Transcription
[Music] I want to talk to you this afternoon about the different seasons in our lives and how to discern when a season in your life is changing. You know there's there's nothing worse than hanging on to something that God's done with. Amen. And and you know, just because you've done something for 10 years or 20 years and it's been God the whole time, that doesn't mean that God can't suddenly get done with it and want you to go in a different direction. And um, so I'm just going to tell you a story and maybe help you understand a little bit about what you can watch for when it's time for a change in your life.
First of all, let me say when something is changing in your life, when it's obvious that there's a change—maybe there's a change at your workplace and there's nothing you can do about it; you don't like it, but they're changing something and it's going to affect you—and you can either sit there and be unhappy or you can go along with the change. Well, I heard this one time and I think it's very good: when something is changing, the first thing you need to do is change your your mind about the change. See, because if you're like, "I don't like this and I'm not going to be happy with this," if it's going to change anyway, then you might as well change your mind and say, "I I can get used to this. It it's going to be okay."
You know, things are changing in our lives all the time. I mean, there's how many of you have had really good relationships at some point? Had a friend that you saw a lot for maybe 10, 15, 20 years and now you don't ever see them? See, even people—there's certain people that are right for our lives in certain seasons, and it doesn't mean it's bad when they're no longer in your life; it's just time for a new season. You know, maybe sometimes you've been helping somebody for a long long time and that's over. God doesn't want you helping them anymore; he wants them to stand on their own two feet.
We had that situation with my brother. He lived with us for about four years, and we got him all nice and healthy and he got off of drugs he was addicted to and got his life straightened out and was working for the ministry. My brother was the kind of guy that he did every—he did okay as long as somebody was kind of making him do what was right, watching over him, but he didn't do too good when he was on his own. Well, he was a grown man, and to be honest, I didn't want to take care of him the rest of my life. I didn't didn't think that was would even be good for him. And so the time came when it was time to stop helping him, and that's hard to do sometimes. And to be honest, he didn't do very well when we stopped helping him, but I couldn't just keep taking care of him his whole life. Just so you know, you you can't give your whole life up to help somebody else stand on their two feet who won't do their part. God wants us to help people, but he never wants us to do so much for somebody else that they never end up having to do anything for themselves. Amen.
And there's a lot that I can say about Seasons, but I I'm trusting God to pick out some bullet point things that maybe some people here really really need today. Even your own kids—you know, things have to change with your children. You you go through a period of time where you're telling them everything, and then you go for a period of time where they don't want you telling them anything. And the time will come when you will have to disengage from trying to tell your kids what to do all the time, and don't give them advice unless they ask you for it, because they don't want it if they don't ask for it. And so you have one type of relationship with your kids when they're little and at home, a different type when they become teenagers. You have to gradually turn decision-making power over to them in their own lives and you let it go a little bit of time, a little bit of time.
I want to encourage you today, and this may sound odd at first, but don't be the kind of parent that your children are your whole life. [Applause] You know why? Because someday they're going to leave and go about having their own life. And if you have put everything into them, nothing into your marriage, nothing into developing any other kind of relationships or interests or Hobbies, you are going to be very sad and may even get mad at them for leaving—when it's a natural thing. You'll leave your father and mother and cleave unto your wife.
Now, we have very good relationships with our four children, and I'm particularly really close to them, and I either see or talk to every one of them almost every day. I feel like mine never left home, but they—two of them live within—well, one of them lives within one minute of me, and the other one—another one lives within three, 3 minutes of me, and the other two are about 15, 20 minutes away. Our sons work for us, and so we we came out of it good. But you know, I had to I had to make some changes and I had to make some adjustments as far as letting my kids live their own lives and not trying to tell them what to do all the time. And if you have multiple children, you will even have different relationships with each one of them. Come on. And you have to let each one of them be who they are, and you have to meet them where they're at and not expect every one of them to be like you are. No, no. You know, Paul said—I love this—that the Apostle Paul said, he said, "I've learned to be all things to all people, whatever it takes to win them." So Paul had the ability to kind of quickly locate what a person needed or kind of where they were coming from in life, and he—instead of expecting them to adapt to him all the time—he was spiritually mature enough to be the one who adapted and tried to meet them where they were at.
Like, one of my children might want my advice on everything, and then another one might not want my advice on anything. So I've learned to not bother—they're trying to give my advice to the one that's going to be offended by it—and one I can say anything and they'll say, "No, I don't want to do that," or, "Yeah, I think that's good," and that's fine. We don't have we don't have any problems. And so um, just make sure you realize that whatever kind of relationship you have with your children now, it's going to change as time goes by, and you got to have something in your life besides just your kids. Don't be one of those people that mourn for five years with the empty nest syndrome. You know, be at a point where when it's time for your kids to go, you're glad—it's like, "Don't come see me, bring the grandbabies, but don't stay long," you know what I mean? I'm just having fun with you. How many of you agree with that? It's not wise to just put everything in one thing. And I think even in a marriage—I think, of course, different people are different; there are some people that can do every single thing together every day of their life. I need a little space, and uh, Dave needs a little space. So after 52 years, you get things worked out really good. It's just like—I mean, I used to get so mad when he'd go out and play golf, and now I'm like, "Don't you want to go play golf?" In other words, if you want to have good relationships with people, stop trying to make them be what you want them to be and learn to love who they are. Amen.
