← The Potter's House Podcast
The Potter's House Podcast
Knowing | A Conversation with Bishop T.D. Jakes featuring Touré Roberts
01:39:20
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- [00:00]
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- [01:21]
Bishop TD Jakes
You're tuned into the Potter's House podcast where we are encouraged by powerful testimonies and and life changing truth.
- [01:29]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
Let's go.
- [01:33]
Bishop TD Jakes
Well, I have the great honor and privilege of talking to the author. It's almost like the difference between knowing your Bible and knowing God. You get something from the author that you don't get from just reading the material. You get what made the material, what made the person say the things they did, what makes them think the way they do, what makes them have the attitude that they do. And so once again I want to welcome you. You're in a different capacity today here at the church at my mercy. And we've got a. You've had extremely busy, complicated last 10 days. They have been quite difficult and yet God has blessed you to go through them. Give God a praise for Him. And I say that you've had a difficult several days because I Have had a difficult several days as well, because our family has run into something that we didn't know was going to happen. Right. I thought it was so odd that you wrote this book about knowing, and then right when you got ready to go out there and do it, something happened that you didn't know was going to happen that shook you to your core. And I think what we all have to do is be ready for the unexpected. In case you don't know, Pastor Sarah was playing with the kids on the trampoline, bounced up on the trampoline, came down from the trampoline, hit her neck, pretty much broke her neck.
- [03:41]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
Crushed.
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Bishop TD Jakes
The doctor used the term crushed her neck. And we all went into a panic. We were coming from every direction, trying to get up there to see what was going on. They went from one hospital to the next hospital because one hospital didn't seem equipped to respond to the desperate need that she faced. And we met him at the second hospital, and we met. In fact. In fact, I got there a little bit before he did.
- [04:16]
Pastor Torre Roberts
Bishop beat all of us there.
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Podcast Host / Interviewer
Yeah.
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Bishop TD Jakes
A little daddy duty. And then he had to bring her in the car from one hospital to the other because they were so slow about the ambulance. And he brought her into the hospital, and there we sat for hours and hours waiting to get some determination as concerning her, well, being, her mobility, or whether she might ultimately pass away. We have not left her this week, even though he's had to go on the road and minister about knowing while he didn't really know how things were going to be. I want you to see the contradictions in life, that sometimes you. You have to teach what you know, even when your life seems to be contradictory to. To what you.
- [05:27]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
You believe. This is what the Bible calls the
- [05:31]
Bishop TD Jakes
trying of your faith. The trying of your faith. You preaching about healing, and you collapse on the floor sick. You're counseling other couples about marriage, and you go home and you and your spouse have a fight. You're working in a nursery with children, and you go home and they caught your kids smoking dope behind the building. And I know you don't know nothing about contradictions, so I'm trying to explain it to you. It's like having a fat weight trainer. Yeah. Sometimes my life feels like I've got a huge weight trainer who knows what ought to be done. But then taking what you know and putting it into practice under pressure is a different thing. Come on, somebody. And so we admire your courage and your strength, and. Thank you. I thought that God has the strangest way of knitting his people together. And as long as you've been here and as long as you've been pastor, this is the first time the church got to go through a storm with you. And in the midst of, of all of that, it is that relationship that really connects people to you. It's not what, you know, it's not your performance, it's. It's how we weather the storm. You know, how we weather the storm together. And as much as we try to show that we, we are not hurting and that we're not in trouble, it is the very thing that we run from that causes people to love us. It took me 50 years to learn and I gave it to you in five. So you, you, you, you really got a bargain there. Let me start with not how do you preach or how do you write the book or, or, or anything like that. How are.
- [08:10]
Pastor Torre Roberts
You? Thank you for asking that question. And I would love to answer as a son and not as whatever else I have to be. I feel kept. I was thinking about. I think it's in First Peter, chapter five or somewhere in there. Read your whole Bible. You know it's there. But it talks about being kept by the power of God through faith, through my faith. I love Sarah with all my heart. It's not a game. I don't know about other marriages, but it's a union. And so it is absolutely impossible for me to be okay when she is not. So I'm not okay. I'll be honest with you. I'm not okay. But I am well. Well, in the sense that I'm grateful to God for delivering her and saving her. I'm very, very, very grateful. I'm well because he knows my pain and I'm well because of this particular knowing that is, he wouldn't have allowed us as a family to experience it if he hadn't already pre qualified us to stand through it. But I feel kept. I'd be lying if I said good. I called you the other day in tears and in honesty. But I do feel kept. And I know that we're gonna get through it.
- [10:16]
Bishop TD Jakes
Thank you, Jesus. Give God a praise. You know, one of the things that I have always admired, both about our church family and about our natural family, is that we have been able to pass on something that started with the previous generation. I was raised to believe that family sticks together no matter what. Might correct you when we get home, might yell at you in the car, but when the rubber meets the road, we come together as a team and we stand Together. And I think that kind of love should be exemplified all the time. But certainly when we are the most vulnerable, to have a safe place to lay your head, to have a safe place to be human, to have a place where you can go and not be criticized for your own humanity is vitally important and more precious. And go. Of course we've got God. Of course we can pray. Of course we can talk to heaven. But if we didn't need human touch, God wouldn't have been made flesh. He was made flesh that he might be touched by the feeling of our infirmity. And to have to minister up under these conditions is what makes a man of God a man of God. Preaching when everything is going well and teaching when everything is going well, that's all head stuff.
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Pastor Torre Roberts
Yeah.
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Bishop TD Jakes
But when you cried all the way to church and then get out the car and stand up and start ministering and get in the car and cry all the way back home, then you are truly the Lord's servant.
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Podcast Host / Interviewer
Wow. Wow.
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Bishop TD Jakes
You're truly the Lord's servant. And I know you well enough to know, to see and know the pressure that's in your face and what you're going through. And that's okay because I think that sometimes the shepherd, the sheep learn the shepherd best in. In moments like this, you know, your strength is made perfect in weakness. And so I just wanted to acknowledge the extreme stress that you're under. I know it so well. I share it with you. I bear it with you. And I have had it many times before. When you write about knowing, how much do you think that it is the bad times that matures, our ability to know ourselves, to know our capabilities and to know God.
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Pastor Torre Roberts
I think I'm learning all the more in this season that is, it is impossible to recognize your raw materials outside of moments like this. In the first chapter, it's called be still and know. And immediately I deal with life seasons that put you in what I call like a cocoon.
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Bishop TD Jakes
Yeah.
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Pastor Torre Roberts
Where God is trying to develop you. And wouldn't it be cool if God developed you in a nice, pretty little classroom where you don't have to participate? You can just look and. And admire the examples.
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Bishop TD Jakes
I would like that.
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Pastor Torre Roberts
That would really be, you know, but. But when God is looking to develop you, you are the subject.
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Bishop TD Jakes
Yeah.
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Pastor Torre Roberts
You're not reading about, you know, somebody else where you can say, oh, that happened to them. I'll be ready when it comes. No, you, you. So I think your ability to not fall completely apart, your ability to trust God's Heart. When you can't see his hand, it does produce a strength in you, a fortitude. It's gonna do one of two things. Either it's gonna kill you, or it's gonna make you. And, And I've decided that I will let it make me.
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Bishop TD Jakes
You know, I think that's why we read the Word. That's why we read books like this. Sometimes we read them at a moment that we think that we don't need them. But if you read when you can, what is in you comes out when you're in a storm. Yeah. Whatever's in you, whether it's craziness, confusion, anger, profanity, whatever you fed yourself, that's all you have for dinner when you're in the storm.
- [15:50]
Pastor Torre Roberts
Wow.
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Bishop TD Jakes
You know, and, and, and that's what gives credibility to the minister. And it is not stealing somebody's sermon that you haven't earned. Yeah, you got the words, but you haven't earned the unction that goes behind. The unction comes through trials and tribulations and hard times. And the unction doesn't come when you're dancing. The unction comes when you're crawling across the floor. And after you get through crawling and you get up and you're able to dance again, that's what you're celebrating. The fact that he brought me through the storm. He brought me through the storm. I, I, I really love. I tried to fast read as much as I could of the book, but I wanted to start with the subtitle. The Journey to Certainty in an Uncertain World.
