When you don’t know if there’s ever gonna be justice, you wonder where is the hand of God? You know, when you judge anything in isolation, you don’t have appreciation, you understand what I’m saying? I was making some biscuits one day, you know, and for some reason I decided to taste the baking powder, and the people who are laughing have tried that, see. That is the nastiest stuff you ever put in your mouth in your life, nasty, it’s nasty. And if you served it to anybody, they’d wanna choke you, but if you mix it with flour, and shortening, and blend it in just right, and get your water cold, and fold it over in there just so, and get your dough real pliable, it turned into the best biscuit you ever put in your mouth.
The reason it didn’t taste good as baking powder is that you judged it in isolation. See, the women really get it ’cause if you ever made a biscuit, you know you gotta work that Crisco into that flour. It don’t just go in there, you gotta work it. And that’s the way God works in your life. He has to work all things together for the good of them that love the Lord, because if you taste it in isolation, you’ll say, “Where is God”? Holiness don’t work, righteousness don’t pay off, sacrificial faith and I don’t have no job… how can I humble myself up under the hand of God? Where is God when I need him”?
This woman has finally had a baby at a time in life, the time wasn’t right, the time wasn’t right, it wasn’t a good time to have a baby. She just happened to have a baby at a time that Pharaoh was trippin’ You know, like you happen to open a business and the economy goes bad, sometimes it’s the peripheral circumstances that controls the reflection. She just happen to have the baby. If she’d of had the baby earlier, she wouldn’t have had this problem. If she’d of had it later, she wouldn’t have had this problem, but at the time she happened to have this baby, she birthed this baby, the baby didn’t even ask to come into this mess, born into a big old mess. The woman wasn’t trying to get pregnant at a time that Pharaoh was killin’ babies, it just so happened that God was bringing babies while Pharaoh was killing babies, and Moses was born in between bringing and killing.
I wanna talk to you about the hands that hid me, the hands that hid me. I was good and he hid me. I was gifted and he hid me. I was anointed and he hid me. I was called to preach and he hid me. I belonged to a church that I only taught, I think I taught Bible class in the church one time in 7 years. People said, “Oh, I bet you you was a blessing in the church,” no, no, no, I was anointed, I was gifted, I was studying, I was preparing, I was preaching in the shower, and in the woods, and over the hill, nobody was inviting me, nobody was calling me, nobody paid me any attention, nobody thought highly of me or nothing. In fact, I was cleaning out the baptism pool on Saturdays and shampooing the rug on Saturdays, and Pastor Robinson will tell you this is a fact, Bishop T.D. Jakes over in the baptism pool scrubbin’ He hid me.
Can you imagine hiding a baby? We’re not taking about a big house like what you live in, or she lives in, ’cause all of us live in a big house compared to where Moses lived. Hiding a baby in a little tent, little shack, slave shanty, probably under a board or something. Uncomfortable, dark, and dank, no air conditioning, no soft place to lay your head. He hid me.
Have you ever been hidden in an uncomfortable place? Not reflective of your worth, not being appreciated for your ideas and your creativity, he hid me. Have you ever seen a good woman who wanted to be a good wife, and she was prepared to be a good wife, and everybody got married but her? He hid me. Have you ever worked for a company you should have been running? And the people who was running it had to come to you and ask you questions, they got the pay and you got no credit. And he hid me. Have you ever been invisible in your own house? He don’t even see me, you don’t see me, you don’t see my pain. You walk right past me, you don’t see me. You serve me coffee, you don’t see me. Everybody see me but you.
And God says to you, “Humble yourself”. Humble yourself while doors close in your face. Humble yourself while loans don’t come through, and humble yourself while people walk out of your life and tell you you ain’t nothin’, and you just like your daddy, and you ain’t gonna never be nothin’, and you know they a lie but don’t fight back, ’cause he don’t mean for them to see you. When the right one comes along, they’ll see you. Oh God, I wanna shout right there, I said when the right one comes along, they’ll see you.