Okay, so we had a a couple that lived with us for 18 years. They um, it was when the ministry was first starting and we didn't have any money to hire any kind of help, and the ministry was still in the basement of our home then, and um, this couple—God put it on their heart and he put it on our heart to ask them to come and work with us and help us—and it would have been a volunteer position at first. And so we asked them to meet us for dinner, and when we asked them how they'd feel about getting involved in helping us, they said, "God already put it on our heart; we're ready." And so you see, when something is right, you don't have to try to make somebody do something; God will prepare everybody's heart and it will be an easy smooth transition. Well, they started by just coming out to our house almost every night, and they'd do laundry or this or that or whatever needed to be done, which left me free to study. And yeah, I mean I teach a lot now, but I mean I used to be like almost like a crazy person. I mean I would teach 20, 25 times a month, and every message was different, and if I wasn't preaching, I was studying to preach or putting together messages or writing a book, and so I didn't have time to do much else. And so as the ministry grew, they spent more and more time with us, and then as we started to travel, they stayed with our kids sometimes—we'd be gone overnight or on the weekend. And so 18 years they lived with us, and they did everything with us; they went out to eat with us, everything, and it was just wonderful. We never had a problem, never had arguments, never had issues between us; we just loved them; they loved us; it was a perfect situation. And then the season was up, and it was the hardest thing because all of a sudden just them being there annoyed me, and then I would get mad at myself because I felt that way because I didn't understand why I felt that way. How many of you know sometimes things are changing and your feelings change and you just don't understand why you feel that way, and you even think, "Well, it's me; something's wrong with me." And I mean I went through everything from thinking I wasn't a loving person to I wasn't appreciative and all these different things. Well, it took a lot longer than it should have for us to make the change, but two years, and finally all four of us got it—it was time for a change. Yes, sir. And and we're still friends today; we love them; they love us, but we used to see them every day of our life for 18 years, and now we see them maybe five times a year, something like that. But you know, we've got a relationship with deep roots; we would do anything for them if they ever needed help; they would do anything for us. But you have to be willing to let things change.
Now I'm going to make a statement that has really impacted my life in the last couple of years, and I hope that it will mean something to you: Only a fool thinks he can always do what he's always [Applause] done. Only a fool thinks he can always do what he's always done. Let me tell you something: you're aging from the moment you're born; you're aging now. I asked my trainer—I have a trainer that works with me 3 days a week with weights—and um, I asked him—I'm 76 now—and I said, "Okay, uh, if I keep this up three days a week—I've been working out like that for like 13 years—I said, "If I keep this up, uh, when I'm 90, will I still be able to do exactly what I'm doing right now?" And he said, "No." I kind of like, "Well, how do you know," you know? And uh, he said, "No, simply because," he said, "You'll still be able to work out, but he said, "You won't be lifting as heavy of Weights as you do now; you might not do quite as many reps," he said, "Because you're aging, and by the time you're 90, no matter how good a care you take of yourself, you're not going to be as strong as you are right now." So I asked him the other day, I said, "How about 80? Can I still," you know? And he said, "Yeah, 4 years from now you'll probably still be able to do pretty much, you know, what what you're doing now." And I'm part of the reason why I'm doing these physical things is to keep myself in shape. If if you want to keep moving, then you got to keep moving. You know, you can't just go sit down somewhere and expect to feel like doing things 5 or 10 years from now. Be as active as you can as long long as you can without hurting yourself, and you can be around for a long time doing lots of things. Old is a mindset; aging is a fact of life. We're all getting older all the time, and you will get to the point where there's some things that doesn't interest you anymore, are some things you used to really love to do now you don't want to do. And we have to not be afraid to let things change in our life because that is actually the natural cycle of life. Change is natural; it's normal. And if you are resistant to change—how many of you don't like change?—well, too bad, because it's going to happen. And to be honest, I mean some changes I don't like, but I don't mind change because I think it's what keeps life interesting. You know, if everything is the same same same old same old same all forever and ever, it gets kind of kind of tiresome. And so one of the ways you can tell when God is wanting to change something is you just you just won't like it anymore. It's just like it doesn't fit anymore; it's just not right. And I don't suggest that every time you don't like something that you think you need to go do something totally different; you might not like your job one day; that doesn't mean you need to quit and go get another job. But if it persists over a period of time, then you need to start asking yourself, "Is it time for a change?" And sometime you don't even have to have a reason for why it should change. Sometimes we just need to change; sometimes we just need to do something different; or sometimes we don't have any idea why God wants us to leave one place and go to another place. But maybe—you know—maybe you're in a church you've been in for X number of years of your life, and maybe maybe you know too much to stay in that same place anymore; maybe you need to go somewhere where people don't know as much as you know, and God might want to be able to use you there where where you're at right now; he doesn't need you.
