Momento de cambio — a fuego lento — DawnCheré Wilkerson

I am so grateful to come to the Word of God. Let's go to Psalm 5. We are in this collection, in part 2, on a slow fire, looking closely at the wonder and the work of waiting. It is the first book I wrote. It was released this week. I am happy to be here. He is with us. He is faithful, over and over again. Let's see the fidelity of the Scriptures. I think you will find the parallel with your life. This is what David says in Psalm 5. He is opening his heart to God. He says, Lord, listen to my words. Consider my moan. Pay attention to my supplications. My King and my God, because I pray to you. In the morning, Lord, you will hear my cry. In the morning, I present to you my prayers. Look at this. I present to you my prayers. And I wait for your answer. As we continue this conversation about the slow fire, I want to talk to you about this point, the moment of change. Let's bow our heads and say, Thank you for each locality. Thank you for the people who watch online.

Thank you for what you are doing in this house. Lord, thank you for your worship. Thank you for each person who serves. In each team, we are a family because we have the same Father. Thank you because you transform us in the power of your Spirit in the name of Jesus. Once again, all of us say, Amen. It has been special because this book, The Slow Fire, has been in my head for almost a decade. This is the first week that is in my heart. You have had conversations with friends and family and with people from all over the world about what I share here. It is about the fidelity of God. I did a podcast with Rich this week, my husband, about this. We had a fun conversation about a story that I told in the book about my name. Because he asks me about my name. And the truth is that when we talk about waiting, my parents waited nine months to see my face. And after waiting nine months, they didn't know what name they were going to give me. They were still deciding who this girl was, what her name would be. My dad wanted to call her Cherie.

My mom wanted Dawn. But Dawn Duran, Dawn Duran. It was going to sound a little confusing. No, they were going to make fun of me at school if I gave her those names. He was sleeping. He was in the hospital. He wrote both names. They joined them. Dawn Cherie. He wrote a note. He put it under my dad's pillow. And that was my name. Since then, my name. If you look at Dawn, which means dawn, and Cherie, which means love, a definition of my number that was in my room was, it says, love as faithful as the coming dawn. When it dawns, the light brings hope. You may be lost in the night, lost in the darkness, but when you see the light, it changes the landscape of your life. But until you see the light, the darkness can be overwhelming, depressing,

and it can also cause fear to get into your heart. When we are in times of darkness, we can ask ourselves, will I be rescued? Will God get me out of this season? We don't have to feel alone because David said it this way. He cried out, How long, Lord, will you keep me in oblivion? We have all felt like this in times of darkness. When I was 16, I went on a missionary trip abroad with a group from the Church. At the end of the trip, my mom surprised me and took me to Europe for the first time. While we were there, I went to Florence with my mom and sister and I saw David, the famous sculpture. prepared by Michelangelo. The sculpture is a representation of David, the king, the poet, the shepherd, the warrior, 17 feet high. It is an incredible view, but the history of this sculpture is as inspiring

as the sculpture itself, because hundreds of years ago, this piece of marble was extracted from the mountains, transported hundreds of miles through mountains, through valleys, through rivers, and arrived in Florence. And my expectation was that seeing this piece of marble was something incredible, but it was a disappointment because there were many failures, because many of the artists who had tried to work with this block of marble found it impossible, they abandoned it behind a cathedral. Not just for a season, but for decades. This great block of marble was left at the exposition of the elements until a 26-year-old boy arrived who had a claw called Michelangelo. I think I can work with these reflections and make them work for good. And you are going to see the statue of David with thousands of other spectators who do not know and do not see all those seasons that were abandoned. You do not see how far it was extracted from the mountain, and you do not see the seasons that passed to finish this finished product. In some characters of the library

we only see the greatness, the finished work, but I want to tell you that every human being who walks on this soil goes through moments of darkness, who wonder, until when, Lord, will you have me in oblivion? Will I be stuck here forever? Let's take a moment to examine the subject of this sculpture. David, not only the marble statue, but the person who inspired this work. Now it has a beautiful title, A Man According to the Heart of God. But that is seen in some evidence that he lived, that we do not always notice. His life was not carved only in the palace, but when he started as a pastor in the fields. His life was formed in the cave, in the dark places, leading men who were angry, disappointed with life, who had fled. His life was carved when he was a warrior, leading armies to battle against incredible obstacles. He was trained in many dark times, and they were parts of his life. And in parts of his life, he thought that God's purposes would not be fulfilled. But he could see in each season, the fidelity of God when looking at his past. When we see a strong man, we think that he is a man who has never had a problem, who does not cry,

