TD Jakes - Transformational Creativity (05/06/2017)
To live a truly creative life in collaboration with God, you must break rules like Jesus did, shift your perception to see new possibilities, clear emotional clutter, embrace change through faith, think beyond your current reality, seek broader exposure, and persistently storm the gates with ideas until breakthroughs come.
Modeling Creativity: Breaking the Rules
I have decided to put together 10 things that you need to accomplish in order to model creativity in your life. 10 things you need to accomplish, experience, do, or think like in order to model creativity in your life. And I'm going to unload them on you, and I hope you're ready for them. Because if you will do these 10 things, I can just about guarantee you a collaborative experience with God. Are you with me?
Number one, we are getting ready to model creativity. And our model is going to show us how. The first rule is break the rules. Creative people are people who break rules.
When I came to Dallas and I started pastoring in Dallas and I set this church up and started preaching in this church, and I had 1500 people to join the first Sunday. And within a year, I was up to 10,000 members. And people in the city came out and told me, "You can't do that in Dallas." And I said, "I didn't know it." And as long as you don't know it, you can do it.
But the moment you start knowing what you can't do and what you can't have and what you can't be, that's the moment you are incarcerated to the rules around you. I can't tell you how many pastors tell me, "Oh, you don't know the spirit of Chicago. You don't know the spirit over here. You don't know New York. You don't know."
Any time you hear people telling you what you don't know, they have bought into the rules and they live within the limits. But if you are really going to do something awesome, you have got to color—I know your first grade teacher is going to hate me for this—but you've got to color outside the lines.
You’ve got to be prepared to break some rules. You’ve got to be ready to go where other people haven't gone before. You’ve got to be willing to do something that looks wild and looks crazy, that looks different. You must be a rule breaker.
And I hate to shock you, but you are praising a Jesus who was a rule-breaking Jesus. Healing people on the Sabbath day. Eating without washing their hands. Walking through the fields pulling corn down on a holy day. Religious people hated Him because He broke the rules.
You cannot be a trend-setter if you are always traceable. You've got to be somebody creative enough to break the rules.
Change Your Perception to Change Your Reality
You know, changing perception is changing your reality because your reality is often based on your perception. And it opens up the dialogue of realizing that your perception is not the only view in which you can look at the situation. And I find the broader you are in the way you see a thing, the more effective you are at handling the thing.
The reason most people get into so much trouble is because they think the way they see it is the only way to see it. Whether you are talking about a marriage, or business, or piece of property, or whether talking about staff development, or whether you are talking about sales—it doesn't matter what you are talking about.
The more you are able to transform your perception and see other people's perspectives, the more effective you are.
Have you ever seen people that didn't appreciate you until somebody else wanted you? Just sit there. I'm going to teach this until you get it. And, all of a sudden, when somebody else comes along and starts paying you some attention, all of a sudden, they get a whole different, you know, "I once was blind but now I see." Just sit there and think about it. Just something to think about.
I've got a diagram I want you to take a look at. And just look at that and tell me... centerpiece. Somebody said a vase. Somebody said a face. Two faces. You sure it's not a vase? How many say a vase? How many see two faces? Oh. How many of you as you continue to stare at it you see both?
If you continue to stare at your life, what else would you see in it? If you continue to stare at your life, what else would you see in it? If you continue to stare at your child, what else would you see in him? If you continue to stare at your wife, what else would you see in her?
If you continue to stare at your finances, what else would you see in there? If you continue to stare at your talent, what else would you see in there? If you continue to stare at your church, what else would you see in it that you haven't seen before?
I want to tell you right now—somebody else can take your hand and win with it. Somebody else could play the cards you have been dealt with and they could win with your hand. What do they see in your hand that you don't see? And more importantly, what will they see in you that you don't see in yourself?
Because sometimes people have more confidence in you than you have in yourself. Isn't it terrible that you let them see more in you than you see in you? You can leave somebody who loves you more than you love yourself. And you won't receive the love they want to give because they perceive your value more than you perceive your value.
