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

Bishop T.D. Jakes and Pastor Steven Furtick talk about moving past the painful, “crushing” seasons of life and into God’s purpose for your future.

Come on, give it up for this red jacket.

Color.

In living color.

I love you, Bishop.

I love you back.

Excited to hear you talk for the next seven
hours.

They’re not.

It’s good to see you.

It is good to be seen and not viewed.

I get it.

How many old preacher jokes do you have like
that?

Give me another one.

Oh God, don’t do that.

Don’t do that.

You have to listen to me, they come organically.

The first time you hung out with me you scared
me so bad.

He was nice enough to spend the day with me
talking about preaching.

In the middle of telling me about preaching
he starts preaching about blind Bartimaeus.

He starts acting out every character in the
story of blind Bartimaeus.

Blind Bartimaeus howlers in the story.

It’s just me and him in the room and he howlers
full throat Bishop voice across the desk at

me and I spilled my Diet Coke.

But I’ve told people about that.

I told them you can preach on anything.

Well, it’s not really that.

What we were talking about is it’s spinning
the text because on one hand I’m a preacher

and on the other hand I’m a film producer.

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 gonna be talking.

If you take that principle and you apply it
to the Bible, is it gonna be told to you as

a blind Bartimaeus or is it gonna be told
through the eyes of Jesus or is it gonna be

told through the eyes 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 address, eat the same

food but they’re having two different experiences.

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.

Each perspective opens up a new ventricle
of truth and feeling and perspective.

When you look at it in its totality, then
you see the substratumable truth itself.

All right, we’ve been going five minutes.

You’ve already ventricle and substratum so
slow it down.

There’s a reason I played My Shot from Hamilton
when you came out and you know why.

You tell them.

Can I tell them?

Yeah.

Bishop Jakes and I got to watch Hamilton together
a while back.

What I thought would be fun, just a game and
then we’re gonna talk about the book, it’s

gonna be very spiritual.

He warned me to brace myself for something
he was going to surprise me with.

Pray for me everybody.

It’s better than a dance off.

But what I’d like to do is play a game where
I give you a song title from Hamilton the

musical, and you preach us a one minute sermon
on that song title with a text.

How many of you would love to experience this?

I thought you would.

I thought you would.

How y’all doing over there?

Is this gonna be the best night of your life?

It starts right now, it starts with this.

Okay, so the song 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.

Depending upon how far he shoots it, it determines
what he could have had.

And said, “If you would have struck the ground
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, when it’s 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.

Touch your neighbor and say it’s my shot.

It’s my shot.

If I shot it for you, when you had your shot
for me when I had my shot?

If I was praying for you when you had your-

Next one, The Room Where it Happens.

Oh, gosh.

Thomas coming into the upper room after Christ
is risen from the dead.

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 in to 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 in with your hand and feel
the nail prints in my hands and touch my side.

Be not faithless but believe.”

All of a sudden the doubting Thomas is converted
only because he is in the room.

Now, touch your neighbor and say I’m in the
room.

I’m in the room.

Even if I’m in overflow, in the room.

One more.

One more.

Do you want to say more about that one?

No.

I can.

Because I was on a basic track, I was thinking
My Shot is David and Goliath.

But okay, yours is better.

What else is new?

Or we could go in the room where they’re mourning
over the corpse of a 12-year-old dead girl

and all of sudden Jesus puts them all out
of the room until nobody’s in the room but

her and Jesus and they’re alone.

He raises her up from the dead because he
has gone into the room with her.

Can you imagine what it would be like to be
outside the door and certainly hear the sound

of ruffling feet and think to yourself, “Who
is that moving?

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 12 year old’s feet.”

Because she was in the room with the right
person, she got back up again.

My conclusion is if everybody forsakes me
and everybody leaves my room, as long as Jesus

is in the room I can still get back up again.

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 back up again.

I’m gonna be in the room.

Don’t think of nothing else, I’m running out.

One more?

Yeah, do it.

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 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 midst in the air

and the fragrance of death still lurking in
the inner chamber, the stone has been rolled

away.

Sitting on top of the stone on each side is
an angel saying, “He is not here, he has risen

from the dead.”

The question, then, becomes since he is not
here, who tells the story?

This woman who comes running back, it is totally
inappropriate in a misogynic 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 has risen from the dead and I am alive

to tell his story.”

Good night, everybody.

I thought that would be amazing.

It was 100 times better than I ever imagined.

You always amaze me.

It was scary for me.

Yeah, so I wanna ask you that.

