we cannot see what god can see we can see to the corner but god can see around the corner
and if you just trust him when all hell is breaking loose
if you trust him with tears running down your face if you trust him through a bad season
and a storm and i and it's okay to be scared you can have fear and faith at the same time
and so i had sat on a plane for about 12 hours left the beautiful city of dallas
flew to london got out in heathrow walked the corridors made the change and then flew another
nine or ten hours to lagos nigeria and then by car i traveled out somewhere i had never been before
to speak to over a million people i was in the hotel getting ready for the event
pastor adeboye had invited me to one of the biggest meetings he does during the year
he's huge all over the world but in africa it's unexplainable and i was getting ready to go
when i got a call the phone rang my son jamar had had a heart attack and the doctors were
trying to stabilize him and while they were telling me about it he'd had a second one
and the airport was shut down for the evening
and we had to pull all kinds of strings to get out of there and i never got to preach to the crowd
one because under battle you always have to keep your priorities straight
don't let the seduction of the crowd or the allurement of the masses make you forget about the
commitment to the few jamar was my son and i had to be there and i wondered lord how in the world
could this be happening they had rushed him into surgery and it didn't look good
and i said this is a 20-something year old young man
who's vibrant healthy in good shape not overweight how could this happen
you we we want to understand everything
but we don't so i flew for hours and hours and all the while i stayed awake the whole time
saying god spare my son because i don't want to know the pain of losing my child
and we want to understand why and i got to the hospital i came down the hall
and he's laying in the hospital bed and he said i hear my daddy coming
and i walked in the room i shaved his chest
i talked to him i tried to get him ready for this this surgery they were going to do
because they had to try to figure out where this was coming from and the first one hadn't proven it
and i wanted answers and i learned something you don't get answers because you want them
that god doesn't explain himself for that matter
the doctors don't explain themselves i would have took an answer from anybody
they weren't explaining much because they weren't sure why he had the heart attack
they couldn't give me answers and when i prayed and asked god why did i have to go through
this he chose to be silent and the real issue becomes can you trust god when he doesn't answer
because we want answers and we're raised in school to seek answers
and then if you get the answer right we reward you and it makes us think that there's an answer
but sometimes life hands you stuff where there is no answer now he recovered
and i'm happy about that he really recovered but my point in talking to you about seeking answers
is that it's a dangerous thing to seek answers while you're suffering that's like trying to
diagnose a storm in the middle of a tsunami you have to get to the other side of it and
look back at it and see it in retrospect because if you ask too many questions at the wrong time
you're not going to come up with healthy answers or no answers at all
and the frustration becomes a distraction because what difference does it make why
you're still dealing with what and if you're dealing with what you can't worry about why
so you're dealing with what and surviving what must take preeminence over understanding why
i grew up in a little baptist church in the hills of west virginia on the mountaintop
and we used to sing an old song we are tossed and driven on the mighty seas of time summer times and
summer tempest half succeed or bright sunshine in the land of perfect day when the mists have
rolled away we will understand it better by sometimes you have to realize
that you have to settle to walk in the dark
to walk by faith and not by sight to not ask god to appeal to your intellect because when you ask
god to appeal to your intellect you ask him to come down to your level when his thoughts are
above your thoughts and his ways are above your ways he has to come down to your level to explain
himself and sometimes god is not interested in your intellect he is interested in your obedience
do you hear what i'm saying to you because obedience is proven best when you don't understand
if i tell my child clean up the room you don't get to ask me why
i don't have to explain to you we got company coming over and we got this no no no i said
clean the room obedience is better than sacrifice obedience is better than understanding and god is
trying to teach us to obey him and to trust in the fact get this that pruning is not punishment
that you are not cursed because you had a bad day
that god is not punishing you just because you're going through suffering
they feel the same but they're not the same the intention is quite different
between pruning and punishment pruning is the reward of having something of value
is how god lets you know that you're valuable he he wouldn't prune you if you were a dying bush
nobody prunes a dying bush he prunes you because you're fruitful but pruning feels
like punishment and if you're not careful you will feel like you're punished and if you will
by that you're punished then you will believe that you're cursed god doesn't cut to kill us
he cuts to heal us i had to trust god when they cut in my back four inches
and operated on my back and i had to learn how to walk again i had to trust god as i preached
on sunday mornings and couldn't walk i went to washington dc and preached i had to lay on the
floor in the back of the church the pain was so great and then when they got ready to introduce
me i came out and i preached because when the anointing was on me and the spirit started moving
and the energy got up it was like i had no pain i only made one mistake i sat down after i got
through preaching instead of leaving and when i sat down i couldn't get up and there in front
of everybody they they had to help me up out of my seat the one who preached power and anointing
and glory couldn't get out of his chair and this oxamoron between strength and weakness
between victory and being paralyzed is the human experience truth and trust hold hands
they hang out together we need both to see the the crushing from god's divine perspective
we have to look at it from god's perspective to avoid our limited view
we cannot see what god can see we can see to the corner but god can see around the corner and if
you just trust him when all hell is breaking loose if you trust him with tears running down your face
if you trust him through a bad season and a storm and i and it's okay to be scared you can have fear
and faith at the same time i was afraid for my son and yet i had faith for my son you can have fear
and faith at the same time jesus said which of you if your son asks for bread will give him a stone
or if he asks for a fish would you give him a snake if you then through all of your evil
ways know how to give good gifts to your children how much more will the father give what you need
to his children god knows what you need even when you don't like
what you need that is crushing at tbn 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 bless you