Hello. I worked at a church for 5 years, and God started dealing with me that it was time to leave—only I didn't know that was what he was up to—and I just started getting unhappy. I didn't I just didn't like it anymore; I just didn't want to go; I dreaded going. And I worked there, and I—things that I used to love, like staff meetings and things like that—I dreaded them; couldn't wait from to get over with; didn't didn't didn't realize what God was up to. You know, you always start by thinking, "Something must be wrong with me; what's wrong with me?" And one Tuesday night I went to church—we had Church on Tuesday night—I was sitting in my seat on the front row, and I heard God say, just as plainly, "What are you doing here?" And I thought, "Well, I'm in church; it's Tuesday night," and you know, the next thing I heard, "I don't need you here anymore." He needed me somewhere else. And see, we need to be—now listen to what I'm going to say—we need to be where God needs us, not where we want to be. Are you are you there? We need to be where God needs us, not where we want to be. Maybe you're at a job and you're the only believer there, and you don't necessarily want to be there, but God needs you there. Have you asked God to use you? Uh-huh. Well, what if he's trying to, but you don't particularly like the place he's decided to use you? You know, if you're the only Christian in a place, you shouldn't grumble about that; you might be the only hope of ever seeing Jesus. Amen. And I don't—you know, you can be somewhere that is not particularly thrilling to you and still have a peace about being there and know it's the place that you're supposed to be. You might be in a difficult marriage and still know that it's where you're supposed to be. And I believe if you're where you're supposed to be that God can give you the ability to enjoy your life right in the middle of something that would drive most people crazy. Hello. Come on, this is good.
So the Bible pretty much says there's a season for everything, and so I'm going to read very quickly some stuff in Ecclesiastes that we're all you know pretty used to, but but Ecclesiastes 3, beginning in verse one, and I'm not going to read every word of this; I'm going to skip through it pretty quick. "There's a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born, a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build up, a time to weep, a time to laugh, a time to mourn, a time to dance, a time to scatter stones, a time to gather stones, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up"—I thought that was an interesting one—"a time to keep and a time to throw away." We got to stop there for a minute. "A time to keep and a time to throw away." This—the word—in due season. Somebody needs to go home and have a throwing-away party. Come on. How many of your junk collectors? You just keep everything you can get your hands on. Well, I'll throw away anything I can get my—I don't throw it away; I give it to somebody; send it to some needy place. My husband, on the other hand, he likes to collect stuff. "Everything is beautiful in its time, but out of season it can just be an absolute mess." There's a right time and a wrong time for every matter under the sun, and when we mature enough to be able to discern the seasons, it's a very good thing in our life. How many of you have a difficult time letting go of things? See, I feel for you. I I'm not—well, some things I'm worse at than others, you know. Now that I've aged a little—I haven't gotten older, but now that I've aged a little—I've had to let go of some things at the office—things that, you know, to be honest, technology is so far ahead of me now that I'd be dumb not to let some of the younger people handle it because I don't understand it, don't want to understand it, don't have any interest in learning it; it's just I'd much rather pay somebody to do it for me. "Here, my phone's not working; thank you. My computer don't work; thank you. Can you just come over and do that for me? Thank you." So, but I've had to even in the last couple of years make some big changes, like—you you may notice that I have somebody helping me a little bit here now—Pastor Mike, sometimes Ginger does it—and uh, you know, it was just time for me to stop doing everything. Sometimes you just can't do everything, or you get to the point where you can't do any of it. Well, and I was just tired, and I have a right to be tired because been doing this for a long long long long time, and I kept it up so long trying to keep keep doing everything, you know, 'cause everybody had—well, you know, "It's better if you do it," and "If you do it," you know? So I kept trying to do it, and I finally made myself sick, and I didn't have any choice. Sometimes you won't change unless you come to a crisis point in your life, and that crisis forces you to change. But hopefully we'll get smart enough to recognize the signs and make the changes while we can still make them because we choose to and not make them because we're forced to and have no choice. Amen.
How many of you don't get enough sleep? You know what the answer is to that? Go to bed. I mean, to be honest, a lot of our problems would not be that hard to solve. Well, I know I should go to bed, but I know I should drink more water, but I know I should start saving some money for when I retire, but I know I should mind my own business, but I probably shouldn't say this, but come on, we need to get the Bucks out of our life and start just doing what we know that we should do. Let's just make a decision here today that we're going to get a lot better at letting things go so God can Usher in the new thing that he has for us. It doesn't really make any sense to try to keep hanging on to something that God's done with because once God's finished with it, you're never going to enjoy it right? Amen. Am—God's even shown me about giving things away—that one time he asked me to give something away—if I keep it after that, there's no longer any anointing on it for me to enjoy it. I may keep it and look at it, but I won't enjoy it because it doesn't belong to me anymore; God's already said, "Give it."
Rushing through one season to get to the next one causes problems too. Maybe you're in a waiting season; you're tired of waiting, so you're going to do something about it. Or maybe you are at a job that you don't like, and you're just tired of waiting on God, so you just decide you're going to quit anyway. You know, a lot of times we just get tired of waiting and we just go make decisions that are foolish. You need to stay put until God releases you, and when God releases you, then you need to go. I had a job one time in Ministry, and I wasn't being treated properly, and I wanted so bad to get out of there and go do my own thing, but I knew in the depths of my heart God did not want me to go yet because he had not released me. Well, by the time God told me to go, I'd gotten to the point where I liked it, and then I didn't want to go. So you don't always get to do what you want to.
