TD Jakes - Making Destiny Decisions
Decisions are the benchmarks that lead to your destiny, and they are critical, and they are important. You can't keep shouting about your destiny and not watch your decisions, because your decisions are how you're going to get to your destiny. If you have the slightest clue of what your destiny is, then you need to go back and monitor your decisions and ask yourself are your decisions in alignment with your destiny. Because there is no way you can get there to your destiny making decisions that are to the detriment of what God has predestined to happen in your life. Decisions, they're critical, they are very, very important.
Now, there are some very practical decisions, and very natural decisions, and I wanna talk about a natural decision and how important it is that you make good natural decisions. When it comes to natural decisions, there are decisions that you make, in order to make them effectively, you need to have very, very good information. How many of you have ever made a decision and then got more information on the subject and said, "Well, I didn't know that"? You know, if I would have known that, it would have changed the decision. No magic to this, there's no magic to your destiny, it's method to your destiny. Get rid of your magic mentality about destiny, it's method. Nobody becomes successful by accident.
They just, "I just stumbled into it". You have to purpose your way into it. You might stumble into an opportunity, but you don't jump up and sing well by accident. You don't get your degree by accident. "I don't know how this happened, it just". You don't raise good kids by accident. "I wasn't even trying to raise good kids, they just happened". You don't have a strong marriage by accident. I don't care how in love you are when you get married, a good marriage doesn't happen by accident. "We just loved each other, and 50 years later, we were here," don't believe it. It is not happening. It is a conscious decision, it is effort, it is hard work, and it is methodical.
And you cannot make good decisions with poor information, which may require that you make slower decisions, slower decisions, patient decisions, wise decisions, decisions that are not build on desperation. Desperation is a poor counselor. So, that means the day of making decisions out of your emotions has got to cease. Just the desperate panic, I'm getting older, I gotta do something, I gotta marry somebody, he likes me I thinking. Ten years later, every time you look at him, you really don't hate him, you hate your decision. And some of your anger with the person is really your anger at yourself, because you know it was you that got you in that situation, though you act out your rage on them. You are a victim of a bad decision.
Oh, I got so much to give you. Okay, look at this, Psalms 25:8-14, I think this is great Scripture, it's worth underlining, it's worth knowing. "Good and upright is the Lord. Therefore, will he teach sinners in the way. The meek will he guide in judgment, and the meek will he teach his way. All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant and his testimonies. For thy name's sake, O Lord, pardon mine iniquity, for it is great". He said for your name's sake, forgive me, 'cause I'm stupid. "What man is he that fears the Lord? Him shall he teach in the way that he shall choose". Teach me how to make good decisions. Somebody say that, "Teach me how to make good decisions". "His soul shall dwell at ease, and his seed shall inherit the earth". This is the guy who makes good decisions. "His soul shall dwell at ease".
You're gonna rest in the decisions you make when they're good decisions, and your children will benefit from good decisions. Your decisions will either bless your children or be a liability to them, and it doesn't have to be a sinful decision, it can just be a poor decision. Staying on a deadbeat job when you had an opportunity to have a better job, and you decided to stay there, and all of a sudden, people suffer with you. It's not a sinful decision, but it was a poor decision. Buying something you couldn't afford, and all of a sudden, you're house-poor, you got a lovely house but no groceries. Every kid has their own bedroom, their own bath and everything, no toilet paper.
So, the Bible says if you will allow God to teach you how to choose, your soul shall dwell at ease, and your seed shall inherit the earth. Then it says, "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, and he shall show them his covenant". That's a big Scripture right there. "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him". God said if you fear me, which just means to reverence me, God said I will whisper in your ear hidden information. I will give you intelligence that you didn't know. I will give you information that you're lacking. I will tell you secrets in the middle of the night. "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, and he shall show them His covenant.
God said if you keep making bad decisions, many times you're making bad decisions 'cause you're not listening at me. Now, I wanna make a line of delineation, because I wanna be clear. There are some decisions that you don't have to go on a prayer trance to make. When the stock market start going down, I didn't have to go into a trance, "God if it be your will, I don't know what you want me to do". I looked at all the information, I listened to all of the educated in that area, I listened at them argue about it, and I sat back, and when I gathered all the information, I made a decision. I have to pray in tongues. When they start shooting in Kroeger's, I don't have to pray in tongues and say, "Lord, do you want me to go, or do you want me to stay? Are you gonna use me in Kroeger's today, and you speak to me, and whatever you do, I will do". See, I don't need God when I have common sense. When I get the information, this is dangerous, the door is to my right, I have... I don't need a revelation when I have information. I need a revelation when the information is hidden.