or who does not give way to emotions. But when we see a strong man, we have to think of David. David was not a weak man. He was a warrior. He was a man who did not go back to the impossible. He was a strong man. And he was a man according to the heart of God. And I think that is the best title for a strong man. When you look at David's life, you know that he was an authentic person He showed his tears to God. He brought his anger, his anxiety to God. He brought his sadness to God. He brought his depression to God. He brought his repentance to God. He did not go, but he spilled like an offering, like a glass in front of God. And he asked God to fill it over and over again. This takes him to a place of weeping. The ancient writers, like St. John of the Cross, speak of the dark night of the soul. It is a season that all the followers of Jesus spend. It is a time when you do not feel the presence of God and you have to seek, with desperation and with a strong focus, the fidelity and kindness of God. St. John of the Cross wrote very closely and expresses how the dark night of the soul is the season where your ego is undressed and you are no longer looking for God for what He can do for you, but you are desperately looking for a revelation of your identity in Him.

Although it is a painful season, it can make us evaluate our motivations, our priorities, our values. The dark night of the soul leads us to a purification, to a sanctification that blessings cannot achieve. We discover who God is in the darkest valley of our life. And if we trust Him in the darkness, He leads us to a deeper knowledge of who He is and the deep purpose He has for our lives. While we are here, T.S. Eliot said it this way, The darkness declares the glory of the light. Isn't life like that? In the darkness we realize how beautiful, how powerful, what an incredible force this light is. Because if we experience a love that finds us in the darkness and leads us to its glorious I want to talk to you about an intimate part of your life. What do we do in the dark? What do we do when we can't see the light? And we are in that dark season. The question for us is, are we going to sow the seeds that we have here and now? I want to tell you that you have seeds to sow. Even if you don't realize it, seeds of faith, obedience. You have seeds of confidence. And the night is the perfect time to sow. Because sometimes the seeds that are sown at night germinate without light. When you study science, there are seeds that grow better in the dark. You can hear the growth of the rhubarb. The rhubarb grows through a phenomenon called forced growth. They are put in the ground and stored in complete darkness. Even the harvest of the rhubarb is made in the light of the candles. Because in the dark they germinate faster. Because the plant is desperate to find the light and the chlorophyll.

So it grows so fast that you can hardly see the growth, but you can hear the cells multiply and grow. It's an experience that happens in the dark. And today, maybe you don't realize it, but the most precious treasure, the most precious fruit of your life will grow in the darkest season of your life. Because it is the darkest season where distractions disappear. The things that don't matter have to be put aside. Because just like the rhubarb, it tries to go up to find the light. You have that desperation to find the presence of God. You are driven to grow like never before. There has to be a change within you before there is a change around you. That is the power of the dark season. What grows in the dark will bring a harvest in the light. But what happens when we are so desperate that we only have tears to sow in the dark? That we are like David, that we are crying like David. Will it be a sign of weakness or a sign of strength? But if you only have tears to sow, I want to read one of my poems. Escrituras favoritas que dicen, los que con lágrimas siembran, con regocijo cosechan. El que llorando esparce la semilla, cantando recoge sus gavillas. Esta es una promesa para que te aferres a ella en la oscuridad. No tengo nada para sembrar, don Sherry. Quiero que sepas, tienes algo para sembrar tus lágrimas, traerán una cosecha. Tienes que confiárselas a las manos de alguien que puede crear algo de la nada. No llores solo o sola.

Llora sabiendo que Dios te escucha, te ve, y él traerá la cosecha con esas lágrimas que corren por tu rostro. Dice que llorando esparce, cantando recoge sus gavillas. ¿Viene de tu fuerza, de tu intelecto? No. Él trae una cosecha abundante de tus llantos, de tus lágrimas, de ese sentimiento de imposibilidad de estar abrumado. Confía en él y verás cómo él te lleva a un momento de cambio. Vemos a Sara que lloraba, lágrimas de tristeza y de confianza. David, lágrimas de arrepentimiento. La mujer de frasco de alabastro, lágrimas de adoración. Todos ellos tienen en común que cosecharon una cosecha porque le entregaron a Dios su dolor. C.S. Lewis nos dice que los lugares santos son lugares oscuros. En ellos encontramos vida y fuerza, no conocimiento ni palabras. Los lugares oscuros son lugares santos. Cuando era adolescente, estaba en la secundaria, cenando con mi familia, creo que comimos espagueti, riéndome, contando una historia, tratando de hacer reír la familia. Y de repente vi el horror de la cara de mis padres. ¿Por qué estás hablando así? No sabía de qué me querían decir cuando me miré. Parte de mi cara estaba paralizada. Llamaron a nuestro médico y tenemos la parálisis de Bells.