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Pastor Torre Roberts
Yeah. Yeah.
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Bishop TD Jakes
The journey to certainty. It is a journey. And, and, and you're teaching us about the journey, and yet going through the journey, which brings up a point that I think we keep looking for this place where we graduate, but we just go to another level of the journey. Yes, Another level of the test, another level of knowing. Another level of knowing oneself. It's like getting married. You know each other, or you wouldn't be getting married. But then after you get married, you know each other better. And then, Then when you go through midlife and menopause, you know each other better. And then when you're sitting by the hospital bed, you know each other better. And my point is, is that God strips slowly. He. He takes his clothes off slowly. The Book of Revelation comes from the Greek word apocalypse. It's the unveiling. Like, you unveil a picture, he lifts the curtain slowly. And little by little, we come to know him as we go into these different situations, and we. He's the same God in the fire that he was in the desert. But you didn't know know that he could handle the fire until you're in the fire. You didn't know he could keep you till you go through the desert. What do you think the difference, the idea of knowing. How do we keep our know our knowledge of God separated from our intellect? Because you make a sharp distinction in the book between intellectual thinking and knowing God. Almost as if it isn't just mind power, but there is a deeper. I'll let you tell it. You wrote it.
- [18:51]
Pastor Torre Roberts
Yes, indeed. No, this is good. First of all, I get to sit down with the bishop. So I'm in joy. I'm like, talk on. Please talk on. There's a chapter called the Catalyst of Ignorance. And it's rooted in the fact that science doesn't spend all of its money exploring what is known. It spends all of its money and its time from an ignorant place trying to discover what they don't know. And I wrote about that because even though the book is called Knowing, there is a humility that we have to walk in recognizing that our thoughts are not his thoughts and his ways are not our ways. There's a distinction. And so my approach to knowing is that I don't know. And the more that I come to know, the more I realize how much I don't know. And that's why even though the book is called Knowing, knowing is not a static state. If I'm saying I am knowing, I am ongoingly continuing to know. And you know, there's that passage in First Corinthians 2 that we talk about. Eyes have not seen, ears have not heard, nor is it into the heart of man, those things that God has prepared. Then later it says, but God has revealed them to us. There was spirit that we might know all things. So there is this tension between what God knows and what he ultimately is going to show you and the reality of your ignorance. You know, this, this gap. But for me, the approach is always humility. I will never arrive. That's why it's a journey that we will be on every single day until we see the Lord face to face. Then we shall know as we are known, like Paul wrote about. But. But my approach to it is. Is. Is. Is. Is humility.
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Bishop TD Jakes
You know, I want to interrupt you for a second because I'm about to leap out of my seat. I'm about to leap out of my seat because you used the word this. There is this tension. And I think a lot of people don't Understand that you have to become comfortable with living in the tension.
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Pastor Torre Roberts
Tension.
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Bishop TD Jakes
You know, we think we're going to live after the tension stops, but by then we're so old, it doesn't make any difference. I'm not sure at Ever Shops, I haven't gotten old enough to run into a place where there isn't any tension. And I had to learn how to settle into living in the tension. The Greek word for knowing is God, and it means progressive knowledge. We grow in knowledge. We grow in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We grow in the knowledge of ourselves. We grow in the knowledge of our children. We grow in the knowledge of our relationship. Knowing is the journey worth taking. And I love the fact that you called it a journey because you gave us permission to be uncertain, you know, and to seek certainty in the midst of an uncertain world. Thursday, we had no idea. Friday, we had no idea that we would be in the situation that we were in. When. When I heard it, I almost flipped. Because one of the curses and blessings about being me is that when I see words or hear words, I see pictures. So when they told me she'd fallen, broken her neck, I saw it and I almost lost it. I did lose it over what I saw, but what I saw and what I imagined in my mind when I actually did get to see her, what I had imagined was worse than how she appeared. Okay? And so when the Bible talks about casting down imaginations, you know, and everything that exalted itself against the knowledge of God, see, you have imagined something more terrible than what it is. And Satan is a deceiver, and he will give you a vision of catastrophe and not conquering. You have to seek the vision of conquering. The vision of catastrophe is. Teases you at night and keeps you up in the morning and wakes you up and scares you while you're driving to work. But always there is this tension between these two voices. You too young to remember this, maybe, but there used to be a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other. You all remember that. And both of them would be talking to you at the same time. And people say they hear voices. Everybody hears voices. There's one voice that says, you're not gonna make it. There's another voice that says, I can do all things through Christ, which strengthens me. I thought about what Paul said when he said, when I would do good, evil is present with me. That which I would do, I do not. That which I would not do, I do. Oh, riches, man that I am, who shall Deliver me basically from this tension. From this tension. I want to stop the tension. And what. What I think God is trying to do is make us comfortable with being uncomfortable.
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Pastor Torre Roberts
Yes, yes.
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Bishop TD Jakes
Yes. Yeah. You see?
- [25:12]
Pastor Torre Roberts
Absolutely.
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Bishop TD Jakes
And I think that's what you're telling us is how to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. And following God is going to always take you into new places. Moses had to be in the now and float down the now. And as a Hebrew, he had to learn how to speak the Egyptian language and live in the palace. But he wasn't quite an Egyptian and he wasn't quite a Hebrew. And then he murdered somebody trying to be a Hebrew. And then he has to leave both the Hebrews and the Egyptians and go out and live with the Midianites and try to settle into being the Midianites, only to find out that once he gets settled into being a Midianite, then he has to go back to Egypt and face Pharaoh as with certainty. And yet he is a murderer on the run. And he doesn't know whether he's going to win with Pharaoh or get arrested by Pharaoh or get beheaded by Pharaoh. And the moment he survives all of that, now he has to go to the desert, but he has to cross the Red Sea to get to the desert. The only thing stable in the story, in God sending lice and frogs and all types of turbulent things. The only thing stable in the story is God.
- [26:35]
Pastor Torre Roberts
Yes. Yes.
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Bishop TD Jakes
Yeah.
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Podcast Host / Interviewer
Yeah. Everything else kept changing his whole life. Sometimes the water was bitter, sometimes the water was sweet.
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Bishop TD Jakes
Sometimes he spoke to the rock, Sometimes he hit the rock. Everything else changes throughout the bit by snakes. They go through all kinds.
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Podcast Host / Interviewer
That's what life is.
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Bishop TD Jakes
Uncertainty.
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Pastor Torre Roberts
Yes.
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Bishop TD Jakes
And we are in the height of uncertainty right now.
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Podcast Host / Interviewer
We don't know whether you're going to have a job. You don't know whether you're going to lose the job. You don't know whether you're going to be laid off. You don't know where to put your money. You don't know if the banks are going to crash.
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Bishop TD Jakes
You don't know if the stock market's going to crash.
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Podcast Host / Interviewer
You don't know where your husband is.
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Bishop TD Jakes
You don't know where your wife is. You don't know where the head is at.
- [27:23]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
You don't know what your children won't do. They don't know what you will do. You don't know whether you're going to be promoted. You don't know whether you're going to be fired. You don't know whether you're going to be able to pay the mortgage. You don't know whether you're not going to be able to pay the mortgage. And yet you can't sit up there and have a nervous breakdown worrying about all the things you don't know, rehearsing them over. Because you do know that God is with you. And you do know that God will sustain you. And you do know that God will help you. And you do know that if he brought me out of that, he'll bring me out of this. And you do know that there's something down in you that's a rock. While everything else is shaken and falling apart, there's something deep down in your belly that is a rock that will not move. Rock of ages, Cleft for me Let me hide myself in thee. And it's that kind of knowing, progressive
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Bishop TD Jakes
knowledge going on to know, adding to your faith, virtue, growing in the grace of God, that kind of knowing that
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Podcast Host / Interviewer
you have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. So they pitched tents in the desert
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Bishop TD Jakes
and tried to make it as comfortable as they could because they were in an uncomfortable place, but they had to
- [28:47]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
be comfortable with it.