Now, here's an example about rushing through seasons: One year in Missouri, we had a very warm winter. Well, during the winter we thought it was great—"This was cool, man; it's not even cold this winter; we're this—it's almost like not even having winter"—and we thought it was all great until we discovered in the spring that it never got cold enough to kill the bugs. So we had bugs bugs bugs and more bugs that spring, and we had an epidemic of ladybugs, and we we had lady—but you know, like how Pharaoh had frogs in his driveway, frogs in his ovens, frogs in his bed—well, we had ladybugs everywhere. I'm not exaggerating to say we had hundreds of ladybugs in our house, and you know, sinus and allergy sufferers didn't like it because it never got cold enough to kill off the stuff that bugged them in the spring. So it may seem like fun to be able to skip through one season and get to the other one, but a lot of people, for example, they want to skip through the season where God deals with us and chastises us and changes things in us, and they want to go straight from being born again to, you know, some great big thing in their life, but they—you know, you can have Charisma that will get you somewhere, but not enough character to keep you there once you get there. Come on. You want me to say it again? [Applause] You know, when I was teaching 20 people in my living room floor, I could preach then just like I do now, and I used to watch people on television—preachers on television—and I remember thinking, "Well, I don't know why God's got me stuck in my living room."
I can preach better than that well, that was why I was stuck in my living room. It wasn't that I couldn't preach, but I had an attitude. Come on, I'm talking to you, you know. You may sit out there and think, well, I applied for a job on the worship team and they didn't hire me, and I can sing better than anybody up there. Well, until you lose that attitude, you'll keep sitting right where you're sitting, because God is much more concerned about our attitude and our character than He is what we can do to impress [Applause] people.
So a lot, lot of times, if you know that you're real gifted and you don't understand why God's not using you, maybe you better do a character check. Ask yourself, how do I treat people? How am I when it comes to criticizing and judging other people? You know, those are the things that are important to God. Man looks on the outside, but God looks at the heart. Amen. God sees our heart, and that's why sometimes God will use somebody that you can't figure out why in the world He would be using them, because the package doesn't look too impressive, but God knows they've got a heart of gold.
We need to pay more attention to our inner life than our outer life. Listen, if we spend as much time getting spiritually ready to go out as we do changing our clothes five times and putting on a pound of make [Applause] up—you know, it takes me about 45 minutes in the morning to get it looking from the way it was when I got it out of bed to to now—well, thankfully I did learn a long time ago, I spend usually a couple of hours with God before I ever get around to trying to dress this thing up. But there were years in my life when I didn't do that, and you know, I might have put makeup on it and made it look good, but it was ugly to God because of the way I acted. [Applause] Hello. No matter how pretty somebody thinks you are at work, God looks at our attitude, our character, how we treat people, how we talk to people, how we talk about people, and you will have seasons in your life where God just turns you Every Which Way but Loose. [Music] [Applause] Seasons of chastisement, seasons of nothing going your way, just to see how you'll act.
Plowing up the fallow ground—there's plowing seasons in our life. Just imagine if you were a field full of dirt that had never been plowed, and all of a sudden a farmer brought in a plow and started going through that field and plowing it up; if you could feel it, it wouldn't feel very good. And the fallow ground in our life, the hard rocky soil in our in our life, has to also be plowed up. How many of you want God to use you? Okay, well, here's the thing: there's a lot of stuff God has to do to you before He can do very much through you. Amen. [Applause] Oh, my Lord, if I could even begin to explain to you what all I had to go through to be standing where I'm standing today—oh, my gosh—I had such a bad attitude from the way I'd been treated. I felt sorry for myself; I had a chip on my shoulder; the world owed me; I was rebellious, especially toward any kind of male authority. And God just kept at it, and kept at it, and kept at it, and kept at it, and kept at it. And you know what? I didn't understand why God wasn't turning me loose on the world. And I look back now, and I am so glad, so glad that God made me wait. I am so glad that He didn't let me get into a position where I would have made a complete fool out of myself and brought shame to His name.
Don't be in such a hurry to to get where you're going. Take the time to let God do what He needs to do in you, and when the time is right, He will be able to do something through you. But your spiritual maturity is much more important than standing on a platform somewhere sharing your gift. Amen. The plowing season. Once you put your hand to the plow, the Bible says, "Don't Look Back." Luke 9:62. Jesus said to him, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom." When you're working hard, don't think about how hard it is; think about the harvest. Amen. When you're going through things that are hard, don't just, "Oh, this is so hard; I don't know if I can take this; I I'm going to quit God; I'm going to give up if this doesn't stop; if I don't get a breakthrough today, God, I just can't go on, Lord; if Joyce doesn't call me out and give me a word, I don't think I can stay saved." Well, I I've got a word for everybody in the building today: Grow up. And I say that to myself, too. I never say anything to you, though, that God hasn't said to me. You can be sure of that. Amen.
