Crushing: God Turns Pressure Into Power with Bishop T.D. Jakes & Pastor Steven Furtick

preacher jokes do you have? Like that, like give me another one, Oh, don't do that, don't do that. You have to listen. They come organically. The first time you hung out with me, you scared me, saved so like he was nice enough to spend a day with me

talking about preaching. And in the middle of telling me about preaching, he starts preaching about blind Bartimaeus, and he starts acting out every character in the story of Blind Bartimaeus, and blind Bartimaeus hollers in the story and it's just me and him in the room, and he hollers, full throat bishop voice across the desk at man, I still my don't but I've told people about that. I told him you can preach on anything. Well, it's not really that.

What we were talking about is it's spinning the texts. Yep. Because on one hand I'm a preacher and on the other hand, I'm a film producer. And one of the things you have to decide whenever you do a film, you have a story, somebody brings you a story, and you decide to write a script for it. You have to decide which character is going to be the narrative,

who's going to be talking. And so if you take that principle and you apply it to the Bible, is it going to be told through the eyes of blind Bartimaeus or is it going to be told through the eyes of Jesus or is it going to be told through the other of the disciples? Because every POV point of view leads you into a different realm of truth. You see, it depends on whose perspective. It's like a husband and a wife live in the same house, have same i address, eat the same food, but they're having

two different experiences. And so the point of view determines the relativity of the truth, the power of the truth, the significance of the truth is all brought about by who's talking. You take the prodigal son. It's one thing to talk about it from the son's perspective. It's another thing to talk about it from the older brother's perspective. It's yet a third thing to talk about it from the father's perspective. Okay. Each perspective opens up a new

ventricle of truth and feeling and perspective. And when you look at it in his totality, then you see the substratum of truth itself. All right, we've been going five minutes. You've already said ventricle and substrate, so slow it down. There's a reason I played my shot from Hamilton when you came out, and you know why? You tell him? Can I tell him? Yeah? Bishop Jakeson and I got to watch Hamilton together a while back. So what I thought would be fun, just a game and then we're

going to talk about the book. It's going to be very spiritual. He woreed me to brace myself for something he was going to surprise me with. So it's it's better. It is better than a dance off. But what I would like to do is play a game where I give you a song title from Hamilton the musical Oh Wow, and you preach us a one minute sermon on that song title with a text, and how many of you would love to experience this? I thought you would. I thought you would. How y'all doing over there? This is

going to be the best night of your life. It starts right now, starts with this. Okay, So the song that we came out to, that you came out to, my shot, what's the text and what's the sermon? My shot? My shot is the young prophet who Elijah commissions to shoot the arrow, and depending upon how far he shoots it, it determines what he could have had and said, if you would have struck the ground more times, you could

have gone further. The power of the text exists in the reality that God does not make the shot for us, but he gives us all of the ingredients that are necessary to be successful. And so what is my time to make my shot? You see, I can't wait on God to make the shot. But I have to have the will and the tenacity and the vision and the drive to pull all the way back far enough to

take my shot. Such a nator say it's my shot if I shouted for you when you had your shot, Shot for me when I have my shot, if I was glad for you when you had your next one. The room where it happens, Oh gosh, Thomas coming into the upper room after Christ has risen from the dead, and he comes into the room having missed the initial inaugural moment that Christ reappears to his disciples. Now he

comes to the room. The power of being in the room will determine the destiny of his ministry and his life. He comes to a room that he enters into the door, but Christ comes through the door, spirit enough to come through the door, and man enough to eat fish inside the door. He boggles the mind of the disciples. But that was not what convinced Thomas to believe. What caused Thomas to believe, because otherwise Thomas would have thought he

was a ghost. He says, reach hither your hand, and feel the nailprints in my hands, and touch my side, and be not faithless, but believe. And all of a sudden, the doubting Thomas is converted only because he is in the room. Now touch your neighbors, say I'm in the room, even if I'm in overflow in the room one more more. You want to say more about that one? No, I can, because I was like, I was on a basic track. I was thinking, like, my shot is David ngeliaf but okay,

yours is better. No, no, Or we could go in the room where they are mourning over the the corpse of a twelve year old dead girl, and all of a sudden, Jesus puts him all out of the room until nobody's in the room but her and Jesus, and there alone he raises her up from the dead because he is gone into the room with her, you know. And can you imagine what it would be like to be outside the door and certainly hear the sound of ruffling feet and thinking to yourself, who is that movie?

I hear the scampering of little feet, and I know it could not be this girl, because I know she's dead. I touched her and she was cold. I touched her and she was stiff. I touched her and I knew for sure that she was absolutely dead. But I hear the sound of the scampering of a twelve year old's feet because she was in the room with the right person. She got back up again. So my conclusion is if everybody forsakes me, and everybody leaves my room, as long as Jesus Us is in the room, I can still

get back up a jip. So to all of you, to all of you out there who are weeping over who walked out the room, who left you, who forsook you, who did not stand up with you, As long as you've got Jesus in the room, you can still get backed up again. Go to be in the room. Ah, don't think of nothing else. I'm running out, Yes, dude, Who lives, who dies? Who tells your story? Who lives? Who dies? Who tells your story? Early in the morning, the breaking of day, the women wrapped themselves up to

go down to the tomb. Loyal to Jesus, who has become extremely controversial, has been executed, not crucified, executed on the cross, and yet they are still going down even though he did not do what they thought he was going to do. These women rise up early and go down to the tomb. Only when they arrived at the tomb, with the dew on the ground and the mist in the air, and the fragrance of death still lurking in the inner chamber, the stone has been rolled away, and

sitting on top of the stone. On each side is an angel saying he is not here. He has risen from the dead. And the question then becomes, since he is not here, who tells the story? This woman comes running back. It is totally inappropriate in a misogenic age that a woman would be the first one to carry the message. But there are some times and some seasons that you have to break the protocol of the day.

Because Jesus was looking for somebody who was bold enough to walk into a room full of men and tell them. I know for myself he is rhythm from the dead, why alive to tell his story? Good night everybody. I thought that would be amazing. It was one hundred times better than I said. You always amazing. It was scary for me. Yeah, so I want to ask you that I want to get into the I want to get into the content of the book. Crushing God turns pressure

into power. And I was thinking, how last time you were here, you're a sore ar like eagles on the cover and yeah, and now we're crushing. Yeah, so what happened? One one is not diabolically opposed to the other. For the eagle sore is about flying, But for the eglet, sore is about falling. If the eagle stirs her nests and the eaglets are pushed out of the comfort of

their nests, is that not crushing? If their food supply is now cut off and they are pushed out by their own mother to fall off the side of a cliff, is that not crushing? Why would mama do that to me? Why would mama not feed me? And in the process of the eglet falling flapping its wings in hysteria, it is the thing that crushed the eglet that causes it to sow. And what the substratum up you told me

not to esus, what epitomizes. The whole value of crushing is to explain to people not to be confused when the crushing proceeds a soaring, because a lot of times, if we only tell you about sowing and we don't tell you about crushing, when something crushing happens in your life, it looks like what we preach is not true. Right, Whereas crushing is the process and soaring is the promise.

