, you'll know; when it's time to see, you'll see. Until then, walk by faith, not by sight.
I got this building—I didn't know how we were going to pay for it, something around $86 million. Nothing in my background prepared me. My mother said, "Baby, I can't think that high." But God said, "I will show you." They told me not to build this kind of church in this neighborhood, to move to North Dallas where the money was. But God said, "Stay right here, I will show you." That was good advice that made sense, but this is supernatural, the foolishness of God that boggles the mind.
Some of you, God told you to move here, and you didn't know what to do. He said, "Just move, I will show you." Now you're learning faith, trust, prayer, power. Your mind says, "What are you doing here?" but don't let it talk you back. This is not cognitive; this is supernatural. God said, "I will show you." When the time is right, God will reveal everything, but until then He tests if you will walk in obedience without understanding.
The Example of Manna
In Exodus 16:1-5, 31-32, God said, "I'm going to send you bread," but the people called it manna—"What is it?" They were looking for Egyptian bread. God called it bread; they called it manna. The difference is what your cognitive thoughts told you it should look like. Sometimes God's answer looks so different that you reject it because you don't recognize it.
This is the heart of the Gospel: "He came unto his own, and his own received him not" because they did not recognize Him. If the princes of this world had known, they would not have crucified the Lord. "Who do men say that I am?" Only Peter recognized: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus said, "Flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee, but my Father." Upon this rock—supernatural revelation—I will build my church.
Every so often, God raises up men and women who can see what others cannot see. If you can see what they cannot see, you can get what they cannot get. You better recognize.