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Bishop TD Jakes
And God became fire by night and
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Podcast Host / Interviewer
a cloud by day so that they would have comfort in being uncomfortable.
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Pastor Torre Roberts
Yes.
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Podcast Host / Interviewer
And in case you're just tuning in,
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Bishop TD Jakes
I had the privilege of sitting with
- [29:02]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
Pastor Torre Roberts talking about his new
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Bishop TD Jakes
book, knowing, and talking about the process, the recipe that made the soup, the uncertainty that made the soup.
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Podcast Host / Interviewer
Have you ever
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Bishop TD Jakes
gone through a time in your life that you thought you knew something only to learn that you didn't know? Well, and if you have, talk to
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Podcast Host / Interviewer
us about
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Bishop TD Jakes
that false knowing, that false knowing that comes into our lives where we don't know as much as we think we know.
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Pastor Torre Roberts
Yeah. Yeah. I think the journey to knowing begins with unknowing. You know, there's a chapter called unknowing, rebuilding the temple of your mind. And the reality of it is all of us have a sense of knowing. Whether we call it knowing or not, it determines how we move through life, how we make decisions, and that is oftentimes shaped in the environments that we grew up in and what we experience in those environments. There's another chapter called Trauma's secret symptom. And I mean, I talk about it, but those of you don't know my story.
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Bishop TD Jakes
Secret what?
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Pastor Torre Roberts
Trauma. Secret symptom. Secret symptom is in misnowing. And it's tricky. And it's tricky because.
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Bishop TD Jakes
Did y' all hear that?
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Pastor Torre Roberts
Oh, I'm sorry. I'm moving kind of fast because that's Good.
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Bishop TD Jakes
That's good enough to get the book right there.
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Podcast Host / Interviewer
Yeah.
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Pastor Torre Roberts
Yes.
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Bishop TD Jakes
The secret is unveiled. Unveil it for us.
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Pastor Torre Roberts
Because trauma shapes you. So I got. I've been through a lot of things, and God's delivered me by the grace of God. But I got shot when I was 16 years old. My body healed within months. My trauma is still being healed decades later, literally. And the challenge about trauma is that it rewires you. It rewires how you think, it rewires how you perceive. It creates a new lens through which you see life. And it's so strong and so embedded that it feels like knowledge, it feels like knowing. And there's one. One account where my daughter, my 16 year old, she was, I think 14 at the time, and she goes to school, and she was at school, and one of her school friends, we were leaving the country and she told one of her school friends, yeah, we're leaving the country. And I overheard her saying that she told her friends that she was leaving the country. And I said, kenzie, come here. Don't tell them that. They might break into our house and rob us blind. Now, now Becky, little Becky, who is 13 years old, middle upper class, is going to somehow get past the guards, scale the gate, get past the alarm system and rob us blind. It was ridiculous. And I'm gonna tell you who. And listen, I was fully committed to that possibility until Sarah said, baby, let me holl at you for a second, do you. But. But it seems so real and it felt like wisdom and it felt like being wise and smart because I have so much discernment to protect our family. But. But it was, it was. It was trauma masquerading as knowing. And so. So we have to really understand what's shaping or what has shaped what we believe, because we will think it's knowing, but it's really misnowing.
- [33:19]
Bishop TD Jakes
Yeah. Yeah.
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Podcast Host / Interviewer
I think our whole country is going through that.
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Bishop TD Jakes
You know, we're going through it emotionally, we're going through it politically. People who thought they knew what side they were on are saying, you know, I'm sorry, I was wrong, I apologize. Everybody's switching bases, trying to figure out, you know, because what they knew, they didn't know. You know, my mother used to tell everybody, my children tell me everything. And I just smile. I just smile. Some stuff I didn't tell her till she was on her deathbed, so she couldn't hit me with nothing, you know. You know, I told her one time that my brother broke this vase on the table so he would Get a whipping. Because he had made me mad. And he's seven years older than me. So I thought, I can't beat you, but Mama can. And I didn't tell her till she was on her deathbed that he didn't really break the base because all while she was giving him a whipping, I was outside the door going, you know. But my point is, she thought we told her everything. We don't even tell ourselves everything, you know, which is the catalyst of trauma, because trauma is the room in the house we don't want to go into.
- [34:56]
Pastor Torre Roberts
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Bishop TD Jakes
I was talking to a psychologist, and he was talking about the brain. And I hope I quoting this correctly, he said, the frontal temporal lobe is the part of the brain that seeks to solve problems. That when we ask questions, it's from there that we extract answers. So when a person begins to decline, whether through Alzheimer's or mental health disease, the brain is spinning, trying to give you an answer that it doesn't have. And if it doesn't get an answer long enough, it will make up one and give you an answer just to get you to calm down.
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Pastor Torre Roberts
Wow.
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Bishop TD Jakes
And so you have to be careful sometimes of what you think, because sometimes the brain will give you something just to answer your questions, but it doesn't solve your problems because you don't know like you think you know. Romans 8 says, for our love, where Paul says, for we know not what to pray for as we ought, yes, but the spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings and moanings that cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the mind of the spirit, he knoweth the mind of God. Okay. And then when he gets to talking about what he knows not and what he doesn't know, finally, by the 28th verse, he said, but I know that
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Podcast Host / Interviewer
all things work together for the good
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Bishop TD Jakes
of them that love the Lord who are the call according to his purpose. I don't know where I am right now, but I know I'm going to get to where he told me I'm going to get. I don't know what the answer is. I don't know whether to go or stay. I don't know what to eat.
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Podcast Host / Interviewer
I don't know how to stand.
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Bishop TD Jakes
But I know how to know that when it's all over, I'm going to reach an expected end. Because I know that I love God and I'm called according to his spirit.
- [37:13]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
You know, when you talk about transitions
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Bishop TD Jakes
and twirls and our world is spinning. Now, you talked about trauma and the Uncertainty of not knowing if our financial systems are going to hold up, if inflation is going to continue until democracy is eradicated, eaten by cancer that's coming from places it can't control. We can't solve the oil being stuck in Hormuz. We can't straighten out the uncertainty of the politics in Venezuela. We can't resolve the crisis that's going. Going on in Jamaica. We can't fix everything. And yet we're living in the midst of all of that chaos, as if we didn't have enough problems of our own.
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Pastor Torre Roberts
Right? Right.
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Bishop TD Jakes
We've got global problems, we've got national
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Podcast Host / Interviewer
problems, and we've got more ways for
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Bishop TD Jakes
the problems to get to us than we have ever had in history. We've got AI, We've got Facebook, we've got Twitter, we've got Instagram, we got a. We got the television, we got the radio, we got gossip. We got all these ways and then we got them little angels sitting on
- [38:30]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
the shoulders talking, saying all this stuff. It's a wonder we got any sense at all.
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Pastor Torre Roberts
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
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Podcast Host / Interviewer
It's a wonder we got any sense at all then.
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Bishop TD Jakes
You can't trust what you think because
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Podcast Host / Interviewer
your brain, if it can't find an
- [38:45]
Bishop TD Jakes
answer just to get you to calm down, will give you an answer that isn't a truth. You know, that isn't a truth just to bring you to an expected end, to a place of comfort. And so I think it's so important that we talk like this.
- [39:04]
Pastor Torre Roberts
Yes, yes.
- [39:06]
Bishop TD Jakes
That we meet like this. People don't understand that there's a reason the Bible said, forsake not the assembling of yourselves together.
- [39:15]
Pastor Torre Roberts
Yes.
- [39:15]
Bishop TD Jakes
Because we need one another.
- [39:17]
Pastor Torre Roberts
Yes. Yes. Yes.
- [39:19]
Bishop TD Jakes
And I think I heard you say this when. When the Bible said it's not good
- [39:23]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
for man to be alone.
