Joel Osteen (17:53)
the reason you're not seeing God's blessings and favor like you should. Are you pushing anybody up? Are you making someone look better? Are you investing in that friend? If you're not sowing into others, you don't have any good seed in the ground. We need to be on the lookout of who we can be good to. Remember, God sends people as the key to our promotion. It may not be a family member. It may be a friend, maybe a neighbor, maybe a young man selling newspapers on a street corner. In the scripture, there was a lady that lived in a certain town. And every so often, Elisha would come through that town. She started noticing him, and she began to feel this desire to help him, a desire to be good to him, to make his life easier. She sensed that her destiny was linked to Elisha, and so she simply invited him to her house to have dinner with her and her family. Then she offered him a place to stay. Elisha was gracious and he accepted that. The next day after he left, she said to her husband, and room to the house, so anytime Elisha is in town, he'll always have a place to stay. She reached out to him from the kindness of her heart, and they built that spare bedroom. And time and time again, Elisha would come and stay with her family. This lady wasn't trying to get anything. She wasn't trying to manipulate him into doing something for her. She was simply investing into his life, pushing him up, making it a little bit easier on him. And one day, while Elisha was staying there, he said to his servant, go find out what this lady wants. Go find out if there's anything she needs. I want to be good to her. That's the way God works. When you're good to other people, God will cause people to want to be good to you. It may not even be the same people. You may sow a seed and do good for someone or some company for a lifetime, yet you never receive anything in return from them. But don't get discouraged. The way God works is you cannot give without it causing a chain reaction. When you push people up, it sets a series of events into Motion. Somewhere, somehow, God will cause a person to feel a need to be good to you. They may not even know you. They may be in a different city, but all of a sudden they have a desire to show you favor, desire to give you a good break. It's those seeds of kindness that you're sowing. This servant came back and said, elisha, the lady doesn't want anything. She's perfectly happy. But Elisha wasn't satisfied. He said, go back and ask her again. I want to do something good for her. He was determined. It's because you can't sow a seed without it bringing you a harvest. The servant finally came back and said, okay, Elisha. She said, she's never had a baby, but she's an old lady and her husband's even older than she is. That's impossible. Elisha said, that doesn't matter. You go back and tell her by this time next year she's going to have a child. The servant went back. When he told her, the lady laughed and laughed. She thought it was a joke. She said, tell Elisha to quit kidding with me. That'll never happen. But sure enough, a year later, she was showing off her new baby boy. A dream come true. What am I saying today? When you are good to people and you develop a lifestyle of pushing them up, God will bring your dreams to pass. It doesn't have to be something big, even small things. When my mother was a child, she had polio. She had to wear braces on her legs so she couldn't run and play sports like the rest of the children. Not long ago, she met an old friend that she hadn't seen in over 60 years. They had gone to grade school together. This lady reminded my mom when they would play softball as little kids and my mother was up to bat when my mother would hit the ball. This was the lady that ran the bases for my mother. Just a small thing just pushing her up, making her feel apart. One time, Moses was on a hill overlooking this battle taking place. He was holding his rod up in the air. As long as he had his rod up, Israel were winning. But the battle went on hour after hour. And he got tired. When he put the rod down. The Amalekites would start to win. Moses couldn't take it anymore. He was just too tired. When Aaron and Hur saw what was happening, they ran up the hill, got on each side of Moses, and they held his hands up for him. Because they stepped up and did something seemingly insignificant. The people of Israel, the battle. You may not be able to do something big. Maybe you can't add a room to your house or give somebody a job, but you can run for a child that's not able to. You can hold up somebody's hands. In other words, you can give somebody a ride, to work, to church, you can babysit someone's children, or you can teach someone tips about what you know in your field. There's all kinds of ways we can push people up. Understand it doesn't have to be something big in order to make a big difference. Probably nobody has done more to help mankind, at least in the field of Medicine, than Dr. Michael DeBakey. He has spent his lifetime studying the heart. Many of the procedures that lengthen our lives today, even the artificial heart, were developed by Dr. DeBakey. But do you know where it all really started? When he was a little boy, way back in the early 1900s, his mother taught him how to sew. She took time and invested into him. Little did she realize that small seed that she planted in an eight year old boy would one day grow and develop. And those hands would become one of the most skilled surgeons that's ever lived. Take time to invest in those around you. Here's the key. Start with your own family. Make sure you're pushing up those that are closest to you. Don't take them for granted. I wouldn't be half of who I am today if it was not for Victoria. She's always pushing me up. And these days in families there's competition in marriages, competition in families. But if we can just realize the higher we help others go, the higher we're going to go. It's all connected. I've got to tell you, my brothers, sisters, brothers in law, sisters in law, they're always encouraging me. So loyal, so supportive. No wonder I'm so blessed. They inspire me to want to return the favor. That's the way it should be. Push your spouse up, push your children up, push your cousin up, push your nephew up, push your grandparents up.