I want to get into the content of the book,
Crushing-God Turns Pressure Into Power.

I was thinking how last time you were here
you wrote Soar.

That’s so AR.

It’s eagles on the cover and flames.

Now we’re on Crushing.

What happened?

One is not diabolically opposed to the other.

For the eagle soar is about flying, but for
the eaglet soar is about falling.

If the eagle stirs her nest and the eaglets
are pushed out of the comfort of their nest,

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?

In the process of the eaglet falling, flapping
its wings in the hysteria, it is the thing

that crushed the eaglet that causes it to
soar.

What the substratum, you told me not to use
that word, what epitomizes the whole value

of crushing is to explain to people not to
be confused when the crushing precedes a soaring.

Because a lot of times if we only tell you
about soaring and we don’t tell you about

crushing, when something crushing happens
in your life it looks like what we preached

is not true.

Whereas crushing is the process and soaring
is the promise.

You cannot have promise without process.

We live in a time where people preach more
about the promises and less about the process.

What happens is when you come to church and
you hear about the promise and 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.

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, all promises are
ye and amen, and you’re the head and not the

tail, 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.

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 severely.

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
and arrow, you must realize the further the

arrow is going to be shot, the more it must
be pulled back.

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?

Yeah.

I wonder about that because I’ve seen you
at the height of success and yet you’ve shared

with me about your own crushing.

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
disqualify me and that 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?

That’s a great question.

A couple of things come to my mind.

When I married my wife I was pastoring, I
had been pastoring for two years.

I pastored a very small church in a rural
area of West Virginia called Montgomery, West

Virginia, although 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 and a good job and

I had my own place and I was good enough to
say I do.

Not long after I said I do, the whole country
shifted and the Union Carbide shut down the

part that I worked for and many industries
began to leave the rest of those states and

I was unemployed and ran out of unemployment.

Eventually, they repossessed my car and eventually
I could not feed my children.

Eventually it got so low that the deacons
loaned me a car.

But the car was so raggedy that they hid it
at the back of the church.

No, I’m serious.

It was a 1967 Valiant 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.

They didn’t want anybody to know that the
pastor had that kind of car.

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 at one point had to 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.

Some people would later question are you serving
God for stuff?

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 anointing.

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 homeless shelter,
and I can reach the guy in the penthouse suite

because I have learned how to abase and abound.

I have suffered lack, and I have had plenty.

I have learned whatever state I’m in, therewith
to be content.

Some things God takes you through are not
for you but it’s so you can reach somebody

else.

Sometimes He crushes you because He’s going
to bless you so much.

He does not want you to be arrogant like your
predecessors and so He humbles you.

Anytime He’s gonna exalt you, He humbles you.

You take the two fish and the five loaves
of bread when they brought it Jesus, they

brought it to Jesus to multiple it and the
first thing He did was crush it.

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, the

more it multiplied.

The more He crushed it, the more it multiplied.

The more He crushed it, the more it multiplied.

All of a sudden you find yourself in a state
of multiplication 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.

Sometimes it’s intrinsic and sometimes it
so that you are relevant for other people.

I want to give you one more quick example.

Look at Aaron.

You can give me one more not quick example.

Moses goes up on the mountain top to give
The Ten Commandments from God.

Simultaneously he also has the experience
of getting the plans for the tabernacle.

There he is, God designs the garments.

Sometimes we’ll have a name brand someone
but to be designed by God, Aaron’s robes were

designed by the All Mighty God.

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.

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.

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 stripped naked,
dancing naked 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 be kin 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.

Aaron is the shadow, Christ is the reality.

I always figured that’s what makes you stop
and take time and care about people is the

years that you were preaching with BBQ sauce
on your tie because you were making the chicken

for the fundraiser in the back of the church
before you preached.

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, you didn’t.

You didn’t do good at all.

Just sit back, let the old man show you how
to do this.

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 30 members at best counting

pregnant people and dead folks.

We have to have all of this food for all of
these bus loads of people he brought.

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.

I had my bow tie on because it was my anniversary
and I had my suit on and they said, “Now let’s

receive the pastor and his wife.”

I marched down the aisle like I had all of
these members, which most of them were really

his.

He leaned over and whispered to me and said,
“You left a little BBQ sauce on your fingernails.”

I love that.

You know what, though?

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 church, 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 30.

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 groomed for
is like birthing a baby prematurely.

The chances of survival go down the earlier
the baby is exposed.

To be exposed too soon is not a blessing,
it’s a curse.

