TD Jakes - Overcoming Liabilities
I reckon it’s a term that almost sounds country to me. I grew up in West Virginia, where when people would be talking and you wanted to respond, you said, «Well, I reckon.» I reckon it made you sound country; it made you sound like a hillbilly; it made you sound out of sorts. I know that this King James Bible that I’m holding couldn’t have been written in West Virginia or in Mississippi, where my grandparents come from, where they say, «I reckon it’s over yonder; I reckon it’s across the street; I reckon it’s around the store.»
I reckon, where did this term come from that the Apostle Paul, who is intelligent beyond human comprehension, would use such a word? Certainly, he’s not using it as my cousins and friends did while playing in a schoolyard. For «I reckon,» what does he mean by «reckon»? Reckon speaks to reasoning; it speaks to rationale; it speaks to trying to understand. As Marvin Gaye would say, «Tell me what’s going on, what’s going on?» I have to admit, 2020 has left me scratching what hair I don’t have, trying to figure out what is going on. I struggled with the word «reckon,» so I had to look it up, and it says «logos.»
Oh my! In Greek, where we get «logos,» it means, in the sense of an account or reckoning. Then I began to understand that reckoning is not a country term; reckoning is an accounting term, where we reconcile the books. And isn’t that what we all want to do with our suffering and with our pain and with our life? We want to find some kind of way to make sense of it, to make purpose out of it. If I had to lose my daughter, why? I have to make this pain make sense. There’s not one among us, with a grain of intelligence at all, who hasn’t spent a moment trying to audit our own lives and figure out: Why did I have to go through that? Why was I abused at a vulnerable age? Why did my father and mother leave me? Why did I move from house to house? Why did I grow up in foster homes? I wonder why. I reckon. I reckon.
«I reckon» means I’m wrestling to reconcile what in the world is going on in my life. «I reckon» means I’m trying to figure out why I’m dealing with what I’m dealing with, like I’m dealing with it, when I’m dealing with it. This is not the time for me to be going through pain, and yet I do not always get to pick the moments that I hurt, that I suffer, that I cry, that I lose. I don’t get to pick the weapons that are used against me, or the rocks that are thrown at me, or the ships that fall apart, or the dogs that attack me. I don’t get to pick my own story. I reckon. I reckon there have been moments in my own life where I had to sit down, get all by myself, get quiet, make everything shut up for a minute, and just try to reckon.
It is in this moment of deep reflection that we are allowed by the Holy Spirit to hear one of the greatest operators and thinkers of our time grapple with the ideology of how to make sense of life. This is the Apostle Paul trying to figure out, «What’s it all about, Alfred? What’s going on? Tell me what’s going on.» I reckon this is the Apostle Paul who tells us that when he went to Asia, he was so overwhelmed that he went into a state of depression and wanted to die. This is not some whimsical upstart motivational speaker trying to give us a good feeling. This is somebody who is acquainted with grief, sorrow, injustice, misunderstanding, pain, and trouble of such consequence that when they didn’t kill him, he thought about killing himself.
I reckon, how did he find the strength to get up when the stones knocked him down? How did he find the strength to overcome depression when he felt like caving in and giving up his own life? How did he find the strength to resist the shame of being laughed at by his fellow scholars because he dared to believe in Jesus? He was an intellect, and their laughter was more painful than the stones at Lystra. How did he find the courage to go on when everybody was talking about him? It must be hidden not in his manuscript, not in his preaching, but in the audit that goes on in his head when he says, «For I reckon.»
How you reckon a thing determines how you deal with it, how you overcome it, how you withstand it, how you persevere. Whatever you reckon determines your direction. Whatever you reckon determines whether you lay there and play dead or get up and fight again. Whatever you reckon determines whether you forgive or whether you spend the rest of your life hating somebody who moved on with their life. What are you reckoning with, power? How are you reconciling the books so that you can have the peace to move forward? A young man who had been with me almost since the inception of my ministry periodically came along through the years as he followed me. He would ask me in a private moment, «Was it worth it?»
The question he asked me, depending on the time he asked it, elicited a different type of response. Most of the time, I responded, «Oh yes, it was worth it!» But for years, I said, «I don’t know yet; I’m not sure. I’m still reckoning.» If you happened to ask me at the time I was in great pain, great suffering, great denial, «Was it worth it?» I didn’t know how to answer him because I hadn’t finished auditing the books. I was still trying to get everything in the right column and make sense of it, and I was still trying to compute the cost: how much it cost to be me. I wasn’t sure if it was worth it. I knew he was trying to ask me so he could determine his own life’s course, and I was supposed to say, «Oh yes, it was worth it,» but I dropped my head and said, «I’m still thinking about it.»
