Keith Battle - A Place Called Through

I want to talk to you today about a subject a place called «Through.» You may be seated. A place called «Through.» I don’t want to have to wait until I get to a place of great abundance to feel relieved. I don’t want to wait until I reach the end of the passage to experience joy and peace. I want to learn how to find peace even in a place called «Through.»

It was over 20 years ago when I first met Bishop Philip Elliott. He is the pastor of Antioch Baptist Church in Hempstead, Long Island, New York, Vicki’s church, where she grew up. I was there doing a tent revival—a good old-fashioned outdoor tent revival—and they asked me to come and preach. While I was there for that tent revival, it was the first time I met the pastor of the church, who had taken over from another pastor. Bishop Elliott took me out to lunch, and we went to a place known as the Nautical Mile in the Freeport section of Long Island. We visited a very nice restaurant on the water where boats docked, and we sat along the wood-clad canal.

As we dined there, he began to put hot sauce on his oysters and pick at them. I can’t for the life of me understand why people eat that stuff. Not only do they eat it, but it seems like punishment; how can anyone enjoy it? He was just hot saucing, plucking, and slurping—it was disgusting. But that’s not even the point.

While we were having lunch, he asked me a question. He said, «So, tell me, how have you been, and how’s the ministry going?» Now, normally when people ask that question of me, I think of it as courtesy more than genuine concern, so I typically give a standard answer that most of us use when we don’t feel like going deep. I usually say, «I’m good, man. Church is good, family’s good, God is good; it’s all good. How about you, Bishop?» That’s what you do, you know? I mean, we don’t have time to delve too deeply, and I know you’re just trying to be nice. You really don’t want me to go there; I’ll mess up your lunch, you understand what I’m saying?

But how many of you know we can say the family is good, even when it’s not? We can say the marriage is good, though it may be on the rocks, and we can say the children are fine, but they’re really off the chain. You know how it is. Sometimes we say these things because we want to speak those things that are not as though they are. We’re trying to believe that all is well, even if we know it isn’t. Or it might simply be that we don’t trust the person asking us enough to provide that level of detail. I don’t even know you well enough to share what’s really going on in my life. How many of you understand that? And then, I don’t want to burden you with all this; I don’t want to mess up your lunch by unloading my issues onto you.

So typically, I would have given the standard answer, but for some reason, on that day, I laid it all out on the table. I went back to my childhood without him even asking me. I said, «Man, I’ve been hurting all my life.» I spoke about all the rejection, pain, abandonment, disappointment, and hurt that I had experienced. It was as if I was talking to a therapist, discussing stuff in the church, my life, and how I felt victimized and mistreated. I was really giving him a lot of information.

As I was sharing the pain in my life, I remember he picked up his oyster, slurped it down, and then interrupted me by saying, «Well, what did you learn from it?» I’ll tell you right then, I was offended. I was offended—first of all, because of the way he asked; it seemed as if he were suggesting, «Are you tired of talking about your troubles?» Why are you asking that? It’s like you don’t want to know what’s going on in my life. If you can’t handle the truth, don’t ask me about it.

I didn’t say that to Bishop; I just thought it in my head. Another reason I was upset is that I really didn’t have an answer. I didn’t know what to tell him. I was so consumed with my pain and disappointments that I didn’t have any insights. I just wanted compassion. I wasn’t ready for lessons; I just wanted someone to see it my way. It’s hard to counsel someone when all they want is compassion; you can’t give them instructions because they just want someone to empathize. So I was offended, but after I reflected on that conversation with Bishop Elliott, after some time…