Where have we wrapped our hands in God and where have we rationalised unwrapping them? I guarantee this; wherever we have unwrapped the tassels, in those areas in our life there's chaos and incompletion, that in those areas in our life we're actually journeying away from wholeness; that God has called us to lead people on a journey to wholeness - including ourself - and the areas in our life where we've rationalised unwrapping God for whatever reason. I've had a stressed out day. Don't you know it's okay for me to be angry today? I'm stressed out! Wherever we - don't you know - I sat with a guy once. He was 52 at the time and we were praying for him. It was a lady who did deliverance and I'd never met this lady before but she was very good and very much the real deal. She had never met this man before and I was with this guy. He was very close to me, 52 at the time and this man had been put in hospitals, three and four, five times in his life for clinical depression.
You just don't know what to do at some point and so she came over to him, never met him before and she said when you grew up you grew up in a yellow house with old wooden panelling. I'm seeing you curled up in the floor over by the stove in your den area. You're curled up and your father, you're nine years old and you father came in and he said this to you and she quoted something his dad had said to him when he was nine. This man who I knew very well and he's the real deal, he started breaking down and I'm talking crying to the point of stuff coming out of his nose, out of his mouth, everything. He got healed that day. He got healed that day. See one of the big temptations of unwrapping the tassels is this: we tell ourself it's just between me and God, and God will forgive me. It's never - if it's just between you and God do whatever you want to do. God can handle you, but it is not just between you and God. It is between you and God and everyone you come into contact with.
That man's dad was a good man and he likely when he walked out of the room, he told himself oh, it's just between me and God and God will forgive me. But he ruined a nine year old for 43 years. It's not between you and God. It's never just one more beer. It's never just one more drink. It's never just one more phone call. It's never just one more piece of cake - I may as well just throw that in. [Laughter] Yeah, it's never one more credit card purchase. It's never one more thing you can't afford. I mean am I the only person who unwrapped God because I wanted to impress somebody? Am I the only person that's ever bought something I couldn't afford with money I don't have to impress people I don't like? [Laughter] And then at the end of all that, when we pay for that with consequences, we sit back and we go God, why isn't there wholeness in my life? Oh God, why isn't there wholeness in my life? And the truth is it's just because I've unwrapped the tassels, that I've taken the word of God, the name of God, the grace of God, the nature of God and the ways of God. I've taken that off of me to do my own thing.
In the Book of Numbers, chapter 15, God says I want you to have tassels so that you'll never go after your own way. You will stay after Mine. Why? Because My way is the best way for our life. So what would happen - I'm not telling us to wear tassels. I obviously don't walk around wearing this. I'm talking about in your heart, what would happen if you had something that reminded you every day Jesus' way is the best way for my life? And if I want to be a minister who brings wholeness and healing to every situation, I promise you if you just do a mental inventory right now, every place in our life where we keep our hand wrapped in the tassels, every person you touch in that context actually gets whole. Every place in your life where we rationalise unwrapping the tassels, that's where there's chaos, strife and envy and all those other things; turmoil, strife, stress, anxiety. All of those things are coming somewhere from us or somebody else. I mean how many of us have ever been a victim of strife and stress because someone else unwrapped the tassels? [Laughs] Well the same thing is true with us.