TD Jakes — Find Your Wings
Hello, everybody. I'm excited to have this opportunity to share the Word of the Lord with you. "The flower fades, the grass withers, but the Word of the Lord, it's gon' stand forever". We've been teaching and explaining and helping you to explore how to build your vision, how to really build it from the ground up. This deposit into the series is so revolutionary. It's revelational. It really coordinates with my new book, "Soar"! The message is entitled "Find Your Wings". It's in Exodus 19:1-6. I'm gonna help you find them, and I'm gonna show you how to keep 'em.
So what the eaglet does, it stirs the nest until the eaglets cannot rest, and some types of eagles push the eaglet out of the nest, push you out of the nest. I went to Union Carbide where I had worked for 5 years. They laid me off, and the day I got laid off, I could still see myself walking through the parking lot, and Senator West, I was crying. I was crying. I said, "Oh, my God, what am I going to do? I got a wife and two kids, and no job," and I was pushed. I was pushed. God will push you. He will push you. It looks cruel, but he will push you. It's disturbing, but he will push you. I got pushed out of the nest.
Like an eaglet when you get pushed out of the nest, you are now in an environment of discomfort, of uncertainty. God will always push you to your scary place. You will never know how great he is until you have been pushed into your scary place. I don't mean your nervous place. I mean your scary place. I mean eyes bugged, hands shaking, scary place. The mother who has carried these eggs and sat on them and nurtured them and loved them now looks cruel because she now pushes them out of the nest. If she can't push 'em out of the nest, that is to say, the nest is on a cliff which causes them to fall over the edge. If it it's too far back, she will lower down her wings and allow the eaglets to climb up on her wings, and soar into the air with them and drop them.
This is what the text means, "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall... on wings like eagles". These are not your wings. These are the wings that somebody lowers so that you can get to a level that you could never get to by yourself. If you think about it, most of us are here today because something bigger than us lowered its wings so that we could mount up on wings and go in the places that we would have never gotten to had they not lowered their wings. So if you're waiting on the Lord, one of the signs of waiting is that you shall mount up on the wings like eagles.
These are the eagles that carry you into your destiny. Think about the people that God used to carry you into your destiny. Think about the people that came into your life to carry you into your destiny, that you'd never would've got the job, you never would've got the opportunity, you never would've found yourself, you never would've found your strength. You'd have died in that same little nest that you came from, but somebody came along and lowered their wings so that you could mount up on wings like eagles. God said, "It was me that did it. It was me that stirred your nest. It was me that got you out of your comfort zone. It was me that exposed you to what you used to be afraid of. It was me that brought you into the next dimension. It was not them. It was me. I'll use different people at different times in different ways to come into your life, but it's still me doing the work all the while".
God said, "I used Joseph to build the nest". Had Joseph not gone before Israel, they would've had no way to get into Egypt. God used Joseph to build the nest. He used Pharaoh to feed the nest. God will use people that don't even like you, to feed your... I wish I had a witness. I wish I had a witness somewhere in this church where God will use people who hate you to feed you in your time of need. He used Joseph to build the nest. He used Pharaoh to feed the nest. He used Moses to break the nest. God said, "I used Moses to break that nest. I told Moses, 'Go down there and tell Pharaoh to let my people go. I've heard your egg tooth scraping. I've heard the cry of my people. Go down there and disrupt the situation because I'm gonna bring you out".
Whenever God is getting ready to do something major in your life, there will always be disruption. Disruption is always a sign that God is setting you up for progression. You can't have progression without disruption. As long as you're comfortable in the nest, you'll never find your wings. You do not belong in this nest. You belong in the air. The problem is these little wings have never been used, and I don't even know what they are. The muscles have never been developed because you cannot develop wing muscles in a nest.
So the mother, after she's taken them up in the air, drops them. They don't fly. They freak. They freak out. They get spastic. They have a fit, and if they don't get it together, she'll swoop down and get 'em up again and catch 'em, let 'em catch their breath, take 'em back up again and drop 'em. Everything that God is going to do in your life will happen in this place right here. Your destiny is in this place right here. Your anointing is in this place right here. Your power is in this place.
In the process of flapping and falling, the eaglet starts to build up enough strength. If the eaglet could talk, it would say, "It was good for me that I was afflicted. It was good for me that you let me down. I'm so glad you dropped me. I'm so glad you forsook me. I would've never known. I didn't know what I had. I didn't know that I could stand this. I didn't know I could survive this. I didn't know I could make it through this. I didn't know I was this strong, this smart, this powerful, this... thank you for dropping me over into my..." everybody who's ever been in the scary place, give God a praise right now. I said, everybody who's ever been in a scary place, give God a praise right now. Praise him for your scary place.
