TD Jakes - Dig Your Way Out of It
Well, I was praying about what to do, and one of the things I’m learning is that when God delivers a mighty word, when God delivers a strong word, it’s not always good to throw another word on top of that word without really digging down into that word. Oh, amen, amen, because just because we taught it, doesn’t mean that you fully got it. Bring that shovel because I said something about digging out. Digging out, yeah, we’re gonna dig this thing now. This particular shovel Pastor Robinson let me borrow is one of the shovels we used for the groundbreaking of the building you’re in right now. See that? That means the building you’re in right now started with a shovel and a big hole in the ground.
For me, this means a whole lot of things because at the time I held this shovel in my hand to thrust it into the ground to build an 86, I think it was an 83 million dollar building. I didn’t have the money. I didn’t even have the down payment on the money. I didn’t have a loan approved; I didn’t have a bank that was giving us the money. I had enough money to dig out the hole, and we dug—we dug out the hole not just with a shovel but with bulldozers. We dug out the hole, we dug the hole, and it was a big huge hole. It was so exciting, and the church was excited, and they were dancing and shouting because I was preaching faith and power. We dug the hole, and they started shouting until grass began growing in it. They were still shouting a little bit, but then water started filling up the hole, and time passed, and I couldn’t get a breakthrough. While we were digging the hole to build the building, I ended up having to dig a hole to bury my mother.
So when I see this shovel, I see a whole lot of things. I see stress and struggle and pain, and I finally drove past the hole. I drove past this hole every day going around to the building. I told God, I said, «I’m not worried about that building; I said I’m not building that for my children. I don’t have five; this is for your children. If you don’t provide for your children, I’m gonna have the biggest swimming pool in Dallas. I am! I’m gonna put some concrete in it and paint it blue and just open up the biggest swimming pool they have ever seen in all their life, because the battle is not mine!»
Y’all don’t hear what I’m saying; it belongs to the Lord. I said it belongs to the Lord, and we’re gonna talk tonight. I got so many praise reports and testimonies from building for expansion when I was teaching on it Sunday. So many people said it blessed them and touched them; it changed their lives. People were talking about how they were crying, how they were touched. We’re going to go a little bit deeper because everywhere I went on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and everywhere else, they were saying, «I got my shovel, and I’m ready to dig!» and somebody was showing me emojis of people digging.
I didn’t even know they had emojis of people digging. I guess they call them emojis, those little video things. And they were digging and digging and digging and digging again—the same dig they dug before. Everyone was sending me stuff like that about digging, and I wondered in my mind, beyond the excitement, do we really understand what that means? Let’s back up a minute and go back to the text where I started from. When I started into the text, I was in Second Kings 3:8-19, and I’m not gonna give you the whole thing, but tonight, instead of talking about building for expansion, we’re gonna talk about «Dig Your Way Out.» Okay, dig your way out!
I made a statement in the early part, and it says, «Which way shall we go up?» And he answered, «The way through the wilderness of Edom.» So the king of Israel went, and the king of Judah, and the king of Edom—the king of Israel, Jehoram, the king of Judah, Jehoshaphat, and the king of Edom had nothing in common. They had different belief systems; they had different people, but they had come together because they had a common enemy. The Moabites were trying to destroy them. The reason I stress that point is that sometimes people only want to work with those who are like them—who look like them or who act like them or who vote like them or who think like them or who worship like them. You know, people have all these ideas: «What are you doing with so-and-so? Come out from among them and be separate!»
But being separate doesn’t mean that God won’t use other people to be a blessing in your life. In fact, God used prostitutes! Oh, y’all don’t know your Bible; He used some of the most ungodly people. He sent old backslidden Jonah to preach the gospel—Jonah, the runaway preacher who openly defied and disobeyed God. He sent him to run a revival, and the revival was effective! The whole nation got saved, and Jonah got mad, and God still used it, because in order to accomplish His purpose, God will use whosoever He will to get done what He’s trying to get done. You should learn something from God about that: when God gives you a purpose, He may not use your relatives, and He may not use your friends, and He may not use who you had in mind. But when God determines to bless you, you’ve got to build a circle that doesn’t stress you!