The liability of the stage: was it worth it? The viciousness of people: was it worth it? The expectations of those who admire you, who put you on pedestals that they could never live up to and then knock you down for fun: I wasn’t sure it was worth it. The inability to be safe among your own clergy: I wasn’t sure it was worth it. You’re never enough; if you go down, you’re not low enough; if you go up, you’re up too high. I don’t know; was it worth it? I know what I’m gonna say: «Don’t judge me! Don’t you judge me!» Was it worth it? I don’t know. I didn’t know; I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure, like you go into the accountant’s office and say, «Am I good to go?» and they’re still in the middle of the audit. I had to tell the young man, «I am still in the middle of the audit. I’m 40, and I’m still in the middle of the audit; I’m 45, and I’m still in the middle of the audit; I’m 50 years old, and I’m still in the middle of the audit.»
And some of you out there are going through some things in your life, in your marriage, in your finances, in your company, with your children, and I know you would never tell anybody what you’re reckoning, but deep down inside, you’re wondering, «Was it worth it?» You roll over at 3 o’clock in the morning; all the rice is gone; the wedding cake is all gone; all the memories and all the cards and all the gifts have now gotten old, and while looking at them as they sleep, you ask, «Was it worth it?»
Everybody audits everything. A woman makes love to the man she loves, a passion, an embrace, a kiss, an unforgettable experience. It was fantastic; it was special; it was loving; it was kind; it was memorable. I’m trying to be spiritual; it was fantastic! And then she’s pregnant. Her body begins to stretch, and her skin begins to tear, leaving stretch marks as evidence that will stay with her the rest of her life. Then her water breaks, she goes into labor, and the pain becomes so intense that she sweats, and her cheeks fill with air. As she gets into the birthing position, she is not thinking about the night of passion in the bed; she’s not in the birthing position.
If you ask her at that moment what happened over here, she might say, «I don’t know.» I remember being in the labor room with my wife. I was right beside her, having a good time and excited because I was going to see the first birth I had ever witnessed. I listened to the machine that told when contractions were coming and said, «Oh baby, here comes another one!» She turned around and looked at me as if I were Adolf Hitler and said, «I already know.» I decided to be quiet because I realized that though I was beside her, I was not her.
That’s why even people close to you can’t understand the metrics of your pain; sometimes they’re so enthralled with what they see that they don’t understand how you feel. They’re having a good time while you’re laying there, with your legs strapped down in the birthing position, saying, «I don’t know if you’re that cute! I don’t know if you’re that sexy that I would do this to my body for almost a year for what you did in a few minutes in my bed! Was it worth it?» But when she has finally pushed our child out, they clean her up and lay the baby in her arms. I saw the smile on her face, and then we knew. She held the baby, looked at me with tears in her eyes, and started praising God and speaking in tongues. It was worth it! It has to be something set before you that justifies it, balances the books. It can’t just be all pain and no gain; it can’t be all sacrifice and no success.
There have to be liabilities and assets. Any accountant will tell you that you can’t be in business and not have liabilities. If you come to the accountant with your books and all you have is your assets, they’ll know you’re a liar because you cannot have assets without liabilities. Show me your liabilities and show me your assets, and when I get through counting up the columns and reckoning the columns one against the other, I will come up with the profit. I will determine what is left, and we serve a God who demands that we always have something left. Some of you haven’t gotten to the «something left» because you’re in the liability stage, and when you’re in the liability stage, everything’s going out, and nothing’s coming in. It looks like God, it’s not fair. But if you stay where you are and endure hardness as a good soldier, after a while, the same soldiers, the same police officers who hit you in the head will escort your body back.
If you hold out long enough, you will rise again, undaunted, and the same people who watched you be crucified will watch you be resurrected, and the same people who watched you go down will watch you come back up again. It is that that the Apostle Paul talks about. Oh God, I feel the Holy Ghost! It is that that he’s talking аbout: «For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time…» He said, «You caught me at a bad moment!»
This present time is crazy. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time—I reckon that the masks on our faces and our inability to meet, and our inability to touch the people in our own family—I reckon the pain we endured, the jobs that we lost, and the funerals that we had to stand back from: I couldn’t hug my own members. I reckon the suffering of the people who stood outside the hospital in the parking lot watching their parents die via FaceTime. This present time is a tough time. It’s ripping marriages apart; it’s ripping ministries apart; it’s ripping businesses apart. The sufferings of this present time are the liability stage, but you cannot have liabilities and not eventually accrue assets. And that’s what this text is all аbout: crawling through the liabilities till you get to the assets.