- [39:24]
Bishop TD Jakes
He wasn't just talking about marriage, that.
- [39:27]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
That we.
- [39:29]
Bishop TD Jakes
We suffer in isolation.
- [39:31]
Pastor Torre Roberts
Yes.
- [39:32]
Bishop TD Jakes
And the first thing trauma wants us to do is. Is separate.
- [39:36]
Pastor Torre Roberts
Yes.
- [39:37]
Bishop TD Jakes
And live in isolation. Because trauma causes mistrust.
- [39:49]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
Trauma causes mistrust.
- [39:51]
Pastor Torre Roberts
Bishop, I want to say something on that point. Growing. Growing up, I had. I lost some things really early. My best friend when I was 12 years old, she was 13, got killed. That was the first time somebody really close to me got killed. And then later, another person who wasn't as close but was close enough got killed. And then later in life, my best friend was on his way to Atlanta, driving to go to Clark and no Morehouse, and he passed away unexpectedly. My cousin Theo, who was like my brother, riding a motorcycle unexpectedly passed away. All of these things were suddenly, my father unexpectedly passed away in 2014. So when. One of the reasons why. One of the many reasons why what happened to Sarah was so devastating to me was that it looked like.
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Podcast Host / Interviewer
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- [42:05]
Pastor Torre Roberts
You know, I do struggle with trusting life because so many things were taken from me that I didn't see coming. And so when this thing hit me, of course I had to go into fix it mode in the moment. But it deeply wounded me because the whisper, the whisperer said, see, see, you can't trust life. Which is a lie because. And it's some thinking that I had to reframe because there are two ways to look at that. I can look at that and listen to that voice who said, see, you can't trust it. Or I can look at it and say, oh, you can trust God. Because that doesn't look nothing like any of those other things because God delivered and saved her. So one of the things that I am learning to do, growing in my knowing to do, is to be intentional about cultivating the discipline of reformation framing things, right? Because trauma wants to. To. To paint a narrative. Knowing has a narrative too. James. James. One says something crazy until you, you. You read it all the way through. He says, count it all, Joy. When you fall into various trials. And that's. That seems ridiculous. Count it all, Jo. Joy. But then he says, knowing this, that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you might be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. So if I reframe my struggle doesn't mean you don't cry because God knows you. I cried all the way here this morning. It doesn't mean that you don't struggle. Doesn't mean that you don't quit. But you have to get to that knowing. You've got to get to that reframing. This is not happening to me. It's happening for me. For I know that God is for me. And all things shall work together for my good. It's hard. It's difficult. You gotta fight for it. And you don't always stay there. I was there first thing in the morning, but. But by 7:30, I was all in the other one. So I'm learning. And that's what knowing is. Knowing is practicing the process of. Of reframing what you know and using your knowing as a weapon against the liar when he tries to steal your peace and your joy and tries to make you to give up before you grow up. And that's what it is. I've got to develop this discipline to fight back.
- [44:58]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
Come on.
- [44:59]
Pastor Torre Roberts
That's the weapons of our warfare. They're not carnal, they're mighty. Through God. Till the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. Watch this. Bringing every thought into the obedience of Christ. It's a battle, but we've been equipped to win it. If we work it.
- [45:22]
Bishop TD Jakes
Yes. Yes.
- [45:23]
Pastor Torre Roberts
If we work it.
- [45:24]
Bishop TD Jakes
Oh, that's good right there. If we work it, that is good right there.
- [45:28]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
If we work it, that is good right there. So if you've been a person almost
- [45:37]
Bishop TD Jakes
mistreated by the trauma of your life, the uncertainty of your life takes your rest at night. Join the club. The uncertainty of your situation is tormenting you. It is plaguing you. Get this book and read it slow. Sometimes we read a book. Oh, I read the book. But you didn't read the book. You scammed through the book. You don't know nothing about the book. Sometimes you got to read it slow. And then you got to know what kind of mind you have. And if you have a mind that
- [46:21]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
ingests information slowly doesn't mean you're stupid.
- [46:24]
Bishop TD Jakes
It can often mean that you reflect deeply on things. And you. You might need to take small bites and take. Take paragraphs and then think about them till they become yours. I heard a preacher say Dr. Vashti MacKenzie was who it was said trouble doesn't last always, but trauma can. So the incident can be over, but the trauma can follow you for decades. And when you heard about Sarah, your childhood trauma Reaches back and says, oh, I'll come through that door right there. How many of you can relate to this? And so we walk around each other all day, every day, in church, out of church, on the job with the kids, with all of this warfare that you're talking about, schizophrenia that you're talking about going on in our head. 30 minutes ago I was happy and now I'm depressed. And then I go on 45 minutes later and you got on my nerves and, and you know, don't say nothing else to me. And then, then an hour or two later I want to talk your head off. And then three hours later, I don't say nothing for two hours. And, and you gotta, you, you're weaving through the traffic of the craziness of your own mind. And then when you take your crazy and mix it with my crazy, you know, and you're trying to find a safe place to heal. I think that one of the things that brings, that helps me through those moments, and I do have those moments, I have learned that a lot of damage I do to myself by what I say to myself. And so taking that false narrative that comes up in my head and feeding it to myself often causes me to enter into those other gates and doors and traumas are actually self inflicted wounds because I keep talking to myself about stuff that's over, things I can't change, things out of my control, things going
- [49:02]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
on in Vietnam somewhere, things going on
- [49:05]
Bishop TD Jakes
and come on somebody, things going on with my neighbors, things I can't do anything about, things about who died, things about who lived, things about who's in the hospital.
- [49:16]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
And then I have to finally come
- [49:18]
Bishop TD Jakes
to myself, wait a minute, you can't do anything about any of that. And often I sacrifice doing the things I can do something about for being distracted by things that I can't do anything about.
- [49:36]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
Can you relate to that?
- [49:37]
Pastor Torre Roberts
Yes. Yeah. That's the enemy's. That's his strategy. His strategy is to stall us by distracting us. One of the things I think is important for me, and I think for all of us, is to recognize the world that we're living in. This is not, we weren't designed to have to be inundated with all of this information, good or bad, non stop, it is an assault against purpose. And so one of the things that I'm learning to do, and you've heard it talked about before, is to really practice stillness. The temptation, and by the way, it's a temptation because the tech companies designed it to be a temptation, is to grab your Phone first thing in the morning, right? Soon as you get up, you ain't even got. Don't, don't look at your clock. If you want to know what time it is, pick up your phone, because your phone is going to. No, no, no, no. Put a clock back in your room and look at the clock. You want to divorce yourself as much as possible away from this tool that the advertisers, the marketers, the tech companies, all of them, they, everyone is in a race to determine your next move. So you wake up, literally, you wake up in somebody else's strategy. And so if you don't have a strategy in the morning for how you are going to stay clear, then you will automatically be somebody else's strategy. So the Bible says, be still and know. That's the Bible. Be still and know God. You got to slow that verse down because there's a connection between you knowing and your ability to be still. There are truths. And not just being still in the sense that you're not picking up your phone, taking in all this information, but being still inside your own head. David used to talk to himself. Why? Why, why? He says he would quiet his soul down. He would say he would talk to his soul like. So let me just give you the PT translation. So why you tripping? Why are you fretting? So why are you worried he would quiet his soul? Because if you don't get into the practice of creating space to be still, you're going to miss the knowing that God will cause to arise. Well, you say, well, P.T. you know, you might be able to take a trip, or you might be able to go down to the lake, or you might be able to do this. But I've got kids and I've got work and, and I'm working, you know, 20 hours a week, and I. I can't find. I understand that. I get that. But there is an opportunity somewhere. This is an inner work. It is an inside job. Sometimes you got to breathe through it. It'll be loud around you, but you're just. I'm being still and knowing. You can be working, you can be there doing whatever you're doing. I'm being, being still and knowing because it's an inner discipline. But a lot of times what keeps us from knowing is we are inundated from without and within. So we have to practice it getting still. Be still and know that I'm God. So God's saying, you want to know me? Learn to be a bit more still.