Come on, somebody; you’ve got to build a circle that doesn’t stretch you! Some of you are so particular about who you connect with that your vision is delayed. Suppose the king of Judah had said, «I have been loyal to God; I have served God when the king of Israel, way back when you all were serving idols and worshipping Baal—your mama was Jezebel—I had no deal with you!» Your mama Jezebel tried to kill my teacher! Why would I have anything to do with you? Your father was an idolater, and even though you weren’t as bad as they were, you had your issues with Jehovah. He said, «No, no, no, no! For the immediate need, it is expedient that we form connections to overcome the Moabites, because the Moabites have threatened to kill us.» And come on, king of Edom; I’ll take you too!
There ought not to be such a thing as black churches and white churches and Latino churches and millennial churches and boomer churches and Baptist churches and Methodist churches—we’ve got all kinds of ways to describe our biases. But in reality, when you get in trouble—I mean really in trouble; when you really get in trouble—I’ve been in trouble and had a doctor that I couldn’t even spell his name, but if he could get me better, I went and got the treatment; you hear what I’m saying? I’d be asking my wife, «What was his name again?» But if the medicine is good, if the surgery is good, I don’t care! I never asked the paramedic what his faith was before he came on a carpet. No, no, no; don’t touch me! You, no, no, you Jehovah Witness—you can’t touch me! No, no, I don’t care what you are; give me that oxygen! Put the oxygen on! We will convert you later, but right now I gotta breathe! We’ll have a religious theological debate in a minute, but right now I’m focused on breathing!
Now maybe you’re different; maybe you would rather asphyxiate. But me, I like breathing. I know that’s crazy, but I kind of like breathing, and if I can get some oxygen, I don’t care whether it’s white folks' oxygen or black folks' oxygen or Jamaican oxygen or Haitian oxygen! A brother like me just wants some oxygen! You understand what I’m saying? I don’t care what color my waiter is; I don’t care if it’s a woman or a man. If I want some chicken, just bring me some chicken! He can be a little boy; just bring me some chicken! I want to eat! They formed an alliance, and the alliance led to the destruction of the Moabites because they understood how to make connections. Then they started through the wilderness, and they got in the middle of the wilderness at the word of the prophet, and they found out in order to go further, they had to dig ditches into a dry riverbed.
Now the riverbed was already big enough to hold water, but what God was going to do was so much bigger than the riverbed that the prophet said, «Dig ditches in your valley.» Seven days into the trip, they had to dig ditches in their valley in the wilderness without water in the hot sun, so they had to sweat it out, and God did not alleviate the sweat to perform the miracle. Oh, God did not alleviate the sweat! See, a lot of us, we are sitting back like this: «You know when the Lord gets ready, He will make the way, and I’m gonna sit here and wait on the Lord.» Had they sat there in the wilderness and waited on the Lord, they would have died! They had to have the faith to go as far as they could with what they had, and as they began to sweat in the wilderness with every shovel, God didn’t send them any clouds, no thunder, no encouragement, no sign that help was on the way!
Somebody watching me right now, you don’t even see daylight; you don’t see any sign that help is on the way! But just because you don’t see any wind, and just because you don’t see any rain, doesn’t mean you’re not gonna get water! The Lord said, «I’m gonna send you the water; you’re not gonna see it coming!» How many people are ready for a blessing you don’t even see coming? An unexpected supernatural blessing to sustain you, give you increase, and take you to the—I don’t know about you, but I’m ready! I’m ready for it! I’m ready for God to rock my world and blow my mind at the same time! To rock my world and blow my mind! I’m making room for it; I’m making it increase! My constant prayer is, «Increase my capacity to pass to go from pastoring in West Virginia, a storefront church, to pastoring this church.»
