Good morning, everybody, and welcome to Supernatural Saturday.
I'm happy to report that I think next Saturday is when we will be live in person on camera
from The Wheelhouse.
So excited to be somewhere that has internet.
So excited to...
When did internet come out?
What year did it come out?
1995.
I'm so excited to finally catch up with the times out here in the country.
So hopefully you'll be able to see my face.
I'll be able to see your faces better starting next week.
So for those of you that are new to Supernatural Saturday, I always give this spiel, and that
is that Supernatural Saturday is a time when we all gather together to lean into what is
heaven's current reality.
Current prophetic realities is what Supernatural Saturday is all about.
We have our reality on earth, but then there's another reality happening all around us, and
it's really beneficial for us to lean into that.
And so I hope that you guys have been allowing Supernatural Saturday to build on itself,
meaning that everything that's being taught here, our little building blocks, think of
them like Tetris, like fitting them into those spaces so that we can go higher and higher
and higher.
Now, I know the whole purpose of Tetris is to go lower and lower, but you understand
what I'm saying.
We want to build.
They're bricks in a wall that we want to build.
So I hope that you're praying in the Spirit.
I hope that you're spending a few more minutes in bed, setting that clock a little bit, that
alarm clock a little ahead so that you have five minutes to look to the Lord in the morning
before you do anything, before you reach for your phone, before you think about your to-do
list for the day, that you just spend that time, those few moments in bed in the morning.
As soon as you realize you're awake, you're conscious, you're conscious, you're awake,
you have another day, another day of life on earth, and you look to the Lord, hey, God,
what are we doing today?
I used to say this all the time when I used to speak at churches.
I would say that there hasn't been one time that my children have ever jumped up.
You know, I've raised three children.
Not one time that any of them ever jumped up in the morning time and just ran off with
their lives.
They just jumped up, got out of bed, got dressed, and just ran out the door and ran off with
their lives.
They always checked in.
They always were like, hey, mom, what's going on?
What are we doing today?
Hey, I need help with this.
I need help with that.
And God wants to hear from us.
Morning time's the perfect time.
Let your name be heard.
Let your voice be heard.
Let your name be known on high every morning.
Hey, here I am, but I'm checking in, thanking you for your love, thanking you for waking
me up to another day.
Yeah, you know, we already know we don't have to voice this to the Lord.
We already know that there are things in our life that we wish were different.
There's reality.
There's facts in our life, in our world, in this earthly realm that we wish were not what
they are.
But like I said last week, we don't deny the facts, but we do defy the facts with our faith.
So we wake up every day knowing that someone's going to have a good day today.
Why can't it be me?
Someone's going to get a breakthrough today.
Why can't I get a breakthrough?
Someone's going to get healed today.
Someone's going to get a promotion today.
Someone's going to have some sort of happy, serendipitous situation happen in their life
today.
It could be me.
Why can't it be me?
So you need to face today every single day as if that day is going to hold something
very special, and it does.
It holds the ability for you to live out another day on this earth and to partner with heaven.
And so look to the Lord in the morning, and I hope that you are allowing these Supernatural
Saturdays to build on themselves because that is the whole point.
So grieving with hope is something that I just want to touch on very quickly because
of the losses that we've had in this community, in this movement.
Two of our members have gone on to be with the Lord.
Both of them in our minds prematurely, both of them with a lot of life left to live.
And these are things that, you know, we don't understand, and there's going to be a lot
of moments in this life that you don't understand.
We've already had a lot of moments that we don't understand.
So I just want to just very lightly touch on grieving with hope, especially all of you
that came together last week on Sunday to pray for Calvert.
If you haven't heard the news, he did go to be with Jesus.
Please continue to pray for his wife, Jasmine.
She's only 32 years old.
She's six months pregnant with their daughter.
This is the success story of this community.
and the two young sons that they both brought to the marriage.
So friends, we say that term grieving with hope, and I'm not going to do the entire Supernatural
Saturday on this, but I felt like I needed to address this because some of you have been
showing up to prayer this week, disappointed, discouraged.
Remember that the curse is what brought this, DIS, discouragement, disappointment, disease,
you can go on and on with those words, but Jesus brought the ministry of RE, regeneration,
resurrection, relationship, we can go on and on with those words as well.
And so anytime we find ourselves in the DIS, friends, in the DIS, any of us, all of us,
if you're in the DIS, any word that begins with DIS, that is a derogatory word, I want
you to remember that you don't have to live in the curse because Jesus died to free you
from it.
And even though it's going on around us, it's going on around us in nature, it's going on
around us in the battle for salvation in other people's souls that they're going through,
they're working out their salvation with fear and trembling, the battle is going on.
Who are we going to align with?
Are we going to align with RE or DIS?
We have that choice.
We have free will, but when you find yourself aligning with DIS, I want you to remember
that you have access to RE.
Let's just think about that for a second.
Go ahead and take a minute and ask Holy Spirit to show you, is there anywhere in my life
right now that I'm aligning with DIS, with DIS?
And then think of what that word is.
And then I want you to take a couple seconds to do this.
Yes, distracted is one that we could probably all put down.
A coach said to me years ago that whatever distracts you from your goal is your enemy.
Whatever it is.
And so we need to get really diligent and militant almost about our intentional, about
our intentionality.
Okay.
Keep putting them up.
A lot of repeats.
Please, everyone take a look.
A lot of repeats.
