Not Many Fathers - Bishop T.D. Jakes

[Music] we're going to go to first corinthians chapter 4 verse 14 through 16. and that's where we're going to start i want to welcome all of our panelists that have come to join us today i want you to relax we're going to have fun we're gonna have a good time you look nice uh-huh got your makeup all right eyelashes ain't coming off you look good so we're gonna relax we're gonna have a good time first corinthians chapter 4 verse 14 through 16. and it reads thusly let's stand for the reading of the word like we always do can we i write not these things this is paul writing to corinth incidentally and corinth is like this crazy church you know not like us that they're like this wild radical worldly church who has had this encounter with jesus that they're growing up into they haven't mastered it yet and they've been filled with the spirit but they also have carnality and and from moment to moment you can see both things operating in their life and paul is discipling them and developing them which is what church is all about church is not an elitist club for spiritual yuppies you don't go to church because you're perfect you go to church because you're becoming who god wanted you to be and anything you don't feed won't grow okay so he's writing that he said i write not these things to shame you but as my beloved sons i warn you for for though ye have 10 000 instructors in christ yet have ye not many fathers that's what we're going to talk about not many fathers yet have ye not many fathers you've got thousands of instructors in christ yet have ye not many fathers for in christ i have begotten you through the gospel wherefore i beseech you be ye followers of me can you say amen now father there are many times that we talk about many things there are a few things any more important than what we're about to talk about today aside from the blood of the cross and your plan of redemption how we live out our lives becomes critical as we reflect your glory in how we walk out our lives and we want to be better at reflecting you not denying you not tainting your image but becoming your image i thank you in advance for what you're going to do have your way in jesus name amen you may be seated now god has so desired that the church is a type of family in fact all of creation is a type of family and it is the family principle and the model that he sets in place yet in this particular instance in the text he's not talking about a natural family but he's talking about the spiritual family and he's reminding them that there are many people that will add to your life that are not your father okay i think in part he is of reminding them because apollos has been there and apollos was uh incredible teacher eloquent in the scriptures he was fervent in the spirit he understood the way of the lord he was very very articulate and some were enthralled by him and others that were coming in and out they were like us today we're getting all these voices coming at us from all of these places that are teaching us all kinds of stuff okay we get it at the job we get it at home we get it at the family reunion everybody has an idea of what you ought to be okay you get it off social media you get it off your phone facebook twitter instagram we got more people talking to us than we have ever had in our lives and it gets kind of confusing and he says we have a thousand i think he said ten thousand instructors but not many fathers now a father is a father in part because he has made a deposit and there are many many many people who will instruct you who are not invested in you okay so the first thing he separates himself from the other people who are coming in and out of their lives because he said i have invested in you ye have been begotten through the word that i preach that word is god's seed and when god's seed gets into your heart you are begotten or born again and he says you have not many fathers and that's true today both spiritually and naturally i'll get to the natural in a minute there are not many fathers amongst all that preach the fact that you know scriptures doesn't mean that you are a father the fact that you have the gift of prophecy or the word of knowledge doesn't mean that you are a father there are not many fathers who have a fathering spirit in the church today and that's very very bad for us because in reality we we don't experience fatherhood at home and if we don't experience it in church we don't experience it at all and that becomes a very difficult thing and i want to first start by talking about the notion of god as father is meant to be intimate when god says i am your father it's it's more than god your creator he's saying your family you're kidding to me i begot you i cause you to live not just your natural father i cause you to live and so when jesus teaches the disciples to pray the prayer he starts out our father to express the intimacy of the relationship i don't come to him just as a created being i come to him as a son that's my relationship to him i'm a son even if i'm not a good son even if i'm a prodigal son even if i'm a confused son even if i'm a messy son you don't get to unsub me because you don't like me you understand now now now i want to dig into this a little bit i'm going to share some things with you uh because i'm so excited i don't even know where to start jesus teaches them to say our father which art in heaven now now when when friends come to the house they ring the bell they don't come in the house when the kids come in the house they just appear cory was over my house the other day shopping i said do you think this is walmart or something no daddy man i just thought i saw y'all had some bits and something i thought i would get me something and i didn't say nothing i you know i didn't say nothing i didn't i didn't tell her how old she was or nothing like that i i thought it to myself but i didn't say nothing because she's my daughter because she's my daughter she has access she has access easily and readily and privileged that if somebody else would have come in and been taking my stuff out with it down at the least 9-1-1 at least that amen but because she's my daughter it is not criminal for her to access my blessings are you hearing what i'm saying so understanding god is not just this big person with a sword that's getting really cut your head off or or beat you or abuse you but understanding that he loves me and that i have access to him and that i have privileges because of the relationship i have with him changes the whole definition and jesus says when when you come to him don't come to him just as eli as god eloi eloi sabothani which jesus said on the cross don't come to him just as god but to come to him as father which generally is rendered uh in the greek abba okay generally rendered in the greek we don't really have an english word that captures abba and you will see in the scriptures in romans in particular where through the spirit we come forth being begotten of him crying abba we don't really have an english equivalent father doesn't really get it it would kind of be closer to daddy yeah yeah it's it's almost like like a an intimate term of endearment and and i thought when i first read our father that the translation was abba but it actually is not in the aromatic it is ab wound wound not abba but now ab wound is a very interesting term for which we really don't have a word for because ab is father daddy daddy what's up daddy bear you know that's talking about god ab wound is feminine so when you put them together ab being masculine wound being feminine you understand that when you're saying our father you're actually saying our father mother because he is el shaddai he is all sufficient he you don't just think of god as a gender because he is complete within himself as a man i can decide to have kids but i can't have them i can't have him i rejoice in that yeah glory to god but even as a woman my wife can think to have kids but she can't have them because we are not all sufficient save we become one and the reward for becoming ab wound is birth okay all right let me go deeper can i go deeper with this when god created adam adam anatomically would be difficult to describe i don't know exactly what he looked like because