No podía beber, no podía parpadear. Va a decir, ¿va a durar un par de semanas? Duró un par de semanas. Fui a la escuela, aún así. Y luego un par de semanas, mi cara volvió a lo normal antes de tener la parálisis de Bells. Pero tiene efectos que perduran. Mis ojos están paralizados hasta cierto punto y a veces mi ojo llora porque los lacrimales están parcialmente paralizados. Pero esas lágrimas inesperadas no es solamente por eso. Hay otros momentos donde mudarme a una ciudad donde no conocí a nadie o pasando ocho años de infertilidad, pasando por dificultad en las relaciones, en las que he tenido un punto ciego por un recuerdo o por una música o por un recuerdo que viene a mi mente. Empiezan a fluir las lágrimas. Cuando empiezan a caer lágrimas, es una área sensible de tu vida que se revela. Creo que no tenemos que rechazarlas. No tenemos que escondernos de ese momento de sensibilidad. Tenemos que entregarse a Dios. Me puedes decir, Don Sherry, no he llorado por una década. Ese estar anestesiado, el no poder expresar ese dolor que sientes, es una oportunidad para que Dios te cambie ese corazón de piedra y lo vuelva un corazón de carne. Hablando de esa ternura o de eso sensible. A veces tenemos una necesidad desesperada, pero no sabemos cómo expresar o cómo señalar cuál es la desesperación, el motivo, esa inquietud, ese dolor. Pero a veces nuestras lágrimas expresan lo que nuestras

palabras no pueden expresar. Y ese lenguaje, Dios lo entiende y lo puede descifrar así tan solo. Sembramos esas lágrimas en vez de secarlas. Romanos dice. Because in that hope we were saved, but to wait for what is already seen is not hope. Who waits for what is already seen? But if we wait for what we still do not see, in the wait we show our constancy. If we are in the wait, on fire the slow, I want to encourage you, man and woman of God, if you wait for Him, He will work. If you believe it, give a round of applause. This is what we believe about our God. Paul says that even when we do not know what to say, the Holy Spirit interprets our sighs, our moans. And this gives me so much encouragement, because I do not have to say the right words for God to know what I feel. I do not have to try to articulate and express my deepest desires, I do not even have to know exactly what happens in my heart to bring my tears to the presence of God and say, Holy Spirit, You know what is inside me better than me. Heal me, touch me wherever I am. Touch me Lord, I have despair for You. What is the power of our tears? The tears count, translate, release and clean. What the tongue cannot express, the tears can say. What a language cannot describe, the tears cannot translate. What the heart cannot contain or retain, the tears release. What the water cannot wash, the tears purify. Tears of joy, of sadness, of joy, of pleasure, of liberation. Your tears are a mechanism of your humanity

to deliver the depths of your heart to the Lord of Lords. The cry of David was not weakness, it was a vital expression of greatness that made him a leader of leaders. It was his integrity that marked with humility, with compassion, with respect for divine authority. It was a connection in prayer with God that allowed him to lead others in each season, with grace, with strength. The cry of David was not just an emotional response. Our cry in moments of darkness is a spiritual discipline that brings a harvest. What is the moment of change of your pain? What is the moment of change of your slow fire? First, the point of change, the moment of change is repentance. Why? Repentance comes from restoration. In Psalm 51, after committing this sin with Balzabé, committing murder, he calls out to God and says, Believe in me, O God, a clean and renewed heart, a firm spirit, a firm spirit within me. Do not take me away from your presence, nor take away your Holy Spirit. Return to me the joy of your salvation. Let a spirit of obedience sustain me. He does not seek to excuse himself. They have called him to account for his sin. He is in front of God, face to face. He says, Believe in me, O God, a clean heart. He is repenting. He asks God to restore him. He knows he has sinned against God. The incredible thing about David is that he always highlights the emotional breakdown.

