I want to kick this conversation off with a question. Um, I know my answer to this question, but I’m curious about yours. Have you ever felt like God wanted more from you than you had to give? We’re going to have a real conversation here. Have you ever felt that? And maybe it wasn’t even so much what you felt God was calling you to; although that is very much the case—He always calls you to things that are beyond you, right? But maybe it was the season He placed you in. Have you ever been placed in a season that is so crazy and beyond your experience, your knowledge, and your strength? It’s just so far beyond where you are, but you know you can’t quit it, you know you can’t give up in it, and you recognize in that moment that God thinks more highly of you, come on, than you think of yourself. Clearly, He sees something in you that you do not see in yourself. I am about to actually freak out here because there is trouble on every side. Let me try to break this down a little bit more. How about this: there’s trouble on every side, but you finally get your footing? It took you six months to gain your footing in a season where you felt, «I can breathe now. Okay, I think I can handle this, ” and then all hell breaks loose again. And if you haven’t been there, keep on living! Just live a little longer, just a wee bit longer, and it communicates to us that God is placing a demand on something relating to us that we have not yet discovered. So, what I have learned to do in demanding seasons—watch this—is I have allowed, I’ve got to say this right, I will not allow the demand to discourage me. I’ve learned to allow the demand to define me. I need to say that better, I need to say that better. In other words, I get a picture of who I am based on the battles that God puts me in. You’ve got to catch it! What if one of the ways that God shows you who you are is through the giants that He places in your path? This must mean that God knows something about me that I do not know, and the only way He can get me to know what He knew before He put me in my mother’s womb is to put me in the fight on the level of who I truly am. So if you’re in a big fight, you’re a big person; you just don’t know it yet! Are we tracking? Can we walk, talk, and have a conversation? So, your life and my life ultimately are about discovering who we truly are, and God’s part in that is to create scenarios, right? Come on now. Our part in it is to trust Him because there is more to you than you think. There’s a passage of Scripture in 2 Peter that I love; in verse 4, there’s a whole beautiful language in there, and if you read your whole Bible, you’ll really experience it to the full. But he’s talking about a lot, and he says that by which we ultimately have been given exceedingly great and precious promises, okay? That through these promises, you may be partakers of the divine nature. You guys stay with me; I’m going to teach today! So, our destiny—your life and my life, your walk and my walk—is always about moving forward into who we were predestined to be. Yeah, so watch this: I’m not moving forward to find a future me, per se; I’m moving forward to discover the me that God created before I was placed in my mother’s womb. Because when I was placed in my mother’s womb, I began a journey—yes—and ultimately, watch this, it is a journey back to me, so I’m moving forward, trying to find me. He says, „I have established some promises that through these promises you can become a partaker of the divine nature.“ The divine nature—in other words, there is another nature that God must use to resource you back to yourself. Okay, let me take my time. See, that word „nature, ” it says „divine nature.“ The Greek word for „nature“ literally means your native disposition, your genus, your native disposition. What if, when I speak in tongues, that’s really my native language? I know I speak English and just a tiny bit of Spanish and a little bit of French and just a smidge of Italian because I went to Venice once. But what if, when I speak in tongues—and that’s a whole other teaching—what if, when I speak in tongues, I’m actually speaking my native language? And if I have a native language, then I must have a native identity. Can we talk today? I must have a native identity, and I cannot be me unless I am endowed with the substance of my native identity. Can I take my time and teach this thing today? And that’s what He said in Acts 1, verses 4 and 5. He says, „And you’re going to receive power, and this power is…“