A lot of you wrestling with the same DIS.
All right, now I want you to picture yourself, if you will, once again, if you will, this
is about you and what you want to do.
I can't force you.
Don't go through the motions.
If you're not going to do it from your heart, don't do it.
I want you to take that D word, whatever it was.
And I want you to close your eyes and I want you to picture yourself bringing it to Jesus,
to the foot of the cross, to the finished work of the cross, where he brought the ministry
of RE, R-E, where he brought the resurrection, where he brought the reconciliation, where
he brought the relationship, the regeneration, the rehabilitation.
Now, I want you to picture yourself giving it to him.
And what is he going to give you in exchange?
What's the divine exchange?
What is the beauty that will come from these ashes?
And I want you to go ahead and post that in the chat.
Whatever word you hear.
It doesn't have to be a RE word, but if it is, cool.
Whatever word you hear, let's see it.
The clock on my stove says it's 9-11 here in Austin, Texas, and that will always and
forever be Amos 9-11.
Amos 9-11 through 9-13 is a better scripture for this movement.
It is the scripture that I call the suddenly scripture, where God has promised that he
will turn things around suddenly, where he has promised where there were empty bins,
now there will be overflowing vats full of new wine, where he has promised that whatever
has happened in the past will serve as a launching pad for the future.
And everywhere we look, blessings, blessings, blessings, it says it will happen so fast
our head will spin.
And so I release the suddenlies over all of us.
Friends, we're in a spiritual war, and I know that we don't want to think about that.
And I know that when we have things happen, like the things that have happened just recently,
we think, oh, well, you know, stuff happens and, you know, that's okay.
It happens.
It's not what we wanted to have happen, but you know, stuff happens.
Bad things happen to good people.
You know, all the excuses that we use, but no friends, we're in a spiritual war.
And I'm so proud of each and every one of you that didn't waver in your faith and showed
up last Sunday to just pray a wall of fire.
And guess who else is proud of you?
God is proud of you.
Then in the light of the circumstances, you didn't back down.
You stepped up.
And yes, the outcome was not what we want.
And we'll talk about that in a second because God sees the big picture and we don't.
But I've already read the back of the book and guess what?
We win.
I've already read the ending.
By the way, I do that with a lot of books.
I just read the ending just to see if I want to read the book.
Life is already too hard.
I don't need to get all the way through a book for some sad ending.
Quite frankly, if I hear about a movie not ending well, not having some sort of, you
know, really purposeful ending, I'm not even going to watch it.
I'm not.
Because life already has enough tragedy in it, am I right?
So let's talk just one second about the warfare that we're in.
I didn't plan on going anywhere, but this is a grab bag today.
Holy Spirit's taking us here.
So last night my husband was talking to me in the car and he just said, hey, you know
that scripture about, and the gates of hell will not prevail?
And I said, yeah.
And I quoted the whole scripture because I'm kind of a walking Bible.
And he said, yeah, babe.
He's like, you're a little theologian.
And I was like, okay.
But for those of you that are not familiar, Matthew 16, 18, and Jesus is talking to Peter.
This is where Jesus had said to Peter, and who do you say I am?
Who do you think I am?
What's your confession?
What's your declaration?
And Peter said, you're the Christ, the son of the living God.
And of course that was a divine declaration.
Peter was being used by God to declare who Jesus was.
He was releasing it into the earth realm, is being released, right?
About his true identity.
And then of course, Jesus says to Peter, you know, blessed are thou Simon Barjona, because
flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but our heavenly father.
And then he goes on to say that he is Peter, right?
He's no longer Simon.
He is Peter.
And I tell you that you are Peter.
And on this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against
it.
A lot of people think, okay, on Peter, Peter is the foundation of the church.
No friends.
The rock is the foundation of the church.
Remember the scripture that says, if you build your house on the rock, the winds and the
rains will come and they'll blow.
But your house won't fall.
The rock is the revelation that Peter had, not Peter.
The rock is the revelation of Emmanuel.
God is with us.
The rock is the revelation that Jesus was the son of God, that he is the Messiah, that
he is Meshuach, that he is the Christ.
Yes, he is the hero of the story.
The rock is the revelation of him.
Every one of us have to build our house, our life on the revelation of Jesus.
We have to build our house there.
And so my husband asked the question, you know, gates are defensive.
They're not offensive.
So what does that scripture mean?
And we started to break it down together.
And I just released that over each and every one of you.
your future marriages, that you have a spouse,
that you have a partner where you can dig
into the word of God, where you can ask each other
questions about, hey, what does this mean to you?
Let's think about this.
Hey, God's talking to me about this.
What do you think about this?
And we can go deeper together.
I have a book club going on right now,
and I told them, one can put to flight 1,000,
but two can put to flight 10,000.
But let's just be honest.
If you are one and you're not already putting
to flight 1,000, you don't need two.
If you're not using what's in your hand,
if you're not using what you got,
then you don't need a partner.
It's not about being ready for one, you don't need one.
You're not doing anything that's necessary
for a two, 10,000 increase.
And all that's meant to do is just to really provoke you
to start using what you have, that's all.
So if you hear that through condemnation,
or you hear that through religion,
or you hear that through, oh, I'm still not ready yet,
we're gonna address that too today.
Because God doesn't want you to hear that.
He wants to hear an invitation.
He wants you to hear an invitation.
Oh, wait a second, I have power.
I have power that I'm not using right now.