- [53:17]
Bishop TD Jakes
That's good. That's good.
- [53:20]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
That is so good.
- [53:23]
Bishop TD Jakes
That has a lot to do with not just psychological anxiety, but it also releases certain hormones in the body that afflict us and really will tear down our insides because we're tormented by our thoughts. There's such a. The word of God is quick, sharper than any two edged sword, casting us under soul from spirit. That place is so narrow between soul and spirit, between what's going on in my spirit and what's going on in my soul. Greek word psyche, where we get psychology then affects what's going on in my body. That the only thing that can really pierce it is often the word of God.
- [54:18]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
Yeah.
- [54:19]
Bishop TD Jakes
To help you get to that place. And it's funny because you said something my wife and I discuss all the time. She's always telling me to slow down. And she's right. Let's go away and chill out and do something else. And she's right. But I'm also right when I say it doesn't matter.
- [54:39]
Pastor Torre Roberts
Yeah, two things can be true.
- [54:42]
Bishop TD Jakes
Yeah.
- [54:42]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
Yeah, two things. Two things can be true at the same time.
- [54:47]
Bishop TD Jakes
Here's my side of. Doesn't matter where I go, if my problems go with me. So I can pack up my bags and get a ticket and go to a peaceful place and sit there and worry over an ocean and eat a steak and still not have any more peace than I had at home. Because moving yourself physically doesn't mean that you move yourself emotionally.
- [55:27]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
And the truth of the matter is,
- [55:29]
Bishop TD Jakes
if I can find peace, I can have Hawaii in my house.
- [55:35]
Pastor Torre Roberts
Amen.
- [55:36]
Bishop TD Jakes
Amen. You know, we. We spend all of this money putting
- [55:42]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
up these drapes and curtains and fixing our house and getting it all beautiful
- [55:47]
Bishop TD Jakes
and getting a big bed and the pillows all over the bed and everything like that, only to worry ourselves to death once we get in there.
- [55:58]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
Trying to pay for it, trying to
- [55:59]
Bishop TD Jakes
keep it, trying to get the interest
- [56:01]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
rates down, trying to do all that kind of stuff when we don't know,
- [56:06]
Bishop TD Jakes
we don't realize that the peace is not in a city or in an ocean or in a new couch or in a new car or in a new suit.
- [56:16]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
That real peace comes from being still.
- [56:21]
Bishop TD Jakes
Being still, being still. And I have to, I will admit I have to make myself be still.
- [56:30]
Pastor Torre Roberts
Wow.
- [56:31]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
Always did. I was the little kid. Always got in trouble because everybody else
- [56:35]
Bishop TD Jakes
put their head down on their desk and go to sleep and I would
- [56:38]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
be peeking up, trying to see what
- [56:41]
Bishop TD Jakes
was going on because I thought I'd missed something, you know, I hated nap time. I hated it like it was a Disease. I didn't want to nap. I might miss something. I wanted to see what was going on.
- [56:54]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
Okay, that's still true today.
- [56:57]
Bishop TD Jakes
I know that's still the first thing to go in me. I have to be really bad to lose my appetite. Okay, I keep my appetite, but I will lose my sleep in a minute because that stillness that I have to get to has nothing to do with the bed or the zip code that I'm in. It has something to do with. With getting all of the noise to. To come out of my head. They sing a song, Silence the noise in my head. I love that song. I got. Probably got the words all wrong, but I. I love the song because if you can silence the noise in your head, you can be peaceful whether you're married or not married or got company or nobody comes over. It doesn't matter if you can silence the noise in your own head.
- [58:06]
Pastor Torre Roberts
Bishop, I was just thinking as you were talking, because we have to do that. We have to say, silence it. I wanted to give maybe a tip that I employ that helps me to get still and to war against all those other distracting thoughts and feelings and emotions. Find two or three truths from the
- [58:37]
Bishop TD Jakes
word
- [58:39]
Pastor Torre Roberts
that handle everything that you worry about. One I will give you. That I think will Help is Psalm 23 and 1. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. You can remix that and it can be, the Lord is my shepherd. I have everything I need. The Lord is my shepherd. I have no lack. The Lord is my shepherd. My needs, financially and otherwise, are provided for. The Lord is my shepherd. He will lead me through this storm. The Lord is my shepherd. He loves me and hasn't forgotten about me.
- [59:28]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
Find.
- [59:29]
Pastor Torre Roberts
If you're gonna think something, if there's gonna be something trapped inside your head, then find you something that's gonna work for you and not against you. And I think the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want is one of the best ones.
- [59:44]
Bishop TD Jakes
Yes, it's excellent. It's excellent to. To point out who God is to you. I think the reasons we have so many different names for God in the Bible is that those are points of revel, Revelation, Jehovah, Sikonu, Jehovah Manna, Jehovah Rohi. You know, as you go through all of those names, you discover, look, he's my healer, you know, Jehovah, Jireh. He's my provider. He. The Lord is my shepherd. I call them pet names. They're little names like, you know how you're in love and you get a pet name. My My Boo Boo. Come here, Boo Boo. Come here, Boo Boo Boo.
- [60:31]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
Yeah.
- [60:32]
Bishop TD Jakes
You know. You know, pet names come out of experiences where I embrace this part of you in a different way. And I think we ought to have.
- [60:46]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
Have you noticed that we don't have
- [60:48]
Bishop TD Jakes
any more new pet names for God?
- [60:50]
Pastor Torre Roberts
Wow.
- [60:51]
Bishop TD Jakes
You know, like they did in the Bible, like they did in the old songs we used to sing. They had pet names for God. Jesus. Be a fence all around me every day. I want you to keep me and protect me as I travel along the way. That kind of stuff came out of the focus more on him than on us. Now we sing about us. You know, I am a friend of God. You know, I am something. I am.
- [61:21]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
I am. I am.
- [61:22]
Bishop TD Jakes
And I am is confused.
- [61:29]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
I'm not saying you're not a friend of God, but.
- [61:32]
Bishop TD Jakes
But I am is where the trouble is coming from. Yeah.
- [61:37]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
If you give up.
- [61:38]
Bishop TD Jakes
I am.
- [61:39]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
For the great I am.
- [61:40]
Pastor Torre Roberts
Hey, hey.
- [61:41]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
Yeah.
- [61:43]
Bishop TD Jakes
You know, and just be still and
- [61:45]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
know that he is God.
- [61:47]
Pastor Torre Roberts
Yes.
- [61:48]
Bishop TD Jakes
Oh, glory, yes. Oh, I have to watch myself there. I almost slipped into that other guy there. I preached a message about a year ago. Tomorrow belongs to God.
- [62:01]
Pastor Torre Roberts
Yes, I remember.
- [62:02]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
If it does not belong to me,
- [62:04]
Bishop TD Jakes
I cannot control it. I can't see it. I can't fix it. I still find myself trying to be prepared for different scenarios in case they happen. I'm not saying be foolish, but understand your own limitations.
- [62:21]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
That his thoughts are higher than our thoughts.
- [62:24]
Bishop TD Jakes
His ways are higher than our ways. And understand and be okay with what you can't do.
- [62:31]
Pastor Torre Roberts
Yep. Yep.
- [62:33]
Bishop TD Jakes
So that you don't have to fake it. Faking wears you out.
- [62:37]
Pastor Torre Roberts
Yeah. Yeah.
- [62:38]
Bishop TD Jakes
It's exhausting trying to be tough when you need to cry. Yeah, just go ahead and cry.
- [62:47]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
Let's just get it over with. You know. You know, you be using all your
- [62:53]
Bishop TD Jakes
strength up that you could climb out of the thing with, but you're using all your strength up to cover your image. Your image is more important to you than your reality.
- [63:09]
Pastor Torre Roberts
Wow.
- [63:10]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
Wow.
- [63:11]
Bishop TD Jakes
And the Lord said, you know, not to have any graven images when. When he talks about images. Those are the man made, man built things that we worship around. And sometimes they're not made out of wood or stone. Sometimes they're made out of what we think other people think about us. And we're so busy trying to control what they think instead of tearing down that idol of popularity, of being appreciated, of being recognized, of being honored and just being.