he was created in the likeness and image of god that is to say he created adam with eve in him if he was going to be in the likeness of ab wound he was male and female created he them and called his name adam yeah so so much so let me let me get this so when adam walked through the garden and he was naming all the animals the bible said that there was no suitable help mate found for him okay so god never had to reach back into the dirt and make a woman for him because she was in him so he's he puts adam to sleep and says let me show you what i got in you everything you're craving you already got you understand what i'm saying so the bible says he put adam into a deep sleep because he said it is not good for man to be alone let's break that down it is not good for man to be all one [Applause] in other words i made him so much like me that he is abundant it is not good for man to be all what it bothers him to be that much like me so ab wound says i'm going to separate the genders so you have companionship he puts adam into a sleep and pulls the woman out of him and when adam wakes up the first thing he notices about her is not her hips lips or fingertips he says my gosh she's my body he says let me quote it bone in my bone and flesh of my flesh the girl is me she's me with the womb she's she's the feminine expression of god so the woman becomes the feminine expression of god and the man becomes the masculine expression of god and when they come together abroad they create life [Applause] are you hearing what i'm saying it is important for you to understand that because if you don't understand that you will think that men are the only expression of god created in the likeness of god and the woman is an afterthought no god is abound he is masculine and feminine and together we express his image are you following what i'm saying now now look at this this is important for you to understand as a woman you need to understand that you are no less an expression of god than i am [Music] for years because the church was dominated by men we didn't want to recognize that the woman is just as much in the likeness and image of god as the man is you see because when she was created she was created in adam and brought forth out of adam so god ab wound birthed adam adam is abundant he birthed eve he said yeah so so the first human birth if we can use that term is adam birthing eve with eve comes to the womb where she becomes the nurturer and takes over the birthing process and adam moves into his role as provider and protector and pillar of the soil are you understanding what i'm saying the woman is built to produce okay that is not a part of the curse the curse was in travails shall you bring forth if she had not been in the fall hall she would have still brought forth but not with travail you understand what i'm saying the reason i know she would have brought forth because of the cavern the womb the wound the feminine expression of god she's built to carry life footnote to the women you are built to carry life and the enemy knows it if you're not careful he'll have you carrying everything else he'll have you nurturing anger and hostility and bitterness and frustration and it will be hard for you to release it because you were built to carry you were given hips so you could put the baby on the side and it wouldn't fall and you could do what you got to do you were given a wound so the baby could be nurtured on the inside you were meant to carry life don't put death in your womb don't put anger hostility resentment in the womb don't put unforgiveness in the womb it because the enemy will tempt you to carry in your womb unforgiveness and that's why you can be mad for 10 years you can be angry for 10 years because you instinctively were designed to carry life but you have to willfully abort death you have to willfully push out unforgiveness you have to willfully push out anger you have to willfully push out frustration you have to willfully let it go because you have a wound the man on the other hand plays a very significant role he is given the garden to till the soil to be a part of the fruitful aspect when he says be fruitful he is talking to you because you are sinful and you cannot be fruitful if you are not seedful fruit is a derivative of being seedful god would never have said to adam be fruitful if he didn't give him seed because god would never ask you to give something that he hadn't given you are you do you all hear what i'm saying so so you have to begin to understand let me let me go just a little bit deeper with this because i want to get on this thing about adam giving birth because you gasped when i said about adam giving birth to eve let me see yeah that's painful yeah i'm going to show you how painful the first man adam went into a deep sleep and birthed eve and recognized her first as bone of my bone flesh of my flesh i will call her womb womb man she's man with the womb she's man with the moon the second man adam gave birth on calvary and when they pierced him in the side out of his side came his bride also which is the new testament church when jesus says the new testament is in my blood when they pierced him they opened him up the veil in the temple was written from the top to the bottom and the church is comes out of the side of jesus like eve comes out of the side of adam okay let's go deeper so together adam and eve become an expression of god for this cause shall a man leave his mother and his father and take unto him a wife and they shall cleave and be one flesh they shall be one they shall be one again the reason that celebration we call sex is so powerful is because it celebrates what we were before we are one again and now the impossible challenge that he gives to the woman the seed of the woman which she doesn't have without me because she's not all sufficient now that becomes possible because i have the seed with no womb she has the womb with no seed when we come together we are all sufficient the prophecy is realized and the seed of the woman is brought forth are you all listening at me if you're online if you're getting something out of this just type online i'm getting this i'm getting this i'm getting this so so what we are doing when we come back together we celebrate god and therefore are able to be creative and create life because we are acting like the creator together we were created by a creator therefore we are creative consequently together we created oh this is good this is good this is good this this is the first experience of a sociological construct is the family the family itself is a womb that incubates and develops children so the children being raised with a mother and a father are encapsulated and surrounded by both expressions of god and together they express the fullness of god and and i don't want to get into gender stereotypes but either one or the other will tend to be more disciplined and the other one will tend to be more nurturing so that the child gets both disciplined and nurturing they get grace and truth all the married people say man one of the other of you is more hard-nosed than the other one the other one and the other one is more gentle and that is by god's design that opposites not just anatomically but emotionally would attract themselves to each other so that the child gets the full expression of god they don't get all grace and no discipline or all discipline and no mercy it takes both of us being different even in our emotional construct to represent the fullness of god so there's somebody who said get yourself together get up out of the bed don't tell me nothing about being tired get up do something about yourself another one said i'm fixing your breakfast now now now it might be the woman that says get yourself together get up out of the bed you got stuff to do and it might be the man that's scrambling the eggs but one or the other of you represents opposite aspects of god and you generally do not marry somebody like you because you don't want all grace you never get nothing done you don't want all truth you turn your house into the military but when you come together the child is balanced by your differences so the child survives in the balance of the parents if there is no balance in the parents then the child is getting too much of this