I'm waiting to get married so someone can come
and plug me into the outlet.
No, friend, plug yourself into the outlet.
You already have power.
It's gonna be exponential when you partner.
And that's gonna be awesome.
So David and I started to talk about this.
So what we need to know, first of all,
is in biblical times, gates were not just entry points,
they were symbols of power, authority, and decision-making.
Everything happened in the gates.
That's why you see in the book of Proverbs,
it says, and her husband will be known in the gates.
Just so you guys know, David and I,
his surname that I've taken, Dorman, it means gatekeepers.
Woo, come on, Jesus.
And of course, I didn't think about that at all,
but I will tell you, when my Sunday school teacher
married us 18 years ago, it was just us and our parents
and our children at that little wedding.
And we didn't even have on wedding clothes,
didn't have on a wedding dress.
We did that 10 years later at our vow renewal,
the whole big wedding with the white dress thing.
So friends, don't feel like you have to do it all up
at the beginning.
It's most important that your wedding be about a covenant,
not a ceremony.
And so we got there and he married us
and he made a big deal about the end
when I was gonna take this name.
And he felt the young son of the Holy Spirit come upon him.
And he said, this is gonna be a huge gift for you.
He said, you're stepping into something very different.
He said, and you taking on this name is going to mean
so much more than just you changing your last name.
And he said things that I've never heard anyone else say
at a wedding before.
And now I understand why, because I understand the meaning
of my last name.
David and I open doors.
David and I keep gates.
David and I sit in the places of influence in the world
and in the heavenlies so that we can usher in God's presence
and his purpose and his power into the lives of others.
We're pioneers, we're spearheads.
We're gonna go before you
and we're gonna make the way straight for you.
There's power, friends, in gates.
And so what was Jesus saying here?
He was saying that the organized power structures
of death and darkness, the gates of hell.
And just so you guys know, in that scripture,
that's a Greek word, and that word hell means Hades,
which is referring to the realm of the dead.
It's not the fiery place, you know,
that we think of when we think of hell.
It's referring to the realm of the dead.
And so what he's really saying there
is the domain of death will never overpower my church.
Come on, y'all.
We think of gates as being defensive, right?
They don't attack people, they hold ground.
And so that's why what Jesus was saying here is so powerful.
He's saying the church is not on the defense.
My people are on the offense.
We take territory, we change things.
A lot of you put the word distraction
in the chat this morning.
Can I just tell you that that distraction
is keeping you from being a disruptor,
another D word that is absolutely kingdom.
We have taken that word and we've repurposed it.
You're distracted because the enemy
doesn't want you to be a disruptor.
Disruptor, a disruptor to his realm, his domain of death,
his power structures of darkness.
He doesn't want you because remember, you are light.
It's important that you understand this.
You're not gonna become light, you are light.
You are born again and you are salt and light
in the earth already right now and everywhere you go,
whether you're conscious of it or not,
you are bringing the kingdom.
You are bringing the kingdom.
This is why some people treat you badly
and you're like, you don't even know me.
Why do you hate me so much?
Oh, honey, that's why.
And let's make sure that people hate us for our light,
not our attitude problem.
I've seen people using the name of the Lord
in some weird situations where they were not
representing kingdom, like in front of me
at the grocery line when they're arguing about a price
and getting nasty and getting loud
with a poor little cashier that makes minimum wage.
That person doesn't care about your problems.
They're making like $8 an hour, friend.
They don't even have the authority
to do what you're asking them to do.
So stop taking out all of your anger and frustration
of your life on this poor little minimum wage person.
But then using the name of the Lord.
Well, I'm a child of God.
Are you?
Because I'm not sure about that.
You might go to church,
but that does not make you a child of God.
A child of God is when you understand
that you are like your father.
And when you walk on this earth,
you are the representation of heaven,
that you are light and you are salt.
The children are the glory of the father
and we represent him well.
And yeah, we all have bad days.
We all have bad days.
But this is not about being an elitist.
Hey, this is about being a servant.
It's about being a servant.
Jesus was our example.
He is the elder brother among many brethren.
And we are those brethren.
That's us.
So Jesus was saying that this person, the living God,
that we will storm the gates of death.
We will storm the gates of hell and darkness.
And those gates will not be able to prevail, friends.
The word prevail means to win.
They will not be able to win.
In fact, I looked it up last night.
Let me get it on my phone real quick.
You gotta hear the definition of prevail.
Once again, David and I were having
this whole conversation last night.
It means prove more powerful than the forces opposing it.
So Jesus was saying, and the gates of hell
will not be more powerful than my kingdom
that's opposing them.
I didn't even plan on saying any of this today,
but God obviously knew that we needed to hear it.
And so we're gonna hear it.
So this flips the narrative.
A lot of people are hiding from the devil, right?
People hiding out, seeing the devil behind every bush.
And we don't wanna be hiding, hunkered down,
hoping the devil doesn't get in,
hoping the devil doesn't win.
Friends, the devil is defeated.
He's under the feet of Jesus.
And if you're seated with Jesus in heavenly places,
guess whose feet he's under?
Yours.
Now, this doesn't give you any kind of license,
and I'm not gonna teach any kind of theology today
about binding and loosing, about spiritual warfare.
I did that on a million Supernatural Saturdays ago.
Okay, we don't wanna be the kind of people
that go up into other people's territory
where you're not the authority because someone else is,
and try to rebuke spirits and do this and do that.