You will sabotage the relationship because you don't feel worthy of being loved like that. And some kind of way you just don't believe them. You just don't believe them. Or maybe you keep giving them things instead of giving them you because you think the things you give are more valuable than who you are.
You need to change your perception. And to all of you who got his or her money and lost them—my money is the cheapest part of me. It is the trash of who I am. You must remember I made the money. The money didn't make me.
So if all you've got for me is the cash, you can have the cash because the cash can't make me. As long as I've got me, I can... I wish somebody heard the words that just came out of my... Touch three people and say change your perception.
I am fearfully and wonderfully made. I am created in the image of God Himself. I am created to be creative. That means I can lose everything I've got and get it again. If I said let there be once, I can say let there be... Somebody is about to be restored.
You're going to get back what the cankerworms and the palmerworms and locusts ate up. Yeah. All you've got to do is change your perception. Stop walking around moping and glooming and cursing yourself with your attitude. Speaking against yourself. Shutting down all positivity and rejecting all the world because of the issues of your childhood. You're not a little girl anymore. Change your perception.
Clear the Clutter and Embrace Change
You know what the most disappointing thing in the world is? For somebody to lose your love because they would hold their insecurity more than they would hold you. You mean you would rather fight me than fight your insecurity? You would rather drive me away than drive your anger away? And be left alone holding your anger where I used to lay.
Wouldn't it have been better to fight the clutter than to miss the opportunity? How many times did you hold on to what you should have let go of and let go of what you should have held on to? I'm teaching on transformative creativity.
You think you are not creative, and I am saying you are creative. You're just clogged. The pipeline is clogged with what happened to you when you were 5 and what happened to you in your old job. And you're not singing in the choir because when you were in your last church...
Clear the clutter. Clear the clutter. Clear the clutter. Cast down every idol. Cast down every foe. Now wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.
Everybody in here has some clutter. You can't go through life and not have clutter. I'm telling you. You can't go through life and not have pain or vulnerability or unforgiveness or malice or some kind of drama.
Some of you are cluttered up with dead people. Your daddy is dead and you are still mad. You are being haunted by a ghost. You are still trying to prove something to your ex-wife who has been married again. She's not even thinking about you. And you're going to drive the car and let her know I made it. She's not looking out the window. Clear the clutter and enjoy your car.
When we say we are afraid to change, we say we don't want to grow because growth is change. When we say we don't want to change, we don't want to prosper because prosperity is change. We are saying we don't want to be fruitful.
When all of your faith is built around where you are rather than where you are going, you frustrate the grace of God. Faith is the substance of the thing you hope for. Faith is not a lounger laid back in the La-Z-Boy chair.
Faith has hammers and nails and laptops and equipment. Faith is crawling like the woman with the issue of blood. Faith is the little boy handing his lunch. You'd never see faith laying around.
So if you are going to be a person of faith, you have to always be evolving, always moving, and always changing.
Think Beyond Your Current Reality
Creative people don't live their lives by what they can afford. They may see something they want. They become creative about how they are going to get it. They don't... watch this. They don't bring their want-to down to where they are.
They really believe that because I saw it and I want it, I am meant to have it. So they believe the dream more than the reality and shatter the reality and walk into the dream. Y'all don't hear what I'm saying.
If I had believed my reality, I would still have seven members in Montgomery in a city that only had one red light. But even when I was there, I didn't think there. And ultimately, your life goes where your mind goes.
But because your mind is living within its budget, you can't think of anything outside of your budget. And after a while, you start walking like your neighbors because your ideas are living within your zip code.
But I came to liberate you today. I'm going to tear you out of your neighborhood if I have to carry you out on my bike. I'm going to get your mind out so you can get your career out, so you can get your children out, so you can get yourself out.
