Dharius Daniels - I'm Being Stretched

I want to talk about this subject: I’m being stretched. I said I’m being stretched! Clap your hands if you’re receiving the word of God already! I’m being stretched, family. I recently came across a quote that is simple yet very significant, and I would like to lift it up for our learning today. For my note-takers, the quote is as follows: «Growth and comfort cannot coexist.» I’m going to say it again and see if I can get a better amen than that: «Growth and comfort cannot coexist.» In other words, if I want to experience radical development, I must be willing to undergo radical discomfort. As a matter of fact, the seasons where we experience the most discomfort are often the seasons when we’re experiencing the most development. God often orchestrates and allows these seasons of discomfort to initiate something called spiritual stretching. It is when God exposes the irrelevance of past and present spiritual practices and initiates the process of pulling us from where we were spiritually to where we need to be spiritually. If we don’t understand this stretching, we will ultimately end up mislabeling and mismanaging these seasons, calling them stress, sadness, suffering, and stagnation when they are really a season of spiritual stretching. If we will submit to the stretch, God will expose us to a version of Him, and He will also introduce us to a version of ourselves that our eyes haven’t seen, our ears haven’t heard, and our hearts haven’t conceived. If you let Him stretch you, He’ll stretch you until you’re stronger. He’ll stretch you until you’re wiser. He’ll stretch you until you’re more resilient. He’ll stretch you until you’re more prudent. He’ll stretch you until you’re more discerning. He’ll stretch you until you become a version of yourself that the enemy can’t handle, and you can’t recognize. Your blessing is on the other side of the stretch. The next level is on the other side of the stretch, and I’m wondering, am I talking to anyone online or in this room who is sick of resisting the stretching and is ready to tap out and say, «God, have Your way with me in this season» because I know my blessing is on the other side of the stretching? Stretching looks different for us in different seasons. Last week, we explored the necessity of being stretched, being pulled on as it relates to our mindset, but I was reading this text today in Exodus, and it exposes another area where we all need to be open to stretching, and that is not just our mindsets. Let me see if I can get an amen here; it is our ministry models. I’m going to say that one more time: the text exposes us to another area where we may need to be open to stretching from time to time, and that’s not just our mindset—it’s our ministry models. We’re getting ready to go there today, because what if I told you that sometimes your current spiritual practices are actually in the way of your desired spiritual growth? What if I told you that it is very easy to confuse what did work with what’s working? It is possible to have an allegiance to a way you have historically practiced your faith that served you in seasons past but no longer serves you in the season you’re in. When you are in seasons and situations like this, you may experience what I call the theology of divine withdrawal. God, who is omnipresent, is everywhere at the same time, but omnipresence doesn’t mean manifest presence. Manifest presence is when He shows up. There are times on our spiritual journey when He doesn’t give you manifest presence, and it feels like withdrawal. You may feel like you’re dealing with spiritual stagnation and wonder why you don’t feel His nearness the way you used to. He hasn’t, watch this, left you, but He has come out of manifest presence because He knows that if He keeps allowing you to experience manifest presence where you are, you will never see the irrelevance of your current spiritual practices. So He withdraws Himself to make you chase Him. You didn’t hear what I just said. He says, «I cannot let you keep sensing Me the way you have historically sensed Me utilizing those old practices because if you keep sensing My nearness, you won’t make the adjustments that are necessary. So I’m going to withdraw the manifestation of My presence because I want you to see I’m getting ready to do a new thing in you, and now you have to chase the glory.» Am I talking to anybody in the room today about spiritual stretching, where He pulls you out of one iteration of the faith to a new iteration of the faith? Paul says we behold, come on, like in a glass, the glory of God, and we are being changed into that which we see, from faith to faith, glory to glory. This stretching is a divine pulling; it is when He pulls you out of what you won’t walk out of. Wait a minute, I’m not talking about that, but I just heard that. I said it is when He pulls you out of what you will not walk out of. Wait a minute, wait a minute; is it when He pulls you out of what you want? Wait a minute. Am I—where’s the honest section? Am I talking to anybody who is honest enough to admit the way you got out? Am I talking to anybody who has enough self-awareness to admit that there are some things I got out of, Pastor, not because I walked out? There are some things I got out of because He pulled me out—in some relationships. He had to pull me out of some.