Day two Turn Pressures into Power by Bishop TD Jakes
Most people love the thought of being gifted and having the ability to do something great, but we don’t smile so brightly when we are placed in the refining processes of life. But what happens to a seed if it’s not planted?
We cannot rightfully ask our Vinedresser to skip out on the development of our lives simply because we are uncomfortable with being alone in dark places. To keep a seed from being planted is to condemn that seed to never realize its full potential. It is a fact that seeds are meant to be covered to die.
No matter who we are, where we are in life, or where we’ve come from, we must begin to appreciate the ugly stages of our inception. When we allow the Lord to shift our mindset, we begin to see that everything that has ever happened to us has happened for a reason. If we look back at the sprout that pushed itself through the ceiling of dirt above it, we discover reasons behind our adversity that were preciously invisible and imaginable but now are suddenly apparent and miraculous when we arrive at the fruit-bearing stage.
Looking back, I examine previous periods of my life and remember how fearful I was in the midst of some of them. Now standing upon just over forty years of ministry, I look at those places and realize they were integral to where God has taken me and where He will continue to take me. I see that each growth interval of my life where, at the time, I was certain I was about to meet my end, were seed stages for the next season. I could not have produced the fruit without the frustration. God could not ferment my fruit without the frustration. God could not ferment my fruit into His wine for maximum potency without my willingness to relinquish it to His winepress.
Though I have not liked the process, my faith has grown deeper as I discovered this new perspective. I have been changed by this shift in perspective as I accept that God never intended to lead me to a dead place and leave me there. The seeming death through which He escorted me was merely the precipice of a new beginning, and new beginning is what the planting and death of each seed is all about. Through those stages, I arrived at the truth: God wasn’t burying me – He was planting me!
Those areas and times in which the death of a dream, assignment, or vision seems to stalk your every move are nothing more than entrances into the next realm of your life. Do not run from them; embrace them. The proverbial death of what you are trying to keep alive will enrich the growth and lives of others.
Instead of condemning you to a graveyard, which is what you may feel, God is planting you in richer soil for greater fruit.
John 12:24