Thriving In Times of Crisis and Change | Dr. Myles Munroe

Thank you for joining us for another power-packed message provided by Monroe Global Incorporated and Monroe Global Comm. We transform followers into leaders and leaders into agents of change. We hope that this message is a blessing to you as you advance your life and discover your purpose.

Now let's go into the message. How do you thrive in times of crisis and change? When other people are losing, failing, how do you succeed in the midst of crisis? I want you to write this down. This is the best thing to do to describe 2009. And I thought there's no more effective description of 2009 than the word change. It's the year of change, and that change has already begun for many of you in this room. You are entering 2009 very different from the way you left or entered 2008. Some of you are entering this new year without security, without work, without money, without confidence that you will make it because of some changes. This year is 2009, a year of change. Changes. It is an equalizer. What do I mean by that? Change is every human's experience. So whenever you're going through changes, which I know all of us are, sometimes you think you're the only one experiencing this, and I am here to tell you that it's not true. Change makes every human equal because we all are victims of change.

The word crisis has been a very common word thrown around, and I want to ease that a little bit. Write this down: All change is a crisis. All change is a crisis. Even a good change like getting married. The next morning you wake up, you wonder, what did I do? And that may seem like a wonderful experience on the wedding day, but the next day there's a change. There's someone in your bed. That's the crisis. You never slept with anyone that you are about to stay with for the rest of your life. That's a crisis. Standing on a scale, frightened. Some people, you used to weigh 198, whoosh, 215. That's a crisis in the house. See, all changes crisis. But write this down: Crisis is a result of change. So they are interrelated. Whenever there's a crisis, something changed, and whenever something changes, there's a crisis.

Here's a third point. Some crises are self-imposed. You eat and eat and tea and eat, and then you wonder, why can't my clothing fit? That's a self-imposed crisis. You sleep with someone that you are not married to and you contract a disease. That's a crisis, but it's self-imposed. Write this down: All external crisis is a result of changes over which you have no control. This is the kind of crisis we want to talk about because we're going into this new year, 2009, in a world where everything is changing and nobody can control it. The most intelligent among its leaders don't know what to do. None of the laws of economics are working. Now the laws of politics are working. It seems as if something has blown on the planet Earth and have shaken every institution that was so secure that no one knows exactly why things are not working. And therefore, that is a crisis. It's an external crisis.

The greatest result of crisis is change, and that's why we are still seeing people being impacted. Companies are falling apart, downsizing, right-sizing, some of them even collapsing completely. That affects people's earning power, which affects their children, and affects what they can buy. And this is the result of change. Now let me just say this. Write this very important point down: Mastering the change of crisis is determined by your ability to manage and benefit from change. That's the key. If you can master change or use it for your benefit, you will survive during this period of crisis. It will produce some of the most powerful millionaires in the world. It also produced some of the poorest people you've ever seen. You can decide which one you will be by your capacity to manage the changes in your environment.

I suggest to you then a reality check. We say that oil prices, we can't control them. Everybody's excited that gasoline has gone down a little bit, but we're not sure exactly what that means. That can go up in the morning. Matter of fact, oil went up yesterday. So nothing is stable. Then we get natural disasters that displace people. There are people in our islands in the sun who are still with our homes, and some in Turks and Caicos Islands with our loans, and some in Louisiana still trying to get their lives back together. There's a lot of change that people are still adjusting to, and they have to go through a new year with that experience. We also get stock markets falling apart. People not feeling comfortable in the stock market anymore, so they were holding their money, making it cash. And then you got instant loss of wealth. People who used to be wealthy are suddenly poor. That's a massive change. And then we've got major banks collapsing, and people are being insecure about leaving the money in banks, or the banks themselves don't want to lend because they're not sure of the security that they have. There's a lot of concerns here.

In that component, one Time magazine article, I thought of it simply said, "How this changes everything." As we describe the world, everything is changing. I would say to you then that the result of this turmoil in our environment is consumer confidence. We all know that means that people are not spending. The Americans have recorded that they had between five to eight percent less in their spending at Christmastime in America, which converts into billions of dollars of business that did not realize they are suspecting that by the end of January, some of the major stores in America will collapse. And the folks who used to work in those stores, who used to come here for vacation, may not be able to come back next year to be with us. And so our hotels may have a little stress. So they say that there's a business downturn where people are feeling they have to not get too much inventory anymore because they're not sure they can get rid of what they could. Even China is falling into a little recession now because they got an overstock of inventory, and the buyers ain't buying. And because the buyers of the buyers ain't buying, no one is safe. Of course, we got the layoffs and the unemployment. We got people thinking about themselves and trying to make sure that they are preserved. Self-preservation. We've got family under stress, which causes domestic problems, people beating each other because of the stress, and children running into difficulties. This is a world of change. And of course, people cut back on charitable giving. This is when the Red Cross complained this week that they don't have enough to feed the people or the club. People are coming to them. Major charities are having problems. Change is affecting everybody. And so we can't service the people that we would like to.

