A WETV Throwback: The Power of Perspective X Sarah Jakes Roberts

Withholding our words robs us from showing up for ourselves and limits our ability to add a perspective that others may have never considered. Deborah’s words add a perspective that guided Barak as they headed into battle. Change happens when you decide to let power be released through your words too.

Watch the FULL “Power in Perspective + Words” and the podcast episode “The Revolutionary Power of Words w/ Sylvia Lloyd” on the Woman Evolve TV App.

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I feel like one of the greatest traps of parenting is trying to posture yourself in such a way that makes your child assume that you have all of the answers.
You wanna have all of the answers because from the time they’re, like, 0 to what, 6, 7, you usually have an answer for everything they ask.
Then they get older and older, and they start asking questions that don’t necessarily have the answer for, and you have to be willing to lay down this idea that you know of thing in order to go on a journey with them to learn what it is they are questioning.
I had a similar experience with my daughter, Mackenzie. I felt like I had everything figured out.
There’s this plan that we had set in motion.
And I was busy, and so I asked a young lady who helps us in her home if she would seek something out for me.
Well, McKinsey overheard her asking someone for information regarding this appointment.
And Mackenzie started calling me and texting me, and she shared with me ultimately that she would have rather this young lady not be involved.
She wanted it to be something that she and I just did because it was personal to her in nature, and she felt a little embarrassed about And in that moment, I had to apologize to her.
From an adult perspective, I felt like I’m being a session.
I’m using the resources that are available to me in order to get a goal completed so that I can show up for my daughter in this way.
But from her perspective, this was an intimate moment that she only wanted shared between mother and daughter.
I had to humble myself and apologize because I did not consider her perspective.
When we talk about revolutionary power and purpose and revolutionary power in conflict, we cannot continue this on without taking time to consider the revolutionary power in your perspective.
Your perspective has power connected to it that this world needs.
About perspective is that it literally just lives in our head.
It’s not until we release it that we’re able to come to a place where we actually find the words that allow us to take what’s in our head and put it into the world.
So revolutionary power in your words and your perspective is our focus for this week.
If you listen to the podcast, then you from Sylvia. And, boy, was she amazing?
I felt like there was just, like, this special grace on our conversation.
I loved when she talked about codependency, because for me, when we were having this conversation about codependency and how she was ultimately breaking codependency within her family structure, it helped me to recognize one that she had a perspective on what had been normal in her family that had now turned sour.
But secondly, that she actually went a step further and took the work, took the actions of speaking those words to bring that shift and change and dynamic that her family system needed.
That’s revolutionary power, if ever there was any.
I wonder what revolutionary power world is missing out on because you will not release the perspective and the words that you see.
One of the reasons we see so much conversation about inclusivity and diversity is because we recognize that people who possess different worldviews have different perspectives, and those perspectives help to create better products, better content, better ability for us to connect with those who are connecting with whatever it is that we are creating.
Experience the power of getting one more person on board, on board to what you may be asking.
I’m glad you asked. This revolutionary power that we’re talking about is ultimately the power of god working through us.
And when we take time to really dive into the revolutionary power connected to our words, it is bait that makes other people curious about the revolutionary power that they can experience.
I know so many of you were probably watching Sylvia’s story and thinking to yourself, I wish that I could come to a place where I could communicate my need for bound I recognize that there’s codependency in my family, but I don’t wanna change anything.
You are robbing us of your perspective, and I have an idea of why it’s exactly what Sylvia said.
A lot of times we don’t wanna communicate about the codependency.
We don’t wanna communicate about division within our families because we don’t want to hurt the other person or we don’t wanna change the way that things have always been.
But how else can we change things unless we change the way things have always been?
When debt gets ready to embark on this battle, right? So you called Embarock.
And if you’re just catching this one, I want you to go back and listen to the other devotionals because we’re about Deborah, the 1st judge of the Children of Is the 1st female judge of the Children of Israel.
And when Deborah informed Barack, the she too has heard from the Lord and that they must engage in battle.
Barack, the commander says to her, but I want you to come with me.
And she says, okay, I’ll go with you.
Well, let me read it to you the way that she said it.
It says, so she said, I will surely go with you.
Nevertheless, there will be glory for you in the journey you are taking for the lord will sell Cisara into the hand of a woman.
Then Deb arose and went with Barak to Kadesh.
Seems like just a simple sentence in a story, but Deborah offered a perspective, a perspective that Barak may have not wanted to hear, a perspective that she could have kept inside and allowed the chips to fall wherever they may, but her intake to her role, her integrity to her position, made the onus on her, put an onus on her for her to communicate a perspective that other people may not wanna hear.
This is exactly what we’re gonna have to do as we walk in our power.
