TD Jakes - Surviving the Storm
The one thing that we all have in common—black or white, rich or poor, Democrat or Republican, short or tall, vegan or a foodie—I don’t care what philosophy you choose to align with; the one thing I can guarantee is that all of us will face storms, male or female, single or married. It’s a storm, divorced or not; it’s a storm. There is nobody you’re going to meet, greet, fall in love with, or fall out of love with who will avoid the fact that storms are built into God’s plan for getting you to the other side. You have to know that He equipped you with a fire extinguisher, a life raft, an emergency exit, a door that moves, an automated system, and a microphone so that even when you can’t see Him, you can hear Him.
If you follow His voice, you will get to the other side. The problem is storms are noisy, loud, and disruptive; there are so many people screaming and hollering. Some people are saying to hold back, others are saying to push through, some are saying to turn the wheel, and others are saying to grab the rudder. Someone else is saying to throw the weights off; someone else is saying to cast anchor; and still another person is saying to set the sail. And then you’re confused about where to set the sail or where to throw the anchor. The real lesson I have learned so far in the storm is that it is not about fixing the storm. The first thing we do when we find ourselves in a storm is try to fix it.
The storm is not yours to fix; the storm is yours to survive. You cannot fix the storm. That’s number one: you cannot fix the storm. This realization can drive you crazy. I’m going to make a generalization—it’s not always true, but I’ll make it anyway—it’s particularly difficult for men, because we are raised to fix things. We grow up fixing things. Many women grow up with relationships, playing house with dolls and stuffed animals, while we grew up fixing things. Most of us who didn’t have baby dolls probably should have; maybe we would have been better fathers if we had practiced with babies instead of just making them. So, maybe we would have been better. But they gave us tools, and they gave us things to build, and they gave us stuff to fix.
So, whenever you give us a problem, we want to fix it because we feel like we are failures if we don’t. There are some women who feel that way too. You feel like you’ve failed if you can’t fix things—if your daughter doesn’t turn out the way you wanted her to, if your son doesn’t turn out the way you wanted him to, or if your marriage doesn’t turn out the way you wanted it to. You lose self-esteem because you feel like it’s your fault you can’t fix it, and you’re embarrassed to admit to others that you’re on your third marriage and can’t fix it. You’re embarrassed to admit to others that you’ve been here a year and gone through three jobs and can’t fix it. I’m here to tell you that every storm that comes your way is not your job to fix.
I’m going to let that sink in a little bit, because many of you pride yourselves on being able to fix people, and that’s why you pick fixer-uppers. You think you’re so good at fixing things that you are drawn to people who are fixer-uppers so you feel needed while fixing them up. You are not on this boat to fix this storm. When they set sail, everything was cool. Jesus was taking a nap because this was an important trip. To cross over the Sea of Galilee and go to the other side was to go to Gadarenes. It wasn’t just that the man was possessed by demons; he was a Gentile. Getting the gospel to the Gentiles was a very important trip. It was a prophetic journey.
Jesus experiencing the Jews on one side and the Gentiles on the other was a prophetic picture of what was going to happen to the early church. The early church was going to start being offered to the Jews and consequently end up going to the Gentiles. It was going to start in Jerusalem and end up based in Rome. The church was going to take the same journey as the boat. The church is the boat; the sea is the world. Here we are trying to navigate the church through the tempest of the world. The boat has one culture, and the sea has another culture, and we are in it, but we’re not of it. We must survive being in the middle of it. Even though we are not of it, we are still in it, and we get tossed and beaten to and fro because we cannot get the boat to work without putting it in the water.
The church doesn’t work without the world. Every time the church has tried to escape the world, we have made fools of ourselves. If you know church history, there have been many times we’ve gone up on the mountain to wait for Jesus. We colonized, moved out, and become cultists while waiting for Jesus. Anytime the boat tries to escape the sea, it ends up embarrassed because a boat only works in the sea, and the church only works in the world. The world is unpredictable; one text can change the next ten years of your life. One phone call can change how the rest of your day goes. One text, and you’re trying to book a flight to get out of here on the next flight possible to get to some place you never expected to get to as quickly as you can because all of a sudden the storm hits you.
