T.D. Jakes. Crushing. Faith Words, 2019.

I have heard of T. D. Jakes but do not know much about him. I know he wrote a play script which was turned into the movie Woman, Thou Art Loosed, but he is a pastor of a megachurch for his day job. It certainly was not planned this way, but Crushing goes along very well with the last book reviewed here, Hit Hard.

This title can be looked at as an active verb or participle or as a passive gerund. In this case, it is the gerund. Jakes takes the biblical analogy of God’s dealing with people like a vintner making wine from grapes. If you are a grape, the process is painful and you lose your identity, but you end up as something desired by the vintner himself. Isaiah 5 compares God’s people to a vineyard. In John 15 Jesus calls Himself the true vine and His people the branches who bear fruit. There is a pattern God wants us to see, and Rev. Jakes explains.

Jakes takes a number of examples from the Bible of people who were “crushed” to be purified. He actually spends little time on Job, but does include Peter, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus Himself. But he also spends time describing his own personal experiences of crushing.

The book begins by him sharing when his thirteen year old daughter told him she was pregnant. I work with teenagers, and that got my anger up because this would be statutory rape on the part of the baby’s father. As a pastor, Jakes saw it a little differently, more like “What are people going to say about me?” Here he is the pastor of a church trying to teach his congregation to walk the strait and narrow, and look at what happens in his own family.

We are assured that things worked out all right in the long run, say over a course of about ten years. God had some refining to do in Jakes’ own life and ministry as well as in the heart of his daughter. He reminds us that God does not promise an easy life for his followers. What he promises is truth and love. That often means our faith will be tested, and pressures (“crushing”) will happen to makes us more conformed to his image (see Romans 8:29).

As I said, I knew little about Rev. Jakes other than what I have already mentioned. I did pick up one thing about him that I found interesting. He writes that people will categorize him as a so-called prosperity preacher. I wonder if this is stereotyping because he is a black pastor of a megachurch. (He says his church has 30,000 members).

I speak of suffering. [Italics in original] I don’t remove this subject from my sermons because our Vintner and True Vine experienced the worst suffering known to man, and he did it for a humanity that is quick to lean on their own understanding and flesh. I’m not a “Name-It-and-Claim-It,” “Blab-It-and-Grab It,” or “Five-Ways-to-Own-a-Bentley” type of pastor. So I marvel at the people who wrongfully believe that the acceptance of Christ into their lives equates the absence of pain.

In fact, the opposite is true if we look in God’s Word. How can we be exempt from pain and trouble in the world when Jesus told us to expect the exact opposite? “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” [John 16:33]. (104-105)

I tell students that the Bible has many great promises for believers, but John 16:33 is one of those promises, too. Jakes recognizes this.

This quotation not only perhaps debunks a stereotype, but also gives you a sense of the style of this book. It is straightforward, based on the Bible and the author’s own experiences. It could make a good companion not only to Hit Hard but to Derek Prince’s Why Bad Things Happen to God’s People. Any one or all three of these book could minister hope to people going through tough times. The perspectives are different, but in its own way each points to God. That orientation works out for the best in the long run.

I confess to being a little nervous. It is strictly coincidental that I read this book right after Hit Hard. Hit Hard was given to English Plus to review. Crushing was given to me as a Christmas present that I was getting around to reading. I wonder if by reading these two books one after the other that I am being prepared for some “trouble” (many Bible translations of John 16:33 say “tribulation”). Naturally, I hope not, but if God is doing it for my own good, then wisdom tells me I will be better for it.