The Bible says that we're to plow in hope. You know what hope is? Hope is an expectation that something good is about to happen at any minute. I love that. You, we should live with that kind of expectation. And when things are hard in our life, we need to go through it with hope, not a bad attitude. We need to say, "This is going to work out for good; this is happening for a reason; yeah, I need this; I may not feel like I need it, but God's going to work it out for my good; this is going to help me grow up; this is going to help me mature; I'm getting experience that I can use later on in life." Amen. You know, there's nothing that trumps experience. You know, one of the reasons why you believe what I say is because you know that I've been through what I'm talking to you about. I didn't just go buy a dollar sermon book and make all these messages up. I've I've lived this stuff. And when I tell you that God will work everything out for your good if you trust Him, I know from experience that God will work everything out for good if you trust Him to do it. When I tell you that if you won't quit and you won't give up, your time of harvest will come, I can promise you that your time of harvest will come. And while you're plowing, you can plow in hope. 1 Corinthians 9:10: "Does He not certainly speak for our sake? It was written for our sake, because the plowman should plow in hope, and the thresher should thresh in hope of sharing in the crop." I love that. Fallow ground has to be plowed up, and when it's being plowed up, it's not that much fun; it's difficult. Learning how to obey God is difficult, but once you learn how to promptly and quickly obey God, life gets sweet, sweet. Know the answer to every problem is find out what God's saying and do it. Hosea 10:12: "Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord, that He may come and rain righteousness upon you." That means get prepared for blessings. Maybe right now your fallow ground is—uh—you're angry at somebody, and you just won't let it go. I wonder how many people there are in here today that need to forgive [Applause] somebody. Okay, let let me tell you something: the biggest problem that we have as believers is unforgiveness, staying offended, being mad at people. I mean, it is the number one problem in the church. If we would all learn how to forgive quickly, as Christ forgives us, come [Applause] on, what would happen in the world if Christians actually started to love each other? Wow, imagine that. Then our bumper sticker might mean something to somebody. But as long as all we've got is a bunch of stuff hanging all over us that says, "I'm a Christian; I'm a Christian," all we do is get watched. So if you're going to put a bumper sticker on your car, you better not break the speed limit and and cuss at people. Come on. You know, you may not like everything I say, but you won't be [Applause] confused. Come on, let's camp here for a minute. It's time to forgive; it's time to let it go; it's time to get over it and get on with your life. "Well, you don't know what they did to me." No, I don't know what's been done to you, but I do know what was done to me, and I know what's been done to a lot of other people, and I also know what we've done to [Applause] Jesus. There's no reason for anybody—you cannot find an excuse good enough to hang on to anger. Come on, you can't find an excuse. "Well, you just don't know." But you see, it's not that what happened to you is not important, but here's the thing: when you forgive, you're not doing your enemy a favor; you're helping yourself. You, I wrote a book on forgiveness, and I called it, "Do Yourself a Favor and Forgive." We're helping ourselves when we obey God, everything that God tells us to do. You say, "But I just can't get over it." Okay, maybe you can't get over the feelings right away, but I'll tell you what will happen if you'll start to do what God tells you to do: you start praying for the people that you're mad at, and see how long you can hate them. Come on, you start praying for them every day. You pray for them to be blessed; you pray for God to bless them. And if an opportunity comes along and there's something they need and you can meet that need, you go meet that need, even if it gives your flesh the creepy crawlies. You go and do it, 'cause that's exactly how you break the power of Satan off of your life when you start acting like [Applause] Jesus. Amen. Come on. If you're the pastor of a local church and somebody that you've nurtured up in the Lord and been like a son to you in the Lord, he takes half your congregation and moves down the street; buy him a new sound system. Come on, you can't you can't. Love never fails; hatred, resentment, bitterness always fail, but love never fails. God has given us a weapon like no other weapon, and it's the warfare of [Applause] love. And not only that, it's just flat out fun; it's just fun to make the devil mad and have him have to sit around and watch you love somebody that's mistreated you. Woohoo.