You cannot have promise without process. And we live in a time where people preach more about the promises and less about the prom So what happens is when you come to church and you hear about the promise, and you go home and you find yourself in the process your life is a contradiction to your faith. But you are so loyal to Jesus that you would never admit that you are not seeing the manifestation of what your

pastor is talking about in your life. And it looks like that you must be doing something wrong, because they are talking about the blessings and the healing and the soaring and the power of God and the strength of God, and how all things are yours and all promises are yea and amen, and you're the head and not the tale,

and above and not beneath. And then all of a sudden, in the midst of them saying all of those things, you are going home and dealing with marital issues, children who won't obey or comply, a sister who doesn't like you, a father who always preferred the other sister or daughter, and you're saying, how is my life in such shambles? Never realizing that those that God is going to anoint the most, he always crushes the most severe. When we

were talking about the arrows. A moment ago and we were talking about striking the ground, and we were talking about the bow an arrow. You must realize the further the arrow is going to be shocked, the more it must be pulled back. And I wrote crushing in part because I have never met anybody who did exceptional things in their life who had not at some point endured

exceptional crushing. It is the force to which you have been pulled back that determines the height that you will fly, you see ye, And I wonder about that because I've seen you at the height of success, and yet you've shared with me your own crushing, and some of that was external, some of it was internal. Some of the things that you've shared with me privately gave me hope to know that God is using a lot of the things that I think this qualify me and that will

be the actual place of power. But what I wanted to ask you on a deeper level is do you think that there is a certain process by which we accept that crushing that either turns it into something powerful or something destructive in our life. Is the pressure of the things that we go through in itself a growth mechanism, or is there a response that's required from us to make it turn into something. You know, that's a great question, and you know, a couple of things come to my mind.

When I married my wife, I was pastoring. I've been pastoring for two years. I pastored a very small church in a rural area of West Virginia called Montgomery, West Virginia. Though I lived in Charleston. I was pastoring and working a full time job. I had a brand new car. I had my own place. I mean, I wasn't wealthy or anything like that, but I had the car, in a good job, and I had my own place, and

I was good enough to say I do. And not long after I said I do, the whole country shifted and the Union car bade shut down the part that I worked for, and many other industries began to leave the Roustvelt States, and I was unemployed and ran out of unemployment, and eventually they repossessed my car, and eventually I could not feed my children. And eventually it got so low that the deacon sloan me a car. But the car was so raggedy that they hid it in

the back of the church. No, I'm serious. It was a nineteen sixty seven volume with the floorboard rusted out of the bottom of it, and I had to put carpet over the bottom of the floor so my kids feet didn't go through. And they didn't want anybody to know that the pastor had that kind of car, so when we had guests, they would hide my car in the back because that was the stage of life I

was in. It got so bad that the car broke down on the side of the road and I had to thumb to get to church and climb across the coal cars on the railroad tracks to go into the church to preach faith. I never stopped preaching. I never let up on preaching the power of God and the strength of God, even though it became so bad that we want at one point had to go gather apples to feed the kids because we had nothing at all

to eat. God knew that later in my life he was going to bless me extraordinarily and some people would later question, are you serving God for stuff? So he allowed me to be crushed early so that no matter what they said, I would know, you understand what I'm saying, Because they were going to come in at the end of the movie and make assumptions. But I lived through the first of the movie to validate the fact that it was not for the things he gave me that I do what I do. It was because of the

love and the passion and the annoying thing. And so yes, it makes you, and sometimes it also creates a narrative for you that completes your ability to reach both high and low. I can reach the guy in the homely shelter, and I can reach the guy in the penthouse sweep because I have learned how to at a bound. I suffered lax and I've had peny, and I have learned whatever state I'm in, therewith to be contented. Some things God takes you through or not for you, but it's

so you can reach somebody else. Sometimes sometimes he crushes you because he's going to bless you so much. He does not want you to get arrogant like your predecessors, and so he humbles you. Anytime he's going to exalt you, he humbles you. You take the two fish in the five blows of Bread when they brought it to Jesus. They brought it to Jesus to multiply it. And the first thing he did was crushing. He took it, and

he blessed it, and he broke it. As he broke it, he started crushing the fish and the bread, And the more he crushed it, the more it multiplied. The more he crushed it, the more it multiplied, the more he crushed it, the more it multiplied. And all of a sudden you find yourself in a state of complication, and somebody comes in and says, look at all of that fish. But you know that when you first came into his hands you were not enough. It was his crushing that

made you more than enough. So sometimes it's intrinsic, and sometimes it is so that you are relevant for other people. I want to give you one more quick example. Look at Air. You can give me one more not quick example. Okay, look at Moses goes up on the mountaintop to get the tin commandments from God. Simultaneously, he also has the experience of getting the plans for the tabernacle, and there

he is. God designs the garments. Now, you know, sometimes we'll have a name brand somewhe but to be designed by God. Erin's robes were designed by the almighty God. And God says, of all the people that have escaped the trauma of Egypt. There is one guy that I will allow to come into the holies of holies and not die, and that guy is going to be able to access My presence and represent the children of Israel.

The guy he is talking about has been left in charge at the bottom of the mountain, and so while God is designing what will be blue and what will be purple, and what will be crimson, this guy has got the whole camp strip neked, dancing, neked around a

golden calf in the process. When Moses comes down off the mountain, he is so shocked he drops the Ten Commandments because the one that God has promoted has fallen into an abyss so low that it seems like there's a disconnect between what happened up here and what happened down there. But it is really the wisdom of God. Because had God allowed anybody else to be the high priest when people got ready to come and share their sins,

he might be arrogant. But because God had so crushed him, he was humble enough that no matter what your sin was, he would remember his own, and that humility would make him able to be able to connect with you and bekin both to the problem and kin to the answer. This is a shadow of Christ who became sin for us that we might be the righteousness of God. He is in all points without sin, but tempted like as we are, so that we can come to him, and he can be touched by the feeling of our infirmity.

He became it so he could deliver us from it. Erin, it's the shadow CHRISTI is the reality. I always figure that's what makes you stop and take time and care about people. Is the years that you were preaching barbecue sauce on your tie because you were making the chicken for the fundraiser in the back of the church before you preach. See, they don't know what you're talking about. Let me tell you what I did. I think I explained it pretty well. No no no, no, no no, no, you didn't.

You didn't do good at all. Just sit back. Let' don't make sure you I do. My spiritual father's coming, and he's coming with five bus loads of people to celebrate my second or third or fourth anniversary. And I've got maybe thirty members at best, counting pregnant people in debtfos, and so we have to have all of this food for all these bus loads of people he brought. So my wife and I had to cook it. But we

didn't want to look like we cooked it. We wanted to look like we had enough members to cook it. So I had my bowtie one because it's my anniversary, and I had my pseuito on, and they said, you know, now, let's receive the pastor and his wife. And I marched down the aisle, you know, like I had all of these members, which most of them were really his, and he leaned over and whispitt of me and said, you left a little barbecue sauce on your fingernails. I love that,

you know what. I love it too, because you know what, I have always been tenacious. I have always been relentless. I never allowed my circumstances to destroy my intensity and my drive and my feeling that God was going to do something in my life. Yeah. So, having come from a season of obscurity, and this is not six months of obscurity, this is how many years, oh years, I mean years I was in a churchhip. I preached twice

in seven years. My job was to clean out the baptism pool and to shampoo the rugs three times a year, and on a Saturday, I would do that. I drove my pastor around, I cleaned up the church, I worked in the ministry, and I hardly ever missed a service, though I was hardly ever called on to speak. Obscurity though pastor is a great gift. It's a great gift. There's a reason that God develops an embryo in obscurity. There's a reason that Moses was hidden in the tent

three months. There's a reason that christ dwelt in obscurity till he was thirty. Obscurity gives you a chance to have development, to fight your own devils, to overcome your obstacles, to get your priorities in alignment. The problem we have today is that people want a success for which they have not been groomed for. Success that you have not been roomed for is like having birthing a baby prematurely. The chances of survival go down the earlier the baby

is exposed. And to be exposed too soon it's not a blessing, it's curse. You don't want anything before it's time, nothing before it's time. There's a time and a season for every purpose under heaven, and so you don't want to get married too soon. You don't want to buy a house too soon, You don't want to be exposed to crowds too soon. And so, because he loves you, it's not punishment, it's preparation. Because he loves you, he

hides you in obscurity. Anything that's valuable you protect. When I say in a hotel, there's just safe for you to put your valuables in obscurity, not because they're invaluable. And there's somebody listening in us right now who feels like they've been overlooked because they're not good enough. That's not right. You have been hidden because you are valuable.

