TD Jakes - Crazy Like a Fox
The reason I step into this text is because David is in a quandary again over how to fight what he has to fight. This is the story of his life: when he gets ready to fight Goliath, Saul wants to put him in his armor, and David has to choose weapons. «How do I fight this»? I know how to fight financially, but I don’t know how to fight cancer. I know how to fight as a single mother, but I don’t know how to fight lupus. Sooner or later, you’re gonna find something that you don’t have a weapon for. «Give, give me something, God, give me something to kill it with. Give me something, put something in my hand».
And so the man comes to him, and Eli says to him, «There’s a sword in here that was Goliath’s sword, and Goliath’s sword is gonna be able to handle it». And David says, «Give it to me,» because sometimes, when a threat is approaching you, you’ll snatch… oh, y’all don’t know. I’m still not quite far south enough. I need to be down in Mississippi and Alabama where somebody would throw an iron or hot grits. It wasn’t a classy weapon, they didn’t have a glock, they didn’t have a AK-47. But our grandmothers would boil grits and put lye in it and open up and say, yeah, I’m too far up north. You’re south but you’re north of where I’m preaching. I’m down south where anything I got in my hands is a weapon. It could be the jawbone of an ass, but it’s a weapon.
And you can’t count on me not to throw anything at you because because I’ll snatch it, «Give it to me». I guess I should take a moment and explain the title of the text, «Crazy Like a Fox». It’s an old saying, young people won’t know what it means. How many people have heard it before? «Crazy like a fox». It’s the kind of thing when somebody says, «Johnny is acting crazy,» and somebody who knows Johnny real good said, «Crazy like a fox». It means there’s a method to the madness. You running around trying to get somebody to understand you, but the reality is, they can’t understand you because there’s a method to your madness. And you do look crazy, but you are not crazy and you know what you got to do in a particular situation to survive the circumstances. You’re crazy like a fox… touch somebody and say, «I’m crazy like a fox».
The intellectual capacity of the fox, who is part of the canine family, is at the height of canine intellectualism. It exceeds even the most well-trained animal amongst canines. Foxes are naturally smarter by nature than dogs are by training. They are instinctively endowed with an ability to protect their young, to protect their territory, and to protect themselves from predators, that when a predator that may be bigger or stronger, the fox knows his teeth can’t compete with the lion, but his brain can. The fox is smart, his brain is larger, physically larger, it is heavier in weight than that of a dog because he has the capacity to protect himself by his mind. You have been asking God to strengthen your wallet, but what you need to ask God to do is tripping your mind, because if your mind is strong… oh, y’all don’t hear what I’m saying.
If your mind is strong and you ever get in a corner, and you don’t have no other weapon, the weapon in you is always stronger than the weapon on you. I’m gonna say it for the people in the back: the weapon in you is always stronger than the weapon on… you can’t grab nothing any stronger than what God gave you between your two ears. If you steady yourself and think yourself clear and recognize that your mind is a weapon… you can’t run like the cheetah, you can’t roar like the lion, you can’t gallop like the giraffe, you have no weight like the elephant. Your weapon is your mind. It is with the mind that we serve the Lord as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. And yet we spend all of our time in the gym working on muscles that are gonna collapse, and no time reading?
The fox is so smart that it will act shy. It will run by itself, not in packs, compared to other canines that run in packs. I live kind of in the woods, and we got… what do you call them things, those dogs? Coyotes. I can hear them in the night, and it’ll be a pack of them. And they sound like a choir, doesn’t sound like Justin is directing them. I think they’d be howling in harmony, Justin. And they run in packs, they run in… but foxes don’t run in packs. They act a little coy, and they act a little shy, but don’t let the shyness fool you. Though their high intelligence causes them to be curious, nonetheless, they study, they study. The Bible says that we are a peculiar people, and our lives are complicated. David’s life wasn’t a nice, neat line of love, laughter, and laugh, it was mixed with love, laughter, and lamentations because it’s complicated.
