Keion Henderson - How to Beat a Big Thing

I’m just going to start off this sermon by telling you the truth. I’m just going to get right to it and tell you that you will never be brave if you refuse to face anything that’s ugly. In this life, you’re going to have trials and tribulations; you’re going to have problems, and you cannot be brave if you only see beautiful things. If only beautiful things happen to you, you, the person beside you, the person in front of you, the person to the left of you, and the person to the right of you-all of you -will go through things. Let me tell you something: you will never reach your destiny without adversity. Adversity is like this pain, this feeling, this mindset, and this set of circumstances that are happening to you right now. I know that there are some things happening to you in your life right now that you didn’t even ask for.

Isn 't it true that when you’re going through things that are the result of decisions you made, you can kind of say, «You know what? I had that coming.» But what do you do when life smacks you from an angle you didn’t expect? What do you do when people you were good to are bad to you? Right? I gave you my life, and you gave me death. I gave you time, and you gave me absence. I gave you my heart, and you broke it. I specifically told you when we met that I couldn’t take another hurt, but you were so in tune with getting what you wanted that you forgot to give me what I needed.

Have you ever had a pain so deep, a giant so big, a pain so prevalent that you couldn’t even see yourself outside of the problem? You thought the problem would be forever, so you didn’t try to solve it; you just started to learn to live with it. You just existed- you went through life and never let life go through you. You went through pain and thought that was your portion. You just assumed you would always be small and the problem would always be big. Instead of trying to figure out how to solve the problem, you just decided that as long as all these other areas of my life are okay, I can deal with deficiency in this one area. As long as my children are healthy and we have a roof over our heads, I’ll stay in this bad relationship because at least I don’t have to figure out how to feed them; at least the rent is paid.

Or have you ever been in a situation like that? I have, and I know I have. I told them this morning that this sermon is not for pretenders. This sermon is not for Christians who want to come to church and pretend that because they pray, everything gets answered; and just when they fast, everything turns around. Every time they go to God in prayer, everything works itself out. This sermon is for people who say, «God, I’ve been begging you, and I haven’t heard from you. I’ve been begging you, God; I followed everything I know to follow. I’ve done what you told me to do, where you told me to do it. I think I have, anyway. Yet I still am facing these giants .»

Here 's the word of the Lord: you’ll never be big until you face something bigger. The size of your giant shows you the size of your destiny. If you fight small things, it’s because you have a small future. If you’re fighting a big thing, it’s because God is trying to stretch you to fit the garments of your future. How many of you are being stretched in here today? Stretched at work, stretched in your relationship, stretched at home, stretched in traffic-just being stretched. Life, ladies and gentlemen, is nothing more than a cyclical rotation of adversity and prosperity. Prosperity and adversity follow each other like day and night, like winter and summer. Every day you’re going to go around; it’s going to be up sometimes and down sometimes. You 're going to be happy sometimes and frustrated sometimes. You 're going to understand some things and some things you’re not going to understand.

Let me tell you, life is not about getting understanding. So many people miss the point in life because every time they get hurt, they want to know why. They want to know why they had to go through this. «God, why did you let this happen to me?» Let me tell you, some things God didn’t let happen; some things you chose. You have to be courageous enough to stop blaming God and start saying, «I picked my pain.»

Do I have anybody in here today? Adversity, prosperity; prosperity, adversity. Happy -sad; a little money in the pocket, no money in the pocket. Single, with somebody; I don’t know-it’s just always a cycle. Happy, ready to conquer the world; the world is conquering me. Ready to take on everything, not enough energy to get out of bed. Ready to go to church, but I don’t feel like going today. Ready to go to work, get a job, get a promotion; I can’t stand my job. I don’t like anybody; I want a new job. Oh, I thank God for the job I have. Oh, I spoke too soon. It 's just, oh, I can’t wait to get that new car, and then you get that new car and drive it for about six minutes.