When the time is right, When the time is right, when you are strong enough to withstand the elements to which you will be exposed to, you will be revealed. You understand. Yeah, And I wanted to ask you about the contrast, because the pressure of success is the type of crushing as well. Oh. Absolutely. And usually it's looked

at in a linear way. You know, if you'll tend sheep, then you'll kill Goliath, and then what and then you'll have greater responsibility, and then you'll have more battles and bigger battles. So I want to ask you this personal hold on, hold on. I want to drive that home. The reward you get for overcoming your last challenge is your next challenge. That's basically what I was saying. Now, let me ask you this. I really want to ask you this. In your life, what has been a greater pressure,

the frustration of obscurity or the pressure of success. I didn't have the frustration of obscurity because I never got into this to be exposed. I never wanted to be famous. I wanted to be effective. See, I think our motives have to be right. So when I talk about some of the worst parts of my life, they say I'm

real bad and everything. But at the time it didn't feel bad because I had nothing to compare it to, and my job was to glorify God in the situation I was in and to continue to lead the flock I was in. You cannot be so driven by ambition that you see obscurity as punishment. So I think for me, the hardest part was managing what we call sess because that creates expectations, and the expectations are as different as there are people. When you have thirty people, you only

have thirty people's expectations to manage. The more you are known around the church, your church grows, and then the state, and then the country and then the world. There are eight almost eight billion people on the planet. Somebody's not gonna like you, and before they wouldn't know you. Right, Like somebody is on YouTube right now commenting on our clothes right our oh everything everything everything. He shouldn't have that on. You know. I was at my son in

laws church. I had on some jeans. You know, they were the ragged kind of rip jeans, because that's because that's how they dress out. They're and I was trying to be cool, like coming here, I stress out coming here, you know, rest for you, Thank you. I put great thought into this outfit. I am geared for suits and ties. I have all kinds of suits and ties. And then I come to you and I panic and I think, oh god, I have to be casual. What am I going to wear? And I started to like a girl

and send and pictures to people. Do you think I said wear this is what? And the other thing about being big is this I'm preach in so many different worlds. I'm preaching worlds where they would church you for wearing this, and then I'll go and preach in a place where if I wore a suit and a collar, you would

think it was strange. Being global causes you to be relevant in so many rooms where the rules are different, and you have to be flexible enough to be able to function in various types of situations and still be true to who you are are you see Yah, The Bible say it this way. To him who much is given, much is required. So the more that's given to you, the more that's required of you. That's why you ought not to despise the preparation, because what got you applauded

over here will get you killed over here. And you won't even know that you have stepped into a different arena, and you don't understand that this is not that. There's nothing worse than sing A preacher who walks in the room and he thinks that this is that, so he goes into whatever the thing is that he does, and he's God's done whatever he does about God, and somebody's getting happy, but somebody saying, why is he singing? Why is he singing? So you're normal as somebody else is weird.

And the more God promotes you. The more ampidexterous you have to be to be able to serve the body of Christ, because the body is vast, and God forbid that you get an opportunity. Because I don't just want to serve the body of Christ, I also want to be relevant in affecting the culture, because I don't just

want to preach where the amen's run free. I want to go into the wild, into the jungle and capture and ride and ride a lion's back and pull him by the main and pull him and say, set down, you know, snatch him by his hand and say what's my name? You know? You know, you know, Yeah, I don't want to I don't want to go. Yeah, I know your shock. You'll be okay. We're gonna bring Yeah, you brought me. We're gonna have fun. We're gonna have fun.

Most of the preachers today only preach to Christians. At the time I came up, we would pitch a tent in the roughest part of town. I mean I preached it in a tent in the bronx where people were throwing needles down on the altar. They were coming in and throwing crack cocaine down on the altar. There were thugs. There were people in there with guns and knives, and

I was happy. I was happy because I was young and I was wild, and I was preaching get away from that gate about the lame man at the gate called beautiful, and I was preaching get away from that gate where there wasn't a big amen section like this. Today people always want to go into an environment that

is friendly fire. But the Bible said, go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every reader, living creature, black creatures, white creatures, brown creatures, intellectual creatures, illiterate creatures. When I first got to Dallas, I knew. I knew that my ideology had to change. When I first got to Dallas, I threw a party for the homeless people rented out in the civic Center and brought all of these clothes and food and stuff. That was how I opened up my church. And so we had all of

these homeless people in there. And when I was leaving, this man looked at me with tears in his eyes. It's hurt for me to tell it, and he said, I love you, mister bishop. And I drove away in the car, and I thought he doesn't even know what a bishop he is. And immediately I knew either you're going to reach the world or you're going to honor your traditions. Wo you have to go beyond your traditions

in order to be effective. And if you're going to do that, that pliability what psychologists would call AQ, your optability adaptability quote, your ability to adapt to environment comes from being crushed. It comes from the I was gonna say the women would relate to that, but the women today don't do this. So the older women might remember when we needed bread dough. The younger women don't know what I'm talking about because they get the bread already

made at the grocery store. But when you go home and ask your grandmother if I'm right about this, that if you're going to make biscus from scratch, you have to need the dough. And the more you crush it, the more pliable it becomes, and ultimately the bread will

rise because you pressed it. And if you're going to be adaptable enough to fit into the future God has designed for you, then it is it is the crushings that prepares you not to be more loyal to your traditions than you are your calling, not to look down your nose at somebody who is into what you just left. Because church people get amnesia. Okay, church people get amnesia quick. They turn up there and I, oh, my god, the smell of smoke, Come, my god, it and it was

just three years ago. You were sucking on one like it was a straw, you know, you know, and now oh, I just oh they used they said, a profane where to come on, Henry, Let's leave, No, don't leave, let's stay, Let's stay. Jesus. What made Jesus so radical? The religious people hated Jesus. What made him so radical is that Jesus went to the wine bibbers, and he went in the street and he touched people who were hurting, and

they loved him. They loved him Jesus. That was so relevant that he looked no different than the people around him. He looked so ordinary to his environment that the Roman soldiers had to hire somebody to point him out. So Jesus wasn't into standing out. He was interfitting in, Okay, because in order for him to redeem us, according to the law, you had to be a kinsman redeemer. Okay, So in order to be a kinsman redeemer. He has to be kin to the thing he wants to redeem.