For as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. It's all right to live in the ghetto. But it sure is hell when you think in the ghetto. If you think you're... Oh, God. If you think your way out... you can get out.
Seek Exposure and Storm the Gates
I think it's critical because a lot of people say, "I like Canada," but you haven't seen all of Canada, you know. "I love New York." But have you really been to all of New York? The more you are exposed, the more vital your opinion is.
The reality is what most people mean is they love the block they live on. But the block you live on is not the world. And understanding that and using the days and times that God gives you to explore and to be exposed to more music, more art, more book forms, more ideas, more occupations...
Just because you did something for 10 years doesn't mean you have to do it until you die. You know, when you're exposed to options, you become more versatile, more creative. And a lot of times you become blessed financially through your exposure as well.
Storming the gates means throwing all kinds of ideas against the gate until something sticks. You can't storm the gates if you are going to judge the ideas. So throw everything at it. Wise, smart, foolish, don't have the money, doesn't make any sense, don't even know Fred. Keep throwing things at the gate until it breaks.
You are eventually going to think something that gets you outside if you stop judging your thoughts before you throw them at the gate. Throw all of it at the gates. Storm the gates.
I don't know who I'm talking to. But you are imprisoned in some area of your life. You're not living your life to the fullest. You're not expressing yourself as you really are. People can't see who you really are.
You are trapped in a situation, living up to who they think you are rather than who you could be. They limited you and locked you down. And deep down inside, you have been pacing around like a lion in a cage hoping that somehow or another you could get out of the gate.
And I'm telling you right now to start throwing everything you've got. Overtime, under time, work time, beside the time. Storm the gates. Concepts. Creativity. Throw everything at it. Storm the gates.
That's spiritual warfare. That's spiritual warfare. Spiritual warfare isn't laying on the rug, foaming on the carpet, beating on the carpet, crying and talking in tongues.
Spiritual warfare is throwing everything you can get your hands on at your obstacle until you knock it down. Storm the gates. Spiritual warfare is taking the jawbone of an ass and seeing it as a weapon because you can't afford a sword.
You say, "I can't buy a sword, but I'm going to beat your hips with this bone until..." Touch three people and say storm the gates. Storm the gates. Storm the gates. Storm them. Storm them.
This is your year to storm the gates. Storm the gates. Storm the gates. Storm the gates. Storm the gates. Throw ideas until you hit a good idea.
Get your mind out of the cage and start thinking again. I'm trying to get your mind to get out of that cage where you start storming the gates and get beyond the normal and the ordinary into the spectacular.
Maybe you don't have the money for this. And maybe that was a dumb idea. And maybe that didn't work. But if you keep throwing stuff at the gate, after a while, you're going to find out, "Look, there's the law of gravity. Oh, look at that. That's the law of aerodynamics. Oh, look. There's an airplane."
Can you imagine how stupid it was for somebody to think that they could fly? How many times they failed before they created the plane. Do you know how many times they fail before they find a cure? But they keep storming the gates.
But noncreative people, if they have a failure, they sit down and live with the gate. "Well, it must not be the Lord's will. If the Lord meant for me to get out of this, He would have made a way."
Who in here is going to storm the gates this year? I want a confessional right now. I want you to shake somebody's hand and look them in the eye and say, "I'm not living in that gate anymore. I don't care what it takes to get out. I'm coming out of that gate."
I'm going to storm the gates. I'm going to storm the gates. I'm going to storm the gates. I'm going to try this and then I'm going to try that and then I'm going to try the other. I'm going to storm the gates.
If I have to lay it away, if I have to pay $10 a month, I'm going to storm the gates. I'm going to storm the gates. If I have to volunteer until I get hired on, I'm going to storm the gates.
If I have to go back to school part-time, I'm going to storm the gates. But tell the devil, tell him I will not live behind this gate.
If the lepers said, "Why sit we here and die?" then surely a healthy man ought to storm the gate. Touch 10 people and tell them to storm the gates.