and curious about that you crave what you didn't get you are like i shot you with that one you crave what you didn't get you don't crave what you got plenty of you crave what you didn't get which brings us to father's day which is not a spiritual holiday or anything like that but it is an opportunity to put in context where we are as a society now according to the u.s census bureau 19.5 million children are born in one one in four without a father in the home one in four in the whole united states black white brown makes no difference young at all one and four are born without a father in the home it when you break it down racially it gets much worse when it gets down to blacks and africans 64 latinos 42 non-hispanic white 33 are born without a father in the home some stats say as high as 75 of black children are born unto unwed mothers so three in four are getting a lot of one thing and craving for the other thing that means only a quarter of black children grow up in homes with mothers and fathers that means 75 percent are craving what they didn't get and i used to think it was just the boys that crave it but that's not true it is not just a voice the girls also crave it ate for it curious about it quick to go out and try to find it and she tries to find it not because she's a bad girl but because she's craving what she didn't get worse for the girl because then they call her a and a hoe when in reality she's just a broken-hearted little girl trying to find daddy in the arms of anything that smells looks or acts like a man [Applause] are you hearing what i'm saying so i want to set all of this in context first of all to all the fathers who stayed and let me clear this up let me clear this up to all the fathers who stayed and made up that 25 and and stuck it out and endured we salute you we celebrate you we honor you we honor you we honor you we honor you to all that ran away we want to help you we want to help you we want to help you we're not mad at you we don't hate you we don't despise you we want to help you we need you most of the time you ran away because you never saw nobody stay and if staying isn't modeled in front of you you will hit a stage where leaving seems like the only solution and what the child doesn't know is that men don't leave their children they leave their mother [Applause] sometimes mama makes it hard for daddy to stay because mama has not had a proper experience with a father and she's fussing at him all the time because she thinks she knows what he ought to be and he's trying to be sometimes what she wants him to be and becoming frustrated because god didn't tell you to be what she wants you to be god told you to be what he wants you to be so she can't become your barometer unless she become your god success is not for me to to be what my wife wants me to be success is for me to be what god wants me to be but if you're not careful and you're a talker and i'm not you will talk talk talk fuss fuss bus trying to shape me into what you think i ought to be and you didn't even have that either [Applause] so in order to get this thing right there has to be a humility that comes along that says none of us fully know what we're talking about all we know is what was modeled in front of us so let me kind of go a little deeper if my parents argued all the time that becomes my norm and so i am not going to be happy till we fight because there's something wrong with quiet if i if what was modeled inside of me was swallowing up how i feel and not speaking out my feelings then i want everybody to just shut up let's not confront it let's not talk about it i don't want to talk about it i'm getting out of the house i don't want to talk to you because in my model we don't talk when the culture of my family when i marry you the two cultures marry the culture of your family and the culture of my family mary and they are generally two different cultures and getting them to come together and work it out safely without driving the kids crazy is a difficult task which makes marriage hard because your idea of what's normal and my idea of what's normal is two different normals when in truth there is no normal trust me lord have mercy i've been pastoring 44 years there is no normal there is no normal there's only for christians god's word that gives us a metric to measure how things ought to be i really don't want to duplicate what my parents had i really don't i thank god for them i love them i appreciate them i honor them they got me here but i don't want to duplicate what my parents had i want to take the good out of what my parents had i want to leave the bad out of what my parents had and become a better version of what my parents had but if i'm using that as a model if i talk to my wife like my father talked to my mother we wouldn't still be married so we have to begin to pick and choose what we take and what we leave out of our past there's some stuff you don't take with you stats prove that a father who goes to prison is far more likely to produce a child who goes to jail stats prove that a father who is abusive and angry and he beats his wife is going to show his son this is how you deal with anger and even though the son hated it done to his mother he will turn around and do it to his wife because that was what was modeled in front of him that's why jesus says verily verily i say unto you ye must be born again because in the new birth you renounce the old birth and you begin to change [Applause] the pipeline the pipeline and whether it's me being angry or it's you talking too much or it's you being angry and violent and physical because there are abusive women and it's me sucking it up and taking it in both of us are living up under the curse of our past and we'll never heal our relationship until we both humble down and admit we don't know how to do this without god let's get down on our knees and lord show me how to hold this thing together in a way that makes things work are y'all tracking with me okay that's good that's good i'm gonna say one more thing and then i'm gonna open it up for your questions and we're gonna go from there marriage changes with age there are ages and stages and people who have been married a long time they have been married because they have endured the seasons of relationship what you are experiencing as a newlywed is a season if if he falls in love with that season and the season changes then the marriage explodes because i loved you in the spring but i don't know how to deal with you in the fall i met you at this stage and when i said i do i said i do to cherry blossoms and now i'm in icicles and there will be let me turn around right in the camera and say there will be seasons [Applause] how do you stay through seasons how do you stay through seasons you can never stay through seasons if you live in your feelings if it's about how you feel about it when the seasons change either her or him will get out of the door because the seasons change if you live in your feelings you may not feel like it in fall you may not feel like it in summer you may not feel like it in spring you may not feel like it in winter you cannot listen at your feelings and keep your commitments because your feelings will seduce you into only loving one season not one person so in order to endure the changes and hear what i said endure endure the changes of seasons it takes a lot of discipline because as soon as you figure out how it works it all changes by the time you figure out how to manage getting the kids to daycare and getting to work on time and making sure they had everything done and their homework in that changes it changed from a season where you were figuring out how do i get all the diapers and the baby carriage and the car seat in place and get to where i'm going in time and by the time you get good at it you don't need the car seat because the one who was in the car sheet now wants the car keys and you don't know what to say to him because you're still recovering from the car seat and now this joker wants the car that's how it goes and until you buckle down and say winter spring summer or fall i'm down with you gain weight lose weight i'm down with you crazy sex [Applause] little sex no sex [Laughter] [Applause] i'm down with you without that understanding you leave