What season are you in now, or is God dealing with you about being less selfish? No answers? Okay. Um, how about being more disciplined? How about getting out of [Applause] debt? Well, then you got to quit flipping plastic everywhere you go. It's so much fun to say, "Put it on my account," but the bill comes. Amen. How about God been dealing with anybody about it's time to get healthy, time to start taking care of yourself? How many of you God is dealing with you to stop eating junk all the time? So don't flout the seasons of your life, and remember that don't ever think that you can always do what you've always done, because things are going to have to change, and when they do, don't fight it; it just makes you miserable if you fight it. So tonight I'm going to teach on embracing each season of your life. Every season of your life. I don't know about you, but I want to love my life. I mean, if I'm going to be alive and breathe, I want to love it. I want every day to be—I I want to love it. And uh, I don't want to just—you can't just love parts of it; you can't love your life and just love parts of it; you got to learn how to embrace it all. And the only way that we can ever embrace things that are painful or seem unjust or unfair or that we don't like is if we learn some secrets that the Apostle Paul talked about. He said, "I've learned the secret; I've learned—it's a learning process—I've learned the secret of being content." And to be content doesn't mean you never want change; of course, we all have things in our life that we don't like that aren't fair that aren't right, and we want to see them change, but we can still be content, and we can still have joy while God is working on those circumstances and situations. And I'm going to say something: if we really trust God, I mean, if we really trust God, then we will be able to do that. So we have to learn how to embrace not just the good things, but even the painful things, the unfair things. And I'm going to share with you tonight some of the secrets of how you can do that; some of the things you're going to know—I'm just going to remind you. First of all, I want to say, let's get the words "I hate" out of our language. "I hate to drive in traffic; I hate to do the laundry; I hate to cut the grass; I hate to clean the house; I hate my job; I hate the way I look." How can we ever expect to have a life that we love if we're going to hate everything? That's a nasty word; I don't even like that word; I don't want to hate stuff. So I started forming a habit several months ago of saying—sometimes I say it more than once a day—"I love my life; I love God; I love myself; I love my family; I love the work I do in ministry; I just love life." And so I want to encourage you to maybe take my practice and start doing that, too. Genesis 8:22: "While the earth remains, there will be seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease." Well, I don't know about you, but I would much rather have harvest than seed time, 'cause when when it's seed time you're giving up something; when it's harvest you're getting something. So I like harvest. Cold and heat—now, different people are different, but I prefer heat over cold. Summer and winter—I like summer better than winter. And day and night—I like day probably better than night. And so those are my preferences, but I don't get one without the other. And somehow or another, by the grace of God, I I hope that He uses me to get across tonight that if you keep thinking the only way you can ever be content and happy is when everything feels good and is the way you want it to be, then I mean, you are just really in for a rough ride. I know, because I tried that for a long time. I mean, you know, I come to you now after 41 years of teaching the word, and I'm not coming to you with just something I got out of a book. I mean, I've lived this stuff. And I started out a real mess and very unhappy, and I mean, probably just about any kind of problem you've got here tonight, I had it. And I'm really not exaggerating; I mean, I was a mess. I was abused by my dad, abandoned by my mother, married the first guy that came along; he mistreated me. So I know what it's like to have a life that's all messed up, but I know that I know that I know that the word of God works if you work the word. But it's so important for all of us to understand that it's not just hearing the word that changes our lives; it's doing the word that changes our lives. You can even have most of the Bible memorized, and that in itself won't change your life if you're not willing to go out and do what you hear. Amen. So I think it's time to get about some doing. I want stability in my life, and I finally have it. Dave said to me—I mean, when we first got married, I was so up and down emotionally and just all over the place—bad mood, good mood, rarely mostly bad moods—and he didn't he didn't say this to me at the time, but years later after I got better, he said, "You know, I used to drive home from work at night and think, 'I wonder what she'll be like tonight.'" You know, that's that's not a good way for anybody to have to live. And so, just loving on you tonight, just want to say that if you're not a very stable person, if you're kind of up and down, and your circumstances are up, you're okay, and when they're not, you're bought them out, why don't you make tonight a time where you make a decision that you're really going to start letting God into your life in those areas and really let Him help you and teach you how you can learn to really love the life that you have. You know, wishing is useless. Word's not in the Bible; there's no chapter on wishing; there's no scripture on wishing. You know, lazy people wish, but determined people go to work and they get it done. "Well, I wish I could lose 20 lbs; well, I wish I was out of debt; I wish my house was clean; I wish I had your life; well, I wish I had a ministry like Joyce's." I didn't get it wishing; I can tell you that. Amen. There's always seasons of waiting and seasons of harvest; there's seasons of testing and seasons of breakthrough. How many of you love to hear a good testimony? You know what? At lunch today we had lunch with Pastor and his wife and a couple of other ministry people here in town, and somehow or another it kind of got into testimony time, and different ones were just talking about—I mean, some real amazing things that had happened in their life. But you know what? Every one of those amazing breakthroughs came after a very difficult time that was painful. You can't have a testimony without a test. And the thing we want to be careful of is that after the test we don't only have the monies and no testimony. Is that funny? I think that's funny. Song of Solomon 2: "For behold, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone." Somebody say, "Hallelujah." Hallelujah. "The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land." I want to ask you a question: Are you in a winter right now in your life? You know, things are kind of gloomy, bleak, cold, no growth, lots of need, same old, same old, same old? Well, can I tell you something? Spring is right around the corner. I tell you what: don't ever let the devil steal your hope. I mean, hope is the most powerful motivator. When you continue to have hope, the devil cannot defeat you. And the word "hope" just simply means that you're expecting something good to happen at any moment. I'm expecting something good to happen at any moment. "You say, 'Well, I'm sick today.' Well, expect to be well tomorrow. And if tomorrow you're not well, then expect to be well the next day." "He said, 'Well, that's easy for you to say; you don't feel