Why am I painting this picture? Please, here's the answer. There's nothing as permanent as change. Go take your neighbor that right now. Say it again until they understood what you just said. There's nothing as permanent as change. In other words, the only thing that is permanent in the world is change. In essence, change is constant. It doesn't start, and it never stops. It just keeps moving.

That leads to my point number three. Everything changes. That has been one of my most encouraging understandings in my life. Change is inevitable. When I settled this in my own life, my life became easier to live. Can I put it another way? Change is the principle of life. If something is alive, it will experience change. What I want to do in this session is to take the pressure off you about crisis and understand that crisis is life. Everything that you go through is a manifestation of some type of change, and it's a part of life.

This therefore leads me to another point. What's the purpose for change? In the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter three, there's a statement made by King Solomon, one of my favorite ones. He says, "To everything there is what? A season." And to every purpose, there's a time. In other words, to everything, there's only a season. How many things have a season? Everything. Everything. That means your length of hair only has a season. Your weight has a season. Your 26, 22, 36 shape got a season. What is good about this verse is it's supposed to take the pressure off you. To everything, there's a season, and to every purpose, this one time, there's a time for everything. It's a time to be working where you're working, but you see in your mind, this is a lifetime job. I gotta say no. You didn't read my words. I didn't tell you how long the season is at this place. He says, "And when the time comes to leave, they call it firing." God calls it moving on. It depends on how you understand life. I'll put it another way: Everything is seasonal. Tell your neighbor that right now, loud. Everything is seasonal. Say it again. Everything is seasonal. Please settle that right now. Settle it. If you're broke, thank God. That's a season. Someone said, "Well, you got nothing." Chalice, only your season. Give God a hammer. That was encouraging. You know, stop looking at life from just one side. As a matter of fact, here's some things that it's covered about seasons that were helpful for me. Number one, seasons are natural. Number two, seasons cannot be stopped. Number three, seasons cannot be resisted. Number four, seasons cannot be respecter of persons. Number five, seasons come without your permission. Number six, seasons bring change you cannot control. And number eight, number seven, rather, seasons are the only thing guaranteed. Now, that should help you relax a little bit about 2009. It cannot have anything for you you can't handle because everything only comes temporarily. I want you to sit up and hold your head up and face like, "Bitter smile." If you ain't got no guarantee about 2009 yet, this one I'm giving you: Whatever you're going through will change. That's the guarantee.

And so the good news is this: God promises changes. You know, here's one I thought was interesting. Genesis 8:22 says, "As long as the earth endures, God says, there will be seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease." Has the earth ceased? Good. Then some of you are in winter right now in your life, but then some of you are in summer. And when you are in summer, you look down on those who are in winter, forgetting that your winter is coming. There's a guarantee. So you got plenty now. It better be nice to those who got a little, because when your little time comes, you don't need them. We got plenty. This is why seasons keep us equal. There are people in this room who never thought they'd be doing what they're doing. It never crossed their mind that after going borrow from their friends or their mother. I heard a guy say to me last week, this guy's a multi-millionaire. I told the story the other day. This guy says, "Look, I lost 52 million dollars in 50 minutes on the stock market. I had to give up my multi-million dollar condominium and go back and move in with my mother." Some of you may have to do that. When you don't panic, that's only temporary. Just tell Mom, "We're gonna be here for a little while." Mama, start praying in tongues.

Daniel chapter 2, verse 20 says, "Praise be to the name of the Lord God forever and ever; wisdom and power are in his hands. He changes times and seasons and he sets up kings." Watch this, "and he puts them down." Some of you thought, "I am the manager." Yeah, but you defy it now and then. Folks who you never used to speak to, when you park in your private parking spot, all of a sudden, are you catching jitney? Tell your neighbor, "Thank God right now for whatever you got." Give clap your hands. Just give God thanks for what you got right now because nothing is permanent. Nothing is permanent. This is why I am grateful for the liver. When God gives me soursop, I thank God and I eat it. When God gives me flour pop, I imagine it's grits. I heard a comment yesterday, Barack Obama on vacation, lights went out. They said he had to learn how to walk around with a flashlight and light a candle again, and he's the President of the United States. Sometimes God has just cut the light off to remind you, you gotta find a match. Give God a hand for Hamo spinach. You gotta stay humble. No matter what happens in 2009, your attitude is, "Thank you for everything, Lord."

How do you overcome change? Here's a note to remember: Most barriers to success are man-made, and most often, you're the man that made them. What I mean by that is most of the mountains in our lives are actually not hills that we turn into mountains through our minds. Life is not as bad as you think it is, but it is as bad as you think it is. And I wanted just your thinking as we enter this new environment of 2009, that your life would be determined by how you interpret what's happening around you. I put it another way: In issues of change, the only security is courage. You can determine what's going to happen, but you can also control your response to it. "I will overcome this. I will make it through this. I will be courageous in this. I am gonna survive this." Your response is more important than what's happening. Courage. Tell your neighbor, "Take courage." When you haven't good times, it's good to be generous. Mmm, yeah, because the Bible says when it's your time to receive mercy, it is always given to the merciful. Being merciful, be open, be generous to people because your time will come when you will need to have courage in the face of your insecurities and your failure.