each other but the kid thinks you left them and with that comes a feeling of abandonment and shame and the feeling of rejection because the kid says what was it about me that made you leave [Laughter] what why didn't you like me i must not be any good which creates a lot of things you like me you like me you like me you like me you like me i go with you if you like me i'll go with you if you like me you like me i'll go with you because i don't like me because there's something wrong with me because he left me when most generally in his mind he left her in many cases not all she's so angry over what he did the only thing she can hurt him with is you so now you ain't coming over to see the kids and no you're not doing this because you become the switch she beats him with for hurting her because if he don't want me he does want you you can't see your son not knowing that when you use a kid as a switch it's the child that gets beaten now this is father's day and you've got some questions and and i want it to be a conversation you don't have to stick to any form you can say anything you can rebut you can disagree you can laugh you can cry you can snot you can get mad you can do anything but punch me okay i want it to be this is a free-for-all and and and the whole world is watching there are people all over the world watching who are trying to figure out how do you make this work because obviously we're not good at this 75 percent that's including church people it's not like it's not like the 75 are all sinners they're they're preachers they're deacons they're elders they're ushers they're they're strip club attenders they're bartenders from every walk of life we are having a hard time with family wonder why i don't have time to deal with why let me deal a little bit with why we had trouble with families because our babies were sold out of our hands our men were rewarded for making babies because babies increased profit margin not taking care of them our babies were snatched and sold for hundreds of years [Applause] so your great great great great great grandfather was a buck [Music] five generations you pride yourself you stand out on the corner like this [Applause] [Music] [Applause] because you still think the only thing valuable can i be real see see the problem with church is that we don't talk about real stuff we don't talk about real issues you think the only thing valuable about you is between your legs and not between your ears so we're trying to get your head erect and you standing on the corner and then the seasons change and you're still on the corner only now you're drunk because the only thing you was proud of is gone is this helpful okay how am i doing am i doing okay i'm trying to explain to you [Applause] that you don't go into marriage without baggage or relationship i can't totally divest myself of the only point of reference that i had so when i got married i had baggage and she had baggage and we have to figure out where are we going to put these bags what do we keep what do we leave by the way the rent is due and i just got laid off and you're pregnant again and i'm supposed to be responsible broke how my father didn't tell me who i was my history didn't tell me who i was my employment doesn't tell me who i am you're mad at me you don't tell me who i am who am i so can i really go there so here's the telltale signs what's my name what's my name [Applause] call me daddy all of these are telltale signs of who am i i know i know so let's talk how y'all doing so far what are you thinking um [Music] i'm mind-blowing right now but my first question for you my perspective is like like woken up right now but my first question for you is um before you ask me a question what blew your mind about what i said um just the way you um put it for um not just the guys but you use the daughters you know from there from their point of view and how you said about how how they're looking for their dad who they didn't have never had and now they're just they're not a or a or anything like that they just hey they're just looking for it they're looking for their image that they didn't that they didn't get it so now they just giving their bodies to anybody or like you said looking for that that lust or love from from who knows who you know understanding why it helps you to understand what's really going on right right not them just being you know being a fast tale girl or a girl it's just they don't know they don't know yeah yeah they don't know they're they're hungry just like you before they're hungry for attention they're hungry to know they're hungry to understand so she ends up calling a 22 year old boy daddy oh daddy and she's calling a 22 year old boy daddy who may not have even had a daddy you feel me yeah yeah hit me with your question i'll do my best with you well bishop i i think i'll go first because i'm the only father on the panel okay that didn't have a father growing up okay model it didn't take i don't i wasn't born into that 25 percent that you name but it didn't take long into my life for me to find myself in that 25 and while i was growing up i was trying to model myself off of something i didn't see i was taking bits and pieces from great men like yourself and the problem with that is you only see the highlights of great man you don't see their their downfalls you don't see how many times they fell before they got to that point that you see them and so i especially for the boys to men i hope that you can speak to them and speak to me because um my young adult years was about mending what i didn't have in a father even though i had his name he was still alive at the time but he wasn't there and there's probably men and boys that can speak to going through the same thing just uh talk about how you become something that wasn't model for you and how you change with the seasons of your life also with that because in the last year i've gone from a fiance to a husband to a father and and i'm glad that i have this form because you are my spiritual father and i have my son in the audience he sleep now but and i thank you for this forum and this platform to be able to have a father's day like this to learn from you but also hopefully i can tell my son about this one day but it's something that wasn't modeled for me growing up you first of all [Applause] let's speak to the deficit that you feel when you didn't get it and it wasn't modeled before you some young men had it and they still don't have it together and i was jealous of those men in in high school i would see boys i played football or ran track i would see them mad at their fathers who were actually active in their lives and i'm like you don't know how good you got it yeah so so there are two different kinds of pain okay there is the presumptive pain that when when you had it all your life you don't always fully appreciate it because you don't know what it would be like without it and when you've never had it you appreciate it because you've never had it but the one who needs that appreciation isn't there to get it so if the man stays he has to endure not being appreciated because you're normal you don't get appreciated as a father till later but in real time speed in growing up you're normal on the other hand you got all of this appreciation to give and nobody to give it to okay so how do you balance it out but how how do you survive how do you develop how do you do how do you play a role for which you have no script okay first of all you got to be prepared to accept i'm not going to do this perfect and i'm not going to always get this right because i'm not exactly sure what this is and i said i do to something that i didn't know what it was okay so i i am going to learn with you and we are going to grow together god brings people in your life to subsidize what you didn't get okay never tell people you don't you you you don't have you didn't have a father because if you didn't have a father you wouldn't be here so he gave you the most important thing he gave you life okay what he didn't give you was discipline nurturing affirmation and correction okay and and correction is important for uh particularly for a man because correction shows me a submission shows me how to manage power prepares me to deal with police prepares me to