Touré Roberts - What The Cocoon Doesn't Tell You

I want to describe this because you’re in a cocoon, and sometimes when you’re in a cocoon, there are just things that the cocoon doesn’t tell you. The cocoon is a liar; it says that you are permanent. First of all, one of the things the cocoon says is that I am permanent. This, this, this is your new normal, and it’s not true. The cocoon is hoping that you’ll die in it before you become a butterfly. No, a cocoon is temporary but necessary. The cocoon says that there’s nothing around; it says you’re not going anywhere. When you get into this place of darkness, like in this cocoon, it gets so dark and awkward, and you think you’re going to stay awkward. The cocoon says that you are formless, but the truth is you are being formed. It feels like formlessness because you don’t have the form you used to have. You’re not a caterpillar anymore, and you’re not quite a butterfly. There’s an idea that says, because I don’t have form, I am not being formed; I am formless, and I’m afraid. One of the things you have to understand about God, and there are a couple of passages of Scripture that describe this—one is in Isaiah 29, the other one is in Jeremiah 18—but it describes God as being the Potter. I am the Potter; you are the clay. The beautiful thing about God the Potter, I know we know God the Father, but do we know God the Potter? The beautiful thing about God the Potter is that He is eternally connected to His clay. Even when He spins me in such a way that my form is altered to the point of being unrecognizable, I was going to say «unrecognizability,» and my teachers were like, «PT, I’m going to cut you some slack,» but «unrecognizability» isn’t quite sure you’ll find it in a dictionary. When you get to a point where you have lost your form, and you don’t recognize anything about yourself, you feel so vulnerable—anybody ever been there before? You don’t know where you are anymore; you’re not quite there. You don’t even know, «Who am I?» Even when the Potter spins you to a place beyond recognition, what the cocoon won’t tell you is that you’re still on His wheel, that His hand is still on you. When you’re without form, it doesn’t feel like God’s hand is on you because you’ve learned to associate God’s hand with you when everything is going right and you can recognize everything in your life. Somehow, we have been programmed to say that it’s in those moments that God is with me. In other words, when I can perfectly understand everything that’s going on, it’s in those moments where I, Mr. or Mrs. God, can confirm, «You’re right, I agree with you, God,» as if God needs our co-sign. You know what? You’re right. Let me see; I feel this for that. Okay, yes, God, you are with me. And it has nothing to do with how you feel. Amen. God wants some people here to know right now, particularly if you’re in a cocooning season, that I know it’s dark, and I know you can’t see anything. There’s a part of you that wants to go back to being a caterpillar because at least you knew how to be a caterpillar. At least there was sunshine when you were a caterpillar. It wasn’t quite the way you wanted it to be, and it makes you forget that you pressed out of being a caterpillar to go into the next phase. Don’t trust the commentary of the cocoon; it’s temporary. When you come out, you’re going to emerge into the world that’s outside of the cocoon that you can’t see right now because your only context is the process, not the promise. When you emerge from the cocoon, you’re going to enter into the promise with a vantage point that you did not have before you went into the cocoon, and that is what the process was for, so that you can emerge and be something entirely different. Because let me tell you something, here’s the catch: you’re going to need to be something different to go where God is taking you. I promise you, you need every second of this cocoon. You know, it’s interesting, I talk about my book «Purpose Awakening,» chapter 12 (shameless plug, so what—they’re available outside). I talk about how this transformation literally has to go all the way; it has to work through its process. It has to go to the end because there’s a point where we know the end of the caterpillar’s process: it goes into the cocoon and becomes a butterfly. We know the end of the process, but did you know that there is a point in time in the middle of that process that, if you were to cut the cocoon in half, literally caterpillar mesh would ooze out of it? I feel there’s a word for somebody: stop fighting the process. Just learn how to live in it. I know it’s awkward, and I know you feel vulnerable, and I know it feels like you don’t fit in the universe. Have you ever been there before, where you’re in transition and you don’t feel like you fit anywhere? Wait. Let the process happen; I promise you there is a home for the new you.