- [63:51]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
Just recognize yourself.
- [63:53]
Pastor Torre Roberts
Wow.
- [63:54]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
Look. Look in the mirror and say you did a good Job.
- [63:57]
Bishop TD Jakes
I'm so proud of you.
- [63:59]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
You know, for you, that's something you
- [64:01]
Bishop TD Jakes
done, you didn't normally do. And you did that thing.
- [64:04]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
You did that thing.
- [64:06]
Bishop TD Jakes
Glory to God, you did that thing.
- [64:08]
Pastor Torre Roberts
Wow.
- [64:09]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
You know you did. That's the way you feel when you
- [64:11]
Bishop TD Jakes
first write a book and you then
- [64:14]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
the first copy, you take out the box.
- [64:16]
Pastor Torre Roberts
Yes.
- [64:16]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
You look at it, you know, and
- [64:18]
Bishop TD Jakes
you go through it like it's a baby, like it's a child. You be holding the book like this, you know. You know, because it costs. This kind of book costs you more than they will ever pay.
- [64:33]
Pastor Torre Roberts
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [64:38]
Bishop TD Jakes
Wisdom is expensive.
- [64:40]
Pastor Torre Roberts
Very much so.
- [64:41]
Bishop TD Jakes
And the person who buys the book is buying the books for pennies compared to what you paid. They talk about you got shot, you took months to heal, took longer for
- [64:56]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
the trauma to heal. You lost your friends, you lost your father.
- [65:01]
Bishop TD Jakes
Look at how much you paid.
- [65:05]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
You paid for this book.
- [65:08]
Bishop TD Jakes
You paid for that singing voice you got over there. That anointing you got when you paid a price for that. You paid a price to minister.
- [65:18]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
You pay the price to be who you are. You pay the price to be kind. It's not nice.
- [65:24]
Bishop TD Jakes
People don't know how to be nasty.
- [65:27]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
They just pay the price of a smile.
- [65:30]
Bishop TD Jakes
Sometimes a smile will cost you a thousand dollars just to smile through a bad time. And listening to you tell me about your problems while my mind is already
- [65:43]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
full with my own problems. And then I make time for your problems. That's expensive. So when you get the book, don't think that you pay whatever the price
- [65:54]
Bishop TD Jakes
of the book is.
- [65:55]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
Don't think that's what it cost.
- [65:58]
Bishop TD Jakes
Because what it really costs is a young man bleeding out and. And in an ambulance and shut up in a hospital and tears running down your face in the middle of the night. And the uncertainty of leaving Los Angeles to come to Dallas. I'll finish with this. I'd like to hear you talk about this. What was it like for you to leave the certainty, Los Angeles to come into the uncertainty of Dallas? And how do you handle that?
- [66:43]
Pastor Torre Roberts
When I finally gave myself permission to allow what was in me about it to come out, it was tears. I was broken down in the living room, weeping and crying because I did know it. I knew LA well, I traversed it. And not just la, geographically. I established life there.
- [67:09]
Bishop TD Jakes
You've been there all your life?
- [67:11]
Pastor Torre Roberts
All my life. So relationships and government and law enforcement and, you know, you got your whole. Your situation there.
- [67:19]
Bishop TD Jakes
Yeah.
- [67:22]
Pastor Torre Roberts
And yet God was calling me here. And so it was. I had to grieve you know, the Bible talks about, blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. And that's not simply about mourning, because you're going through something. It's about the fact that if you're going to follow God, you're going to have to allow something to die. And so I had to allow my comfort, my confidence, and to your point, my idol, the idol of LA and image and all of that. That was one part. So then I cried through that. And the other part was, my wife and I are succeeding the most consequential faith leader of our times. And I probably should pull the faith out of that and just say leader, because you lead especially a number of ways as a result of your faith. So that was a whole nother level of scary. So it was the unknown and then the known. You know, you were very, very supportive. You and mom, our forever first lady, very. Were very encouraging. And yet even in the midst of you being encouraging, it was still hard to believe it. Will I be accepted? You know, people used to say, you know, what does it feel like to be feeling bishop TD Jake's shoes? And I would say, nauseating. I almost. I almost had a little prop for y' all right after the installation. I was gonna come out here. I told dad about it. I was gonna come out here with some big old clown shoes. I was gonna have a suit on with some big old clown shoes flapping around the stage, symbolic of trying to wear our bishop's great shoes. And. And then the Lord spoke to me and he said, son, I didn't call you to wear bishop's shoes. I didn't call you to wear shoes. He's still got his shoes on, and he's walking in them wonderfully. He said, you have to trust that you are enough. And he had to say it again and again and again. But there was one moment, I think something really broke. And you looked at me on the day of the transition, and you looked me and you looked straight through me and into my soul and said, you got this. And there was something. And it wasn't like you hadn't said it before, but there was something in that moment where it clicked so difficult. A lot of grieving, a lot of questioning and second guessing. Will the people accept me? I mean, listen, I get up to speak. I actually would rather hear you speak. I'm with you. I want to hear you, too, you know, and you step up and you wonder, you know, will they like me? I'm different. I'm from California, you know, I don't have a. Hey, hey, don't do that. You know, I'm different and will I be accepted? And that was a lie of the enemy, too. Because we have the most loving, welcoming, grace, giving. You've given me so much grace, so much love. I'm so thankful for this church. I'm thankful for you. I'm thankful for what you put in me. What you put in me. Just walking with you for 12 years, you put something in me, in my perspective of family and standing through it. And so I'm grateful. Long version of the short version of a long version is. It was hard, it was difficult, it was challenging. But I did follow that knowing, and I'm glad I did.
- [72:11]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
Well, if you know that you can make it, whether you're on a new job or moved into a new house or moved into a new state of
- [72:20]
Bishop TD Jakes
life and you feel intimidated and worried about it, let go of your image, let go of your ego and believe that he that has began a good work in you shall perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. Am I talking to anybody right now?
- [72:40]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
Thank you so much.
- [72:41]
Bishop TD Jakes
I want to thank you for sharing the word. Yes. Yes.
- [72:54]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
Now, I want to take my last
- [72:56]
Bishop TD Jakes
few minutes and interview you.
- [73:03]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
I want to ask you a question.
- [73:06]
Bishop TD Jakes
How are you doing?
- [73:09]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
I mean, I mean, it's so easy to come in here and put on your church clap and, you know,
- [73:19]
Bishop TD Jakes
and
- [73:19]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
for an hour or so, you're real good. But then you get in the car
- [73:23]
Bishop TD Jakes
and drive back into Hell's kitchen.
- [73:28]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
And sometimes they don't even wait till you get home.
- [73:30]
Bishop TD Jakes
It'll start in your head in the parking lot. And we have an image to maintain. We have an image to maintain.
- [73:41]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
We have all kinds of people who
- [73:44]
Bishop TD Jakes
are imitating other people and don't know who they are.
- [73:55]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
To fit in, people will do almost anything.
- [74:02]
Bishop TD Jakes
But people seldom ask you, how you doing?
- [74:11]
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- [74:41]
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- [75:06]
Bishop TD Jakes
What do you know that makes you stand? Or are you so full of uncertainty that you're drowning on water that you were meant to walk on? As we stand here today, we've heard this wonderful author and I want you
- [75:30]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
to get these books. I want you, if you're watching on the Internet, I want you to go online.
- [75:42]
Bishop TD Jakes
I want you to go to Amazon.com books a million anywhere you gotta go Barnes and Nobles and order you a copy of Knowing and let the wrestling begin. To know yourself,
- [76:00]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
to know God, yes, but to also know you. How can you give yourself to God if you don't know what you're giving? I am shocked at how very few people know themselves. They just imitate what they were taught or what they heard. They mimic what they heard somebody else say and they don't know. And ego stops us from admitting we're not so sure. We teach people stuff that was taught to us that we never examined. They say if a riot breaks out, there are people in the riot who don't even know why they're in the riot. They just saw the crowd and they got caught up in the crowd and
- [76:54]
Bishop TD Jakes
the next thing you know, they're in the fight.