And what makes a minister effect of a not condescending is when you're reaching for that soul. This is the truth, when you're reaching for that soul. The most effective ministers are the ones who see a little bit of themselves in the people coming down the aisle. Yeah, because you don't. If you're not kin to them, you won't care about them, and you won't labor with them, and you won't work with them, and you just walk out of wave and

go about your business. But when you akin to them, you are moved with compassion because you know that could have been you, that used to be you, and sometimes it's still you because you don't live in victory every day. See. But the pressure, the pressure of fitting into a religious environment can tempt you to hypocrisy because we become more concerned about being accepted by the people we worship with than we are about used by God. So going into

environments that intimidate you excites you. Oh yeah, you like it? Oh yeah, you're a glutton form. Yeah, yes, what intimidates you? Oh? Any anything that's foreign. A lot of times I'm speaking in environments that are not faith based at all. Sometimes I have to be able to deliver truth in a veil. Sometimes I have to put it in a in a film subtly to make it palatable enough that they don't turn, but potent enough that it captures something on the inside,

and so that can be intimidating. I like to be in a room full of smart people. I like to to hear people preach who make me feel stupid. It's such a turno like it, like, yeah, yeah, it really is,

it is it is. I love it the best for the guy preacher is so good that I feel like just throwing my bottom up there that I claim because you just described me every Monday listening to you get out of here and I want to ask you about this is going to sound so silly how I say it, But I wrote down pms and it's early to be

going there. But I put it from the perspective of you know, a lot of times on Saturday, I'm texting you frantically like, hey, I've got people showing up and they need to hear from God, and I don't know if I have yet. You know, I hope so. And you're kind to me, and then there's coming down after preaching a message. But it's so much more than preachers

in here. I thought it would be helpful to talk about not just pre message syndrome post message syndrome from a preaching standpoint, But I want you to describe yeah, yeah, your pressure management system, because all right, I love the book. It's it's it's about how fruitfulness is not the end that the gardener, the vine dresser crushes the grapes to make wine. That process of pressure, if it's not managed correctly, it can paralyze you. It can actually make you. It

can shut you down. And you've transcended so many limitations and broken barriers and stood up with your handshaking and done things. Oh yes, And I want to know how you do it because like I need to know, parents need to know, business owners need to know, how do you manage the pressure without the pressure beginning to overwhelm you and consume you. If the pressure overwhelmed me and to assume me, then the pressure would have aborted my destiny. And I refuse to allow how I feel to abort

what I'm called to. You touched on so many things that are so important. First of all. I don't want to leave them with the feeling of you being uncertain of your message. He's never uncertain of his message. He's uncertain of himself. And the reason he's uncertain of himself is because everybody in this room can see everybody in this room, but they can never see themselves. And so your pastor can see everything, but he can't see himself. So when you can't, that's why you have a mirror,

because you can't see yourself. I can see everybody. I see all of you, all the way up in the back, hie. Yeah, how you doing? How you doing? I see you got that yellow shirt on your arms. Sold I see you up here. But yeah, yeah, I'm talking about you. Yeah yeah, I saw yeah. Yeah, chocolate man and yellow shirt. I got you. The problem in life, when you are truly gifted, you can't see it. When you are truly gifted, When

you are truly gifted, it is your normal. Yeah. And so the frustration is you're trying to manifest your gift, and you are manifesting your gift, but you don't know that that is your gift because your gift is your normal. People who can sing aren't trying to sing they just can. People who can write aren't trying to right, they just can't. And so when they write things, they say, oh my god, that's not good. Oh my god, it's not good. Oh my god, it's not good because you can't see yourself.

So sometimes the more gifted you are, the more vulnerable you are, and the more affirmation you need from your inner circle. Because I could walk off a straight stage and feel like strangling myself with a belt because that was very graphic, good good, that's part of That's My ministry is to give you pictures. So the reason I think about strangling myself with the belt is because you should. You should hear the guy that's preaching in me, and there I am trying to give you what he's giving me.

I'm never preaching against the guy who preached before me or the guy who preached after me. I'm preaching against the guy who preaches inside of me. Okay, So the bar is so high that a lot of times I walk home to the the state and I think, you know, why don't you get somebody else? I blew it. I didn't get it across. I'm not sure that they got it the way you got it to me. You got it to me so bad I couldn't sleep that night,

and I'm not sure I can get it out. So really gifted people are sensitive and they're vulnerable, and you have to learn how to function within that sensitive, vulnerable space. And I'm going to give you a couple of things that will help you to do it. Insulate yourself with a few inner circle people who love you enough that you can be vulnerable in front of and yet are honest enough. My daughter, let me tell my story. My

daughter Sarah wrote this paper. Yeah, I know, she wrote this paper one time and she sent it to me, and I was a day where what just happened was something so far away to you talk about it? Oh, I talk about it in the book. I mean she was the least likely child Lord have mercy if you would have asked me, you know which one I would have met. Anyway, I talked about it in the book. You gotta read the book. She wrote a paper and she sent it to me. And the thing about me is,

my wife says, I'm brutally honest. I say, I'm just honest shed verse two. Then she said, a brutally honest I will tell you the truth. She wrote this paper. My daughter wrote this paper. She sent it to me and I read it. And I remember I was in LA at the time that I read, and I was busy. I probably would have been more tactful at and I've been so busy, but I was busy. And I read through it and I said, Sarah, I said, I don't even know what you're talking about it. I said, I

know you. You can write better than this. She need to go back and write this over again. And she said okay. She said that I'll give it another spit. I realized now in retrospect that I probably should have softened it. A bit. Later on, she wrote her first book, and I sat down to read the book, and I'll be honest, I sat down to read the book because she's my daughter, and she wrote it, and I was

going to read it. And it's the way they used to cook, and some stuff they cooked their mother would need. I would eat anything they cook, just so they have confidence in itself. So I said, I'm going to read this book. And I started reading it and I called her and I said, Sarah, I sat down to read the book because she wrote it, and I couldn't put

it down. I said, I read from the first page to the last page, and I didn't stop because the rhythm of your writing, the eloquence of your speech, the visual images that are created through the opulence of your vocabulary was so overwhelming that I was mesmerized. And I left her that message and she called me back. She said, Daddy, She said, Naddy. She said, I want to keep this voice message forever. She said, I want to keep it the rest of my life. And I said, Sarah, I said,

it was just what I thought. She said, I know. She said, that's what made it real. She said, I could trust your compliments because of your criticism. You need somebody who's not just going to say it because they liked you, or said because they love you. You want to get the absolute truth from them and inner circle of people who will tell you like it TI is so that you can trust them that when they say it's good. Because the reason you have to trust them,

it's like a blind man for seeing our dog. You gotta trust the dog because the dog can see you can't see yourself, and you have to be okay with that or you're never gonna get anything done. For God, I'm gonna go just a little bit deeper. Jesus takes a blind man and takes a blind man out of best say it, and he lays hands on him, and then asks a blind man, what do you say? The healing is all predicated on honesty, the courage to tell Jesus you touch me in it didn't work in front

of your disciples. He says, I see I'm better, but I see men walking the streets, and Jesus touches him again, or I believe fits in his eye and tells him to go wash in the pool, and the man has to take the first steps in the dark. The first time I went the mic to preach, my hands were shaking so bad that when I held the mic, I was nervous when I picked it up. But when I knew that they could see that I was nervous, that

made it worse. So it started. It starts ship. It was like a It was kind of like a tambourine or something, you know. So the next time I had them adjust the height of the mic. I didn't quit preaching. I had them adjust the height of the mic and put my hands behind my back so they couldn't see my hands, and I preached the first five or ten minutes with my hands behind my back until enough annoying came, because when the annoying comes, the fear goes. And then

I took the mic and started preaching. You cannot let your fear hold you back from your destiny. You have to feel the fear and do it anyway. Do it broke, do it scared, do it nervous, it trembling. Do it on your knees, do it with help, do it on crutches, do it in a wheelchair. Because you don't want to end up in a nursing home sitting on a bed pan, wondering what would have happened if you'd only had more currents. You don't want to end up in an old folks home.