I was in the store the other day and a woman walked up to me and she said, “May I help you, sir”? I said, “No, thank you,” that mean go away. And she said, “Is there anything particular that you’re looking for,” I said, “I’m not sure”. And she said, “Well, if you see anything, let me know,” I said, “I’ll know it when I see it”. When it’s right, you’ll know it when you see it, until then, stay hidden because the hands of God hide you. And then, the second thing I wanna talk about is when the child could no longer be hidden, three months, there is a point where greatness cannot be hidden.
I get preachers all the time, all of my friends call me and say, “You had me preach one time, you put me on the map”. I said, “If I could put you on the map, I’d be God”. What I could do is bring you into a platform you’re not ready for and mess up your life, because if you are truly great, I don’t care whether you preachin’ in front of ten people or ten thousand people, greatness cannot be hidden. It will stick its head up, it’ll stick its leg out, it’ll stick it’s foot out the bed. If you’re really great, I don’t care with no business cards, no website, no Facebook, no Instagram, no Twitter, if you really get anointed, somebody gonna tell it.
There is a point, where greatness cannot be hidden. It can be way up in the hills somewhere, it can be way down in the valley somewhere, it can be way over in a storefront somewhere, it can be divorced, ostracized, rejected, passed around, nobody wanted it, but if you’re really great, somebody gonna see it.
When the child could no longer be hidden, the Bible says she took the baby and placed him down in the bulrushes in the Nile. Number two, the hands that placed me. From the hands that hid me to the hands that placed me. The hands that said you’re too big to be in this place, the hands that said you have outgrown where you are, the hands that said change is imminent in your life, the hands that mislocated you because you were allocated to another place, the hands that placed him in the bulrushes in the marshy places in the Nile, the hands that placed me.
Yeah, I get happy about it. The thing I’m happy about, the hands didn’t place him into his destiny, but it placed him into the stream. See, you will never reach your destiny hidden in this house. You have now grown and gotten everything out of that situation that you can get in that situation, I’m gonna place you in the stream, I’m gonna put you in the flow. Oh my God, I’m trying not to preach it, but I feel it down in my soul, because I know somebody in here understands that you just finally got in the flow. After all these years, you finally got in the flow, and you might not see it yet, and it might not yet appear yet. I’m not in the palace yet, but I’m in the flow. I’m in the vein where things happen. I’m in the movement, I’m in the place, I’m in the right direction, I’m in the flow.
If there’s anybody in here who feels like you’re finally in the flow, give him three seconds of the craziest praise you got. I’m in the flow. Watch this, I’m a naked baby placed in a flow. Wait, I’m a naked slave baby placed in the flow where queens bathe. You know you’re in the flow when you feel out of your element. I’m in the flow, I’m exposed to things that I would have never been exposed to while I was hidden in the house. I’m in the flow, my God, I got to stop because if I get to preaching it, but touch somebody and say, “I’m in the flow”.
I wanna thank God for the hands that placed me, the hands that placed me in the flow. It’s the one that invited me to the dinner party. It’s the one who met me down at Starbucks. It’s the one that invited me to a church I’d never been to before. It’s the ones that have you ever been in a meeting and said, “What in the world am I doing in here”? It’s because God’s hands will place you. I created you for a purpose that was not revealed by where you started, but I’m gonna place you in the flow. He took me from the small place to a large place, and he placed me in something that was big, and I was smart enough to be careful, and I was wise enough to be scared, because while I could feel the water flowing, I could also hear the crocodiles snapping, and I knew that there were snakes in the water.
When God places you in something bigger, don’t get so happy about being in the big place that you don’t understand that big places mean big danger. How many mamas would feel comfortable putting your baby in an atmosphere with alligators, and snakes, and serpents and walk away and trust God to protect you? And I’m telling you that the hands that place you are also the hands that protect you. Be thankful for the things that didn’t kill you. If you’re gonna be thankful, don’t be murmuring about a car and you didn’t get a car, and you can’t move, and you had to downsize, and all this stupid stuff you cryin’ about. Thank him for the diseases you didn’t catch. Thank him for the children you didn’t bury. Thank him for the almost nearly close calls that broke loose, that’s what you ought to be thanking him for.