No, okay?
It's talking about you taking the authority in your life.
In your home, in your family,
in the places that have been given to you for stewardship.
And that includes your assignments, your place of work.
That includes your wherever, however.
It's important to understand.
You have a jurisdiction,
and I can't get into teaching deeply into that right now.
We can do that on another day,
but God doesn't want us to be on the run.
Okay?
Because our job is to be rescuing captives,
declaring freedom, bringing heaven to earth.
That is what God wants us to be doing.
All right, and we will do that when we have the revelation
that we are strongly secure on the rock.
We are on the rock.
All right, so we're grieving with hope, friends,
for these two, Teresa and Calvert,
that have gone on to be with Jesus.
We're not grieving them, just so you know,
because they are experiencing amazing,
beyond our understanding, joy and peace and love.
They have entered into their reward.
and we are not going to water that down or belittle that for them.
It's us, the ones that have been left behind,
we're the ones that have disappointment, not them.
Neither one of them are disappointed that they were not healed on earth.
Trust me.
Neither one of them were.
So what do we do?
What does it mean to grieve with hope?
It just means to acknowledge the loss, friends.
We can't deny the loss,
but we can't abandon belief.
So it's not blind optimism.
It's honest grief.
We're upset about this.
It's not the outcome that we wanted.
But that grief is also infused and anchored with hope.
We cry, we question, we feel.
God's not afraid of your questions.
He's not even afraid of your anger or disappointment.
But during that, we cannot let go of the truth that God is still good,
even when it doesn't feel like He is.
Because remember, we have to choose to believe that God sees the whole story.
I will tell you that when it comes to Calvert,
God told me from the very beginning,
when I first got the message that this had happened,
before I even went up to the hospital in Dallas,
that there was more to the story than what we knew.
There was more to the story that anyone there knew,
including his wife,
that there was more going on with Calvert and in Calvert,
and there was more to the story.
No one was around when this thing happened.
There was more to the story.
What is the more to the story?
I don't know.
It's like Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13,
we see through a glass darkly.
We do.
What does that mean?
It means looking through a foggy glass.
Have you ever looked through a foggy glass?
That's what that means, by the way, a glass darkly.
It's a foggy glass.
The things on the other side of it are not clear.
We can kind of see what's going on.
But hope comes from,
we don't have to understand everything,
but we have to trust the one who does understand everything.
Right?
And that's why it's called faith.
That's why it's called faith.
And so how do we,
I just want to really touch on just really quickly,
because we've all been here, we've all believed,
we've all said, we've all said, we've all prayed,
we've all prayed for this to be fast,
that we declared, you know,
and then whatever it was for whatever the situation was,
Didn't happen the way that we wanted it to.
We've all been there.
Each and every one of us have been there.
So here's just a couple of things that I have written down here about
how to rebuild trust after disappointment.
And then I want to get into the real crux of today.
All right.
Number one, be honest with God.
You got to be honest with God about how you feel.
He doesn't need your filtered feelings, friends.
He doesn't need the things that you would say to someone out in public when
they're like, how are you doing?
Oh, I'm good.
I'm fine.
No, God knows that you're not fine.
And he can handle your heartbreak.
It says that he's close to us when we are crushed in spirit and when we're
heartbroken, right?
And so he can handle your, why didn't you, God?
I don't understand, God.
I feel like you failed me, God.
I thought you told me this, God.
Obviously, I can't hear you well, God.
This is not how this was supposed to work out, God.
Whatever it is that you want to say, he can handle it.
Lament, friends.
Lament.
When you need to lament, lament.
David lamented.
And God said that David was in a place of intimacy where he was the apple of
his eye.
Do you guys know what that means?
The apple of his eye?
It means if you go in front of someone and if you have someone you can do
this with, go ahead.
Just get really close to their face, almost where your noses are touching
and look in their eyes and you will see your reflection in their eyes.
That is what it means to be the apple of someone's eye.
It means that David was so close to God in intimacy that his reflection
showed in his eyes.
So be honest with God.
Lament.
David did it.
Jesus did it.
He didn't understand.
God, I don't want this.
But not my way, but your way.
Your way is better.
So you can too, all right?
Number two, anchor yourself in what hasn't changed.
This is really important.
Friends, this is not just about people dying.
This is not just about sickness.
This is not about disease.
This is about you getting the job.
This is about that person you were dating didn't turn out to be your
spirit mate and it was going really great.
This turned out, this is about you got divorced.
That was supposed to be your one and only.
You don't believe in divorce.
And yet here we are.
Here we are, friends.
I didn't believe in divorce,
and I literally would have held on to that marriage
until it killed me, and it almost did.
God had to send in a rescue mission to get me out.
I never wanted to be divorced.
So maybe that's what it is.
Maybe a friendship ended,
and you just don't understand why.
Maybe you didn't get that ministry position at church,
the one that you have been serving for for so long,
and it was supposed to be yours,
and then they hired someone from outside,
and it doesn't make any sense.
It doesn't matter what it is.
Disappointment comes in all different shapes and sizes.
So number two is anchor yourself in what hasn't changed.
When something doesn't work out the way that you want it to,
go back to the things that you know.
God is still love.
He is still present.
He's still close to you when your heart is broken.
Romans 8, 28, he still works all things to your good.
You gotta go back to what you know.
This is why it's important that our lives
are built on the rock.
