To clarify, I’m one who despises the prosperity gospel. It’s a fake promise of, “God will give you money, power, and everything else” and follows with one of the two statements: “This is not how it should be, and I’m the one to blame,” or “This is not how it should be, and God is a disappointment.” In the end, it makes a broken heart even more broken. To see such is heartbreaking. It’s the act of taking of an innocent person, mixing them with unforeseen lies, and leading them to an unintended end. But even with that, there was a prosperity preacher and a sermon that I was amazed and in-fact vehemently agreeing with. The preacher I’m speaking of is Joel Osteen…
Every morning, I listen to sermons of the most influential spiritual leaders on modern day culture. I may or may not agree with their stance, but I listen nonetheless. Saying that, I typically never listen to Joel Osteen’s sermons. But it’s in this case that I surprisingly agreed with him. More than that, it’s a useful point that I hope to use in future blogs. But even then, it did something more than that. It revealed to me a better understanding of the Millennial Spark’s message. So let me explain…
It’s not your fault that you got knocked down. But it is your responsibility to get back up… It was wrong that they hurt you. It was unfair that you went through the injustice. It wasn’t right that they walked away. I’m not lessening what you’ve been through. I’m not excusing their behavior. But I am telling you that you need to get back up. Your move when unfair things happen is to go forward in faith — trusting that God will make it up to you… It’s tempting to lay down, get bitter, and give up on your dreams. After all, you have a good excuse. You may have a reason, but you don’t have a right. God still has a great purpose in front of you…
To clarify again, I vehemently hate the prosperity preaching of Joel Osteen. And the sermon I’m referring to has such. Yet, the above statement was one that I didn’t expect him to say. It blew me away. It compelled me to look further…
It was through observing my thoughts and emotions that made me realize the uniqueness of the Millennial Spark’s teachings — in a manner similar to the prosperity gospel. So let me explain: One of the difficult things to learn in life is trusting the unseen. My experience with mental illness taught me an unfair (perhaps even stigmatized) drawback in my healing. It’s a sort of getting answers we don’t want. It’s to make bread crumbs be enough for our hunger. Or make the answers we have to be all the answers we need.
I agree with every detailed point of that specific Joel Osteen’s sermon. In fact, I’m one to ask him to double down on it. In addition, it taught me the correlation between the Millennial Spark and Joel Osteen. The solutions he propose is one on seen awards — grow in money, stuff, or influence (which is more valuable than money or stuff). My idea of the solution is one of unseen rewards. Your good deeds may never produce any money, clients, sales, YouTube subscribers or Facebook likes. But you don’t do it out of external expectations. You do such out of inner confidence and conviction. You do such because you believe in it. You do such because it’s “the right thing to do.” Joel Osteen appeals to the external (or even societal). The Millennial Spark appeals to inner experience. This is the solution to life’s trials because the reward is one that we can control. External rewards fail us. Internal rewards bring us peace (despite its difficulty to learn). I hope you take this message to heart. And yes, I absolutely disagree with Joel Osteen’s promotion of external prosperity. But in this case, I’m glad I listened.