Man, I’m about so many times where I chose to be silent.
So many times where I didn’t use my words because I wasn’t sure that they would come out the right way.
I wasn’t sure that I could trust them myself.
And in that moment, I didn’t just rob my situation of power. I robbed myself of power.
So many of us experience a power deficit, not necessarily because of what other people have done to us or what other people have said to us, but our power deficit exists because of the words we would not say, not realizing that each time we chose not to speak the words, each word, each time we chose not to advocate that we lost little by little the power, the strength, and the faith it’s for you to use your voice to affect change.
Power is a muscle that must be exercised through our words and our actions.
If you’re really gonna change the world.
If you’re gonna be one of those women who make history in your city, in your family, in your community, then you are gonna have to use your words because your words have power.
Let me tell you how powerful your words are.
Even the words you don’t say have power because those unspoken words put pressure and depression on you because you’re not living in the authentic fullness of who you are supposed to be.
I wanna share with you this scripture. That I actually giggle about it, but don’t tell nobody on me.
Okay? I giggle because there’s nothing like Jesus checking you. Right?
Jesus knew how to check some folks in the Bible. Okay.
So it’s the story of Jesus finally telling the disciples that he’s going to Jerusalem, that he must suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised the 3rd day.
Then, Peter, Peter is his home boy.
We talked about Peter in the 1st devotion Peter says to him, this is not gonna happen.
He rebukes you Jesus. He says, far be it from you, lord.
This shall not happen to you in Jesus says to him, get behind me, Satan.
You are an offense to me.
For you are not mindful of the things of god, but the things of men, how are you gonna do your homie like this?
Let me tell you something. Jesus has some boundaries for that soul.
I was gonna say that tale, but we’re not there yet. Jesus has some boundaries for that.
So he recognized in that moment that they had 2 different perspectives.
Peter was right in his perspective and that this is my friend. I know who you are.
I know the power connected to you. Oh, man. I feel my help coming.
I know my pow the power connected to who you are, Jesus, this doesn’t have to happen to you.
That is a perspective that Peter has, but he doesn’t have Jesus’s perspective. Jesus’s perspective is that this must happen.
I needed to happen in order for me to experience the fullness of the glory of my existence.
How many times have you had people cheering you on in an area where you know you need to sit down?
How many times have you had people telling you that this doesn’t have to happen that way?
But you have a perspective that says, not only does it have to happen this way, it needs to happen now.
Jesus was not afraid to release power in his words. He did not sugarcoat this thing with Peter.
He didn’t try and help him to under stand.
He said, you are an offense to me because at the end of the day, you are getting me one step further away from the glory that I have been come here to that I have come here to manifest.
You, my friend, are here on a mission to manifest the glory of god.
And anything that keeps you from manifesting the glory of god is not in partnership with god.
It is in partnership with darkness. It is in partnership with with depression.
It is in partnership with anything that is beneath you.
And so in order for you to exercise the power connected to your words, you have to release them.
You’ve gotta release the hard words. You’ve gotta release the words that they don’t wanna hear.
Gotta come to a place where you trust that your perspective adds necessary value.
Even if it means like Sylvia, in which you have those moments where you go at it alone, or Maybe you’re not alone.
You just don’t have the company you’re used to. And that’s good for you too.
Because god’s trying to change your perspective on you, sometimes god has to change your environment because so of what you know about yourself is connected to the environment you’ve been in.
Thinking that strange when you begin to create boundaries and find yourself functioning differently, longing for what used to be.
That’s okay. That’s part of releasing the power connected to your words and creating the new reality that only those released words can create I know you can do it.
We’re gonna do it together. I’ve been practicing.
And one of the things that I do, and I wanna pray with you that God would do the same.
For you, but I’ve been praying that God would allow me to steady my heart.
In those moments where I am experiencing the necessary release of words that will attract power to my situation that will attract power to my brokenness to my pain.
I asked for god to help me to be present in my body, to not disconnect.
But to be seated in the power like Deborah connected to my identity.
God, my prayer is that my friend watching would have an encounter, not just with who she wants to become, but who she is right now because who she is right now is powerful enough for the words she to say.
This woman doesn’t need to become someone else in order to speak those words.
She can do it right now.
And so god is your presence, meets her, and awakens her soul.
I pray that she would fill it every place in her body.
Your presence, your power in her toes, your presence, your power in her calves, your presence, your power on her kneecaps, your presence, your power touching every part of her.
Because when your presence and your power shows that It allows this woman to be anchored in truth.
And when she’s anchored in truth, she can speak her truth.
God helping her speak with humility, help her to speak it with honor, but may she speak it with definition?
Because that’s what powerful women do. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.
I love you, you powerful woman. Release your words. We need them. We’re better when you release your perspective.
Please don’t hold back