Because when the storms come, and they will,
we can be solid in what we know.
We can stand.
The Bible says when you've done everything, you can stand.
Right?
Right, number three, let go of the illusion of control.
I know we think that we can blab it and grab it,
name it and claim it.
We do.
We think that our faith means that
we're gonna get the outcome that we want.
But real faith is just trusting God.
Right?
Doesn't the Bible says without faith,
it's impossible to please God?
Because why?
Because faith means that you trust him,
and you believe that he is a rewarder
of those that diligently seek him.
You trust him, you come to him.
That's what faith really is.
Even when he doesn't work things out your way,
because once again, God knows more than you.
He sees the big picture.
There's always more to the story than what you know.
Number four, look for the resurrection.
Look for the resurrection, friends.
There's always a resurrection.
It's maybe not in the way that you expected
of that relationship, that marriage, that friendship,
that job.
You know, a lot of times people will hold out
when they hear the first no.
They'll be like, no.
I'm just gonna, I'm gonna have faith,
and I'm gonna believe God.
My outcome is the way it's gonna happen,
and I'm just gonna believe it,
and I'm just gonna hold on to it.
But maybe you're not gonna get that thing given to you,
whatever you were praying for.
But look around.
God always brings beauty from ashes.
There's something else.
Something.
It might be a different something,
but there's always something, friends.
There's always something that God's trying to bring.
You know that scripture that says,
everything that can be shaken will be shaken?
Years ago, God said, hey, you know,
everyone's really focused on this part of the scripture.
He said, but what does it say afterwards?
And I read the afterwards, and it says,
so that what cannot be shaken has room to remain.
So friends, when there's something shaking,
it's important that you look around
for what's trying to come.
The enemy wants us to get our mind on what's shaking.
The opposing forces, the gates of hell, if you want,
want you to focus on what's falling apart
instead of what's coming together.
So when there's a shaking,
we can almost get excited and say, oh, okay, God,
you're trying to bring something better.
The 2.0 is trying to come, and yeah, it might be different.
It might not be what you expected,
but it's making room for something.
The shaking, the pruning, the purging
is making room for something.
What?
Ask God to show you what that is.
So four is look for the resurrection,
and then five, ask God to heal the wound,
not just the circumstance.
I know we want God to heal the circumstance.
Okay, we want him to fix the outer thing,
but God is always focused on the heart, friends,
and so he's always focused on healing something inside.
We want him to fix the outer thing,
but he's interested in the inner thing,
and that's not inferior, okay?
That's deep stuff,
and I just want to let you know
that weeping endures for a night,
but joy does come in the morning, and joy will return.
It will, especially when we get our eyes on Jesus,
especially when we remember who holds our future,
especially when we remember that our suffering is sacred.
That's really important.
God told me that years ago.
Your suffering is sacred.
That's why the Bible.
He talks about Him capturing every tear in a bottle.
The tears of the saints.
Our suffering is sacred.
Our intercession is sacred.
The things that we experience are sacred, friends, to God.
They really are.
All right.
So Father, I just pray for everyone
who's grieving right now.
Everyone who's disappointed right now, discouraged right now.
I pray that they really are able
to make that divine exchange,
to give the ashes to you, Jesus,
and to receive beauty back,
to receive the words that they posted today in the chat
in tangible ways, in tangible ways, Lord.
We just don't want to receive things theoretically.
We wanna receive things really.
And so we ask for that in Jesus' name, amen.
All right, friends.
I know it sounds crazy,
but none of that was actually what I wanted to share today.
And here we are with, let's see, about,
look on my phone, about 20 minutes.
I know it's a lot to kind of cram
into a Supernatural Saturday,
but I believe Holy Spirit is leading us and is teaching us.
And so we're just gonna go ahead and believe
that we can receive everything that He has for us today.
So yesterday, my book club, I did a midweek check-in,
and I talked about why we stopped asking.
Guys, we all love that scripture, ask, seek, knock.
You know, we quote it a lot here.
I believe it's Matthew 7, maybe starting at verse 11,
and talking about, you know, asking and receiving,
seeking and finding, knocking and the door being opened,
and God inviting us to ask.
And I really feel like,
my husband has been talking about this,
and a lot of you have heard him talking
about the question, what do you want?
And God's been saying that to him lately,
and, you know, it's a really great question,
like, what do you want?
Talk to me about what you want.
That's an invitation from the Lord.
But you guys, I wanna let you know
that before I did my book club,
this is on my second published book
that I haven't really done a lot with,
because last year's single's taken up all my time,
but I have a new book coming out,
and so I really wanted to do something
with my Married in 12 Months or Less book,
so I did this book club, just really short,
little 30-day book club.
But you know what I forgot?
Because I published this book in January of 2022,
so over three years ago,
I forgot that the very first chapter of my book
is called What Do You Want?
I forgot that that was a question that God was asking me,
and that was also a question that God was wanting me
to ask his single sons and daughters,
what do you want?
Right?
I mean, for those of you that are Gen X,
tell me what you want, what you really, really want, right?
What do you want?
But last night, God took me a different direction,
and I wanna take us that direction this morning,
because he was talking to me about the reason
why we stop asking for what we want.
So I have a couple things written down here,
and I hope that you see yourself in one of these things
so that you can start asking again.
God is wanting us to ask, right?
So religion is the number one reason
why some of us don't ask.
We think that we don't have a right to ask,
we haven't deserved it, we haven't earned it.