You don’t want anything before its time.

Nothing before its 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.

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 stay in a hotel there’s a safe for
you to put your valuables in obscurity not

because they’re invaluable.

There’s somebody listening to 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.

Do you understand?

Yeah.

I wanted to ask you about the contrast because
the pressure of success is a type of crushing

as well.

Oh, absolutely.

Usually it’s looked at in a linear way.

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.

I want to ask you this, personally-

Hold out, 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.

When I talk about some of the worst parts
of my life, they sound real bad and everything

but at the time it didn’t feel bad because
I had nothing to compare it to.

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.

I think for me the hardest part was managing
what we call success because that creates

expectations.

The expectations are as different as there
are people.

When you have 30 people, you only have 30
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 almost eight billion people on the
planet, somebody’s not gonna like you.

Before they wouldn’t know you.

Right.

Somebody is on YouTube right now commenting
on our clothes, our-

Oh, everything.

Everything.

Everything.

He shouldn’t have that on.

I was at my son-in-law’s church, I had on
some jeans, they were the ragged kind of ripped

jeans because that’s how they dress out there
and I was trying to be cool.

Coming here, I stress out coming here.

You look amazing.

I dress 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?”

I start acting like a girl and sending pictures
to people, do you think I should wear this

or not?

The other thing about being big is this, I
preach in so many different worlds, I preach

in 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.

You have to be flexible enough to be able
to function in various types of situations

and still be true to who you are.

You see?

The Bible, it said it this way, “To him who
much is given, much is required.”

The more that’s given to you, the more that’s
required of you.

That’s why are not to despise the preparation.

Because what got you applauded over here,
will get you killed over here.

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 seeing a preacher
who walks in a room and he thinks that this

is that so he goes into whatever the thing
is that he does and he starts doing whatever

he does.

(Singing).

Somebody’s getting happy but somebody’s saying,
“Why is he singing?

Why is he singing?”

Your normal is somebody else’s weird.

The more God promotes you, the more ambidextrous
you have to be to be able to serve the body

of Christ because the body is vast.

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 and effective in
the culture.

Because I don’t just want to preach where
the amens run free, I want to go into the

wild, into the jungles and capture and ride
a lion’s back and pull him by the mane and

pull him and say, “Sit down.”

Snatch him by his head and say, “What’s my
name?”

I don’t want to go … yeah, I know you’re
a shark, you’ll be okay.

Breath in, breath out.

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 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.

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 living creature.”

Black creatures, white creatures, brown creatures,
intellectual creatures, illiterate creatures.

When I first got to Dallas, I knew that ideology
had to change.

When I first got to Dallas, I threw a party
for the homeless people.

Rented out the Civic Center, brought all of
these clothes and food and stuff.

That was how I opened up my church.

We had all of these homeless people in there.

When I was leaving this man looked at me with
tears in his eyes, it’s hard for me to tell

it, and he said, “I love you, Mr. Bishop.”

I drove away in the car and I thought, “He
doesn’t even know what a Bishop is.”

Immediately I knew either you’re going to
reach the world or you’re gonna honor your

traditions.

You have to go beyond your traditions in order
to be effective.

If you’re going to do that, that pliability,
what psychologists would call AQ, your adaptability

quotient, your ability to adapt to environment
comes from being crushed.

It comes from … I was going to say the women
would relate to that but the women today don’t

do this so the older women might remember
when we kneaded 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 ask your grandmother
if I’m right about this, that if you’re gonna

make this from scratch you have to knead the
dough.

The more you crush it, the more pliable it
becomes.

Ultimately, the bread will rise because you
pressed it.

If you’re gonna be adaptable enough to fit
into the future God has designed for you,

then 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.

Church people get amnesia quick.

They turn up their nose, like, “God, the smell
of smoke.

Oh my God it’s so hard to take.”

It was just three years ago you were sucking
on one like it was a straw.

Now, “Oh, they said a profane word.

Come on, Henry, let’s leave.”

No, don’t leave, let’s stay.

Let’s stay.

What made Jesus so radical, the religious
people hated Jesus, what made Him so radical

is that Jesus went to the winebibbers, and
He went in the street, and He touched people

who were hurting and they loved Him.

They loved Him.

Jesus 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.

Jesus wasn’t into standing out, He was into
fitting in.

Because in order for Him to redeem us, according
to the law, you had to be a kinsmen redeemer.

In order to be a kinsmen redeemer, He has
to be kin to the thing He wants to redeem.

What makes a minister effective and 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.

