TD Jakes - Your Divine Destination
Even deeply blessed and gifted people like Paul face overwhelming, humiliating thorns in the flesh sent by God to prevent pride; when fervent prayers for removal are overruled with "No," God's grace proves sufficient to sustain and empower through the pain.
The Balance of Blessing and Burden
Greetings in the invincible name of Jesus Christ our King. I am so excited to have this opportunity to be in your home and a part of your life for the next few moments to share the Word of God with you. I have an exciting series called Your Divine Destination. I believe it will speak to your life—particularly at this time as you move closer and closer to God’s divine purpose in your life. The messages that we are going to share are really going to be the catalyst that you better understand where you are—and more importantly where you are going.
The message I will share with you today is one you have got to listen to. The message is When God Says No. I know what to do when He says yes. Lord have mercy—how do I manage when God says no. Stay tuned. I will show you how to deal with it.
Is not it funny how different a house looks from the driveway than it does from the hallway? Great curb appeal. Drive by and say, “Woo—they are living large.” And then they are looking at each other.
Paul says, lest I be exalted above measure with the things that went right, God balanced me with the things that went wrong. All caught up in who they may say I am. God balanced me with who I am.
I was interviewed the other day. It is just amazing. You seem not to know who you are. You walk around just average Joe—and you have done this and you have done that and you have done the other. Are not you caught up? How do you remain so humble?
I said because I know me. I have many issues. That has never been a problem with me. I do not struggle with that. You know my persona. I know me.
Balance between who they say you are and who you really are. Your ideals balanced against your realities. Your strengths balanced against your weaknesses. Your triumphs balanced against your tragedies.
Everybody has them. Nobody escapes. Do not let rich folk fool you. In some area of their life they are impoverished. Do not let poor people fool you. In the midst of all their financial poverty—if you get close to them you will find the poorest among us have riches that cannot be tabulated in the account.
Life's Fair Balance
Life is fair. If you have deep revelation—supernatural knowledge—there will be something to balance. You will be wise over here and fool over here. Y’all do not want to talk to me today.
You will be victorious about this. You will be victimized by this. Every victor is a victim in some area of their life. And every victim is a victor in some area of their life. They may not tell you.
It is not so much from the enemy that such pain comes. He said lest I be exalted above measure, God sent unto me a messenger from Satan to buffet my flesh. To buffet. The word buffet in Greek is to—like punch with strong punches. To beat up my flesh.
I want to talk to all the blessed people in the room—who have been blessed in some area of your life. And before you could get intoxicated over the success you had—you got punched—buffeted in some area.
It may not be a seen area. It may not be visible—recognizable—acknowledged. But somewhere in your life—if you are gifted—if you are really exalted—if you are really blessed—if you are highly favored—somewhere in your life you are being punched in your gut.
That is why the assault of the haters becomes so overwhelming in your heart. You cannot understand how people can hate on you and attack you. Do not they see that behind the scenes—somewhere you are being punched—buffeted—He says—in my flesh?
Incidentally—put that on pause. Let me tell you something. It has been a big old debate what this thing was that Paul went through. All kinds of conjecture and all kinds of ideologies down for hundreds and hundreds and thousands of years—the sages of the ages have debated what the thorn in Paul’s flesh was.
So I thought today I would demystify any concern that you might have as to what it was. I do not know.
They thought I would say something really profound and intellectual—and I left a cliffhanger just fall to the floor. I do not know.
I do think that God leaves it opaque—if you will—so we can fill in whatever you need to fill in. So that you can recognize that all of us have something different.
Punch yourself. Balances us. That makes us pray. That makes us groan in the middle of the night and cry out to God. Need You. Cannot take this. It is too much for me. Not happy. All of this stuff and no peace. Or all of this peace and no stuff. It will be one of them. I tell you right now. It is going to be.
These are the things that so assail my soul and punch me in the gut and balance whatever accomplishment I had—brought me down to the place of humility.
Said I prayed.
Paul's Overwhelming Thorn
Let me go back. There is something I want you to see. We do not know what it was. But we do know how he felt about it.
He travailed before God about it. It was both painful privately. And we know it was humiliating publicly.
That is why some people thought it was epilepsy—because imagine how wise and profound and intellectual he would be—and then have epileptic seizures in front of everybody.
Whatever it was—it was humiliating. It was debilitating. Whatever it was—it was not only secretly painful but publicly humiliating—in the middle of trying to do what he was trying and be what he was trying to be. Something...
Others say blindness—and he would stumble around and could not see. We know he could not see well. And he was not particularly a good-looking man. We understand he was a bit of a—you know—yet he was brilliant. Intellectual.
I am trying to get you to understand how life balances itself—and how no one gets everything—and no one is exempt from pain. Yeah.
I am trying to make you understand that God is just—even if He is not fair. He has got to be just. And He balances—you are not going to get through this world without using those tear ducts He gave you.
I want you to understand that you will not survive this world—no matter how intellectual you are—no matter how beautiful and bold your biceps and triceps may be—and have more degrees than a thermometer. You will have something punching you in the gut that leaves you laying on the floor.