It is not, God, I want to look good, I want to be a good leader. What overwhelms him the most is the separation of God caused by sin. It hurts him because he does not seek a title, he does not seek recognition. He seeks the heart of God. He remembers that moment since he was a little shepherd looking for God. Because he recognizes that sin has broken his bond with that person who loves him more. Repentance becomes restoration. Repentance brings light to the moment. The moment of change is to say, God, forgive me, I need to change, I need you today. Regret is not the only moment of change. Remembrance becomes gratitude and praise. It is the other moment of change. Psalm 40 says, I put all my hope in the Lord. He listened to my prayer. He took me out of the fatal pit, from the mud and swamp, put my feet on a rock, and planted me in firm ground. He put in my lips a new song, a hymn of praise to our God. In David's life, we see his intimate relationship with God. He always remembers what God did in the past. He always looks at God's fidelity in the past to find where to step firmly today. Here he finds the moment of change, of being overwhelmed, of having strength again and again. When he faces Goliath, he looks back and says, The Lord who set me free from the lion's claw and the bear's claw will set me free from this Philistine.

Some of you have to look at what God has done in the past and see what God is doing here. If he did it before, he will do it again and again. Who says Amen in this house? Remember, remember, remember, remember. We have the Holy Spirit within us. Jesus promised that he would remind us of the words of Jesus. God did not leave me there. He will not leave me now. David meditated on the ways of God. David meditated on the fidelity of God. Meditation does not belong to other beliefs. Meditation belongs to God. Do not be alarmed by that word. Meditate on fidelity. Focus on how you have been faithful to your family, how you have predicted your way out, how you have led in key moments in your life. Meditate on his character, on his nature, that he is Jehovah Jireh and that he provides for you, that he is everything you seek and everything you need. Meditate on God and you will know that he gave you the intellect, he gave you the ability to focus, not only so that you make your list of tasks, but so that you have a deeper revelation in the dark season where you are. Who is he? Who do you belong to? And what he wants to do in your life is slow fire, that you can meditate on the fidelity of God. Mark every step of your way. If you believe it, the Lord spoke.

Amen, amen, amen. You see, the moment of change is when we make a lament, because the lament becomes hope. The ways of God do not make sense. That is why we meet on Sunday, because from Monday to Friday the message you receive differs from the word of God. The message of God goes against culture. How can my lament take me to hope? When you plant, sow your tears of sadness in the land of God, he will give you a harvest of hope that you never dreamed of. The lament is an expression of passionate pain. This is what David explicitly says in the chapter that we begin. Listen, Lord, to my words. Take into account my moan. Pay attention to my supplications, my King and my God, because I pray to you. In the morning, Lord, you hear my cry. In the morning I present you my prayers. And I wait for your answer. Many psalms are structured as laments, contrasting sadness with confidence. He brings his lament to God. He does not give glory to the pilgrim of what he is suffering. He is not pretending to be something that he is not or to have strength in his own means, but he pours his heart out in front of God. He calls out to Him. When life is in danger, he is not trying to draw strength from himself, but to trust in God, saying, Lord, I am desperate.

He calls out to God for justice. He calls out to God asking for mercy. He goes from lamentation to hope, to imagining how God comes to rescue him. Much of what we declare as followers of Jesus comes from what David declared in his relationship with God. He says, You are my strength. You are my strength. You are the one who took me out and put my feet on the rock. We see the declaration of a man who was desperate for the presence of God, but he did not stay crying in sadness. He began in sadness, but he ended up remembering himself. Who is your God? Praise the Lord if you are grateful for the fidelity of God. Tears are shed before God. We live in a culture that says, if you are in pain, you have to vent everything you feel to your followers on Instagram. But that does not fill you. If you pour your heart out, you expose your heart to God, He will not leave you insecure or dissatisfied. You will be full, because you will know that He can keep your tears, because He is faithful and He is worthy of the deepest part of your heart. What is lament? It is a path from the pain of the petition to the praise. This is the moment of change when you are on fire. You will have many moments of change. David does not have a lament once, but in every moment he needs it with despair.

