Dharius Daniels - My Head Is Hurting Me

I want to use the word of God this month to help you with headaches. Somebody put «uh oh» in the chat. Oh, headaches! I want to help you in this area, and I believe God has something to say. So, I want to read a few verses of scripture found in the book of Numbers, chapter 13, beginning at verse 30. It says this: then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, «We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.» But the men of that city who had gone up with him said, «We can’t attack those people; they’re stronger than we are.» They spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, «The land we explored devours those living in it; all the people we saw are of great size. We saw Nephilim there, and we seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.» I want to talk from this subject and this first lesson in this headache series: here it is, family, «My head is hurting me.» I like to leap into this lesson today by articulating an axiom I encountered in a book I read a few years ago. The author articulated this thought, and here it is for my note-takers: spiritual growth is not just a journey toward God discovery; it is also a journey toward self-discovery. In other words, growing spiritually does not just increase my God consciousness; growing spiritually also increases my self-awareness. I don’t just get to know God better when I grow up; I also get to know me better when I grow up. I would argue it is incredibly and uniquely important to regularly and consistently emphasize this because I need everybody under the sound of my voice to listen to me and to listen closely: the quality of my life is not just determined by what I believe about God. The quality of my life is also determined by what I believe about me. The quality of my life is not just determined by how well I know God; the quality of my life will be equally impacted by how well I know me. All throughout scripture, there are examples of individuals who did not reach their redemptive potential, who got detoured on their way to destiny, and who plateaued when it came to their progress—not because they didn’t know God well, but because they didn’t know themselves well. Come on, Moses knew God well! I said Moses knew God well. God said to Moses, «I talk to Moses; I speak to all my other servants in dreams and visions, but my servant Moses, I speak to face to face.» They had a different kind of relationship. They were so intimate with one another that when Moses’s associates began to talk in unhealthy and unhelpful ways about him—Moses wasn’t even around—God struck Miriam with leprosy! Are you hearing what I’m saying? Moses knew God well, but he didn’t reach his redemptive potential. He got detoured on his way to destiny, and he plateaued in his progress because he didn’t know himself well. He underestimated his own anger, and as a result of that underestimation, he constantly put himself in positions where he was triggered, and he didn’t set boundaries when it came to other people. As a result, he responded in ways that undermined his influence, and when you lose your influence, you lose your leadership value in the eyes of God. He said, «Moses, now you can see the land, but you can’t go in—not because you don’t know me, but because you didn’t know you well enough to protect you from you.» David knew God well. God said of him, «This is a man after my own heart,» but David did not reach his redemptive potential. David got detoured on his way to destiny. David had his progress plateaued because he didn’t know himself. He underestimated how the rejection from his father impacted not just his life but his leadership, and how in his own leadership, he created a breeding ground that birthed individuals like Absalom, bringing division and dysfunction into the kingdom to such a degree that the latter part of his life was filled with chaos, paranoia, and bloodshed—not because he didn’t know God well, but because he didn’t know himself well. Solomon knew God well. God appeared to him in a dream and trusted him so much that He asked him, «What do you want?» He asked him the question because He knew He could trust Solomon’s answer. But Solomon ended up not reaching his redemptive potential. Solomon, family, ended up being detoured on his way to destiny. Solomon ended up being plateaued in the area of his progress—not because he didn’t know God well, but because he didn’t know himself well. He did not understand the implications of being born to Bathsheba and how growing up under that scrutiny—because you know people talked—created emotional complexities and wounds in him. Some pain that he medicated through relationships. So, he used women not for companionship, but to medicate pain and to address an esteem issue that was probably connected to the woman he was born to. He knew God well, but he didn’t know himself well. And I just need to pause for the cause and say that in 2022, if this is going to be the year of greater, this has to be the year where we make a…