You couldn't be senator if you hadn't been in a scary place. I wouldn't be pastoring this church if I hadn't been thrown into a... I didn't know I could do this. I had seven members in Smithers. I didn't know I could do this. When I called you and said, "I'm going to Texas," and my mama left her house and our staff left our city to come to a place we had never lived before. Everything worth talking about in your life will always occur in a place of spastic fear, spastic, nervous, "I don't wanna do it, I don't want to".
I don't know if I can take it to God, I don't know. I don't know why I don't see you. I don't understand why you are doing like it. What did I do to land in it? It ain't fair, Jesus. I paid my tithes and everything, and why did it have to go through all this"? You will not find your wings until you go to your scary place. That's where you begin to get the strength and the rhythm to say, "I don't have to go down in this. I can use the thing that was taking me down". They didn't hear me. I said, "I can use the very thing that, if I put myself in the right position, what was working against me could work for me if..."
See, this dimension that occurs in the scary place comes when you dare to break a law. You have to be willing to break a law. Whatever law holds you down must be broken, or you cannot escape. See, the law that holds us down is the law of gravity. That's what's bringing you down. Gravity is that pull to stay where you started. Don't you try to get away. You belong right here. Gravity always pulls you back. There's a gravitational pull in the lives of every person in this room, and every person watching on your screen, there is a gravitational pull that, whenever you try to get up, it will always pull you back down again.
Have you ever heard people say, "Look like every time I try to do something positive, all hell breaks loose, and it's just not right 'cause I meant good, and it looks like it keeps pulling me back"? You're right. There is a pull pulling you back, and it is a law that holds you back, subject to where you started: "Stay in your place. You don't need an education. Stay in your place". "What you doing, trying to start a business? Stay in your place". "You're too old. Stay in your place". "You're too fat. Stay in your place". "You're too black. Stay in your place". "You're too white".
So there's always a law that you have to break. It's the same law that the Wright Brothers broke. It's the law of gravity. They said, "This law works to a certain level, but there is a higher law, the law of aerodynamics, that if I get enough thrust behind me, I could break through into something that Mama didn't break through, that Daddy didn't break through, that my friends didn't break through". I don't know why I'm going down this road today, but I wanna talk to some lawbreakers that are ready to break out from everything that ever held you back. Slap your neighbor and say, "I'm gon' break this law. This law got my mama. This law got my uncle. This law got my grandmama. This law got my great-uncle, but I am going to be the generation that breaks this law". Oh, my God, I feel the power of the Holy Ghost about to explode in this place.
For 400 years, Israel had been bound by a law. Four hundred years is ten generations. Ten generations woke up in the morning, every morning, a slave. Ten generations, every time they saw the sun go up, the sun was shining on slaves. One night, they went to bed. They call it the Passover night. It was a night that the blood was applied to the doorposts of the believer, and the Bible said that the death angel passed by, and he said, "When I see the blood, I will pass over you".
That morning when they got up, they didn't get up to make bricks. They didn't get up to make Pharaoh's bed. They didn't get up to make coffee for Miss Pharaoh. That morning when they got up, they grabbed their stuff and said, "This is my last night. God said, 'I'm gonna bring you out on eagle's wings.'" I don't know who I'm preaching to this morning, but God said, "I'm gonna bring you out". If I'm preaching to you, praise it like you're in the air.
I'll tell ya this, and I'll close. You are never more alive than you are when you are in your scary place. Your head is never as clear as it is when you're in your scary place. Your strength is never as strong as it is when you're in your scary place. If I wanted to dress it up, I'd say "a place that is challenging for you," but I'm gon' break it down and say "your scary place," the place that makes you wanna wet your pants, the place that won't let you sleep good at night, the place of uncertainty and insecurity. That is a place where you'll find your wings... not hers, yours; not theirs, yours; not his, yours.
Whenever I was writing a book, I wanted the kids to be quiet, "Just sit down, shut up". They'd do it for a while, but after a while, they'd come down the steps making noise on purpose, trying to get your attention, distract you from what you're writing. I wanted 'em to go away, so I'd type, try to act like I didn't see 'em. After a while, I go, "Boo". And I'd have a few more minutes of peace. Then after a while, I hear them come down the steps again. I act like I didn't see 'em, try to keep typing.
After a while, they said, "Daddy, scare me again". Daddy... Scare me again.Challenge me again. Scare me again, because when you put me in my wind, I find my wings. My wings only work in my wind. My wings don't work in my nest. No matter how comfortable it may appear to my flesh, I'll never find out why I have this, why these things are hanging on me. I'll never know what they're for until you scare me again. Even if I didn't get it right the first time and you had to swoop down and catch me, don't put me back in that nest. Scare me again.
Don't give up on me. I feel like I'm preaching to somebody. There is always something just beyond your scary place that will make you realize that, had you not confronted the thing that scares you, you would have never found your wings. I don't care whatever else you find in life, I don't care whoever else you admire or how you see them fly, you will never have fulfilled your purpose by finding my wings. You will only fulfill your purpose when you find yours.