I do not know. I speak Greek and Hebrew—but I do not know how to speak to my own child. I do not know.
There will always be something that will escape your grasp—that humbles you. And sometimes humiliates you. And takes all the air out of your balloon.
It was for this that he prayed.
You must understand the power of this prayer. The power of this prayer is built on the enormity of the burdens that he carries.
He prays and prays—three times—about what has overwhelmed him.
I want to talk to you about what is overwhelming you.
I am not talking about what you manage well. I am talking about what you do not.
I do not want to talk to you about what you win at. I want to talk to you about what you fail at.
I do not want to talk to you about the areas you overcome. I want to talk to you about the areas that overwhelm you.
I cannot take another day. One more thing.
Write down overwhelmed. And think about what overwhelms you. Takes you out. Rocks your world. Gets on your last nerve.
Paul says, God—I am out here working for You—and I will be responsible for most of the New Testament writings. I have established churches everywhere You sent me. I preached the gospel with power and clarity even when I was in jail. I have laid hands on dead people and seen them get out of the grave.
I am asking You one personal favor. I do not ask You for much or bother You for many things. I did not say anything about being shipwrecked or beaten or locked up in the jail.
But this is one favor—take this away! Because this overwhelms me. It is too much for me. I am drowning in it. It gets me down. It wrecks my life. It gets me out of focus. Take it away!
When God Says No
I want you to understand the power of this prayer. This is not somebody praying for a parking space and let things go good at work today. No—no.
This is praying about what overwhelms my very soul.
I would not have brought it to You if it was not big. I would not have brought it to You if it was not too much for me.
Everything I could stand—I stand. Everything I could put up with—I put up. But this right here overwhelms my very soul.
He says, take this—take this away from me.
What is the thing that overwhelms you? What is the thing that overwhelms you—overwhelms—that you drown in?
That is what he prayed about. Three times.
Why would Paul have to pray three times? He did not have to pray three times to raise up the dead man who fell out the window.
How is it that God works so good when you are praying about other people’s problems? O God help me, Jesus.
I just want to ask a question—if anybody understands the words that are coming out of my mouth.
How can you be so smart about everybody else’s life—but your own life...
Why are we so wise with other people’s dilemmas—and such a fool with our own.
How could Paul have the courage to turn cities inside out—and could not fix his own trouble?
He prayed three times for God to remove this. Take this curse off of me. So I can serve You like I want to serve You. Be who You want me to be. I could do it if You just fix this.
This overwhelms me.
And he said, God—I want You to take this away. I would be better for You. If I was better with me.
Come next Sunday. I will finish this.
It sounds like—feels like I have been preaching—feels like somebody in this room relates to what I am talking about.
Fix this. It seems You should want to fix this. I would be better for You if I did not have this limitation.
Y’all know what I am talking about?
This text—I went to bed thinking about it. I woke up thinking about this. I could not get away from this.
This is the text I am supposed to preach this morning.
Somebody in this room—or over the internet—or maybe for me—somebody in this room knows what it is like to be overwhelmed by something—and say, God—if You could just take this away I would be a better mama. I would be a better daddy. I would be a better husband—better wife. I would be a better man!
This overwhelms me.
And Paul—who raised the dead and healed the sick and turned water into wine—went to God on behalf of his own problem. And he was overruled.
So write down overruled. Objection, Your Honor. Overruled.
You have the right to object. But He has the right to overrule.
You have the right to complain—but He has the right to overrule.
You have the right to cry—but He has the right to overrule.
And I am sent to you this morning to talk to you. What do you do when God says no?
What do you do when you have asked for a good thing? It is not like he is asking for gold to come out of the water fountain. He is not praying out of carnality. This is a good thing.
What do you do when you pray for something good—and God says no?
You have been overruled.
Great man of faith and power—you have been overruled.
Praying mama—you have been overruled.
Counseling other couples—your own house in a wreck. Overruled.
You have got such good advice for the guys at work—and go home and want to jump out of a window.
And you pray and you pray and you pray—you have been overruled.
You have a loved one in the hospital—and you prayed and you fasted and you anointed them with oil—and you quoted Scriptures—and you are trying to believe God—you are trying to read everybody’s books and tapes that you can. The life goes out of them.
You have been overruled.
What do you do when you have been overruled?
Had everybody pray for the baby. And you still had a stillborn.
That is what we need teaching about. That is what is happening in this text. That is what is happening to the apostle Paul y’all.
Now, you know if it happened to Paul y’all—if it happened to the guy who wrote the Bible—then surely the guy who reads the Bible ought to give God a little bit of slack.
We see this threefold prayer before—only this time it was not Paul y’all—it was Jesus saying, “Hey Dad. I know You sent me down here to do this—but let us do a revision on the contract and amend the documents to be transferred a little bit. If it be Thy will—pass this bitter cup from Me.”
Three times He prayed.
Now He could not change the Father’s mind.
Jesus said not My will but Thine be done.
Paul prayed three times—and God said no.
You have been overruled.
And then He says, I said no, Paul. Because My grace is sufficient.