Because 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 them.

You’ll just walk out and wave and go about
your business.

But when you are kin 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.

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 being used by God.

Going into environments that intimidate you
excites you?

Oh, yes.

You like it?

Oh, yeah.

You’re a glutton for punishment?

Yeah, yes.

What intimidates you?

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 film subtly
to make it palatable enough that they don’t

turn but potent enough that it captures something
on the inside.

That can be intimidating.

I like to be in a room full of smart people.

I like to hear people preach who make me feel
stupid.

It’s such a turnon.

It really is, it is, it is.

I love it the best when the guy preaches so
good that I feel like just throwing my Bible

up the air, and I clap because-

You just described me every Monday listening
to you.

Get out of here.

I want to ask you about, this is gonna sound
so silly how I say it but I wrote down PMS.

It’s early to be going there.

I put it from the perspective of a lot of
times on Saturday I’m texting you frantically,

“Hey, I’ve got people showing up and they
need to hear from God and I don’t know if

I have yet.

I hope so.”

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-

[inaudible]
… describe, yeah, yeah, your pressure management

system.

All right, I love the book, it’s about how
fruitfulness is not the end, that the gardener,

the vine dresser, crushes the grapes to 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.

You’ve transcended so many limitations and
broken barriers and stood up with your hands

shaking and done things.

Oh, yes.

I want to know how you do it because 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 consumed
me, then the pressure would have aborted my

destiny.

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.

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.

Your pastor can see everything but he can’t
see himself.

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, hi.

Yeah, how are you doing?

How are you doing?

I see you.

Got that yellow shirt on, your arms folded.

I see you up there.

Yeah, yeah, I’m talking about you.

Yeah, I saw you.

Yeah, yeah, chocolate man in 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.

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 write,
they just can.

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.

Sometimes the more gifted you are the more
vulnerable you are and the more affirmation

you need from your inner circle.

Because I can walk off a stage and feel like
strangling myself with a belt because-

That was very graphic.

Good.

Good, that’s my ministry is to give you pictures.

The reason I think about strangling myself
with a belt is because 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 preached
inside of me.

The bar is so high that a lot of times I walk
on stage and I think, “Geez, 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 to me so bad I couldn’t sleep that
night and I’m not sure I can get it out.”

Really gifted people are sensitive and they’re
vulnerable and you have to learn how to function

within that sensitive, vulnerable space.

I’m gonna 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.

I was in-

It was a day where what just happened was
something so far away too.

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 were to ask me which one, I would have,
no.

Anyway, I talk it about in the book, you gotta
read the book.

She wrote a paper and she sent it to me.

The thing about me is, my wife says I’m brutally
honest.

I say I’m just honest, she would say I’m adverse
to it.

But anyway, she said I’m brutally honest.

I will tell you the truth.

She wrote this paper, my daughter wrote this
paper and she sent it to me and I read it.

I remember I was in LA at the time that I
read it.

I was busy, I probably would have made more
time for it had I not 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.”

I said, “I know you can write better than
this.

You need to go back and write this over again.”

She said, “Okay.”

And she said, “Dad, I’ll give it another spin.”

I realize now in retrospect that I probably
should have softened it a bit.

Later on, she wrote her first book.

I sat down to read the book.

I’ll be honest, I sat down to read the book
because she’s my daughter and she wrote it

and I was gonna read it.

It’s a way they used to cook.

Some stuff they cooked their mother wouldn’t
eat.

I would eat anything they cooked just so they
have confidence in themselves.

I said, “I’m gonna read this book.”

I started reading it and I called her and
I said, “Sarah, I sat down to read the book

because you 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.”

I left her that message.

She called me back, she said, “Daddy.”

She said, “Daddy,” she said, “I want to keep
this voice message forever.”

She said, “I want to keep it the rest of my
life.”

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 is not just gonna say
it because they like you or say it because

they love you, you want to get the absolute
truth from them.

An 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 with a seeing eye 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
out of Bethsaida and He lays hands on him

and then asks the blind man, what do you say?

The healing is all predicated on honesty.

The courage to tell Jesus you touched me and
it didn’t work, in front of your disciples.

He says, “I see, I’m better but I see men
walking as streets.”

Jesus touches him again, or I believe spits
in eye, and tells him to go wash in the pool.

The man has to take the first steps in the
dark.

The first time I went to 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.

It starts … it was kind of like a tambourine
or something.

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 5 or 10 minutes with

my hands behind my back until enough anointing
came.