And your dying thought is I wish I had a because the one thing that you will never get is more time, So you don't have time to allow your fear to incarcerate you. When you have the key, reach around there, unlock the door, and step into your destiny. Don't you feel like a lot of stuff gets thrown around at a cliche level like this, Like I was

thinking about this reading the book. You have this great section on pruning and feel free to preach on John fifteen at any point during this question if you want. But I was thinking how sometimes Christians use language to cover up lifestyles. So you know, I really wanted to ask you this tonight. Do we sometimes use pruning as an excuse for our bad decisions? In other words, you know,

everybody walked away from me, God is pruning me. They walked away from you and your self centered and your breath smells bad, you know, or whatever, But that is pruning too. Some people only learn through those kinds of chastenings because anytime you won't hear God's warning, he will chasten you, and whom the Lord loveth he chastens. And you're right, they're not leaving because God is pruning you,

But they're leaving because of your behavior. But your behavior is making them leave with just still a pruning because it comes down to how many will you have to lose for you to change? Okay, I want to go into that bishop. So is there a difference between being crushed by the hand of God versus suffering the consequences of your own decisions? I think there. Sometimes God uses his hand and sometimes he uses yours. Yeah, yeah, sometimes he uses yours. But see, you cannot get God's people

out of God's hand. Whether they are dysfunctional, whether they're emotionally dwarfed, they are still God's people. Whether they make bad decisions or stupid decisions, or terrible mistakes, you cannot get them out of God's hand. The souls that are in the Father's hands, no man can pluck them out. Some of them are smart soul, some of them are proud soul, some of them are arrogant soul, some of them are prejudiced souls. But they are in God's hands.

And God will keep working with them, and working with them, and reshaping them, and breaking them and making them again, breaking up again, until they become what he had in mind. Every branch of me that bears fruit, every branch of me that's going kind of good, he says. The reward is I prune it that it might bring forth more fruit. And ultimately herein is when our Father glorified verse eight, that you bring forth much fruit. So shall you be

my disciples. In between fruit and more fruit is always a knife. When God gets ready to take you up, he always cuts you back. There will be some exodus, There will be some loneliness. There will be some crushing place, some weeping, wallowing stage of life because you are his and he knows exactly where to cut you. In the book, I talk about my mother had a rose bush and I decided to help her out. And I was a little kid, and I went out there to do like I had seen her do. I was going to prune

the bush, and I almost killed it. The difference I used the same knife, and it was the same bush that I'd seen her prune the year before. I used the same knife, but in my hand it was a weapon, and in her hand it was a tool. God knows exactly where to cut you to make you more productive. I was doing the right thing, but I was cutting in the wrong place. Mama knew exactly where to cut that bush in order to make it go from fruit

to more fruit to much fruit. God knows exactly where to crush you to bring you to the place that you need to be. I want to throw this in what started this journey? I was getting ready to preach at Lakewood and uh, and I was sitting outside and all of a sudden I got a download. And it's hard for me to explain what a download is. I mean, all the technical people know what it is as it relates to technology. But that's kind of what we finally got to in technology. The Holy Spirit was always there

because the Holy Spirit has always downloaded. Knowledge from the Divine comes in waves. It doesn't come in reason. Right. Behold is a download. They missed that that was so good it was. They get it when they watch it back, Preach it Sunday, It'll be all right. The word revelation is the Greek word apocalypse. It means to unveil. Behold, it is a download. All of a sudden, you know something that you didn't know, and it comes in a fullness and it comes and God started giving me this

downloaded Oh my god, it was. It was not a normal one. It was a big one. It was too big to be a sermon. I was writing all over legal past, trying to keep up with it and trying to trying to trying to get it all together, because all of a sudden, I begin to realize that when Jesus held up the cup in the Last Supper, that there was and he says, the New Testament is in my blood, that that what was in the cup had

synergy with the one who held it. The grape you see, is one of the few fruits that that is raised to be crushed. And Christ was born to die, and as he held the cup, he was also the cup was a reflection of him, except that the cup had already been raised and crushed and resurrected in its eternal form. And Christ was about to be And he says, take and do this in remembrance of me. I was born to die. You're about to see me be crushed, but understand that as he crushes me like this cup, he

is transforming me from grapes to wine. And I wrote this because there are so many people listening at us right now who are being crushed, some in obvious ways, some in childhood ways. There are people in here have been raped. There's people in here have been molested. There's people in here have been abused verbally, emotionally, mentally, raised without parents, never been loved, never been treated right, and

they have been crushed. There are people who are being crushed right now in situations that don't work, in circumstances that are overwhelming. Sometimes the pressure is visible and you can see the assailant, but other times it's invisible. It's an emotional it's a mental, it's a turmoil. It's an internal conflict that crushes you, and you suffer in invisible ways, like a child that's been whipped and sent to school.

But they wore clothes to hide the scars. And there you are walking amongst people and nobody can see that your scarred beneath it all. That's what crushing is. And there are people in this room right now who have or will or are enduring crushing moments, and they are saying, where is God? And he's under the clothes with you. He's in the pain with you. He's in the situation with you. He's in the turmoil with you. No nobody else is as brutally, brutally give me this, brutally brutally

honest as God about crushing. It's right up front. The whole emblem of Christianity is a cross. Duh, It's not a crown. He comes right out front and tells you, if any man will be my disciple, pick up his cross and follow me. Come on, let's die when you win. An I talk about this in the book. I talk about the tabernacle, and the Tarbernacle stands out in the middle of the wilderness, and the flapping of the goat skins out of the the badger skins out in the

middle of the wilderness. The white flapping of the skins is an indication that God wanted to meet with Man, Oil, mo Ed and Hebrew the tent of meetings, and you must come in at the door. And the door stands out starkly different from the walls around it, with its blue, and it's crimson and it's purple. It's blue for the grace of God. It's crimson for the redemptive power of God. It's purple for the majesty of God. The door stands out because it's a picture of Jesus that says, I

am the door. The moment you walk through the door, the very first thing you see is a brazen altar, a dying place. No couches, no chairs, no furniture, no candles, no sense and fragrances, no aromas, no aroma therapy. The very thing you smell is the stench of burning flesh and the dripping of blood into a pan beneath it. Because God puts the pain upfront, he never hides or disguises the fact that the moment you walk into the door. You have to pay something for promotion. You have to

go through process to get a promise. You have to go through pushes in order to have a crown. He puts it right right up front. He doesn't give you the labor. He doesn't you know how. They come along and they give you the little towels on the plane and all the little scented stuff. Before you do, he does, no, no no, no, no. You will wash later, you will burn first, you will rear and grown. And and let me prove to you. Let me prove to you the

Apostle proves to us in the New Testament. I beseech you there for a brother, and by the mercies of God, that ye present your body a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable under God. A living sacrifice is something that is put on the altar, alive. Squirming, tied to something that doesn't work, tied to something that doesn't move, tied to a marriage that doesn't work, tied to a job that doesn't work, tied to a city where you're not respected,

tied to a situation where you're squirming. And God uses squirming situations to crucify the flesh. And it's all up front, and if you can make it past the first piece of furniture, then he'll wash away the stain of the blood off of your hands and take you on into an area that smells better. Because the first room, the first outer court, smells like burning flesh. But if you make it to the most holy place, what calms down the stench of death. It's the smell of burning incense.