God had to increase my capacity! I had never had to believe God for that kind of money and that kind of crowd—this many pews and this much staff! I had as many staff members as I had church members at one time. I said, «God, you’re gonna have to increase my capacity! Capacity! Capacity for pressure! Capacity for deadlines! Capacity for stress! Capacity for anxiety!» I got here, and I ran into problems that I had never seen in West Virginia. But if God thought enough of me to send me—whom the Lord calls, He qualifies! And I came to tell every person in this room, «You can do this!» I know it’s hot, but you can do this! I know you’re sweating, but you can do this! I know it’s tough, and the ground is hard, but you can do this! Or God wouldn’t have put you in the situation in the first place! If you can’t do this, look at somebody, and just yell at them like you yell at your kids. Don’t use your little nice voice! Yell at them like you yell at your kids! Say, «You can do this! You can do this! You can do this!»
Don’t give up on your dream! Don’t give up on your hope! Don’t give up on your promise! Don’t give up on your prophecy! Don’t give up on your destiny! Don’t give up on what God calls you! You can do this! You can do this! It may stretch you; it may expand you; it may enlarge you! You may have to build more structure, but you can do this! I rebuke every devil that’s been telling you that you don’t have what it takes to get the job done! You can! God, I feel like I’m talking to somebody already! You—you—you can do this! I never did it before! Yeah, but you can do this! They’ve never done it before, but you get to! I didn’t study this at school! Yeah, I get that, but you can do this! I don’t have a degree in that! Yeah, I get that, but you can do this!
If you couldn’t do this, God wouldn’t put you in the situation! Whom He calls, He qualifies! You can do this! You can do this! And if you don’t know what you’re doing, get somebody who does and partner with them! Say, «I got the calling, and you got the information. Let’s get together and make this happen!» You can do this! That partnership right there—that partnership is the way to prophecy! When you partner, God makes it possible! God told Eve, «It must prevail, so you bring forth children,» but she couldn’t do it by herself! He said, «The seed of the woman shall rise up and bruise the head of the serpent.» And the serpent shall bruise his heel. Hey problem, woman ain’t got no seed! But she had a partner! But her partner didn’t have no womb! But y’all don’t hear!
What I’m saying is that all of creation is built on partnership and connections, and I’m wondering if you are making the right connections for what’s next in your life. What are you willing to slay to get there? What are you willing to change in order to achieve your goals? How much of what you say, «That’s just how I am,» is the kind of stuff we need to put on the cross? We must nail «just how I am» to the cross. See, we’re putting Jesus on the cross, alright? We’re putting lambs on the cross. You don’t mind putting goats on the cross, but when I talk about putting you on the cross, you get real quiet. But in order to accomplish what God wants, you must get rid of «just how I am» and start saying, «Here I am, Lord. Make me what You want me to be. Enlarge my territory. Increase my capacity. Strengthen my gates. I’m ready to go to the next level. I’m ready for this, Lord. Anyway You bless me, Lord, I’ll be satisfied.»
If I have to gather 12 disciples, I’m going to change the world before I leave here. «Hey Peter, stop fishing; I’m coming to get you. Hey Matthew, stop collecting taxes; I’m going to get you. Hey Phillip, come on over here, boy; I’m going to get you.» Little by little, we start putting together the strategy it takes when «No» is not an option. Say with me, «No, it’s not an option.» I’m going to dig my way out of it. I’m going to roll a video and bring out a panel of people, and we’re going to talk about four individuals who had to dig their way out of challenging situations. We’re going to have a very practical talk about how we can take what we hear on Sunday and use it on Monday. How do we take what we shout about, what we sing about, what we know God said? Just say to the Lord, «Dig ditches in your life!» Hallelujah!
Now excuse me, how do I do that? I brought my shovel, you know. I didn’t bring my shirt; I didn’t have a bulldozer because I thought you were going to do something cute like you did before and just let it rain. You can make it rain without digging. Noah didn’t have to dig, and you made it rain. You made it rain when Elijah prayed. You can’t compare your story with someone else’s story; what God has for you is for you. Who am I talking to already? Wait until you meet this panel and see what they had to dig through to get where they are.