Because when the anointing 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.

Do it trembling.

Do it on your knees.

Do it with help.

Do it on crutches.

Do it in a wheel chair because you don’t want
to end up in a nursing home sitting on bed

pan wondering what would have happened if
you only had more courage.

You don’t want to end up in an old folk’s
home and your dying thought is I wish I hadda

because the one thing that you will never
get is more time.

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 cliché level?

Like this, I was thinking about this reading
the book, you have this great section on pruning.

Feel free to preach on John 15 at any point
during this question if you want.

But I was thinking how sometimes Christians
use language to cover up lifestyles.

I really wanted to ask you this tonight, do
we sometimes use pruning as an excuse for

our bad decisions?

In other words, everybody walked away from
me, God is pruning me.

They walked from you-

Because you’re mean.

And you’re self-centered and your breath smells
bad, 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.

Whom the Lord loveth, He chastens.

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, which
is 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.

Is there a difference between being crushed
by the hand of God versus suffering the consequences

of your own decisions?

I think that sometimes God uses His hand and
sometimes He uses yours.

Yeah, yeah, sometimes He uses yours but He
… see, 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 made 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 souls, some of them
are proud souls, some of them are arrogant

souls, some of them are prejudice souls.

But they are in God’s hands and God will keep
working with and working with and reshaping

them and breaking them and making them and
breaking them again until they become what

He had in mind.

Every branch in me that beareth fruit, every
branch in me that’s doing kind of good, he

says, “The reward is I prune it that it might
bring forth more fruit.”

Ultimately, “Herein it is my Father glorified,”
verse 8, “That you bring forth much fruit;

so shall ye 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 be some loneliness.

There will be some crushing taking 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.

I was a little kid and I want out there to
do like I had seen her do, I was going to

prune the bush.

I almost killed it.

I used the same knife and it was the same
bush that had seen her prune the year before.

I used the same knife but in my hand it was
a weapon and 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.

Momma 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.

I was sitting outside and all of a sudden
I got a download.

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.

Behold is a download.

They missed that.

That was so good.

It was, wasn’t it?

You got it?

Yeah.

They’ll 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 didn’t
know, and it comes in a fullness, and it comes,

and God started giving me this download.

Oh my God, 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 pads trying to
keep up with Him, trying to get it all together

because all of a sudden I began to realize
that when Jesus held up the cup in the Last

Supper, that there was … and He said, “It’s
a new testament that’s in my blood,” 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 is raised to be crushed and Christ was

born to die.

As He held the cup, 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.

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.”

I wrote this because there is so many people
listening to us right now who are being crushed.

Some in obvious ways.

Some in childhood ways.

There are people in here who have been rapped.

There’s people in here who have been molested.

There’s people in here who have been abused
verbally, emotionally, mentally, raised without

parents, never been loved, never been treated
right.

They have been crushed.

There are people who 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.

There you are walking amongst people and nobody
can see that you’re scarred beneath it all.

That’s what crushing is.

There are people in this room right now who
have, or will, or are enduring crushing moments.

They are saying, “Where is God?”

And He is 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.

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.

I talk about this in the book, I talk about
the tabernacle.

The tabernacle stands out in the middle of
the wilderness and the flapping of the goat’s

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, ‘ohel ya’ad,

in Hebrew, the tent of meetings.

You must in at the door and the door stands
out starkly different from the walls around

it with its blue, and its crimson, and its
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 there’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 scents 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
up front.

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 crushings in order to have a
crown.

He puts it right up front.

He doesn’t give you the laver.

He doesn’t … you know how they come along
and they give you the little towels on the

plane and all that little scented stuff before
you do anything?

He doesn’t, no, no, no, no.

You will wash later, you will burn first.

You will riv and groan.

Let me prove to you, let me prove to you,
the apostle proves to us in the New Testament,

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the
mercies of God, that ye present your body

a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto
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.

God uses squirming situations to crucify the
flesh and it’s all upfront.

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’s 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 is 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 Shekinah 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 showbread where the
Bible is specific to say that the table of

showbread must be made out of fine flour.

Now, today we don’t get that because if you
want fine flour you go buy it.

But in the wilderness, if you want fine flour,
you crush it.

The finest flour 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 and crushed

until it was fine enough to be bread.

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 sometimes you’re being crushed in

your heart, in your emotions.

I was doing research for my book and I found
that the same part of the brain that processes

physical pain, processes emotional pain.

My brain doesn’t know whether my heart is
broken or whether you stabbed 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 leg.