So, we're talking about two different kinds of decisions. We're talking about some decisions that just require natural, practical decision, require surrounding yourself with natural, practical information. But then there are some decisions for which you cannot access the information to make the decision, they are secrets. They are secrets, these are destiny decisions, and the only way you can make a wise decision where there is no information is to talk to the guy who knows everything. Hence, the Bible said, "If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God who giveth liberally as he will, and upbraideth not". You are not gonna get this out of a book.
You're not gonna get this by associating with people of influence, and people who think that spend their life schmoozing up under people who cannot make it happen for them, and then they get frustrated and bitter and jealous, because people aren't working for them when there are some things people cannot give you. "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, and he shall show them his covenant". I don't know what God's purpose and plan is for your life, so hanging around me is not gonna unlock it to you. You have got to go to the God who created you from the dust of the earth and show you what your predestined purpose is, and then make your decisions line up with what He told you.
I was looking for a way, 'cause I always like illustrations to teach truth, and I said, "Lord, how can I make them understand what you're saying to me"? And when I got in my car to drive over here, I got in my Lexus, and I got in my Lexus to drive over here, I was just thinking over how in the world was I gonna make you see it, and I looked down at the dashboard, and He said, "Just like you set this guidance system, and you program into this system," and I didn't do that this morning, I know how to get over here, but you program into the system, for the purpose of the illustration 6777 West Keats Boulevard, and you hit enter, that guidance system immediately tabulates where you are, how far you are from where you're trying to go, and how many turns it takes to get you there, and you start en-route to go to the place that you need to go.
Now, mine talks, mine talks, but let me tell you something about it. When you're unsure of where you're going, the problem with Sister Girl is that she doesn't talk to you get to a turn. As long as you are going straight, she don't say nothing. Just when you're getting ready to get to the turn, she says, "Immediately, up ahead, you will turn right". And I learned how, if you just push this button, even when she's not talking, you can make her say something, you can on mine. You can push it and she'll say, "Keep going straight". She knows you're stupid, she knows you're insecure, and you're not sure you're doing the right thing. She comes up and says, "Keep going straight". But if you don't provoke her, she doesn't say anything.
She is programed to only speak at pivotal points in the process of you getting to your destiny, and that's the way God is. The voice of God is in your life to speak to you at pivotal points in your life, so that you won't miss a turn, and all you have to do is to make sure that you listen for the turn, not for the comforts, the comforts are up to you. You can choose whether you want a red house or a blue house, whether you wanna live uptown or downtown, whether you want an apartment or a villa, whether you want a condominium, whether you wanna be a sharecropper, whether you wanna work in the bank. God doesn't care about that, but when you're about to make a decision that would interfere with your destiny, God will speak to you. Next point is if you miss a turn, the destination apparatus in the car will retabulate how many turns you have to make, now that you messed up, to get you back in alignment to still reach your goals.
How many people have ever missed a turn? Sit down, you getting me excited. Somebody holler "Decisions". If you will chart your life, I guarantee you, in the span of your whole life, there have only been a few major turns in your whole life, just a few. So, you may be on the road a long time, and God isn't saying anything, and if you press him, because you're insecure, he just says, "Keep going". Divine decisions only come at pivotal points in your life where you cannot get this from anybody but God, and the Lord whispers. A still small voice at pivotal points in your life will cause you to make decisions whereby you cannot gather information, you need a revelation.
Touch your neighbor and tell 'em, "You're coming to a pivotal point". If they don't understand pivotal, tell 'em, "You're coming to a turning point". Yeah, yeah, yeah, you gotta listen at that voice, you gotta hear that still small voice that's gonna speak to you. You gotta learn how to hear that voice. Your voice, your voice, the way God speaks to you. You gotta get acquainted with the way God speaks to you. I don't know that I've ever said anything more important than that. You have got to become acquainted with the way God speaks to you. I cannot explain how God speaks to Kenneth Copeland. I believe he does, but I don't know how. I can't tell you how God speaks to Kenneth Hagin. I'm not just what God speaks, I can't tell you how God speaks to them. It's not my business, I don't care, I don't need to know. I need to know how God speaks to me, so that when God is bringing me to a turning point, I will recognize his voice from my head.