Storms don’t always warn you they’re coming. It’s not like they send out a notice saying you’re about to get on a boat and all hell is going to break loose about fifty fathoms out into the water. You’re going to run into the worst time of your life. You’re going to think you’re going to die. Once you get so high in the air, the pilot is going to pass out, and you’re going to be scared out of your wits, almost losing your mind. You’re going to have a baby, and the baby’s going to die in your arms, and you’re going to be sadder than you’ve ever been in your life. You’re going to lose all three of your first pregnancies. Your husband is going to leave you for your girlfriend, and then your sister, your auntie, or your cousin will run off with your mama. No, you don’t get to pick.
Oh, you think that’s funny? Yeah, you think that’s funny, but it’s happening all around you. Nobody gets to tell you that your beautiful bride is going to fall in love with a beautiful bride and leave you home alone, but it’s happening. You can be at the sports bar telling your boys you lost your girl to a girl, but it’s happening. You don’t get to pick the storm you face. Peter didn’t ask for this storm; he didn’t choose it. He didn’t have a meeting with God saying, «Oh God, I want to deal with leukemia. I pick leukemia.»
What do you want? Do you want to go blind, or would you prefer leukemia? How about losing a couple of toes? Would you rather lose your family or lose your toes? Would you rather lose your leg or lose your sight? Would you rather lose your mind or just lose your memory? You don’t get to pick what life will hand you. You cannot control the storm. And to all those control freaks, which come in both genders, you have a special degree of trauma because the only time you feel safe is when you’re in control.
What binds together the stories of the airplane and the boat is that both faced a season of being totally out of control. I confess to you, I hate it. I absolutely hate it. I don’t want to be in something I can’t control. I don’t want to be in a plane because I can’t fly it, and if I can’t fly it, I don’t want to be in it. I don’t want to operate on myself because I’m not trained to do it. I don’t want to be picked for a job I can’t perform. I want to know clearly what the expectations are for me before I get the job. I’d rather give you the check back than to take the money and disappoint you because I can’t deliver what you’re asking for.
When you’re in a storm, the big question in your mind is, «Do I have what it takes to stand against this storm? Am I equipped? Am I fully equipped? Can I get my hands on my life vest? Can I handle this? Can I swim out of here? Can I withstand how cold this water is going to be? Can I make it through at my age? Can I make it through at my stage? Can I make it through at this moment in my life? Can I make it through after all the other stuff we’ve been through?» After all, we were busy before we got on the boat; we were journeying before we got on the boat. Hell broke loose before we got on the boat, and now I’m on the boat and so tired that Jesus has gone to bed. This is not a good time to have a storm.
I want to talk to some real people who were tired before it even started. All hell was breaking loose before they even began, and you know if Jesus went to bed, Peter was sleeping because everywhere Jesus had been, Peter had been. The worst time to have a storm is when you’re already tired. That’s why the enemy waits until you’re tired; he waits until you’re burned out, frustrated, and out of it. He doesn’t come after you when you feel fresh. He doesn’t jump on you when you’re feeling strong or when you’ve got it all together. He waits until you are exhausted and feel like if one more thing hits you, you are going to lose it. That’s when the storm comes. Over and over again, from the Old Testament to the New Testament, there’s a consistent phrase you see: «and it came to pass.»
It came to pass, and it came to pass. After many days, Jesus was engineering, and it came to pass that Ezekiel found himself in a valley. It came to pass. What you don’t realize is that phrase is not just a lead-in to the story. Every storm that ever hit the planet came, no matter how fierce, no matter how devastating. No matter how many homes were destroyed or how many people died in it, they always come. They give them new names; they give them different names. They run out of alphabets for it: Hurricane Irma, Hurricane Zozo, Hurricane Mabel. I don’t care what you call it; it’s still a hurricane. And no matter how severe, no matter how terrible, no matter how many lives were lost, dogs were lost, horses were lost, and families were lost, it still comes to pass.