You understand?

All of 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 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, this secret crushing
that God allows us to go through sometimes

in our life are beyond explanation.

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 and not 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 the end.

After the grapes have been smashed, I started
into this download and I saw the Bible in

Genesis that the heel, the seed of the woman
would bruise the head of the serpent and the

serpent would bruise his heel.

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
trampling on grapes.

When I saw the women trampling on grapes,
I saw the stains of the grapes on the heels

of their feet.

All of a sudden the Holy Ghost began to connect
the blood and the redemptive power of Jesus

Christ with the crushing of the grape.

When I looked at Jesus holding the cup, I
knew that He was in the cup and yet He was

holding the cup.

Immediately I sensed in my spirit, God 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.

They live in what should have been a stage.

No matter what you do you cannot pull them
out of it because pain becomes their normal.

They will provoke you until you fight them.

They will push you away until 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 residence.

I challenge you today to shatter your way
out, to break your way out.

If you can’t get out the door, come out the
window.

I challenge you today.

I challenge you to be happy even if being
happy feels funny.

I challenge you to have joy 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 when you are used to being miserable,
you will provoke everything around you until

you are miserable.

You are self sabotaging because you have 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 is you doing it
to yourself.

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 Midianites

to pull you out of the pit, you choose to
stay in the pit because you like it down here.

I like down here.

Ain’t nobody bother me down here.

I just want to be by myself.

I want to be alone.

I’m just that kind of person down there.

No, you’re not.

It is not good for man to be alone.

Your creator says you were not designed to
be alone.

You have allowed the process to become permanent
so when you break out, Steven, 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 thought it’s toxic

it’s become your normal.

When you start getting into these other atmospheres,
you can’t wait to get back to the familiarity

of this self-inflicted torchier that you put
on yourself.

Anybody who says you preach nice or you look
nice, you did that good, you don’t believe

them because believing them would free you.

You don’t believe them.

If you believe them, it would free you.

Jesus said, “You shall know the truth and
the truth shall make you free.”

That means if I was the devil all I would
have to do to keep you bound is 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.

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.”

When does God 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 under feet, it has to
come from the crushing stage to get to the

wine stage.

It has to survive, I talk about the fermenting
stage and all of that in the book.

It has to go through these different stages
ultimately to become wine.

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’re more effective when they are wine.

They can effect the consumer when they are
wine.

They infiltrate the blood system when they
are wine.

You sound like you’ve got some experience.

They don’t have to go through digestion when
they are wine.

You’re understanding 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

under foot.

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.

I have never met anybody extremely gifted
who has not gone through extreme questioning

but none of them stayed there.

I believe that many of you, your time has
come to come out from under foot, 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.

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 still,
you know, crucifix has Christ on the cross

and she said, “No, baby.”

She said, “Don’t wear that, He’s not there
anymore.”

He’s not there anymore.

It’s important that the cross be emptied to
remind you that he did not get stuck in a

stage.

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.

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 off.

I should write or something.

I should write a book.

It’s like therapy only subtle.

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 … now this is, I’m old
school so look over me.

This is good, look over me.

I still like books.

Now we have eBooks and stuff like that.

That’s nice and to all of you that are different
get the eBooks.

We have audio books and we have it in Spanish
and all that kind of stuff.

I like books.

I like books so that I can dog ear 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, it’s to hear your writer

think, it impregnates you with thought until
you start thinking things that are not even

in even the book.

I like to write little things, little notes
that came to me as a result of something I

read in the book.

I like to get a little bit of jelly on my
book and spill my coffee on it or just a little

bit.

Just a little bit so that I can highlight
parts of the book and notes in the book and

a little bit jelly and a little coffee on
the book.

And then somebody wants to borrow it.

No, you can’t have my book.

Listen, dear, [inaudible] my favorites.

Get away 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 of information.

What happens?

Let me tell you what this generation does.

I can post an exert from the book on Instagram,
it can blow your socks and you’ll repost it

but not read the book.

You walk away with cliches but no wisdom.

When the enemy tries you and finds out that
there’s nothing you but something that you

reposted but you really don’t understand and
you really haven’t delved down into, and he

starts attacking you on the level that you
spoke on, you’re not able to stand up against

because you don’t have the roots.

You understand what I’m saying?

I sense that coming that through in the book
that you’re frustrated with this microwave

mentality.

Yes, I am.

And 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.

I don’t want to leave this world without making
sure that what our fathers passed to us is

passed to you.

Our father sat around the dinner tables and
talked about the Lord.