deal with teachers prepares me to deal with bosses where i don't see correction i don't hear when when i when somebody says i don't like what you did so i can stop hearing you don't like me okay where correction becomes a normative in your life then you are free to make mistakes because then you learn how to repair mistakes and the pressure to be perfect you got to get rid of it right now you got to get rid of it right now you're not gonna be perfect but the good news is see part of our problem is we feel like everybody else got something that we didn't get and anytime you feel robbed you feel angry deep down inside behind hurt is anger it's not fair that everybody else's father came to the football game and there was nobody up there clapping for me it's not fair that they got to go out and eat with their dads afterwards and i went home in the car with mama it's not fair it's not fair and you're right it's not fair but it is true when jesus said you should know the truth and the truth shall set you free i think it's more than the gospel truth you have to know the truth about you you have this is my truth this is my reality and when i look at other people who became successful though they were fatherless like barack obama who ended up being the president of the united states raised by a woman it says to me that it is possible for me to succeed with or without having had a father in my life it's the reason they make vitamins to supplement what meals don't give you god sends people in your life as vitamins and they may come from five different directions it may be a friend over here it may be some from me it may be an uncle over there it may be a school teacher over here but they supplement what you didn't get in your life when you get around them you need to tell them how important they are to you and why so that they won't spasmodically feed you if you tell me i never had this before you're changing my life then i will be more intentional about giving it to you because you let me know that you need that so don't come to me like you already got what you got and secretly be craving something you gotta know the truth and the truth will set you free and not be ashamed of it because his leaving had nothing to do with you it's not your fault that's his issue to deal with that let that be his issue you got a chance to correct it and supplementing the relationships where you did not get it from him with outside relationships is one of the ways that you fortify yourself and begin to build yourself up waiting number two is you get to give your kid everything you dreamed of everything you wanted and it's crazy it's crazy how this works but when you give it to them you get it back the bible says give and it shall be given back to you again good measure pressed down shaking together and running over so you go to the games you change the diaper you bounce the baby you take pictures with the kid the kid don't know that you're in the picture as him [Music] see the secret to being a great preacher as opposed to a good preacher is a great preacher sees every soul that walks down the aisle as them and the reason we are compelled to keep telling you you can do it is because we are secretly talking to ourselves you understand okay so as you give to your son you're actually talking to yourself and your wound starts to close as you give it away because you're giving him what you hungered for but don't get angry when he doesn't appreciate it like you did because you're normal you're normal and the side effect of doing that is because you're normal he doesn't see what you do as exceptional because it's normal you understand what i'm saying as he gets older where you can talk or she where you can talk to them and tell them your story which is for another age and stage of life they begin to understand that families heal together marriage is healed together relationships heal together you already be dogs you're sitting on this stage you're you're not in jail you don't have no needles in your arms you didn't commit suicide you didn't blow your brains out you're sitting up here intelligently having a conversation two of us talking together when the stats say that you should be locked up you should be incarcerated you should be a gang leader you should be high you should be crazy look at you look at what you did look at who you became look at who you are and let's this is the clapping that should have been in the football stand this is the clapping that should have been at your graduation this is the clapping that should have got you ready for the prom this is the clapping that says you matter this is a clapping that says you're doing a good job this is the clapping that you've been praying to hear this is the clapping that your soul's been thirsting for look at what you did look at what you did look at what you did come here give me a hug look at what you did now receive it you got to receive it you got to receive it because what you've done is you've built up so many walls to protect yourself from pain that you won't let love in either so you got to take your walls down that you built to protect you so that when we clap for you you can receive it because i see you trying to receive it and you want to receive it but your walls have been up to protect your heart so long that you don't know how to let anything get to your heart but we're going to clap for you again and i want you to receive it i want you to receive it my mama said a closed mouth catches no flies but it don't eat either when you close up your emotions so that you don't hurt you also close it up so that love can't get in and it takes a while to bring the walls down so that you can really receive what you've been craving for all your life and i'm not saying that one hand clap fixes it but i'm setting you on a journey to receive positivity accolades attaboy you did good you got this you came out all right anyway you came out with there's a scripture i'm gonna tell you i love this scripture i will get this to you cause you cool okay joseph had two children he was rejected by his brother he was separated from his father he was raised without his mother he was lying on he was betrayed he ended up in prison and when he got out he named them vanessa and ephraim and he said one of them the lord has caused me to prosper in the land of my affliction meaning that in spite of what i didn't get i got there anyway he named his son his story the lord has caused me to forget all my travail he's caused me to forget and he's caused me to prosper why would you name your son he's caused me to forget and he caused me to prosper because he is processing his childhood pain through his children you understand what i'm saying what joseph is saying i got there anyway my dream happened anyway i'm the prince of egypt anyway my mother wasn't there my father wasn't there my brothers didn't like me the odds were against me i went through hell i've been in jail i lost my job and look at me i landed on my feet i got there anyway that's even better than having a father that's even better than having a support because against all odds you got there anyway you see that good good who's got the next question y'all clap your hands give god a praise all right um the bishop i hear you talking about the 75 i grew up with a very involved father very loving father who was a spiritual leader in our house and a provider and i'm married to a man who is now a new father to our nine-month-old my question is related to fatherlessness and our focus of that in in the black community or why society does so it's it's really um disheartening when i see society focusing on lack of fathers in the black community so my question is twofold why does society and media focus on fatherlessness in the black community and how do we combat that narrative change the narrative combat that stereotype and how do we widen the screen and when i say widen the screen to show that there's more to the family structure in our community than just those that don't have fathers it's a great question it's a powerful question it's a profound question you know what's so profound about your question it's what whatever behavior we see we repeat so the media only shows the worst of us which causes us to see the worst of us and it's a self-fulfilling