TD Jakes - Patience and Time: The Family Building Blocks
What I love about the Word of God is that it does not just show us the grandiose ideologies of successful families that have no turbulence. From the very first family, He warns us that families will be complicated, conflicted, and dysfunctional. If the first family was dysfunctional, the apple couldn’t fall too far from the tree. As soon as God put the man in the garden and brought out of him the woman, and they started the first family, murder hit that first family. This is a clue that there is going to be turbulence for the rest of the book with families. According to the law of first mention, the first family that is mentioned is dysfunctional, and all the way throughout the rest of the book, we see turbulence.
We see rape, we see molestation, we see drunken fathers, we see ungrateful sons, we see the impediments of people who dressed themselves up like prostitutes and slept with their father-in-law to get pregnant to produce children. If the Bible were to be cinematic, it would at least be rated R, at least rated R, because God is honest and vivid about the fact that life is messy and complicated. That’s why you ought not to covet your neighbor, because as you stand on the outside, every family looks stable, solid, and sane. Part of your pain comes from comparison, because you wish that your family were more like them. But if you went inside their house, you would find out that they are not everything you thought they were. Maybe you’d better deal with the devil you know than the devil you don’t.
Family is tough; I would rather build a church any day than build a family. I would rather build a business than build a family. I would rather lay blocks than build a family because blocks don’t have an opinion, okay? Blocks don’t talk back; they stay where you put them. Come on, somebody! But raising a family—see, every block has a mouth, and every mouth has an opinion, and every opinion has to be expressed. It is your job to hold together all these different opinions, personalities, attitudes, dispositions, mood swings, midlife crises, menopause, and adolescence. You’ve got to hold it all together for a long time. There is no retiring from your family; there is no resigning from your family. You will always be attached to them. Don’t believe your divorce papers; just because you signed the release doesn’t mean you’re out of jail.
The first time trouble arises, the first time they have a car wreck, the first time they get sick, the first time they get in trouble, they’re going to call you, and it’s going to affect you. I know you said you don’t care and it doesn’t bother you, but you’re going to have flashbacks because you have a brain. Where are the real people at? Are you all sitting in this section over here? Flashback! Have you ever had a flashback? You broke up, but you still have a flashback, and you’re a little worried, but you can’t call. You tell yourself you don’t care, but you do, and you’re walking around in the middle of the night with that sick feeling in the bottom of your stomach because your heart won’t listen to your head and disconnect from the fact that you are still connected. Though you are free on paper, you are still bound by experience, and families are messy business.
We live in a time now when everybody wants everything quick—a quick love, immediate gratification. I’m going to talk about some stuff you don’t know about because you grew up on instant grits, but I remember when grits weren’t instant. So what you call good grits, I just call gritty, because real grits are slow-cooked. Come on, talk to me, somebody! Real grits are slow-cooked, and it takes a long time to get them right. But that stuff you’re throwing in the microwave that you call grits is not real grits. If you want something to have real flavor, you have to slow-cook it. You need to put it on a smoker; you have to give it time. You can’t cook collard greens in 15 minutes. It takes time to cook greens. You’ve got to put the meat in and let it boil down, let it thicken up, and let it get some flavor. Come on, somebody! You’ve got to cut your greens, wash your greens, have them in at the right time, and then cover them up and let them cook down until you can’t tell the greens from the broth.
See, we don’t have time for that. We want instant sons, instant fathers, and instant marriages. Listen, it takes 30 minutes to have a wedding, but it may take 30 years to have a marriage. Most of us, if we don’t get what we need when we need it, like we need it, in the style we needed it, in our love language, we’re out of there. All these love languages sound like the United Nations to me. How am I supposed to know what your love language is? I’m still trying to figure out what my love language is.
When your love language, my love language, and then the kids' love language all get in there, it sounds like Pentecost. Touch me—no, give me space! Acknowledge me—no, don’t make me stand up in front of people! Shut up! The family started before the church. God knew He had to slow-cook it because it was going to take a long time to get that right. He didn’t even bring up the church until the New Testament, but He started the family way back in the book of Genesis, because He said, «This is slow grits; we have to cook it real slow, real slow.» Because the brothers are going to get jealous. What do brothers do when they get jealous, Bishop? They’re going to murder, and they’re going to kill, and they’re going to be envious—some vocally, some silently. But it takes a long time to have a family.