bad.' Well, you don't know how I feel. I'll tell you about my year so far; how's that? First of all, October 31st, I had my other hip replaced. I had this one done two years ago, so I now have two bionic hips, so watch out. And um, so you know, I mean, I did great; I was doing great, but it's still a recovery process you got to go through; you got all the rehab, got pain, you got the stiffness, you got the swelling, all that stuff. So I'm six weeks into recovery; things are starting to get pretty good. And on December the 24th, I got what appeared to be a sore throat and a cold. I had it for seven weeks. Seven weeks. Now, in the midst of that, I had to go to Thailand, so I spent 39 hours on an airplane. Now, I did get—I I actually thought I was getting well, then I got back home and got it again. And I think one of the things that was happening was my body was already weak from the surgery, so when that hit, then that made it hard. Then I was starting to get well, then I did the overseas trip, and that weakened me again. You know, on and on and on. But it was hard not to get discouraged. And you know, one of the things that the enemy tries to tell us—and I'll bring this out a little bit more tomorrow—when you have something going on in your life, he—you'll hear all the time—"This is never going to end." And some of you in a place right now in your life where the you just kind of been feeling like this is never going to end. And so then we start this, "Well, I just don't think I can stand this; I don't know how how long I can put up with this." We need to replace all that gloomy conversation with, "I can do all things through Christ who is my [Applause] strength." And so what I did, what I did during those seven weeks—and I'll tell you, I felt really bad a lot of days, like really bad, and and more so than what I normally would—and I just kept saying, "Tomorrow's going to be better; tomorrow's going to be better; God's healing power is working in me; God's healing power is working." Then I had to take two rounds of antibiotics; then the antibiotics got my stomach messed up, so then I had to take some stomach medicine. So it's it's just been fun. But you know what? I'm well, and I'm healed. [Applause] Phoenix. Now, I'm kind of not real happy that my off time was like that, and I don't—not going to say that I had a great explanation for it, but you know, I found out in my life sometimes God will let me go through things just so I've got something to tell you guys. I believe that; I think that sometimes we go through things just so when you tell other people, "I know how you feel," they're actually going to believe you. How can somebody tell you that they know how you feel if they've got a great life and there's never any challenges or problems in it all the time? Amen. All right, so spring is coming. Let's look at what Paul said in Philippians 4:11 and 12. It's too good to just kind of gloss over it. He said, "I'm not implying that I was in any personal want, for I have learned"—boy, it took me a long time to learn this—"how to be content, satisfied to the point where I'm not disturbed or disquieted." See, I like that. It doesn't mean that you don't ever want change, but you can be satisfied to the point where you're not upset all the time. "No matter what state I'm in, I know how to be abased and live humbly and straightened circumstances, and I also know how to enjoy plenty and live in abundance. I have learned in any and all circumstances the secret"—see, we're telling secrets tonight—"the secret of facing every situation, rather well-fed or going hungry, having a sufficiency and enough, despair or going without and being in want." Galatians 6:9: "And let us not lose heart and grow weary and faint in acting nobly and doing what is right, for in due time and at the appointed season we shall reap if we don't loosen and relax our courage and faint and give up." What is due time? What is the appointed time? That's an interesting scripture. Well, in due time, at the appointed time—you can—you know, when I was real young in ministry and I was waiting for my ministry to grow and different breakthroughs, you know, different people would give me words from the Lord, and every once in a while there'd be a prophet come to the church, and lo and behold, they'd have a word for me, and it was always this scripture: "Be not weary in well-doing, for in due season you shall reap if you faint not." And the first few times I got excited, and then I realized I didn't know any more than I did before, because when is the appointed time? It's when God is ready, and it's when God knows that we're ready. And not only that, I want you to listen to me: whatever it is that you're believing God for, if it involves other people, sometimes you're ready, but they're not, and you have to wait on them. When I was waiting for certain things to happen in our ministry, I remember telling God one time, "God, I know I'm ready; I know I'm ready." He said, "Yes, you are, but some of the people that you need to work with you are not." Sometimes you just got to wait on somebody [Applause] else. But while we're waiting, what what are we supposed to do? Be patient. Don't you just love that word? I told Dave the other day, I said, "Okay, I've just decided that I'm…"
Probably never going to be like a totally patient person. And so I've just decided to embrace that weakness and just take it right on into Glory with me. Now I'm I'm I'm I don't get too we doubt about having to wait on God, but when I've got a goal, I'm so goal-oriented. And I tell you what, when I've got my headset, like I get up in the morning and I'm going to work out, and I'm going to walk, and I'm going to do this, I'm going to get dressed, and I'm going to eat a bite, and I'm going to get to the office by such and such a time. If people start annoying me with silly stuff, and my husband loves to aggravate me, and so and he knows how I am, so he'll say, "Come and give me a hug." Well, to be honest, when I'm in that kind of a mood, I don't even want to hug, just I mean, just to be downright honest, it's like a hug is not in my schedule for that morning. But you know, you can't tell your husband you don't want a hug, so I go over and I get a hug, and he knows that I want to get going, and he'll hold me while I'm doing something. I'm already like mentally on to the next thing.
And some of it can get kind of dangerous sometimes. The other day I got off the treadmill and left it running and went upstairs. I was done; I didn't bother to turn the thing off. I kept hearing this noise and I went, yeah, it was still just going. It's a good thing I heard it; the motor would have burned up. Anyway, see, we've all got our stuff. You pray for me, okay? Ecclesiastes 3; I'm not going to read the whole thing, but I do want to read part of it, verses 1 through 4: "To everything there's a season, and a time for every matter of purpose under Heaven: a time to be born, a time to die; a time to plant, a time to pluck up what is planted; A Time to Kill, a time to heal; a time to break down, a time to build up; a time to weep, A Time To Laugh, A Time to mourn, and a time to dance." And then talks about a lot of other things, but verse 11 says, "He has made everything beautiful in its time." You know, even death is beautiful if it's in the timing of the Lord. Amen. And you, I, I've told God, man, I I want to I want to do good at this getting older thing. I don't want to be some grouchy old lady that you know, and I want to die well when I go. I I want to I want to do it right. I want to I want to go out good. You know, I think we ought to do everything everything that we do the best way that we possibly can do it.