We would wash dishes and do anything just
to be in the kitchen or be around where the

conversations were being held.

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 see a fading away, generals going home.

Generals going home.

Oral Roberts, gone home.

Billy Graham, gone home.

Countless people gone home that we loved and
cherish of all races, colors, and hymns, all

denominations.

Some of our top thinkers are going home and
they’re being replaced with our top Tweeters.

We’re now bragging because it’s trending.

My God is trending.

It’s trending.

It’s trending.

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 that 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 can get more
followers.

I want you to get this down in you so that
when you have one of those bad night like

I’ve where you’re curled up in a corner and
you really secretly want to die, that you

have enough inside of you to pull you up off
of the floor and get you back up on your feet

again.

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 until

she’s stiff, that you’ll something inside
of you that will not break, that will not

fade away, that will not fall apart.

That will make you be able to stand even if
the person you love walks out on you.

That you cry but you don’t die.

This is not about selling books, it’s about
leaving footprints.

I’m okay if you don’t get the book.

I’ll be fine.

I’m good.

This is not about commercialization.

I say I’m good because all of my kids are
grown.

I’m good.

I’m good.

We can downsize, live in a trailer somewhere,
we’d 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 wanna 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 him when
I’m dead.

I want to say something that becomes fuel
for the next 200 years and lives on in your

mouth and the mouth of your children.

I’m way past needing to be known.

I have smelled the fragrance of His presence
as unworthy as I am.

I have this need to tell you that 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’s the only thing in an unstable
world that keeps you from falling absolutely

apart.

I called it Crushing.

I want to tell you something, be honest with
you.

The subtitle really isn’t mine, it’s what
the publisher wanted.

My title really was Crushing is Not the End.

Because the substratum of the book is really
about not getting stuck in a stage, and deteriorating,

and rotting, and giving 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 set back
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 believed the first 10 years of my pastorate,
I wouldn’t be here.

I pastored 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 momma was frying fish and chicken behind
the wall because she believed in my dream.

Had success been determined by numbers, I
would have quit.

But the Bible said, “After you suffered a
while I’ll establish you and make you perfect.”

When I started preaching all over the country
like you’re preaching all over the country,

I was still pastoring a storefront.

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 would stand at the front door and watch

them drive past.

I’m not making fun of, I’m telling the truth.

They would be looking for my church.

At that point it was right across the street
from Row City Cafeteria in South Charleston,

West Virginia.

They would be driving past, they would be
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
staff person.

In our entire ministry we had $8,000.00 in
the bank.

The first time 1-800-BISHOP2 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.

I had all these old ladies answering saying,
“1-800-BISHOP2.”

They were writing stuff and we couldn’t even
read what the people had said.

We couldn’t read the prayer requests because
their hands were shaking.

I didn’t own a duplicator, I borrowed a duplicator
from Brian Keith Williams and drove to Columbus,

Ohio to get him to start duplicating things.

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’d never have anything.

They said I couldn’t preach.

They said I couldn’t pastor.

They said, they said, they said, they said
and none of it was true.

None of it was true.

You have to hold your truth inside of you.

You have to know that when all hell is breaking
loose that He that has began a good work in

you shall perform it unto the day of Jesus
Christ.

I know, I’ve probably gone over.

I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing.

How many people are being blessed tonight?

How many people needed this word from God
about crushing tonight?

Everybody in here whose been through something
crushing, just touch somebody and tell them

it crushed me, it crushed me.

It crushed me, it crushed me.

But I survived.

I cried, but I survived.

It crushed me, but I survived.

I went through a test, but I survived.

Because I figured if you will them that it
crushed you, I think if you will tell them

and stop acting like you don’t relate to this,
then we will see survivors.

Other people would learn that there’s something
beyond the crushing, that grapes do turn to

wine, that crosses turn to crown, the pain
turns to power, the scars turn to stars.

Somebody needs to know that you and honey
boo didn’t live together happily for 50 years.

Sometimes you just came home because that’s
where your shoes were.

Sometimes she faces the east and you face
the west, and your hip bones didn’t even touch

you was so far apart.

You know that little rail on the side of the
mattress?

I can get my whole big body, the entirety
of my 280 plus pounds can lay right on that

edge all night long and not fall off the edge.

Yes, I can.

Yes, I can.

We got people that get married and if everything
isn’t wonderful in nine months they’re out.

They’ve been in 12 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, sweep, mop, do something.

God put 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 God 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 be still be
sitting here talking like this.