prophecy to tell me that if my skin is darker than yours i'm probably not going to stay we don't reward the fathers who stayed we don't reward the families at work we don't reward the marriages that stuck together we we do it all the time now i understand to the media and i have media to go to this church nobody covers planes that land they only cover planes that crash but that's the media's responsibility in church we need to lift up the ones that are working so that we can see that that does work that does happen and we do exist and it's funny i've been having a similar conversation uh with oprah and right now they're they're showing fathers that stayed and fathers at work because we do need to see it because you can't be it if you don't see it i totally agree with you we need more representation at that look at what an achiever you are though because of the fact that you had a father and a mother both present in your life look at what achiever you are in education in school in all the different areas that you have excelled in and and be sure that you applaud them because they are the foundation that you stand on and helped you to become who you are let's clap your hands and praise god for her are y'all getting anything out of this i know it's not a sermon but are you getting something out of this i i think it's important that we have this conversation i'll take another question yes i'll speak um so i am 25 well first of all i'm grateful to be able to you know have a conversation it's it's an honor to be able to um just have this opportunity to speak with you and i just want to show honor to that but i'm 25 and growing up my father he was present and he was able to provide but there were times where i wasn't able to have discussions with them like the conversations would be brief and there wasn't a lot of transparency with that and as we both got older as i got older and he started to go through health complications with cancer there will be times where he wants to be more community more forthcoming with me but there will be times where i notice myself not being forthcoming with him or being transparent or just being short and my question relates to why why is it that with some fathers they have a hard time with being transparent early on when the children are through their childhood and as they get older or if it's too late they want to become more uh forthcoming with their child it's never too late yeah it's never too late the fact that you are the fact that you're on as long as he's living it's never too late the fact that you're uncomfortable with receiving it doesn't mean it can't happen it's awkward it's uncomfortable but it's never too late i'm going to explain to you why your father was the way he was even though i don't know him i can't speak for him generationally i want you to understand the civil rights movement happened in my parents generation okay i was young but they were adults in the civil rights movement when my generation came along we had opportunities to own homes work jobs and be something that our parents and grandparents couldn't imagine so we went at it like gorillas trying to be something in part to prove our other two-fifths of humanity yeah yeah because constitutionally they say we're three-fifths human so so we're still trying to prove we're human and we've got rights we didn't have before and a chance to make the world better for you so we're busy trying to make the world better for you trying to get the stuff that we just now got the right to get okay and we're scuffling so hard to get it with half the pay [Applause] we're trying to get it so hard trying to give you things in part because we don't think our generations others think that giving you me is valuable and in part because we owe it to our parents to own what they march for okay you must understand at the time that your father had you he wasn't the age he is now he was your age so he's scuffling trying to make his mark in the world and figure out marriage and figure out relationships and make everything work what you wanted from him in terms of transparency was going to come but it's not supposed to come when you're 7 8 9 10 12. those kinds of conversations of transparency where he becomes vulnerable and shows you what's right and what's wrong with him is the joys of having an adult son it is amazing to have an adult son because i am through disciplining you i am through training you i can now talk to you if you overcome the propensity to shut down and imitate what you saw early in terms of nonverbal communication you can become best friends you have to talk to him because he's in you and he's in you and you'll never fully understand certain things about yourself unless you talk to him or talk to people who knew him because figuring yourself out is a journey it's not an event it's a lifelong journey i'm still learning me i'm 64 years old and i'm still learning me this this is a lifelong educational process what he will give you is clues but it's hard to have time to give clues and pay the rent and pay the tuition and by the close and spend time with mama and my parents are aging and they're demanding from me and you're demanding from me and your mama's demanding for me and my job is demanding from me and i've only got 24 hours in a day and i'm probably about 24 28 30 years old he did not talk to you because of you that's what you got to hear it wasn't about you it was about trying to be responsible it was about trying to be dutiful it was about trying to be a provider if a man is at home all the time and he's a breadwinner that's a bad sign and the problem with being a father is you can never get it 100. if i give you time we don't have money if i get the money you don't have me i can't be there and earn a living at the same time i'm limited and i have an obligation to make sure your life is better than mine that's part of it am i right clap when i get it right the difficult thing about being a father is that everybody wants it now the kid wants it now the wife wants it now the job wants it now the opportunity is now because in your early years are your earning years you're only going to have so much health and strength before your body starts betraying you so you're racing against the clock trying to get everything settled while you have the energy to get it done before your body gives out now he's wrestling with cancer so he can't he he can't do it now if he didn't do it then you wouldn't have had it so it's it's not that he's just now getting around to you because you weren't important is that he's just now getting around to you because the clock was ticking we had affirmative action we could now move into any community we could now have a house with air conditioning y'all don't understand see all the things that you call normal were our miracles we can now have a dishwasher we can have a doorbell we can have a yard with brass in it we can have a couch and a guest room look at us see y'all don't pay that no attention but we didn't have that kind of stuff growing up and i want some old folks that are clapping here with me we did not have that kind of stuff we can go to the grocery store and not clip coupons we don't need top value stamps and i know you don't know what they are to be able to get anything we want we your normal is your daddy's miracle but the reason you don't see it is because it's normal so it's an achilles heel it's the same thing i told him everything he worked to give you you don't really fully value it because you grew up in it it's your norm and you're saying why didn't you talk to me i was working i was gone i was hustling i was negotiating i was trying to make sure they didn't foreclose on the house i was trying to make sure that your school payments were made i was trying to make sure that you had new tennis shoes when you went to school i was trying to make sure that we had clean diapers to put on your butt i didn't have time for a conversation it wasn't that i didn't like you it wasn't that i didn't want to talk to you it was that i was busy providing because i knew that the clock was going to shut me down in a minute and if i didn't get it done in that window of youth and strength and no backaches and no hip replacements and no heart attacks and no surgery that's just