How dare we ask?
Also, we're scared of that passage in James
that talks about how you can ask for what you want
and receive it, but only if you don't ask amiss.
To consume it upon your own lust.
So we have a lot of religion around asking, right?
You better ask for the right thing,
you better ask for the godly thing.
You better ask for what God wants you to ask for.
I remember a long time ago,
God just said to me, what do you want?
And I said, he's like, ask me for what you want.
And then I said to him, tell me what I should ask you for.
Anybody else?
Or I'll say something like, I don't know, God,
whatever you want.
What do you want, Jackie?
Oh, I don't know, God, whatever you want.
Whatever you want for me to have.
And people use scripture to back up this kind of stuff.
Like the book of Esther, for instance.
First of all, Esther was trafficked.
Let's just not get around that fact, okay?
There's a lot of cray cray in this story.
And so a lot of people are like,
oh, I wanna be Esther, do you?
Friends, we gotta stop comparing ourselves
to Bible characters and start living a life
that the generations after us can look to us
and say, wow, that was an example.
Come on.
You're not Esther's or Jacob's or Daniel's.
You're not, no, you're you.
You're Brandon, you're Christine,
you're David, you're Sarah.
And not the.
They're in the Bible.
You're Gwen, you're, you know, I'm just telling us, it's
time for us to live our lives.
These are great stories and we can glean from them some, some
wisdom and knowledge, but God wants us to be us.
And so Esther, you know, she was given the ability to pick whatever she wanted
before she went into the King, by the way, think about that story
and what was about to happen.
Ladies, and she said, whatever you tell me is what I'll take.
And yeah, that is a typology being led by the spirit.
And there's a lot of typology in that story, but a lot of these Bible
stories are weaponized against us to get us to not go with
the instincts God has given us.
The desires in your heart come from the Lord.
When you've surrendered your life to Jesus, the desires from
your heart come from God.
When we delight in him, he gives us the desires of our heart.
We can trust the redeemed heart.
It's the broken heart.
It's the heart that's buried under all that DIS that we can't trust.
It's that survival heart.
It's that orphan heart.
That's not trustworthy.
Okay.
So religion is one of the number one reasons we think we're not allowed
to ask, and if we do ask, we better ask whatever God wants us to ask,
or he's not going to give it to us.
And then here's another one.
Wounds from earthly authority figures.
This was a big one for me.
Anybody else have parents who made you justify everything that you wanted?
Oh, I want this.
And then they would say something like, why do you need that?
It wasn't about wants.
It was about needs.
And if you didn't need it, then you weren't getting it.
Christmas was a very traumatic time for me.
I got Christmas presents, but they were never what I asked for.
Anybody else?
I gave a list of the things that I wanted and the things that I got
were never those things.
They were just random other things.
Sometimes things that I needed, which is no fun, like socks and underwear.
Anyone else have parents that three months before Christmas,
it's September for God's sake.
And you're like, Oh, I want this.
You know, I want this outfit.
I want these jeans.
I want this thing, whatever.
And they're like, well, wait for Christmas.
But then the problem is that I didn't even get that stuff for Christmas.
And so a lot of us have wounds here.
I want you to acknowledge that.
I want you to ask yourself, do I have wounds here?
My, my, at this point in time, I don't have any wounds, but I do have
my, my asking was met with no, or my asking was met with, why do you need that?
Or you're asking was met with people trying to act like you were
selfish for wanting that thing.
Other people, once again, with the, with the religion wound, you
ask for what you want and people say things like, well, if God
wanted you to have that, he would have given it to you by now.
If God wants you to have that husband or wife, you would have already had
them, you better just go ahead and be okay with being single because obviously
that's what God has chosen for you.
What?
No, there are reasons why people are single in the earth right now.
And it has to do with DIS in the earth, not just in your life.
But remember, God already promised us that the gates of hell,
which is where DIS lives, can't win.
So can I tell you that your marriage, you're defying of the, of the marital
status quo in this earth is actually spiritual warfare.
You guys were revivalists of, of, of marriage and family.
We're revivalists.
We, we are revivalists.
We're pushing back what the enemy is trying to destroy, which is marriage and family.
The gates of hell will not prevail against us.
God is on our side.
Marriage and family is his idea.
And he wants it restored in the earth.
And each and every one of you are part of that restoration process.
So go ahead and grab ahold of that this morning.
All right.
So number two or three, a lot of us have had romantic disappointments
or friendship disappointments.
So not from parents, not from authority figures, but from peers.
You ask for love, you ask for your needs to be met and they were denied.
You got shamed for it.
You were told things like you're too needy or I can't give you that.
Or that it's not realistic.
And for some of you anxious attachers, it might've been true.
You might actually have been asking for something that cannot come from another
human, it needs to come from God.
But the point.
is that instead of love, we got stonewalled, we got rejected.
Instead of being comforted, we got criticism.
And now, even though we're talking to God,
we brace ourselves for rejection.
You guys, we personify God so much.
We take what happens with people
and we put it on God so much.
We brace ourselves for rejection.
For a lot of you, asking equals disappointment.
Come on, someone press into that.
Asking equals disappointment.
You stopped asking.
The first time that I ever told this story
in my entire life was last night on my book club check-in,
but I'm gonna tell it here.
Guys, when I was really small,
remember my mom was married three times before I was 10.
She was very distracted.