Now, I don’t want you to tell your business, but just touch three people and tell them, «It’s complicated». And when your life is complicated, you have to be able to be flexible enough to use your mind against your mess. Come on, stay with me. You use your mind against your mess. If as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he, that means I gotta think myself clear. That means, I love that song where it says, «Lord, clear all the noise, I need to hear from you». I love that song. Y’all can just sing that line over and over and over again because Satan sends noise so that you can’t get clear to your thought. Because if you could get clear to your thought, you could get out of prison by midnight, the doors will open and God will release you.
If you can get clarity of thought, you can lay down with lions and not be eaten. If you can get clarity of thought, you can take two fish and five loaves of bread and feed 5,000 people. I know it doesn’t make sense, but if I could cut the noise so I can hear what the spirit is saying to the church. And David is crazy like a fox. Now watch this, because I want you to see this. The last time we see David picking weapons, he is wrestling between using what he had and using what Saul gave him. In the text, he is wrestling between using Goliath’s sword, «Give it to me», but he never used it. Because what was a weapon for your last fight may not give you the victory for this fight.
Which weapon do I use for what fight? Should I use Saul’s sword and shield, which I have not proven, or shall I go with what I already got? And here he is again with a choice between a sword and I thought. And when the pressure comes against him, he says, «The sword that won my last battle will not win this battle. I have to use a thought». You’re one thought away from your next breakthrough. The Holy Ghost told me to be sure that I tell you: you’re one thought away from the door swinging open. You’re one thought away from your next million dollars. You’re one thought away from raising your children. You’re one thought away of building an empire, just one thought. «Quiet, the noise in my head, Lord. I need to hear you». And for this fight, you need another kind of weapon, so he feigned himself to be mad.
Now, in order to do this, you can’t have ego. They had just called him a king three verses ago, and then they called him crazy. You got to live in between people who think you’re a king and people who think you’re crazy, and never lose sight of who you are, because both of them are a little bit right. I’m a king, though I don’t have a kingdom. I’m crazy because you put me in a crazy situation. And if you put me in a crazy situation, I’m gonna have to flip out on you. Not because I don’t know how to act, but in order to get through this battle, you got to go crazy. I don’t know who I’m preaching to. I don’t know who this word is for. I don’t know whether you just came in the balcony, but the Holy Ghost said in order to get a breakthrough now, you all have to be a little bit crazy.
Warn your neighbor and tell him, «I’m about to go crazy. I’m about to go crazy, I’m about to flip out. I’m about to turn into somebody you don’t recognize. Don’t let the hair fool you, don’t let the degrees fool you, don’t let the suit fool you. I do know how to flip out if I gotta flip out». Come on, talk to me, somebody. Come on, talk to me, somebody. You wouldn’t like me if I went crazy. You can’t handle this kind of crazy. And they came down to get him, and he feigned himself to be crazy, but he was crazy, like oh, sometimes you got to be crazy like a fox. I don’t know who this is for, but it feels prophetic: you cannot fight this battle that way.
So the king had to live with being called crazy because them calling him crazy was necessary for him to escape. He is already right outside the Philistines' camp and just a few miles from Jerusalem. And in order to move into a place of safety, he has to be a little crazy. You know who does great exploits? People who can go crazy. You know who gets written about in books of history? People who could go crazy. People never come to see normal, they never come to see ordinary, they come to see extraordinary. And in order to be extraordinary, you got to give up on trying to fit in with these Philistines you’ve been hanging out with and go out and stand out by yourself and say, «Whatever it takes to get to where I’m trying to go».
This is your season, if you don’t go crazy, they’re gonna take all your stuff. If you don’t go crazy, you’re gonna be left without nothing. If you don’t go crazy, and sometimes, you gotta act like you don’t know what you do know. You so busy trying to impress them with how much you know, but sometimes you gotta act like you don’t know. I was talking to a friend of mine. He said, «I came in as a student». He’s really the teacher, but he has feigned himself as a student because he recognizes how to handle the ego. And sometimes, when you’re dealing with somebody who’s egotistical, the best thing for you to do is go stupid. «What do you mean by that? Now, explain that to me again, I wanna be sure I got that right». It’s not that you’re not able to comprehend, it was a choice. You’re crazy like a fox, you’re crazy like a fox.