a little bitty window your strength is men young man hear me please your strength is a short window where you are at maximum capacity where you can go to work tired and still function where you can function with no sleep where you can still get it done where you can still get everything done that's just a short window and every man that's worth his salt is running in through that window trying to get it done in that window cause i promised your mama and i promised my mama and i told my grandmama that the march wasn't for nothing that if the door got open we would beat some we would move in we would have the house our grandmama's dreamed about and we got it and we bought it and we owned it and you were born in it but it's your normal and you can't see it you only crave what you didn't get now i can't stop you from craving it but i can't explain it it wasn't that there was something wrong with you it wasn't that he didn't trust you it wasn't that he didn't love you he expressed his love by providing for you okay that does not replace talking to you because you need to be talked to but now he's trying to talk not just because he has cancer he's past that window and now he's trying to talk to you and and you're kind of short with him but you're short with him because you're mad with him and you're mad with him because you thought he didn't trust you and he didn't like you that wasn't why he did it he was doing it for you not to you do you see that good good good we're getting something done can i have a little bit more time just a little bit more time please give me just a little bit more time let me take another question okay i have a question bishop um okay so i had a question prepared but sitting up here i have so many questions now i wish i could just pick your brain but i'll stick with the original question i'm 37 years old i was married 11 years and now i'm divorced and i have three children so when dating at my age most people have children from previous relationships so what is your advice what advice can you give to a man well it's kind of two questions what advice can you give to a man who doesn't have children but considering marrying or dating a woman that has children what things should he consider you know being that he would potentially be a stepfather and then on the other end of the spectrum for the man or the father who has children and you're considering merging two different families together um what advice can you give them on making the process easier and building relationships with their step children good question okay that's a good question that's a good question and the answer is date date date but i'm not talking about you dating him he also has to date your children he has to date your children you you can't he can't just be the car that comes to pick mama up and then mama gets married and brings his stranger home because then he becomes the enemy every third date needs to be a family outing a get-together where he gets to try on being a father trying to communicate learn to learning to engage them interacting them until they get to see what it's like to have a male figure and he gets to see how much longer it takes to get ready when you got kids okay that dating process needs to go on and to the second question when two families merge together they also need time together they need to go on trips together before they get married they need to make the kids have to make friends they have to bond they have to lose some of their uh resistance and here's a big problem with blended families the question is if if i had kids and you had kids and we got married that means i had kids by some other woman the kid has the dilemma is liking you betraying mama and and sometimes mama is feeding that on the other side of the table he went and married that you know you know okay so you got to be patient with the kids connecting with you because they're torn between two lovers and you got to make it okay for them to love their mother and not be threatened by the fact that they love their mother even if she's threatened by the fact that they're spending time with you you have to be the bigger person and not be threatened by and invite her to the birthday party and invite them to go spend time with their mother and if you can't bring her over let them go spend tuesday with her and wednesday with me and not act funny when they come home to send a signal that you are cool then eventually kids adopt very quickly into understanding that that they're not betraying her to be nice to you and vice versa if it were a male it's still the same thing it is a difficult process it is a long journey it takes time because you have no equity with them so don't expect to man or woman come in disciplining kids that you haven't invested in enough to earn the right to correct you don't get to correct kids you haven't invested in so before you come in and talk about these kids stay up all the hours of the night they need to go to bed at a decent hour and they don't do this and they don't do that wait wait wait wait wait wait you only know these kids let's be there for some things let's do some fun things let's invest in them let's support them let's show interest in them and earn the respect that is necessary to make the discipline be something they can live with does that make sense okay now what was your real question well i don't know if it's necessarily for fathers but for it was for more so for me because i can relate to so much of everything you've shared you know i grew up in the home with my father and but now i'm raising children that and it's different when you didn't have a father at all but when you had a father up until you were like 10 and then you don't have your father anymore i [Music] deal with with my children issues of abandonment you know they feel abandoned and all the feelings that you described so my question was what can i do to help break that cycle you know like like where like i tell my son like my my dad he didn't have his father you know his father wasn't around but he was a great father to me so i tell my son you know my dad made a choice he made a choice to be a good father so you have to make a decision that you're going to be everything that you wish your father was to you but what else can i do or what else can i say to help your daddy loves you he didn't leave you he left me he still cares about you he's still your father he will always be your father anytime you want to reach out to him it's cool with me i'm open to that i understand that what you get from me you will not get from him what you get from him you will not get from me open the door even if he doesn't walk through it leave the door open and let the kid know i'm cool with it you're not betraying me to miss him i'm not going to pull you apart in the fight i had with him because every time you discredit him you discredit the kid because he's in them so if they overhear you talking to your girlfriend about what a dog he was they'll start barking am i on it so so it's important that you lift him up because you all created them together and he though he is physically gone he is still in them okay he is still in them and you know i see your father the way you laugh and you you laugh just like him telling them things that connect the dots for them you know connect the dots for them and and making it a non-issue for this unique situation to exist and because you personally know what it's like to feel abandoned you you don't know you you don't know your kids know your kids know so they're already talking to you about it you can see it in their behavior if they're going to start acting out soon if we can't fix that feeling of abandonment and we have to fix it one or two ways either whether the father engages them or somebody else comes in of significance and and and and really really works extra hard to put value in them and to clap for them like i did for him you know and to be there for those moments you see how he shined when i clapped for him he lit up like general electric because because men will go toward whoever claps the loudest [Music] make sure there's clapping in that house by the way even if you end up not getting married you can do this alone if you have to you you have to clap harder you have to work harder