- [76:59]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
I'm going to ask you to stand for a moment and ask you a very significant question. This has been, this has been a
- [77:08]
Bishop TD Jakes
really, really tough week.
- [77:13]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
Pray for the Dawson family.
- [77:16]
Bishop TD Jakes
Marcus Dawson has been playing for me for about, oh, gosh, 40 years.
- [77:22]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
His mother died yesterday.
- [77:26]
Bishop TD Jakes
And all with nothing but her sons gathered around her bed, she slipped into eternity. And I've been trying to minister to them and check on my daughter. My wife moved in with my daughter
- [77:41]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
for several days, day and night.
- [77:52]
Bishop TD Jakes
I went up there and Sarah said,
- [77:54]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
you better get up here. She said, just because mama's up here
- [77:57]
Bishop TD Jakes
doesn't mean you are resolved of your duties. You gotta be up here.
- [78:03]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
But people are going through some real stuff. Real stuff, really tough stuff. Having to move back in with your mama at 40. But people are going through some real tough times. The triangle this is Latter Day Fight, Demonic warfare out of Revelations.
- [78:26]
Bishop TD Jakes
And the Horsemen are riding.
- [78:29]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
The Horsemen are riding y' all the horse. The horses are riding. They're coming with wrath and destruction and death. We're living in the Book of Daniel.
- [78:39]
Bishop TD Jakes
We're seeing.
- [78:40]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
We're seeing. We are the chosen generation. We were chosen to live in such a time that it's. And it's not just America, it's global. And I thought to myself, David said, if I make my bed in hell, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning and assail to the uttermost parts of the earth, you're still there. And we used to sing, I run to the rocks to hide my face. Rocks crowd, no hiding place. There's no place to move. There's no place to go where there's not some version of craziness. And you had all of that together. This is the time to, as he so eloquently stated, to be still
- [79:35]
Bishop TD Jakes
and
- [79:35]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
know that God is God. If you're in this room, I don't care how many titles you got and how many degrees you got, but if you're in this room and you're willing to cast down an idol today and say, my life could be better,
- [79:54]
Bishop TD Jakes
my
- [79:54]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
life could be richer, my life could be fuller, and I'm not going to let the enemy steal this season of my life, I'm not going to let the enemy steal this season in my life.
- [80:07]
Bishop TD Jakes
But I sure would like some prayer
- [80:12]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
so that I can get some peace. If you're in this room, you might be in the balcony. It may be your first time here. You might be watching online, but if the Holy Spirit is tugging at you, I want you to come forward. I want you to come forward. If he's pulling at your spirit, I want you to come forward. There's a reason that the Lord had you here today. He wanted you to hear this. It might not be what you expected, but it was what you needed. That God wanted you to confront yourself and say to yourself, wait a minute, I gotta have some peace inside. I can buy all kinds of trinkets of peace. I can buy peaceful music. I can have wind chimes in the front yard. But if I don't have no peace in my head, I am of all men, most miserable. I want to pay for people who love God, but they're miserable. We don't talk about that. But it is possible to love God and still be miserable. It is possible to go to church every Sunday and still be empty. It is possible to know scriptures and still be lonely. It is possible to be married and be lonely. It is possible to have children and be desperately lonely. And holding on by a thread. And nobody ever suspect the fact that you could stick a gun in your mouth and blow your head off. And you just, you just say, how you doing? I'm blessed in the Lord, thank God in you. But it's not really like that. Tear down your idols. Cast down every foe. Hallelujah. Cast them down. Cast them down. I know they're standing up inside of you, defying you right now, saying, don't bother me, leave me alone. I'm gonna go home in the car with you and we gonna keep on punching you and beating you in the face. Cast them down. Cast them down. Moments of temper and rage and anger and frustration. You're snapping at the door and you kick the cat because you're unhappy and you're trying to find somebody to make you happy. Can't nobody make you happy. You have to have joy on the inside. And you're angry with people, fell out with them because they didn't make you happy. They couldn't make you themselves. They couldn't make themselves happy. They sure can't make you happy. You might need to forgive some people around the altar because you have charged them foolishly and you've wanted things from them that they couldn't give you.
- [83:15]
Bishop TD Jakes
And it added to the rejection you already felt.
- [83:21]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
You're bitter with your wife, but you're really bitter with your mother. But you could, you didn't say anything to your mother, but now you can take it out on your wife. Come on, talk to me, somebody. And you don't have a real sense of knowing what's going on in your life. So you are self medicating. You're self medicating. Whether it's drugs or liquor or just your phone, you're medicating yourself. You're afraid to be alone. You got to have noise all the time. Got to have something going on in your life because you, you don't have peace within you. You call people all the time to barter peace. But today the Lord wants to do something for you. God wants to do something in you. God wants to do, do something in your spirit. And if you're willing to change, just be willing to change. I'm not even asking you to change yet. I'm just asking you to be willing to change your habits and try something different. Try something different. Stop trying the same things and ended up in the same place. If you're willing to change, just clap your hands in his presence right now. Oh my God. Oh my God. Whatever it takes. Whatever it takes. Whatever it takes. Whatever it takes. Whatever it takes. I'm not gonna go back to my seat. The same man I was, the same woman I was. I'm gonna leave her at this altar today. Whatever it takes. I'm going to have more peace and more joy and more contentment. I'm tired of being miserable. I'm tired of tossing around night after night, day after day. I am tired of being thirsty. I tried to quench my thirst with people. I tried to quench my thirst with sex. I tried to quench my thirst with drugs. I'm tired of all of these opposite idols in my life. All of them had let me down. I want a breakthrough, and I need it tonight. I need it today. I needed this moment. Oh, my God. I don't care what anybody thinks. I don't care who's looking at me. I don't care what they think about me. I don't care what I got on. I want a touch from the Lord. I want a touch from God. I. Hallelujah. Am I talking to you tonight? Am I talking to you today? Is there anybody else before we pray? Come boldly. The Bible said, come boldly to the throne of grace that you might receive mercy and find grace to help in your time of need. It didn't say, just come. Sheepishly, he said, I want you to come boldly. Come boldly. I need this. I need this. I'm not gonna let this moment pass me by. I need this. I need this. If you're watching online, there's a number online where you can get some prayer right now. You can get a touch from God. I need this. I need this. Everybody's drawing from me, wanting my strength, and I don't have enough strength to hold me up. I need a touch from God. I need a touch from him. I need a touch from him. I'm too old not to be happy. I deserve to have some peace. How could I be so young and still be miserable in what's supposed to be the prime of my life? And it feels horrible. Satan doesn't have to curse you to kill you. He can just blind you to the many blessings that exist in your life.
- [87:26]
Bishop TD Jakes
False narratives coming out of your head.
- [87:30]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
But the Holy Spirit is going to
- [87:31]
Bishop TD Jakes
give you a touch today.