The Bible is full of crazy ideas… I’m almost done. It’s crazy to believe a man made an ark that could protect animals, birds, and humans from a global flood, that’s crazy. It’s crazy that God would use a maid to save Naamon, the captain of the host, that’s crazy. It’s crazy to think that a drought could be ended by a praying prophet who prayed up a storm, that’s crazy. It’s crazy that Job could lose everything and still finish with double for his trouble, that’s crazy. It’s crazy that Peter could step off a boat and start walking on water, that’s crazy. It’s crazy that an idolatrous would birth the great-grandfather of the greatest, famous king of Israel would come from an idolatrous great-grandmother. It’s crazy that a woman who was about to sell her sons could pay off all her debt with something she already had, that’s crazy.
Slap three people and say, «You got something, you got something». It’s crazy, it’s crazy, I know. It’s crazy, I know it’s crazy, but it’s gonna work. That thing you’ve been stepping over, God’s gonna use it. That thing you don’t pay no attention to, God’s gonna use it. That thing that everybody undervalue, devalue, didn’t wanna sell it at the full price, it’s a dollar over here, it’s $4 over there, it’s $750 over here, but it’s all water. You got to know your own value, you got to know what you got. It’s crazy that you could throw a dead man on the bones of Elijah, and he could wake up out of his death and come alive. It’s crazy that Jesus’s finest hour was being stripped naked, nailed to a cross till the sun refused to shine, but early Sunday morning he got up with all power in his hand.
Look at your neighbor and say, «Neighbor, if I told you my real testimony, it’s crazy how I got here. It’s crazy how I got in this position. It’s crazy how God made a way. It’s crazy how God opened up a door. It’s crazy how I bought this car. It’s crazy how I got this job. It’s crazy how I got this degree. It’s crazy how I got this woman. It’s crazy if you ever knew who I was».
And I’m trying to tell you, as I bring it to a close, that God is about to do something crazy in your life. With all hell breaking loose and trouble everywhere and you don’t know who to trust and you don’t know who to talk to, it’s only a sign that God is about to do something crazy in your life. And the Lord told me that if I would preach this word, it would bear witness with somebody in this room. Find your neighbor and ask them, «Is it you»? We got a new devil to fight because we’re at a new level and we got to change our game plan. And I’m tired of people feeding me 40-year-old messages to keep me back where I came from. It’s time to go up or get out of the way.
Oh, you don’t like me. I wish I could just lay on that right there because I got a lot to say about that. I’m telling you, be suspicious, somebody may be poisoning your food. Anybody who’s feeding you things that make you feel sorry for yourself, anybody who keeps dragging you back into your past, anybody who keeps holding you down and telling you you can’t get up because of somebody else, they’re putting poison in your food, poison in your food, poison in your mind, poison in your thinking. Nobody has to help you, nobody has to give you anything. Unity would straighten out the whole community.
Come on, it’s time to let’s go higher and decide who we are. If God be for us… If one person overcame crack cocaine, then every other addict ought to look at him and say, «If he got out of it, I can too». If one person got out of jail and didn’t go back, then every other person ought to say, «Listen, I’m not going back where I came from».
If one person opened up a business in an inner city, or any other part of the city, and they made it, what is wrong with you? God has blessed you with the same skills that he did anybody else. You may have to do some digging and dunging, but when we get through digging and dunging you, I expect you to go into the enemy’s camp and take back what he stole from you.
Notice that phrase, «take back what he stole from you». Not sit back and whine and, «Ah, would you please give it back. Oh, you didn’t treat me right». Take it back. Somebody holler, «Take it back»! I don’t have time to wait for somebody to give it back. If it’s mine, I’m going, well, I need somebody to help. That’s what I’m talking аbout: cross-pollinating, getting with people who are going in your direction, letting them teach you and train you and quip you and motivate you so you can go to that next level.