Bishop TD Jakes - Nobody is Exempt from Suffering - Potter's Touch

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The art of life is to make sure that you
don't get out of trouble and be left with trauma,
because trouble has an expiration date, but trauma can last
for thirty years. I didn't write Crushing just to get
you out of trouble. I wrote Crushing to get you

(00:24):
out of trauma. My brother and I decided to go
into business. This was back when I was in West Virginia.
It was years ago, and it was always our dream
to have a family business because my father had a
family business. So we decided to go into business together

(00:46):
and we opened up a windows insiding company and we
were going to do windows inciety. And I didn't know
anything about windows inciety, but I learned pretty quickly. I
knew something about business. And we were doing okay. In
West Virginia gets cold, you need windows and you need sighting,
and that we were selling. And we hit a tough
spot because you do that it business. You you run

(01:06):
out of capitol, you run out of resources. You got
to pay your staff, You got to make your payroll,
You got to pay for your billy, got to pay
for your materials. You have to do all of that
kind of stuff. And my brother, who is my older brother,
and could always talk me into anything, including letting him
cut my hair when he didn't know how to cut hair.
He could talk me into anything. He talked me into

(01:27):
putting up my car as collateral to get a loan
to sustain the business. And it was kind of like
the haircut. When I looked in the mirror, I found
out he couldn't cut hair. And when we got through
struggling in business, I found out out I didn't have
a car. I literally sat in the living room looking

(01:49):
through the window as they drove my car away. This
is after going through a long period of being without
a car, and I needed a car because I had
two kids. And I thought to myself, why me? Why me?

(02:11):
I serve you, I'm preaching, I'm working, I'm laboring, I'm loving,
I'm trying to take care of his family. Why me?
And when I finally got an answer back, the answer was,
why not me? Why not you? What exempts you from suffering?

(02:33):
If Jesus went to the cross, if Paul got locked
up in jail, if Joseph got thrown into a pit,
if the woman goes there with the issue of blood,
why not me? So when you facing the limit. You
run into a crisis and you're trying to figure out
what in the world is going on in my life,
and it feels like you're going backwards instead of forwards.

(02:55):
Then you trusted the wrong person, or you made the
wrong decision, or the business didn't turn out you think,
and you have a setback. You have to remember a
setback is set up for a comeback. And you can't
go into the valley of despair and throw yourself a
pity party and luxuriate in the pain of your own

(03:16):
self indulgence and ask God why you? When God's spare
not his son, why would he spare you? The question
is never why me, it's why not me? I remember
our ministry was thriving, and then in two thousand and
eight the economy collapsed. I had to lay off forty people.

(03:39):
I thought, why me? Lord? He said, why not you?
Other people are going through the same thing. Why not you?
The Lord was teaching me how to lead, how to
make decisions, how to make tough choices. Anybody can make
easy choices as a leader, But in order to make
tough choices and have the spine and the guts to

(04:01):
be able to make a tough choice that people don't
like and they're murmuring about it and they're complaining about it.
But it was necessary to do it, and it fell
my lot to be able to make those kinds of choices.
Why me? Why not me? To him who much is given,
much is required. You can't have the much given and

(04:23):
then avoid the much required. You have to make the
tough decisions, and sometimes they are not popular. It's not popular,
but it's purposeful. And in the midst of seeking God's purpose,
you have to understand that He has a plan for
your life. Trouble comes to us all. But what I'm

(04:47):
glad about is that trouble doesn't last always. Trouble doesn't
last always. The art of life is to make sure
that you don't get out of trouble and be left
with trauma, because trouble has an expiration date, but trauma

(05:11):
can last for thirty years. I didn't write Crushing just
to get you out of trouble. I wrote Crushing to
get you out of trauma, the residue that holds on
to you, that threatens to ruin your future with the

(05:32):
incidents from your past. At TBM, our mission is to
use every available means to reach as many individuals and
families as possible with the life changing gospel of Jesus Christ.
Thank you for helping make the Gospel of Grace go
around the world. Without you, we couldn't do it. God

(05:52):
bless you.