Keion Henderson - Third Degree Burn

I want to talk about third-degree burns; that’s what I want to call this message: third-degree burns. Today, I want to start off with a question, and the subject may not make sense right now, but it will once we get there. Have you ever asked yourself, or even God, the question: how long am I going to have to deal with this? I bet everyone in the entire world is asking the same question right now: how long are we going to be quarantined? One day they say 17 days, then it’s 19 days, then it’s 250 people, then it’s 50, then it’s 10. In some cities, there’s a lockdown, and then you heard Bill Gates come out the other day saying the whole country needs to be shut down for six to ten weeks. You have all these varying opinions, and everyone has this question of how long. This question of how long is not new to the coronavirus. This question of how long is an age-old question: how long should I date before I get married? How long should I stay single after a divorce? How long should I pay for the car? What 's the term? How long should I do this, or how long should I do that? Everybody has this question of how long. Then, after you ask that question, you move to the next set of questions, and you start to say not only how long but then why? Why? What 's the reason? Why did this happen? Why did that happen? If you’re anything like me, you question everything about life. I question everything about it: why am I this tall? Why am I not this short? Why am I this size? Why am I not that size? Why was I born here? Why wasn’t I born there? Why do I have this? Why don’t I have that? Why is my voice this way and not that way? You have all these questions that you’re asking yourself. I want to show you something. I thought about this, and I’m going to give you a definition that I don’t want you to forget. It may be the answer to the insecurities and questions you may ask yourself, such as: why do I keep getting denied in this area? You have to understand that God is working behind the scenes, doing things you don’t have any idea about. Just before I came up here to talk to you, I was speaking with one of our volunteer staff members, and this person shared with me how God has actually blessed them during this crisis. The very thing they were looking for before the COVID- 19 crisis is happening right now. The company the person works for still needs them there, and they were going to go somewhere else. The other company offered them a significant amount of money to go there, and then the boss of that job came back and said not only would I give you that, but I’m going to add twice that amount. Now they get to stay where they are in a crisis where other companies are laying off. Why is that? Why is it that one person gets a significant raise while somebody else may be laid off? 3.5 million people, at the time I’m recording this, have already filed for unemployment. Isn 't it amazing how things are changing? They 're suggesting that about 20 percent of Americans will be unemployed by the time all this is over. Do you understand how shocking that is? Before this, we had 3% unemployment, and now we’re talking about inflation to 20%. That 's recession, that’s depression. We confront that in the name of Jesus. When we ask these questions, what I have learned is that speed is always correlated with it. It’s about how long; it’s not just the thing-it’s the speed, the rapidity, the quickness of it. How long am I going to be single? How long am I going to be broken? How long am I going to be depressed? How long am I going to be frustrated? How long am I going to wait for an apology? How long am I going to have to wait on this? It 's about speed and time. If we want to gain muscle, we want to gain it fast. If we want to lose weight, we want to lose it fast. Whatever we’re doing, we want speed attached to it. If we want a raise on the job, we want to get hired on Monday and be the general manager by Friday. Everybody wants things to happen quickly. I want to read something to you. As people are concerned about time, I want you to know that God doesn’t work in the same timeframe that we do. You have to understand that in His eyes, our day is but a thousand years, and a thousand years is but a day. So, God is not concerned about time. When you’ve waited ten years, God says that’s about a half a second. Since He is the one in control of chronology, what seems like a wait for you is actually the plan of God. He says, «Oh, you’re waiting, and you have an attitude. You must have forgotten that I said they that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength.» So, your strength comes in waiting...