She was very trying to figure out her own life.
None of those people were healthy people.
She was involved in three abusive relationships
before I was 10 years old.
So she was never around.
She was always off.
She was working.
I was the kid standing at the end of the driveway,
crying with my softball uniform on when I was eight years old
because no one was showing up after school
to take me to my game.
Just waiting, looking down the road,
waiting for my mom's car,
waiting for anybody to come and take me.
Missing games.
I'm an athlete, friends.
I'm really good at sports.
And I was always the starter on every team
I've ever been on.
Softball, volleyball, basketball.
But I would often sit on the bench
because I was late to practices and missed games.
And then the coach has to bend you
because what does that say to the other players?
And it was because I didn't have a way to get there.
I went to a private Catholic school.
We had money.
We lived in a house on Lake Erie,
a beautiful, big, sprawling house
with a lake right in our backyard.
And I had holes in my fuse.
My uniform for school was dirty.
It stunk.
It was never washed.
I started school there in second grade.
Second graders don't do laundry.
And so what happened to me,
my lunch, I didn't even have hot lunches.
My mom never filled out the forms for the book fair.
She never filled out the forms for the hot lunches.
Things were never done.
We were always late.
And so I would go and get an IOU hot lunch.
And I'll never forget the lunch lady, Mrs. Ross,
who would just give it to me.
She knew I wasn't gonna pay for those lunches.
She just gave me a hot lunch every day
because you know what I had in my little brown sack?
A sweaty, nasty piece of bologna
on two slices of white bread and mayonnaise
and a Little Debbie.
Remember Little Debbies?
Remember the Star Crunch or the brownie?
But we were latchkey kids and we came home
and no one was ever home.
But we were latchkey kids and we came home
and no one was ever around.
There was nothing to eat.
Those memes out there about you go home
and you open your parents' fridge
and there's no food in the fridge.
Well, and the thing is, you guys,
I can understand that if you're being raised in poverty,
but I wasn't being raised in poverty.
I was being raised in neglect.
Holes in my shoes.
Kids making fun of me because my uniform smelled.
And so we had snack break
and then we had a short recess,
15-minute snack and recess in the morning
and then we had lunch and then we had recess after lunch.
And during the snack recess,
because I never had a snack,
I would go into the coat room
and I would steal other kids' lunch stuff
and I would just eat it.
I mean, I didn't steal it and keep it for later.
I was the lunchbox bandit.
And then when I got a little older,
I'd go on sleepovers and different things
and steal little tiny things from other people's houses,
like toys and different things.
I just became a thief
because I was asking for my needs to be met
and no one was meeting them.
And so what did I do?
I took it in my own power and control to meet my own needs.
And that truly is the definition of an orphan.
And thank goodness I met Jesus when I was 22 years old.
Otherwise I might be in prison
instead of talking to you right now.
And then of course, when I met Jesus,
he said, those that have stolen, steal no more.
Why?
Because I'm gonna provide your needs.
You don't need to do this anymore.
And so he delivered me from all of that.
And now I can say I'm actually,
my pendulum's kind of the opposite direction.
If I get undercharged from something,
I go back to the store,
hey, you didn't charge me the right price for this.
Or hey, I got an extra can of beans here.
Or this isn't on the receipt, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But I'm just telling you guys
because someone needs to hear it.
We asked for what we needed and we were denied.
And then we started going into a place of control.
while starting trying to meet our own needs.
And we do that with God too,
we become toxically independent.
Hyper-independence is a trauma response, friends.
And then just back to the beginning,
the burden of proving worth.
I have to earn it, I have to be more mature,
I need to show that I can handle it.
The problem is, is that in my family,
when something was said like,
oh, you need to prove that you're responsible.
If something like that was said,
it was just a justification for saying no.
It wasn't them actually saying
that there was some sort of path to success.
They never ever told us how to prove
we were more responsible.
They didn't say, hey, clean your room every day for a week,
or take out the dog and scoop the poop this whole month,
and then you can have that.
No, there was never any path to success.
It was just, you have to be more mature,
you have to earn it,
or you have to show you can handle it.
And the goalpost kept moving.
So no matter what you do, it's never quite enough,
and then what happens?
You give up.
Is that not true?
Come on, raise your hands if this is resonating with you.
I really felt this on my heart for this morning.
Raise your hand if any part of this is resonating with you,
where people just aren't gonna give you what you want,
and they give you a little thread of hope like,
oh, you can earn it,
but they never tell you how to earn it.
Okay.
So you guys, we get exhausted from rejection and delay.
We do, we get exhausted.
And I know that you're exhausted,
and God knows you're exhausted,
and that's why he has sent me his messenger today
to say, ask again.
Because those repeated no's,
and for a lot of us, we stopped asking,
so we just assumed it was a no.
You don't even ask,
you didn't even know if it was gonna be a no,
you just assumed it was a no,
and so you never asked anymore.
Whether it was from parents or bosses,
for the promotion, or from friends,
you got no's so often that you just assumed it's a no,
and you just stopped asking.
So those repeated no's taught us to stop trying.
We stopped dreaming big because hope hurts.
Friends, no one talks about this, but hope hurts.
It hurts to have hope
when those hopes are not fulfilled.
And we don't wanna be disappointed anymore.
So I'm here just to speak for God this morning
and tell you he's not your ex,
he's not your parent, he's not your boss,
he's not your old pastor,
he's not your emotionally unavailable spouse, okay?