The prayers and praises of the saints drive back the smell of death. And what it costs you to be who you are, it costs you to make it now. You didn't come through that door to smell death. You came to that door to have an encounter with God. But you have to walk through the whole process and then get to the veil, and get past the veil

into the holies of holies. You have gone from daylight, daylight, natural light, light that everybody sees, to candlelight, which is revelatory light, the light of God's word, to their kind of glory, which is divine light. Every step you go from transition to transition, it smells different, it looks different, it feels different. You pass the table of shoe bread, where the Bible is specific to say that the table

of shoebread must be made out of fine flower. Now today we don't get that because if you want fine flower, you go buy it. But in the wilderness, if you want fine flower, were you crush it? The finest flower was the only thing that God's bread could be made out of. In other words, it had to be crushed and crushed and crushed and crushed and crushed until it was fine enough to be bred. And in our lives, when God gets ready to serve us to the world,

there are certain crushings that we go through. There are certain crushings that you're going through right now in your life, and sometimes people don't see it. They don't know that you're being crushed because because sometimes you're being crushed in your heart, in your emotions. I was doing research for my book, and I found out that the same part of the brain that processes physical pain processes emotional pain. So my brain doesn't know whether my heart is broken

or whether you stab me in the leg. The same part of the cerebellum that sends the message that you're in pain is just as intense about a broken heart as it is about a stabbed legs. You understand. So all of a sudden, I'm in trauma, but there's no paramedic because I'm not bleeding. I'm not being crushed on the outside where you can put a tourniquet on it and send me to the emergency room. I'm being crushed

in my heart. I'm being crushed by failed expectations. I'm being crushed by the fact that I'm older now and I thought I would be further than I am, and I am not. God has a whole lot of ways to crush you. I'm being crushed by bankruptcy. I'm being crushed by disappointment. I'm being crushed because I love somebody who won't love me back. I'm being crushed because I

have a child who disrespects me. There are all kinds of ways for you to be crushed in places that people don't see, and it affects you like you are being stabbed. This trauma of the soul cannot be treated in the hospital. This trauma of the soul, the secret crushing that God allows us to go through sometimes in our lives, are beyond expl explanation. And yet there's not a person in this room, young or old, black or white, rich,

or poor, intellectual or illiterate who escapes it. You cannot live in this world and not need what I'm talking about. You cannot live in this world. I need it. Something in your life is going to be what God uses to crush you. But remember that crushing is not the end. Crushing is not. Then after the grapes have been smashed, I started into this download, and I saw the Bible said in Genesis that the heel that the seed of the woman would bruise ahead of the serpent, and serpent

would bruise his heel. And I looked at the heels of Jesus. And I looked at the bruised heel of Jesus, and immediately I was taken in the spirit. And I saw women trembling on grapes. And when I saw the women trembling on grapes, I saw the stains of the grapes on the heels of their feet. And all of a sudden, the Holy ghosts begin to connect the blood and the redemptive power of Jesus Christ with the crushing of the grape. And when I looked at Jesus holding the cup, I knew that he was in the cup.

And yet he was holding the cup, and immediately I sensed in my spirits, said, I want you to go tell my people that crushing is a stage. It's not a destination. It's not a destination. It's not a destination. Do not, do not. I gotta get this out because this is important. Some people take on a pathology of pain, and they make the crushing their address, and they live in what should have been a stage, and no matter what you do, you cannot pull them out of it,

because pain becomes their normal. They will provoke you till you fight them. They will push you away to you reject them because it is the thing that they are most familiar with, and they don't understand that they self sabotage their success. You're not fighting a demon, You're not fighting the devil. You are fighting the fact that you have become so accustomed to pain that it is your place of residency. And I challenge you today to shatter

your way out, to break your way out. If you can't get out of the door, come out of the window. I challenge you today. I challenge you to be happy, even if being happy feels funny. I challenge you to have joy if you feel even if it feels like it's phony, even if it's not you, if it's not your personality, it's not going to be you at first. What do you mean? How do you do that? Because because when you are used to being miserable, you will

provoke everything around you until you are miserable. Your self sabotagey because you made what should have been a process, you have made it permanent, and now it's you doing it. It's not God doing it. It's you doing it to yourself. And God is steadily trying to rescue you out of the pit, Joseph, but you won't grab the rope because you have become so comfortable in the pit that even when God sends the minion knites to pull you out of the pit, you choose to stay in the pit

because you like it down here. I like it down here. Ain't nobody bothered me down here. I just like to be by myself. I want to be alone. I'm just that kind of person I'm being No, you're not. It is not good for man to be alone. Your creator said you were not designed to be alone. You have allowed the process to become permanent. So when you break out, Stephen,

you feel strange. You feel like an immigrant. You feel like a foreigner, you feel like you're in a strange situation, and you want to retreat back to the familiar, because even though it's toxic, it's become your normal. And so when you start getting into these other atmosphere you can't wait to get back to the familiarity of this self inflicted torture that you put on yourself. And anybody who says you preach nice so you look nice good, you

don't believe them because believing them would free you. You you you don't believe them. If you believe them, that would free you. Jesus said, you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. That means if I was the double, all I have to do to keep you balance, keep you from knowing it. You can be beautiful, just don't know it. You can be wonderful, just don't know it. You can be effective, just don't know it. You can be smart, just don't know it.

And so the enemy keeps you blind to what you have because you're not used to light. The hardest thing in the world is to go from dark rooms into bright light. And so all of a sudden you say, oh, that's too much. And so when God does want to emancipate you, you have a tendency to go back into the crushing place because it is your familiar place. But in order for you to find your strength, you have to not only go into the crushing, you must come

out of it. You cannot make wine underfeat. It has to come from the crushing stage to get to the wine stage. It has to survive and talk about the fermenting stage and all of that in the book, and it has to go through these different stages ultimately to become wine. And grapes are at their best when they are wine. Grapes are at their best when they are wine. They are strongest when they are wine. They are more effective when they are wine. They can affect the consumer

when they are wine. They infiltrate the blood system when they are wine, like you got to go through digestion. You understand what I'm talking about. Please, please please, I feel in my spirit God breaking through some deeply personal things in this room. Some things that we don't get on Sunday morning and that we don't talk about, and that we don't expose people to. Some pathologies, some ways

in which you process yourself that keeps you underfoot. And I wrote crushing to tell you, yes, you go through it, and I go through it, and we go through it, and we all go through it. And I've never met anybody extremely gifted who has not gone through extremely crushing. But none of them stayed there. And I believe that many of you your time has come to come out from underfoot, even if the foot is your own, and to finish the process of becoming what God had in mind.

Jesus says, Father, Now glorify me with the glory that I had with you before the foundations of the world. Take me back to what you had in mind. Now. The cross is the transportation, It is not the destination. Wow. First thing my grandmother taught me I was walking through the house. I was a little boy. I'll never forget it. I had bought a crucifix somewhere and it's still you know, a crucifix has Christ on the cross. And she said, no, baby,

she said, don't wearry that. He's not there anymore. He's not there anymore. It's important that the cross be empty to remind you that he did not get stuck in a stage. I mean, said, touch somebody and say I'm not there anymore. I'm not there anymore. Some people need you to be there because they have built a system around your pain, and they have they have created jobs around your dysfunction, and they don't want you to get well because if you got well, they're afraid that they

might not be important to you. And sometimes it's not in their interest for you to recover. I'm going on and on. Let me turn up. I should write a book, aside, I should write a book. It's like therapy. I'm settled. I should I should write a book because what I'm talking about is so personal that you should be in your bed reading this where I told them, I told them now this is I'm old school, so look over me. This is even look over. I still like books. Now

we have the books and stuff like that. That's nice. And to all of you that are different, get the e books and then we have audiobooks and we have it in Spanish and all that kind of stuff. I like books. I like books so that I can dog hear the pages and bend it back and abuse the book and write my stuff on top of the book. Because when you hear a writer, think that's what reading is. Is to hear your writer think. It impregnates you with thought until you start thinking things that are not even

in the book. And so I like to write little things, little notes that came to me as a result of something I read in the book. And I like to get like a little bit of jelly on the book and spill my coffee on it, or just a little bit, just a little bit, so that I got high lighted parts of the book and notes in the book, and a little bit of jelly and a little coffee. But then somebody wants to bob, no, you can't have my book. That's a DNA in there, my favorites, and to beget

a wife from me. That's my book. You cannot lead. If you do not read, you cannot lead. We have raised a world that has everything so automated that we're afraid of quiet. We want little sound bites information. So what happens? Let me tell you what this generation does. I can post an excerpt from the book on Instagram. It can blow your socks off and you will repost it, but not read the book. So you walk away with