The lament is a path to peace. It is a path to understand the character and nature of God, if you only entrust your tears to God. It is a path from pain to petition to praise. The psalms are full. It is that struggle with confidence. I am in pain, but I am here, fighting in the here and now. I choose to come here and present to you the pains and desires, the deepest longings of my life. I come to you, anchoring myself to you. You are my hope. The moment of change in David's lament is always marked with a decisive but. It is marked with a crucial but. I am already knowing, going through this, the darkest season, and there is always a decisive but. In that chapter, which we read in verse 11, it begins with a but. But let all those who seek refuge in you rejoice, let them always sing joyfully, extend your protection to them, and let them rejoice in you, all those who love your name, because you, Lord, bless justly which shield you surround with your goodwill. This is not denying pain, but it is another opportunity to anchor your life to the fidelity of God, which never changes. And today I want to remind you, if you are questioning yourself,

if God is worthy of trust, I want to tell you here and now, you have evidence of your trust, because even your tears are evidence in the dark, because God does not want you to waste your tears. This is the God who declares, I will open fountains in the desert, and I will make springs arise in the dry land. Is there a place where I can flee from your presence and avoid fleeing from you? I still see myself in the darkness. Lord, you know me, but they also have to be ours. You know me inside and outside, and every moment... of our lives. God understands you. If you think that no one understands you, God does. He knows how you feel. He knows the thoughts that revolve in your mind, the chaos that you feel that traps you. God understands you. And David wrote this, you keep, you take into account all my anguishes and you have gathered all my tears in your jar. You have recorded each of them in your book. There was an old practice of gathering tears in a bottle. People who were in pain gathered their tears, which was an act of reminiscence and pain. But David focuses on God and reflects on God and the faithfulness of God that gathers those tears and does not let them evaporate in a moment of pain, but picks them up as evidence of our trust and our surrender in the midst of our pain. Today I want to encourage you. Your father, God, tells you, beloved son, beloved daughter, I see you where you are. I know the pain you are going through, but if you just trust me your tears, I will treasure them. The aunts that you trust me are like a letter of love. And I'm not just going to keep them, but I'm going to plant them in the land of your soul to bring a harvest for future generations. You are going to sow those tears, but I'm going to bring a harvest with shouts of joy, because that's how I am faithful. I am the Almighty.

I'm not just going to keep them and tell them, but I'm going to use them to tell the generations about my faithfulness. So it may be that today the tears fall from your eyes, or the tears are already dry like a desert, but you can cry out to God from the depths of your being. God, I need you. I love you. I have despair for you. I seek you. I long for you. And your tears will be a language that only God can understand. How can it be that God understands it? Our Savior, all man, all God. The scriptures say, John 11, Jesus cried. It is the shortest verse in the whole Bible, but perhaps it is the most transformative if you are in a season of darkness, because Jesus understands your pain. He is the man of brokenness. He knew the pain. He knew the brokenness. The strongest man in history understood that his tears were not a sign of weakness, but a moment of change, of surrender and trust in his Father. In a certain sense, his tears were a job, because those tears knew that those tears were not the end of the story. He cried, and then he resurrected Lazarus from the grave and changed history forever. Jesus cried, but then he defeated death, the tomb, and hell. He brought a clamor of war throughout history so that we can understand that tears are the moment of change when we give them to the hands of our Father. And so it can be for you, for me. Let's stand up. Let's close. Listen to me. In Psalm 22, it is the messianic psalm. David makes this prayer. He says, Oh my God, my God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Does it sound familiar to you? Jesus, in one of his last words, says the same words as David. A common man like you and me, Jesus uses the words of that person to tell us how your pain is. And not only am I dying for you, I am dying in your place. I will be abandoned so that you know that you will never be abandoned. I will be in the darkness so that you know that in the name of Jesus, the light breaks in each season of your life. It's not over. It's not the end. You are in a moment of change. You are in a moment of change. Give your tears to God. In every place, in this room, close yourself with God.

I know there are people who have pain, who are in pain, who are suffering. When you trust your pain to God. God, we come to you and we thank you that you are among us. That you resurrected to the new life. That your tears were the cry of war. Lord, let it be a moment of change for all our lives by putting our faith, our trust in you. We give our lives to you. You rescue. You save every tear, you treasure it. You will reap our tears. People who are in pain, who can not understand that you come beyond the walls of their heart. That they can trust you their pain. That you heal it as only you can. That you can heal them. That you can heal them. That you can heal them. I think we have to worship God together. Let's raise our hands. Let's worship the Lord.