but you're a strong enough woman to be able to do it on your own because you already understand how they're feeling and i can tell you're a good mother because they're talking to you the fact that they would talk to you about feeling abandoned is a sign that you have really killed goliath goliath is communication and keep that communicate how you feeling today you feeling better about that what do you what do we need to do to make that better and having that conversation with them is a very healthy thing and then if you see anything that you're unable to cure get therapy for the kids it's okay there's nothing wrong with therapy i'm going to do i'm going to do one more and then i'm going to then then i i i'll stop if you want me to uh it doesn't matter to me it's fine are y'all having a good time because if if you'll wait on me in a minute if you'll give me a minute i feel something in my spirit to do that that's going to bring life i'll take one more question who's got it bishop i have a question for you yeah so this kind of goes back to what you were saying about the seasons and marriage and seasons in life my wife as she said we have our first daughter now so we found out we were having a daughter in 2019 i started a new job in 2019 and the expectations that we had for how you know transitioning from just being a couple and to being parents that changed when covet hit and so now the way my life is the way i handle my marriage being a father my career and my personal well-being it feels like i'm being stretched a bit more and so as you said when you move into those different seasons of your life it's about discipline but what can i do to help me grow to help aid in that growth so that i can make sure that i'm being the husband that i need to be in the father and being in my career and also maintaining my personal well-being man you in a situation dog i thought a couple of things while you're talking well this year in a situation two i said uh while we were sheltered in places i know what you was doing but anyway uh anyway enough about that now [Laughter] the pressure you are feeling is normal being a father husband provider is stressful it is stressful there's nothing wrong with you that you feel that way i feel that way men feel that way it is not easy to be all of those things simultaneously and also still be true to you and have some you time that you desperately need in order to be the best version of yourself to her and the kids you need some time so the first thing i want to leave relieve you from the feeling of inadequacy that will tempt you to feel like am i enough you're enough because you know what you care that's all they want you ain't got to be perfect at it you care about the very fact that you're concerned about it you're asking questions about it the very fact that that i know because i understand men the emotions behind your questions i see in your eyes and the pressure and the stress and i'm going to say something you didn't say but but i know it's true you're stressed and you can't tell anybody that's what makes being a man hard because you don't want to bleed on her and say oh god how am i going to do this i'm worried i don't know what i'm going to do i need a good cry you don't want to do that because you don't perceive that to be masculine which is wrong jesus wept to him whom much is given much is required the feelings you're having are quite normal but let me help you process this okay you're going to do things as a family more than you did as a couple okay and in that process in the early stages the kid is just laying there with a bottle in his mouth doesn't want anything real profound change my diaper you know give me something to drink i'm cool it's pretty easy then the next stage i'm trying to walk get out my way baby proof the house you know so you you got a few years before you get down to the complicated stuff and you got those years and those times that you can still get what you need from her because while you really want to be a great daddy you married her because you love her and you want to be her husband and her lover and her friend and you need that take advantage of those opportunities because the older the kid gets the more into that they're going to eat the first few years it's not going to be that bad it's not going to be that hard and you're still going to be able to provide and sometimes you're going to leave something undone and you have to take the pressure off of yourself to be perfect you do not have to be perfect you have to be present just present just present if this is what i learned if you're just present you're halfway there you don't have to be perfect these boys down here don't need perfect daddies they need present daddies i said that was my last one but i'm gonna take one more it must be you okay i did not have my father in my life growing up however um i was very blessed to have you know my stepdad in my life and i called him my dad because he was there and is still there today um as a single mother now um i feel i have the important responsibility of choosing who my future husband will be that will be a a great stepfather to my four-year-old daughter so my question is what characteristics should i and also other single mothers who are desiring marriage um look for in a potential husband that could be a great fit for or who could be a great stepfather to their children and also a great father to their future children check out his family check out his family check out check out their family culture their family dynamics what he sees as normal how he relates they don't have to be perfect how he relates in group settings in what context he has the ability to to give attention to his siblings his parents and things like that what what are those dynamics that's part of it check out the chemistry between him and the child you don't want too much chemistry okay you don't want too much chemistry and you don't want too little chemistry you want him to be interest interested in your daughter but not preoccupied with her okay you understand what i'm saying you're still the star of the movie you're still the star of the movie but you don't want him to resent her either okay and let's let's let's build that relationship up and watch it grow he needs to be a protector he needs to be a provider he needs to be the kind of guy who goes to the door first when there's a lock at the door he needs to be the sort of guy that gets out and talks to the mechanic on your behalf these are little signs there's an altercation he needs to stand in front of you he he needs to be the guy that wants to sleep on the side of the bed closest to the door he needs to be a covering for you a covering for you when you are worried about your daughter he needs to be the kind of guy who's worried too even though we don't always talk when we're worried he needs to have the same concerns you do maybe not express him the way you do but what your values are need to be his values those core values make a difference avoid fixer-uppers avoid fixer-uppers avoid fixer-uppers and it's easy to to be attracted to fixer-uppers it's easy to be attracted to fixer-uppers but you don't want a fixer-upper and you got a daughter cause you don't know what all you're fixing and you don't know how long it's gonna take to get it fixed and you don't want your daughter to suffer in the process of a dysfunction uh that you're you're working on because you all seem to see chicken salad out of chicken manure and you believe that you're superwoman and you can fix anybody some of this stuff is complicated and it's difficult and then you get in and find out you can't fix it and then you get mad and you're ready to throw him away when in truth the person who has something to offer you weren't attracted to because you need to be needed and you draw fixer-uppers and it's a self-fulfilling prophecy clap your hands if you enjoyed this [Music] you

Channel: T.D. Jakes

Views: 494,959

Rating: 4.864747 out of 5

Keywords: td jakes, faith, wtal, woman thou are loosed, megafest, potters house, bishop jakes, pastors and leadership, pastors, leaders, instinctbishops, village, being close to god, willing to learn

Id: cLleYyE-27Q

Length: 102min 21sec (6141 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 20 2021