cliches but no wisdom. So when the enemy tries you and finds out that there's nothing beneath you but something that you reposted but you really don't understand, and you really have delved down into and he starts attacking you on the level that you spoke on. You're not able to stand up against it because you don't have the roots you understand. I'm sad. I sense that coming through in the book that you're frustrated with this microwave mentality. Yes,

you're frustrated with this skim the surface spirituality. Yes, that you're seeing a failure of it in the church and in our lives. Yes, And I don't I don't want to leave this world without making sure that what our fathers passed to us, it's passed to you. Our father sat around the dinner tables and talked about the Lord, and we would wash dishes and do anything just to be in the kitchen or be around where the conversations

were being held. And and and the level of our thought was cultivated because we got to be in the room where it happened, where it happened, where it happened. And so I'm writing, and I'm teaching, and I'm speaking at this season in my life because I think I see a fading away, generals going home, generals going home, or Roberts gone home, Billy Graham gone home. Countless people gone home that that we loved and cherish of all

racist colors and hymns all denominations. Some of our top thinkers are going home, and they're being replaced with our top tweeters. And so we're now breaking because it's trending. My god, it's trending. You know, it's trending. It's trending. And what I want is to get the word in a place that can't be hacked. Thy word have I hid in my heart so that what I'm talking about is so deep. It has to get in you to heal you. It can't just be something cute you put

on so you get more followers. I don't want to do that with you. I didn't come up here so

you get more followers. I want you to get this down in you so that when you had one of those bad nights like I've had, where you're curled up in a corner and you really secretly want to die, that you have enough inside and you to pull you up off of the floor and get you back up from your feet a going I want to put enough word in you so that when you are holding your mother like I held mine, and watch her gasp and die, and feel her body get cold in your arms and

rock her to see stiff, that you'll have something inside of you that will not break, that will not fade away, that will not fall apart, that will make you able to stand even if the person you love walks out on you, that you cry, but you don't die. This this is not about selling books. It's about leaving footprints. I'm okay. If you don't get in the book, I'll be fine. I'm good. This is not about commercialization. I say I'm good because all my kids are grumba. I'm good.

I'm good. We can downside and live in the trailer somewhere. We make it. We'll be all right. We will make it to old age. We are in old age now, but we're in denial. I want to leave footprints behind. My son is in this room right now. I want to say something that outlives me. I want to say something that catches in when I'm dead. I want to say something that becomes fuel for the next two hundred years, that lives on in your mouth and the mouths of

your children. I'm way past needing to be known, have smell the fragrance of his presence as unworthy as I am, and I have this this need to tell you, and he's more than amazing, that he's greater than religion, and he's better than your dogma and your creed and your doctrines and your theology. That sometimes he saw the only thing in an unstable world that keeps you from falling absolutely apart. So I call it crushing, and I want to tell you so I'm going to be honest with you.

The subtitle really is in mine, it's what the it's what the publishers. One of my title really was crushing is the end, because the substratum of the Bunk is really about not getting stuck in a stage and deteriorating and rotting and giving it up on yourself and your dreams and how to be productive at every stage of your life and not to think because you have a setback, that this is not God and that you can't win

and that you can't be successful. Because I would not be here if I believe the first ten years of my pastor, and I wouldn't be here. Wow, I passed the first few years of my church, sitting on a piano bench. My foot was the drum I played for myself while I was preaching. I took all the money from my job and put it into my church. My mama was frying fish and chicken behind the wall because she believed in my d and had success been determined

by numbers, I would have quit. But the Bible said, after you suffered a while, I'll establish shit and make you perfect. When I started preaching all over the country, like you're preaching all over the country, I was still pastoring the storefront and they were making fun of me because I was preaching in all the biggest churches around the country, and I came home to a storefront. It was so small that when people came to visit me, I was standing at the front door and watch them

drive past. No, I'm not being fun. I'm telling the truth. They would be looking for my church. It was at that point. It was right across the street from Rose City Cafeteria in South Charles and Westernginia, and they would be driving past. They were looking for one of those big places. They went right past my church like it wasn't even there. When I got on national television. I had one person, one staff person in our entire ministry. We had eight thousand dollars in the bay and the

first time one eight hundred Bishop Too rang in. I had all the church mothers answering the phones. I had a phone in the pulpit. I had a phone in the sound room. I had a phone in my office, and I had a phone in Beverly's office. And I had all these old ladies asking the fellow saying what ain't hand Bishop too? And they were writing stuff, and we couldn't even read what the people had said. We couldn't read the prayer request because our hands was shaken.

And I only I didn't own a duplicator. I borrowed a duplicator from Brian Keith Williams and drove to Columbus, Ohio to get it. To just start duplicating pape. It does not matter where you start, do you hear me? It does not matter where you start, It matters where you finish. It does not matter how you suffer. It does not matter how they laugh at you and make fun of you. They told jokes about me. They said

I never have anything. They said I couldn't preach. They said I couldn't pastor they said, they said, they said, they said, they said that none of it was true, None of it was true. Do you have to hold your truth inside of you? You have to know when all hell is breaking loose, and he that has begun a good work in you shall perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. I know I'm probably gone over it. I don't know what I'm suppore to do. How many

people are being blessed tonight? How many people needed this word from God about trusting tone everybody in here who's been through something Prussian just touch somebody and tell them it crushed me and crust me. But I survived. Crowd but I survived, and trust me, but I survived. I went to a test that I survived because I figure

if you would tell them that it crushed you. I think that if you would tell them and stop acting like you don't relate to this, then we would see survivors and other people would learn that that you that there's something beyond the crushing. That grapes do turn to wine, that crosses turned to crown, the pain turns to power, the scars turn the stars. Somebody needs to know that you and Honeyboo didn't live together happily for fifty years.

Sometimes you just came home because that's where your shoes were. Sometimes she faced the east and you face the west, and your hip bones didn't even touch. You was so far apart. I can sleep on you know, that little rail on the side of the mattress. I can get my whole big body, the entirety of my two hundred and eighty plus bounds, can lay right on that edge all night long and knock fall off the edge. Yes

it can, Yes it can. We got people that get married and if everything isn't wonderful, in nine months, they're out. They've been in twelve churches, they quit every job they had because they don't recognize your worth and who you are. Shut up, Shut up, grab a broom, sweet mop, do something. God puts you there to learn something. It's not always about the money. Sometimes it's about the moment. Sometimes it's about somebody you met. Sometimes it's somebody got sent you

there to influence. Everything is not about you. We talk like this, you and I all the time. If all of y'all left, we would still be sitting there talking like this. We talk like this on the phone because you know what your pastor has greatness in him, and you know what greatness needs. Greatness always needs a friend. Greatness always needs somebody to say I'm scared. Greatness always

needs somebody who will not judge you criticize. Greatness always needs a soft place to fall because sometimes being great ain't so great. Sometimes being great means being crushed and not being allowed to whimper. Sometimes being great means bearing the fact that you're in a crushing season and helping

other people and going home empty yourself. Sometimes being great means giving all of your courage to people until they go home encourage and you get in your card discourage and sit up to two or three o'clock in the morning trying to get yourself to sleep. So before you become jealous of anybody you see on any stage, you don't have to be preaching the hip hop. I don't care what it is poetry, drama, art, science, math, technology, I don't care what platform it may be. They didn't

get there because they were cute. They got there because they were crushed. And all I want to be is it's some soft place for you to say I'm tired or i'm mad, I'm aggravated, I got a revolution, I heard from God, or I feel empty. And the reason I want to give you that is because I know so well what it is to need that, and I know how valuable it is when you are crushing secret places. Nobody comforts you when you are Superman. Nobody knows your

Clark kim Ya. And for every heroic mama, grandmama, big mama, daddy, big brother, uncle, single parent in this room, you know what I'm talking about. You know that Mama's not always as happy as the kids think she is. You know that it's not always as easy to be daddy as it looks like it is. You know what it is to have to be consistent while you are being crushed. It is to you that I write, It is to you that I breathe. It is you that gave me calling.