And how many of you do not like change? Well, you better just change your mind here tonight because I can tell you that things are always changing, always. My dentist decided to retire last week. He didn't even tell me; he didn't even tell the people that work for him; he just decided that he was going to retire, and he told him like kind of on the last day. Well, I just I was like, and Dave's like, "Oh, you're going to love the new guy." I'm like, "How do you know I'm going to love the new guy? I like the old guy." I couldn't do nothing about it. If he decides to retire, there's nothing I can do about it. You know, you look in the mirror and you got a I've tried to stretch them out, got pounds of lotion in there and all kinds of stuff, and you know what? You just are going to get older; that's all there is to it. One day I looked at myself in the mirror and I noticed that a lot of stuff that used to be up here was down here now. Come on, people around you change, and you can't sometimes it's for the better, but sometimes it's not. I've been friends with some people, I mean, I'm thinking of one relationship now. I was good friend, good friends with somebody for like 15 years. Now the person's not even in my life anymore, and it's not bad; it's just that season was over in my life.
And so here's the thing: if we try to keep hanging on to something when God is finished with it, come, I just say this to every section, if we keep trying to hang on to something when God is finished with it, there's no point in continuing to try to hang on to something that God's done with, and there's no anointing on anymore because all it's going to do is keep you from the next great thing and probably even the next greater thing that God has for you. I feel real strongly tonight to tell you guys, spring is right around the corner. Come on, don't give up, and don't be afraid of change, and don't keep trying to hang on to something that's just not working anymore. Trust God for something better; he's made everything beautiful at its time. I love that every season of our life is part of the whole, and it should be embraced, yes, even the painful Seasons. The more we resist, the more it's going to hurt, and the longer it's going to take. All you have to do is think about, well, I'll put it like this: I watch a show about an emergency team, medical team, EMTs that go out and they tend all these accident victims and stuff, and I was just thinking when I was studying for this, one of the first things they tell every victim is, "Now take slow deep breaths, relax." What do they tell a woman when she's in labor? "Now breathe, relax." You know why? Because the more you fight against any kind of emotional pain or physical pain or whatever it is, the more it hurts.
And you, I know some people think, well, surely you know what's going on in my life is just demonic, and surely you cannot expect me to embrace that. I'm not I'm not telling you that you have to love the thing, but we do need to learn the secret that God has a purpose in everything he permits in our lives, and even though we may never understand it, we can trust God that his word is true and he always, here comes another secret, always works everything out for our good to those who love him and want his will, always always always always always. My gosh, I look back at my childhood and the stuff that I went through and all the problems that caused in my life, and for so many years I wish that wouldn't have happened, and I hated what happened to me and hated the people that did it to me. All it was doing was just ruining my life, and somewhere along the way I came to the point where I thought, and you know, I guess maybe it sounds goofy, I don't know, but I can't even really say now that I'm sorry it all happened. You know why? Because that is what made me who I am today. Actually, come on, how many of you it was your problems that drove you to a relationship with Jesus? Man, then you need to thank God for those problems because the thing that you thought was your greatest enemy became your greatest friend. Amen. And so we just need to trust God in things and let him get us to the point where we have a great testimony that can encourage somebody else in the stuff that they're going through in life.
Have you been looking looking for a 365-day devotional? Well, look no further than the Promises for Your Everyday Life devotional from Joyce Meyer. There's a focus verse for all 365 days of the year along with a prayer starter. Get your copy of Promises for Your Everyday Life devotional at Joyme.org/365devvo. The biggest thing that we need to do is learn how to think like God thinks, and the only way you can do that is by knowing the word of God. In Words to Live By, Joyce Meyer shares how studying the word of God transformed her life. Experience a deeper and more meaningful relationship with God through the captivating collection of verses in this beautiful hard cover book by Joyce Meyer. Discover the transformative power of His word, Words to Live By from Joyce Meyer. Get your YouTube exclusive offer today. Go to Joycemeyer.org/words and the number two. Have you ever been trapped in a never-ending frenzy where every passing moment feels like a blur, leaving you gasping for a chance to pause and catch your breath? In her insightful book, Pursuing Peace, Joyce Meyer explores the importance of seeking peace at all costs. This beautiful hard cover Edition is filled with meaningful scriptures and uplifting quotes from Joyce, providing valuable guidance for living a peaceful lifestyle. So grab a cup of coffee, find a comfortable spot, and embark on your journey to find peace. Remember this limited-time YouTube offer won't last long. Go to Joyme.org/pursuit to get your copy today and start your Pursuit Of [Music] Peace. The Mind actually is the battlefield; that's where we win or lose the war with Satan. He said all he gets to say, rest of the day is mine. You start asking God to heal you, and he will restore. He is the God of all comfort, and I am so grateful that I know how to call on God [Music].