We talk like this on the phone because you
know what?

Your pastor has greatness in him.

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 or criticize you.

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 courage
to people until they go home encouraged and

you get in your car discouraged and sit up
until 2:00, 3:00 in the morning trying to

get yourself to sleep.

Before you become jealous of anybody you see
on any stage, it don’t even have to be preaching,

hip hop, rap, I don’t care what it is, poetry,
drama, arts, 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.

All I want to be is some soft place for you
to say I’m tired, or I’m mad, or I’m aggravated,

or I got a revelation, I heard from God, or
I feel empty.

The reason I want to give you that is because
I know so well what it is to be there.

I know how valuable it is.

When you are crushed in secret places, nobody
comforts you.

When you are superman, nobody knows you’re
Clark Kent.

For every heroic momma, grandmomma, big momma,
daddy, big brother, uncle, single parent in

this room, you know what I’m talking about.

You know that momma’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 get up?

I want to get up.

I want to tell you that 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 early in my
ministry, I wasn’t used to big stages, and

big crowds, and all of the heat, and all of
the headaches, 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, the
least you can do is fix me up.

When this old country boy first got exposed
to what it cost to be up front, I didn’t want

it.

I had gone to Evangel Temple in DC to preach
and I decided I’m gonna preach tonight and

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 sells 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.

I didn’t understand that to be in the paper
at all, even though I was misunderstood in

the paper, meant that I was significant enough
to be evaluated.

I hadn’t gotten there yet so I wanted to quit.

I decided this is my last sermon, I preached
my head off.

I said, “This is it.”

I was in the after hours fellowship and they
kept wearing me about some woman downstairs

who had wanted to see me.

I said, “If she’s there when I come down,”
because I was tired and I wasn’t going down

to see her.

That was my way of getting out of it.

I said, “If 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.

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
womb and the baby was rotting inside 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.”

And she said, “If you didn’t keep preaching,
I would have died.”

She said, “The Lord spoke to me and told me
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 had shot me.

I got in the car, man, and I cried all the
way home.

I couldn’t stop crying because that woman
that I didn’t even know reminded me why I

am breathing.

Man, 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

sign in and she said, “You remember that lady
that came to see you at Evangel Temple.”

When she said it I started crying, I lost
it immediately.

She said, “I’m that woman.”

I told her, I said, I prayed.

I didn’t know her 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 breathed.

While God was toughing me up enough to stand
the weight of something that He called me

to do that I didn’t even ask 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 pure gold.

I feel like I’m here for a reason.

I don’t care whether you get a book or not,
I’m here for a reason.

I wrote the book for a 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 crushing place, don’t you die here.

Don’t you let somebody standing on the outside
of you say something about you that makes

you die.

Don’t you let somebody who left you, or forsook
you, or divorced 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.

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 or whether you’re

streaming online, I wrote a book that ain’t
sexy and ain’t about the promises of God and

three ways to be blessed and 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 to do something … I’m gonna keep
going until he grab 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.

Some of us are so masterful at being crushed
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 they’re 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, raped by a relative.

They’re all made up and gussied up looking
good and they don’t want you to know that

they have nightmares and terrors and flashbacks.

You might 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 love and live with a man but they 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’d
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 them 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 love and you come church.

Sometimes it’s your only escape is to get
in the house of God and worship yourself until

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.

We come in all colors, and we come in all
races, and we come in all genders, and all

ages.

Because the one thing about pain, it ain’t
never prejudice.

It will get everybody.

It’ll get anybody.

It’ll get any gender, any race, any orientation.

Pain will come anywhere so squeeze that hand
and let them know that they are not alone.

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 or may be
going through something right now.

But oh, God, I know you’re the winemaker.

Glory to God.

I know you are the winemaker.

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’d give them a faith injection.

In this little bit of time I’ve tried to impart
just a fragment of what you gave me.

I pray, Lord, not only would they get the
things I wrote in the book but I pray, God,

that you will say stuff to them that I didn’t
know to write.

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 will break out.

Not so much in the country, not so much even
in the church.

I’m not praying that revival will break out
in Elevation.

I pray revival will break out in your chest.

I pray that revival will break out in your
spirit, and in your mind, and in your being,

and in your soul.

I pray that worship service will break out
in your car.

That you go home worshiping God so strong
that you have to sit in the parking lot for

a while to get yourself together because the
glory of the Lord has sat all over you and

the power of God has overshadowed you.

Father, I pray for this young lion pawing
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
as 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 momma.

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 power of 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.