The Spirit searcheth all things, and brings before you the things that are pertinent for you to understand, are getting this? Okay, and then he goes on, "But God has revealed them unto us by the Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of a man which is in him? Even so, the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God". The things of God knoweth no man. It's not talking about the things of men, because you can know that, and things that you can know, you should know them and do them. Get out of the house, the building's on fire. Pull your investments, take a bath, brush your teeth. That suit doesn't look good for the interview. You don't need to pray for that, because the Holy Spirit is not in the business of bringing before you the things of man. That's up to your comfort. The Holy Spirit is in the business of bringing before you the things of God.
"Now we have received not the spirit of the world," and that's what's wrong with the church. Too many times, we're allowing the spirit of the world to take over, "But the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely that we might know," underline, "That we might know," 'cause that's what these decisions are about, that we might know, having access to the information we need. "That we might know the things that are freely given to us of God". Some people are afraid to make decisions. They just collect all the information. Yes, Lord, thank you, thank you, thank you. Ooh, you're so good, you're so good. He's so good, isn't he good? He brought back to my mind, he said, "Don't forget what I told you. Don't forget what I told you".
He said be sure that they understand that procrastination is robbing them. That there is a time factor in a good decision. That people who collect all information and data and just collect it and look at it, in the process of them deliberating on and on and on, their fear of making decisions often makes them ineligible, because by the time they final decide to move, the decision or the opportunity is over. He told me to tell you that there's a window of opportunity, what we call a season, and you have to operate in season. Have you ever seen people who miss their season and then try to launch their career? I could name a whole list of people who have great gifts to sing, but they waited too late. If they would have launched it when they were 20, they'd have been there, but here they are, 75, and trying to get a contract, and fighting everybody, trying to get in. The whole style of music has changed, whole generation has died, and you can do the twist better than anybody, but nobody's doing the twist anymore. You should have been doing the twist when you was 20, now you're 60, and you're trying to launch it. Let's twist again like we did last summer, let's twist again... it's over, baby!
Throw your hands up and say, "Deliver me from my fear of making decisions". The thing that's equally as bad as a bad decision is no decisions. Do you know that you've got another set of senses that you have to exercise? The word exercise in Greek is gymnasia, where we get gymnasium. God says when you start working out your spiritual ears, you'll hear better. After a while, you will get so good at it that you're driving down the road and he can say, "Turn," and you say, we gotta move. How do you get to the point that you can make those kinds of decisions off of divine information? You do it by exercising your senses. How do you exercise your senses? You have to use them. Some of you have never used those senses before in your life, and it starts with little things. God will just test you, say move, he'll say give, he'll say sow, and every time you obey him, he rewards you. And when you obey him, and he rewards you, he's teaching you, like you would teach a baby. He's training you in the gymnasium of your life.
I gotta quit, but I can't quit till I tell you this, the problem that you are dealing with right now in your life is not a problem. It's a gym. God's put you in a gymnasium. The whole dilemma is an opportunity for you to exercise your senses by reason of use. The whole problem is a training exercise so that you will develop a greater capacity to hear, see, taste, smell, and touch the things of God. I'm gonna stop there, you've got to pray.
Now, stand to your feet, I wanna ask you a question. You can stand with your notes if you want to. My first question to you was, what are you gonna do with the rest of your life? Oh, god, I gotta quit. Gosh, I can't get out of it. What are you gonna do with? This is what they call mid-life crisis. The shock that men go through when they recognize that, first of all, that they're gonna run out of life, mid-life crisis. Whoo, I'm running out of time. I don't have time to play around anymore. What am I gonna do with the rest of my life? He says, first of all, I'm aware I'm running out. Panic, "What should I do"? And then we start doing, like, crazy stuff, 'cause when we don't know what to do, we do something. One of the most empowering thoughts you'll ever think is what are you gonna do with the rest of your life? Because if you are man enough to ask yourself that question, it means that in asking yourself that question, you acknowledge that you have the power of choice.