Touré Roberts - The Process of The Promise

The Bible talks about the renewing of the mind, and so God has to, in this process—oh my God, I have to get to it—but in this process, He is crushing your humanity in order to manifest your divinity. When the promise shows up, it didn’t come from you; it came from Him. It’s going to be like—oh my God, this was just yesterday for me. You know, God had me plant this movement 12 years ago. I started it 14 years ago; I planted it 12 years ago, right? And let me tell you something: there were moments—oh my God—in there when I was like, «God, when are you ever going to send at least 100 people to come and listen to me?» Year after year after year, it seemed long, but the promise that He made was beyond what we’re looking at right now; it’s still unfolding, right? The point I’m making is that it seems like He spoke the promise to me just yesterday. Throughout these 12 years—heartbreak, disappointment, setbacks, fears—all these sorts of things, all these things in my humanity, but in manifestation, it seems like yesterday. Do you understand? Excuse me, do you understand what I’m saying? For some of you, when that thing pops, you’re not going to say, «What took you so long?» I promise, if anything, you might say, «What took me so long?» I promise you’re not going to say it; it’s going to feel like yesterday. God is right on time in your life. All right, so let’s look at that: He makes the promise, and then there is waiting. In this case, there were 400 years of waiting. I like the little white space in between and the arrow; you can kind of see that it separates those levels. I think that white space represents the hand of God—His hand touching you—because He doesn’t make the promise and then leave you alone. He makes the promise and then keeps His hand on you, and there are always little things, little touches. If you think about it, there have been little signs and miracles to kind of keep you moving. Perhaps they came through prophetic words or breakthroughs, but He keeps touching you as you make your way through the cycle. The second phase after that is waiting—yes, we have to wait, and we have to learn how to wait. Some of us are not good waiters. You get that? Some of us are not good waiters, and so when we’re not good waiters, guess what? We wait. You have to learn how to wait. Waiting doesn’t look like some people who wait for a second and then go for Plan B and C. That’s not a good waiter. It’s not a good waiter. You have to wait for it like you’re waiting on the Lord. Can you imagine rushing God? «God, will you please come out of there? We’re all waiting on you.» No, He’s God! So you go on that waiting season. That waiting season—I believe, with all my heart, the length of the waiting season has to do with how well you wait. We have to wait with such expectation and such a sense of the guarantee of the fulfillment of what we’re waiting for that time becomes irrelevant. Did you catch that? What makes it difficult for us to wait is that we are always trying to qualify God’s credibility by the time that expires. You tracking with me? But when you say, «Oh, it’s coming, ” I had to get that way about this building—“Okay, oh no no, God, okay, it’s coming, it’s coming.» Since I know it’s coming, that relieves the stress. I know it’s going to be right, and I know it’s going to be perfect, and I know it’s going to be good. That removes the element of time completely off the table because I have this expectation for the perfect thing and an assurance in my heart that it’s coming. That’s how you wait. I feel that for some of you. If you’re waiting for a mate, a spouse, or the right situation—the right business—wait. I’m not talking about inactivity; I’m talking about waiting with assurance. The assurance is what gives you the strength to wait. Okay, so you have to go through the waiting season, and then there is a hoping season. The hoping season is basically a glorified waiting season. It’s after you have learned how to wait, and now that wait turns into hope—the scripture, and we call it faith—whatever you want to call it, but it turns into hope, hope, hope. This is where I believe Israel was when Jesus was born; they were in hope. They had to be in hope because their natural situation wasn’t all that awesome. They were under the dictatorship—bless you—the dictatorship of King Herod, who was a major dictator. He imposed unfair taxes on the people; it was bad, it was all bad. Jesus was literally born into this place of hope. It’s interesting because everybody who was waiting—those who were hoping—were excited when Jesus came. But Jesus was not born into happy times. He wasn’t born into happy times. As a matter of fact, they had to hide Him. It was so unhappy and so desperate that He didn’t even have a place to be born. He was born with animals. And then, after He was born with animals, Herod decided that he was going to kill Jesus, and he started killing babies two years and under.