TD Jakes - Playing Catch Up With Your Dream (09/18/2018)
Drawing from Habakkuk 2:2 and the story of Ruth versus Orpah, the preacher urges women to stop waiting passively for blessings and become deliberate: write the God-given vision clearly, read it often to remind themselves, and run toward it with aligned action, embracing opportunities hidden in adversity and overcoming "dis-ease" with success to step into their destiny like Ruth.
Stop Waiting—Be Deliberate
Nobody is going to find you sitting on that couch with rollers in your hair, eating milk duds, and watching Love of Life. You think Prince Charming is going to come in there and find you walking around in them mumus and that house coat, that raggedy house coat that you have got on? And them turned-over house shoes that you wear around the house, and you are praying for the Lord to send Boaz? Why in the world is Boaz going to come and get you out the bed with your sleepy self?
You have to get rid of that fairy tale of faith and become deliberate about what God is going to do in your life. High five your sister and say, "I am a deliberate woman. I live on purpose." I have got the instinct, I have got the unction, I want something that people around me do not even want. I never fit in with my neighborhood, I did not fit in with my clique or my club. I have got some instincts that are beyond my circumstance, so I have to get over my circumstance and start walking in alignment.
Write the Vision
So God says to Habakkuk, the prophet who was waiting on an answer from God because he does not understand where he is, he does not understand what season he is in, and he does not understand what is going on in his life. And God gives him simple instructions. He said, "Write the vision." Okay? Not the problem, not the obstacle, not the need, not the lack. He said, "Do not write about what you lack, write the vision." Write it. Write it.
What do you see, woman of God? Ten years from now, what do you see? What do you see? In your spirit, when you get down to your core, what do you see? What would you do if money were no problem? Well, it is no problem. I am going to try y'all. What would you do if money were no problem? Well, it is no problem, it is no problem, it is no problem. What would you do if money were no problem?
Do not let not having the money drop your pen. Write the vision. Do not worry about who is going to pay for it, do not worry about who is going to execute it, do not worry about who is going to stand in agreement with it. All He asked you to do was write the vision. He did not ask you to pay for the vision. Just write the vision. Go ahead and write the business plan, go ahead and write the purpose, the vision, the purpose, and go ahead and write the vision.
You have been so focused on where you have been that you cannot stretch for where you are going. All our prayers are backdated. Oh, God, have mercy on me. You know what happened to me when I was a child. You know what I went through when I went to college. Oh Lord, I am still getting over my first husband. Girl, you are on your fourth husband, still talking about your third. I know it sounds hard, but slap somebody and say, get over it. He did not say write the past. He did not say write the pain. He said write the vision. What do you see? What do you hope for? What do you believe?
Read It and Run It
And then He says to Habakkuk, read what you wrote. Write it, and then read it. Remind yourself of what you said. Remind yourself of where you are going. Write it. Read it. And then run it before the year is out. Say it with me, before the year's out. I am going to write it, I am going to read it, and I am going to run it.
I do not try to run Kenneth Copeland's Ministries, because it is not mine. I do not try to run Fred Price's Ministries, because it is not mine. I do not try to run Joyce Meyer's Ministry, because it is not mine. I do not have the anointing to run something that I am not instinctive at in my core. But when it comes to T. D. Jakes, man, you better get out.
Touch your sister and say, "I am going to write it, I am going to read it, and I am going to run it." I am going to write it, I am going to read it, and I am going to run it. Running it means I am going to bring all of my efforts in alignment with what I wrote. I am not going to expend energy that is off the page. If it is not on the page, I am not running after it. If it is not in the script, the actor does not say the lines. When you see me running, you do not have to read what I wrote, because my feet will tell you what is on the page.
Oh, my God, tell your sister, let your feet do the talking. Stop explaining, stop arguing, stop fighting back on Facebook, stop arguing on Twitter, stop complaining with your so-called friends, tell them to watch my feet.
Opportunities in Adversity
The world has changed. And as the world changes, both positively and negatively, God gives you opportunities. Opportunities are created from adversity. You would not need a washing machine if you did not have dirty clothes. Opportunities are created from adversities. So, if you have adversities, your adversities are opportunities. Whether they become opportunities or not is how you look at them. If you see it as a problem, it is a problem. But if you see it as an opportunity, it is an opportunity.