- [87:34]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
We're going to start by lifting our hands and just worshiping God. As imperfect broken as we are, we're going to come to him with uncertainty. Jesus came to the garden of Gethsemane, uncertain Father, if it be thy will, pass this bitter cup from me. He was uncertain. He didn't know whether he wanted to do it or not. He had to pray three times. If Jesus had to pray three times. I know you need to pray. I know you need to pray. Come on, let's lift our hands and talk to God. I need this. I need. I need this. I need this. If I don't get nothing else today, I'm gonna take this home with me today. I feel a change coming. I feel a change coming. I wanna be right. I wanna be saved. I wanna be whole. I wanna have peace. And I'm tired of doing things that are tormenting me. Father, right now, in the name of Jesus, I want you to pray with me. Father. Father, right now, in the name of Jesus. I believe you. For a change. I insist on a change. I decree and declare. There will be a change. There will be a change in my spirit. There will be a change in my heart. They may not see it in my house. They may not see it in my wallet. They may not see it in my furniture. But I refuse not to redecorate my mind with joy and peace and longsuffering. I lift my hands before you. I'm ready to be renovated. I'm ready to be regulated. I'm ready to have you make me over again. I need a makeover, Lord, that comes from above. And I want it right now. And I'm willing to do what it takes to get it done. Into thy hands I command my spirit. I commit my burdens. I commend my grief. I commit my pain. Into thy hands. I place it now. Give it to God. Come on. I place it right now. In the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus. Holy Ghost. Sweep over my soul. Sweep out all the garbage. Sweep out all the trash. Till I find the coin I lost. Till I find myself again. Till I know who I am. Sweep out all the memories. Sweep it out right now. Oh, God, I feel a change. Oh, my God. I feel a change. Oh, my God. I. I feel. I feel a change coming. I feel a change coming. Peace coming into my spirit. Joy coming into my spirit. Love coming into my spirit. Power coming into my spirit. Determination coming into my spirit right now. In the name of Jesus. Jesus. I open it up to God. I open it up to God. I open it up to God. I open it up to God. I open up to God. I'm going in that room. I'm going in that room I've been hiding from. I'm going behind that locked door. Holy Spirit, go in with me. Go in with me. Go in that room. That place in my life that remains unhealed. And it stinks in there. And it smells in there. But I'm going in there today in the name of Jesus. And I'm gonna get the victory. And I praise you for it and I thank you for it and I believe you for it right now, in the name of Jesus. Now I want you to praise him like a free woman, like a free man, like a free soul, like a free spirit. Come on, praise him. Praise him. I mean you, the real you. I want you to praise him. I want you to praise him till joy comes out. Like water coming out of a rock. Joy is going to come out and touch your spirit right now. Sweet Holy Spirit. Sweet Holy Spirit. Sweet Holy Spirit. Come down, come down, come down,
- [92:20]
Bishop TD Jakes
come down.
- [92:21]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
Yes, come down, come down, come down. Now. I wish somebody praise him up in that balcony. I wish somebody praise him in those pews. I wish somebody praise him all the way in the back. I wish somebody was praising Right now, right now, right now, right now, right now. There's a story in the Bible. I won't hold you long. But there's a story in the Bible that a woman had 10 coins and she lost one. And the Bible says she swept the house over and over and over until she found the lost coin. How many of you feel like you
- [93:15]
Bishop TD Jakes
found
- [93:17]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
the lost coin? Coin. A service doesn't have to be loud to be powerful. It doesn't. You don't have to hoop and holler and dance to be powerful. If you got what you needed today, clap your hands and praise the Lord. Now there's a couple of things I
- [93:52]
Bishop TD Jakes
want to happen you that are watching online.
- [93:54]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
You can participate in this too.
- [93:58]
Bishop TD Jakes
I decree and declare that whatever was lost will be found.
- [94:09]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
I. I decree and declare that you will sweep the house. Cuz it's somewhere in the house. It's in there. It's still in there. You can't find it, but it's. It's in the house. I decree and declare that you will sweep the house till you find it and get the breakthrough that you need. And that you would never be the same again. And if you agree with that prayer, give God the best praise for you got. Yes. Yes. Now, before we go, I'm going to ask you for a special, special love offering. I'm going to ask you for something that's in most people's reach because it is just symbolic of the fact that I'm going to get back what I lost.
- [95:02]
Bishop TD Jakes
She had 10 coins. She lost one.
- [95:05]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
She could have went on with nine. You can make it with nine coins,
- [95:10]
Bishop TD Jakes
but you get sick of making it
- [95:12]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
with less than what God gave you.
- [95:15]
Bishop TD Jakes
You get sick of it.
- [95:17]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
And I want everybody in this building and everybody that can hear my voice to get at least $10 in your hand and lifted up as a banner before God that I will not go home without acknowledging that I got something
- [95:36]
Bishop TD Jakes
today that changed my life.
- [95:41]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
Honey, get some money. You got me? Okay. Just $10. Just $10. All on the Internet, streaming from the app.
- [95:51]
Bishop TD Jakes
Stream.
- [95:51]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
Streaming from YouTube. I will be whole. I will get back what I lost. I'll get back with the canker worms and the locusts ate up. I'll get it back right now. In the name of Jesus, lift it up real high. Lift it up real high. Yes. Yes. Oh, my Father, let your anointing sweep over this room. And we just lift this up just as a. As a sign that we were listening, that we know you were talking to us about things we've been talking to you about. And tonight, in the name. Today, in the name of Jesus, we decree and declare with this seed.
- [96:49]
Bishop TD Jakes
If we got to keep sweeping, if
- [96:52]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
we got to keep sweeping, if we got to spend all week sweeping, we will not continue on with less than the full set of what you meant
- [97:04]
Bishop TD Jakes
for us to have in the name of Jesus. Amen.
- [97:10]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
Now, if you're at the altar and you gave it with a seed, financial seed, just lay it on the altar. If you're in the pews, pass your seed all the way over to the left. If you're online, just give like you normally give online.
- [97:28]
Bishop TD Jakes
Bless you.
- [97:29]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
From Hong Kong.
- [97:31]
Bishop TD Jakes
Bless you.
- [97:33]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
I'm glad to have you. I'm glad to have you. I'm glad to have you.
- [97:39]
Bishop TD Jakes
I'm glad to have you.
- [97:43]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
Thank you. Thank you. It's good to have you, Boston. Bless your heart. Bless your heart. Bless your heart.
- [97:54]
Bishop TD Jakes
Bless your heart.
- [97:56]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
Bless your heart. Every blessed person in the building makes some noise right now. I said every blessed person, Stand up. We're getting ready to go home.
- [98:24]
Bishop TD Jakes
Let's get.
- [98:24]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
Give God a praise for Pastor Torre. I pray that so many people, by knowing that you got cramps in your fingers, you got so many books to sign. Hallelujah. I believe God. They're getting in line right now. Now, I want you to help. Help me bless this.
- [98:52]
Bishop TD Jakes
This seed represents needs in the lives of people.
- [98:57]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
You say $10 is no money. A Seed doesn't have to be big to grow tall. Come on, somebody. Now I want you to just point your hands in this direction. There's still somebody got a seed up
- [99:24]
Bishop TD Jakes
right there that wants the ladies.
- [99:26]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
You got an envelope right over there. Anybody else that didn't get a chance to give?
- [99:32]
Bishop TD Jakes
Okay.
- [99:42]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
How many people Glad you came to church this morning. Let me quickly ask this question before I do the benediction. If there's somebody that would like to
- [99:57]
Bishop TD Jakes
make this church your church home, would you come?
- [100:01]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
To my left, the doors of the church are open for new members. For new members. Would you come come for new members. For new members. And you want to make this your church. I don't care where you came from. I don't care what you got on.
- [100:19]
Bishop TD Jakes
I don't care what ethnicity you are. Come on, make this your church home.
- [100:24]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
Come on, make this your church home.
- [100:28]
Bishop TD Jakes
Come on, right now.
- [100:30]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
Clap your hands as they come. Come on down, son. My God. My God. My God. My God. Come on. Welcome. Come on. Welcome these new members. Welcome them into the family of God. Come on down. Welcome, Welcome,
- [101:25]
Bishop TD Jakes
welcome.
- [101:31]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
Now unto him that is able to
- [101:40]
Bishop TD Jakes
keep us from falling and present us
- [101:43]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
faultless
- [101:46]
Bishop TD Jakes
before the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ to the only wise God our father, be glory, be dominion and power in Jesus name. Amen.
- [102:05]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
Go with God. Father's house.
- [102:16]
Bishop TD Jakes
That's a wrap for today's episode of the Potter's house podcast. Subscribe for more.
- [102:22]
Pastor Torre Roberts
Keep your fire lit and your faith.
- [102:24]
Podcast Host / Interviewer
Immovable.
- [102:30]
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- [103:00]
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- [103:21]
Progressive Insurance Advertiser
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Podcast Host / Interviewer
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- [103:29]
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