All of these years, I'm called to you. I always have been, I always have been, I probably always will be. Can I can I get up? I want to get up. I want to get up. I want I want to tell you that I'm I'm here for you. I ain't much, I ain't much, but he called me because of you. When I first started preaching earlier in my ministry. I wasn't used to big stages, of big crowds, and all of the heat, and all of the and all of the criticism and all of the envy and all of

the strife and all the stuff. Let me fix my clothes, Lord, fix the old man up. If you're gonna be standing behind me, Lisia can at Lisia can do it. Fix me up. And when this old country boy first got exposed to what it costs to be up front, I didn't want it. And I'd gone to evangel Temple in d C. And preach, and I decided, I'm appreciate night, I'm gonna quit. The Washington Post had written a blistering what I thought was a blistering article about me, because

that's what they do. They never write blistering articles about preachers that aren't big enough to be known, because then the controversy sales product. You have to be big enough to be attacked. I should have seen it as a compliment, but I wasn't mature enough to understand that levels bring new devils and that promotions bring new problems. And I didn't understand that to be in the paper at all, Even though I wasn't misunderstood, and the paper meant that

I was significant enough to be evaluated. I hadn't gotten there yet, so I wanted to quit. And I decided this my last sermon. I preached my head off and I said that's it. And I was in act Ours Fellowship, and they kept worrying me about some woman downstairs that morning to see me. And I said, well, she's there when I come down. Because I was tired, I wasn't going down. That was my way. Again. I said, she's there when I come down, I'll talk to her. Well.

I finally came downstairs. This woman was standing there. She was tiny and frail and shaken, and she said, I came all the way here to see you. She said, I just got out of the hospital. I checked myself out. She said I was carrying a dead baby in my boom and the baby was rotting inside of me. And I've never been so sick in all of my life. And she said the only thing that kept me alive was hearing you preach. Wow. And she said, if you

didn't keep preaching, I would have died. And she said the Lord spoke to me and told me to get up out of the hospital and go find you and to tell you it's not for them that you preach. It's for us. She said, it's for us. It's not for them, it's for us. I staggered back like she shot me. I got in the car, man and I cried all the way all the way home. I couldn't stop crying because that woman I didn't even know reminded

me why I am breathing. Now. That was early in my ministry and right at the point it was beginning to explode. Last year, two years ago, I was on a book tour and this woman walked up to me at the signing and she said, you remember that lady that came to see you at evangel Temple. And when she said I started crying. I lost it immediately. She said, I'm that woman, and I told her. I said, I

prayed nor name or nothing. I prayed that I would see her again to tell her thank you, because when I was being crushed, she reminded me of why I breed. While God was toughening me up enough to stand the weight of something that he called me to do that I didn't even have, for he sent an angel right out of the hospital to tell me don't get stuck in the crushing, that when this is over, you shall come forth as kid. And I feel like I'm here for a reason. I don't care whether you get a

book or not. But I'm here for a reason. I wrote the bookfore reason. I'm standing here for a reason because I think that I'm supposed to give to you what was given to me. That if you are in or have been in your question place, don't you die here. Don't you let somebody standing on the outside and you

say something about you that makes you die. Don't you let somebody who left you or forsook you, or divorce you, or denied you or betrayed you make you hate your life enough that you stop breathing before you see the

fulfillment of the promise of God in your life. And So, whether you're in this room, or whether you're in one of the campuses, or whether you're in an overflow room, or whether you're standing outside peeking in the door, whether you're streaming online, I wrote a book that ain't sexy and ain't for about the promises of God. In Three Ways to be Blessing, Five Ways to get a new car, and two Ways to get your house painted while you sit on your couch. I wrote to the people who

have been crushed. I want, I want, I want to do something. I'm gonna keep going till he grabbed me. I want you to reach out and touch somebody next to you, and not just assume that they're okay, even if you're married to them. I'm serious, because you can be being crushed laying next to somebody who has no idea that you are being crushed, and some of us are so masterful at being crushed at it that it's

become normal. You might be touching somebody right now who has got stuck in a state of crushing and they can't get out. You might be touching somebody who runs away, anybody who looks like they care about them because they're scared of rejection and the only way of coping is to not let you in, because if I don't let you in, then I don't have to see you go.

You might be touching somebody who was abused as a child, great birelative, and they are all made up and gusted up and looking good, and they don't want you to know that they have nightmares and terrors and flashbikes. You might be touching somebody who's trying to be a father and didn't have one, trying to be a man and

never saw one. You might be touching somebody who's trying to find love and live with the man, but they'd never lived with a man before, and they don't understand men, and they're married to a man, but they talk to him like he's a woman because they never had a father,

and men are a mystery. You might be talking to somebody who's trying to raise a child and you gave him everything, and they're still angry and disrespectful, and you work like a dog, so they'd have the best of everything, And now when you need them the most, they don't understand you. And you don't feel appreciated, and you don't feel loved, and you come to church sometimes it's your only escapist to get in the house of God and worship yourself till you are drunk because you can't deal

with what's going on in your life. Squeeze that person's hand right there, because that's who I came to talk to tonight. And we come in all colors, and we come in all racists, and we come in all genders and all ages. Because the one thing about pain, it ain't never prejudice. It to get everybody. It a get anybody, It to get any gender, any race, any orientation. Pain will come anywhere. So squeeze a hand to let them know that they are not alone. And so here I stand, Lord,

with these your people. These are your grapes, clusters and clusters and clusters of grapes that at some point, at some time or another, they have gone through something, maybe going through something right now. But oh God, I know you're the wine maker. Whoa glory to God. I know you are the wine maker. I know you're not finished with them. I know you're not through with them. I know it ain't over yet. I know it's not over yet.

And I pray God that you give them, give them a faith injection in this little bit of time I tried to impart just a fragment of what you gave me. I pray Lord, not only would they get the things that I wrote in the book, but I pray God that you would say stuff to them that I didn't know the right, that you would talk to them about the specific tool you used in their life to crush them and go beyond that and show them the triumphant plan that you have to raise them up above where

they have ever been before. I pray God that revival would break not so much in the country, not so much even in the church. I'm not praying that revival would break out in elevation. I pray revival would break out in your chest. I pray that revival would break out in your spirit, and in your mind, and in

your being and in your soul. I pray that worship service would break out in your car, that you go home worshiping God so strong that you'd have to sit in the parking lot for a while to get yourself together, because the glory of the Lord has set all over you, and the power of God has overshadowed you. Father. I pray for this young lion pauling behind me. I pray that his teeth be sharp and his back be straight.

I pray that his head be held up high. And I pray Lord that you'd make his feet at Hind's feet strong enough to climb for years and years and years and years and years to come, and that he

would do like David and serve his generation well. I pray that the power of God would overshadow every pastor in this room, in the overflow in other places, watching online, every leader, every feeder, every single mama, every daddy trying to be a dad, every man trying to pull his weight, every young boy trying to figure out who he is and get himself together, and wishes he was further than he was right now. I pray that the poem God

would find him. Thank you for the opportunity to be used in this small way to speak to these your children in Jesus' name. Amen, thank you for joining us. Special thanks to those of you who give generously to this ministry. Is because of you that this ministry is possible. You can click the link in the description to give now or visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast for more information and if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe.

You can share it with your friends. You can click the share button, take a screenshot and share it on your social stories and tag us at Elevation Church. Thanks again for listening. God bless you