He's not the person who couldn't love you back.
It's important that you know this.
Those people didn't love you back
because they couldn't love you back,
but God is not a person, and he is love.
So he absolutely loves you.
He's emotionally involved with you
in ways that no human person ever could be.
So he's not the partner or the friend
that shut you down when you spoke up.
He's not afraid of your needs,
and he's not tired of your heart.
Someone needs to hear this.
God doesn't see you as too much.
He doesn't see you as too much.
Okay, so here's the activation
because it's time for us to go.
And friends, this is part of the reason
why I'm doing the Disney retreat.
For those of you see that I opened
the Disney retreat registration,
if you didn't see it, it's in your groups.
I opened it because what better place
to learn how to dream again than Disney World?
And I expect that that is going to be
part of the theme of that retreat
is learning to dream big again,
and I'm excited about that.
So here is the activation.
So whatever it is that you stopped asking for,
I want you to write it.
I want you to name it.
I want you to write it down,
and I want you to say it out loud.
Say it out loud, but also write it down.
And write it in the form of an ask.
God, I still want blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Okay?
So I want you to do that.
This is what you're going to activate
if you come tomorrow to Sunday night activation.
Otherwise, you're going to have to activate
this on your own, and that's okay.
God, I still want fill in the blank.
And then I really want,
even if you don't come to Sunday night activation,
I'd love for you to show up in your groups
with testimonies.
I want you to show up in your groups
with things that have happened after you asked for this.
Things that God has said to you.
Things that began to revive in your heart.
Some of you don't even know what to ask for.
You don't even know what you still want,
and that's the work that you need to do.
So Father, I just pray over.
all of my brothers and sisters and myself right now.
You have created us to be abundant
and a lot of us are living in scarcity.
A lot of us are living way below
where you have called us to live
and we don't have the things that you want for us.
And so Lord, I'm asking now
that we would partner with heaven in the asking,
in the seeking and in the knocking,
that we wouldn't be afraid of rejection anymore,
that we would understand that if it is a no,
if it is a shut door,
it's only because there's something better.
If something falls apart,
it's only because something better is coming together
and we will look for that thing.
There's always gonna be a yes.
There's always a yes.
It might not be a yes to the thing that you've asked for,
but it's a yes to something better.
And so there's always gonna be a yes.
And so Lord, even when we ask for something
that you know isn't going to be fulfilling for us,
help us to see what the yes is for
and help us to choose that door, door number two.
That's fine.
We didn't expect to go through that door,
but that door is where all the beautiful answers
to our prayers live,
even if they don't look like what we originally expected.
And so Lord, help us not to miss the blessings
that are right in front of us.
Help us not to miss the love that's right in front of us.
Help us not to miss the answered prayers
that are right in front of us
just because they're wearing different clothes
and they don't look the way we thought they would.
Thank you, Lord,
that you are the giver of good and perfect gifts.
And I just wanna end with this one thing, friends.
Last night, my daughter, my youngest daughter,
who a lot of you know, she leads Thursday Prayer, Reagan,
her and her new husband,
they've been married for a year.
In a couple of days, it'll be a year.
They went on their honeymoon finally.
They were gifted a trip to Mexico for their honeymoon
by her older sister, my middle daughter.
And they didn't get to,
they weren't able to use it until now.
And so they went on this trip, they left today.
So pray over them that everything's safe
and that they have a good time.
But I saw them last night just briefly before they left,
you know, hugged them and kissed them
and told them that I hope they had fun
and gave them some advice.
David gave them some advice about, you know,
currency exchanges and all the things.
And then as we were leaving to go home,
you know, they're adult people,
they have jobs, all the things.
As we're leaving to go home, I said to my husband,
you know, I'd like to give them some spending money
so they can just do it up right.
And he said, yeah, how much?
And I said this and he said, yeah, I was thinking this.
And I was like, okay.
So I zelled it to my daughter and then I texted her
and said, hey, you know, you guys do a little extra stuff
on us, have a good time.
And she was so appreciative and so thankful.
And she's like, oh, mom, thank you so much.
When we get my first massage, you know,
I'll think of you, you know, kind of thing
and all this stuff.
And, you know, so grateful, so thankful,
but it reminded me of our heavenly father.
His friends, he delights to bless you.
He delights to bless you.
It made me feel so good to give that to my child,
to give that to my daughter and her husband,
to be able to give that.
You know, we have limitations.
A lot of us are givers, but we just have limitations.
We give, we give and give and give,
but we have limitations.
You know, financially, materialistically,
we have limitations.
God has no limitations.
And as much as you love to be a cheerful giver
for those of you that are,
as much as you love to bless those that you love,
think about how much more your heavenly father
loves to bless you, wants to bless you.
And I know it's hard to receive that
because you don't have that earthly experience from humans
and maybe not even from God,
because friends, I know this is gonna hurt a little bit,
but sometimes we won't let God bless us.
You know, we're running off like a little kid
in the cloak room, stealing the lunches.
We're trying to take it in our own hands.
We don't use our Jesus cares board.
We don't cast our care on him.
We carry our care with us,
like a turtle with its shell on its back.
Come on.
Give him another chance.
And remember, he doesn't have to bless you
according to what you're expecting.
He can bless you according to what he knows.
Expect blessings.
Look up.
In Jesus' name, amen.
All right, friends, love you all.
See you soon.
Ciao for now.