God is giving you opportunity. It is just like coming to this conference. God has given you an opportunity. What you do with it is up to you. All God is going to give you is an opportunity. In my book, I talk about the parable of the talents, the two, the five, and the ten. And the householder gave to the servants one, two, and five. And the one who had five took the opportunity and turned it into ten. The one who had two took the opportunity and turned it into four. The one who had one took the opportunity and hid it.
They may not have had equal talents, but they all had equal opportunity. Have you not recognized opportunities because they were dressed in adversity? Opportunity always puts on an adversity suit. Not too long ago, there was a tornado come through, and the waves from the ocean were coming up on shore, and houses were under water, and the streets were covered with water, and everybody was getting out of town.
And in the middle of all of that, here comes a bunch of young boys running in the opposite direction toward the storm, carrying surfboards. Because what everybody else saw as an adversity, they saw it as an opportunity. A wave is an adversity if you are not prepared for it, but if you have got a surfboard, this is the time of your life. The blessing of the Lord comes in waves. It comes in waves. And if you stop running from the wave and just ride the wave, the blessing of the Lord would overtake you if you are ready for it.
Overcoming Dis-ease with Your Dream
The world is changing. It is not just that you are new, you are in a new world with new opportunities, new problems, decadence, and situations and circumstances that are beyond anything your grandmother would imagine. So God says run forward, not backwards. Somebody say, "I have a dream." You need to run in the direction of your dream, and away from the direction of your disease. Disease. I am not sick. Disease simply means dis-ease. Dis-ease.
Do you not know that God can give you blessings that make you uncomfortable? That you can be not at ease with being loved? Not at ease with being successful? And if you have a dis-ease, that dysfunction will make you self-sabotage your opportunities. So pray all you want to, but if you are at dis-ease with your dream, you will not run after it. You will shout about it, but you will not run after it.
You think you are a procrastinator, you are not a procrastinator, you have dis-ease with your dream. You are dreaming something that you will not relax in. You will not walk in it. You are still walking in who you were rather than who you are. This is a place that you are going to come in here one way and you are going to walk out a completely different way. You have to catch up with your dream.
Touch ten women and say, you have to catch up with your dream. Your dreams are in one place, your head is somewhere else. When you get to the 10th woman, say, run! Write it. Read it. Run it.
Orpah vs. Ruth: Choose to Run Forward
I want to bring up Orpah. Orpah is the girl who could not escape the gravitational pull of where she came from. Orpah is the girl who had an opportunity that was so big that she acquiesced away from it because it was unfamiliar and felt more at ease in dysfunction than she did in her dreams. Came right to the gate of escaping her past, but said no, that is too much for me, I am going to stay over here in what I have been groomed for, because I do not know how to live in a new world.
Orpah is the girl who went back. You do not hear anybody preaching about her. Everybody is preaching about Ruth. Nobody is preaching about Orpah. Orpah is the girl who could not escape the gravitational pull of where she came from, because she found safety in dysfunction, and she had dis-ease with her dream. Are you Orpah or are you Ruth?
Orpah only feels safe with poor folks, broke folks, hateful folks, gossiping folk, lying folk, cheating and whoremongering folks. Orpah does not feel comfortable in a big room. Orpah wants to be a big girl in a small room. Orpah sabotages all of her opportunities, because she has not been mentored for the opportunity that God has in front of her.
If you are Ruth, you have to be willing to get out of your comfort zone and go after your dreams. And if you are Ruth, you have to be willing to go from being respected in Moab to second-class in Bethlehem. If you are Ruth, you have to be willing to go back to ground level zero on the next level of your life. Nothing in your background prepares you for what God is about to do in your life.
And you are trying to walk forward, but you are scared to death, and you are praying, and you are uncomfortable, and you are saying, Lord, I do not know what You have me doing, but I am going to walk into it by faith. God has scheduled you for a promotion. You are going to have to run after your dreams. Slap somebody and say, run! My God, I feel glory in this place.