Here's some of our change. I voice: Everything will change. Write this down quick. This is just a reminder. Number one, your body will change. Some of you men, your chest used to be above your stomach, and you're wondering where did that drop to? Some of you wonderful ladies, your breasts were so high, now you need an assistance. Some wire is that right? That's what they call it. Boy, some of y'all are thanking God for weave and weave weave. Kona, my neither, you call an extension in the name of Jesus. Nothing. And your body is permanent. You used to have all your teeth. These young people talking about your old. Young people, stay right there. I can be alive in your eye drop. Oh, you remember when you couldn't see? Then your hands became too short, and then you did buy glasses. Put, put them in your pocket as if you don't need it. Your body will change. Write this down. Your relationships will change. 2009, we don't know what could happen to your relationships. This new year, you had a perfect marriage, everything was wonderful, children, white picket fence, walks in the evening, holding hands along the daffodils. Now he's with another woman, or you found out he got another child, and your whole life is upside down. We don't know what hits us. Sometimes life catches you on the broadside, hits you, you don't even know what's coming. And is it my God? Let's change. Number three, your friendships will change. There are some folks who you are with, you won't be with in the future. You've got to change some friendships. And sometimes it's gonna be difficult to change, but you grew up with them. You're going to outgrow some people in this new year. They won't want to go where you're going. They don't want to go as far as you go. And they're gonna have to change their relationship with you because changes happen. I dropped some people like a pickup. Some other people, you gotta learn to be used to changing friendships. And there's some friendships who were no longer good for you. You know who they are. Number four, your marriage will change. I know you'd think it will not, but I'm telling you, it will change. And you have to get used and they can expect and prepare for those changes. It doesn't mean that your marriage is wrong or bad, but people and situations will change. Your husband has a good job now. What's the Lord? But who knows if he needs a job in 2009? This wonderful year, cause I can affect the income, to affect your style of living and your standard of living. Can you adjust if there needs to be an adjustment for the first six or seven months or a year, maybe two years? Can you handle the change to go from our house back into an apartment? We don't know. Are you able to adjust to the marital change? This is the year of change. I'm telling you, I'm gonna prophesy it. It's already started. Everything's gonna be completely different in 2009, and you're gonna have to learn to manage change. Number five, your job will change. You can't control if you work somewhere whether you would be there forever. Your priorities will change. The things that are important to you now may not be the things important to you in the next two years. And so you will find that your priorities are just thinking based on the environments around you. You can change your priorities. Number seven, your values will change. Things that you value now may not be the things you value in the next 10 years or the next five years. The next year, you were trying to focus on building a second house, but now your job is gone. You got to now try and keep the one you're in. So your plans for building a second house also to be canceled. That means you don't value that house anymore because there's something more important. In other words, your values can change, and it can change your whole lifestyle. Number eight, your knowledge will change. This is a very important one. The more information you get, the different you see life and you see people. That's why it's important to grow in knowledge because your knowledge will actually change and they'll change you. Number nine, your interests will change. Always will. The things that you're interested in yesterday may change tomorrow. So be willing to accept those changes. And finally, number ten, your children will change. Hey boys, I mean, yeah boy, they will change on you. Better coochie while you can. I mean, Sammy, try and take it even more. Whether straight you bought sixteen won't stay out of any of it if you like. The children will change, and you gotta learn how to adjust. And sometimes we still want to treat them like they're three, but you have to understand that these changes happen, and we gotta handle them with skill.

So here's what I wrote down: How to protect yourself against change. This is very impractical. Number one, the greatest protection against change is to expect it. Sounds simple, very hard to do. What is the greatest protection against change? I can't hear you. Say it loud. Expect it. In other words, I know that you believe what you're going through right now is the way it is, but that's not the way it is. That's the way it is at the moment. Expect change. Number two, the greatest source of disappointment in life is the expectation of things to remain the same. That's why we get disappointed when we lose a job or when things don't work out in our relationships. Because our expectation was, "This will stay this way forever." It won't. And keep in mind that I'm not talking about just negative changing. There are positive changes, but they are changes. Someone got a job in another country. It happens to be your spouse, and they were offering fifteen times more than the person making now. And boy, you sure love your hometown. And the choice is a lot of money or broken stay home. Well, you know, you gotta adjust. Are you willing? Were you expecting to die where you were born? That might not be God's plan for your life. Abraham couldn't die where he was born. His future was thought about. He was born. Some of you come to this country and living here, and you wonder, "God, I used to be in the Philippines. I used to be in Haiti. I used to be in Africa. Why did you bring your God?" Listen, because your future wasn't where you were born. Expect, and you'll get disappointment. Point number three, the greatest protection against disappointment is the expectation of change. Expect anything to happen in 2009. However, the good news is, God won't allow anything that you cannot overcome. I am not afraid of life at all. Oh, I'm a daring, vain town boy because I understand change is a part of it of life itself, and I am more durable than change. Let me tell you about some, but change. Change will always change. So what you want to do in life is to become so stable that you outlast all the changes, and they keep passing you on the end. You win the race of changes. I put it another way, and I love this. James chapter 1 says, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you face many kinds of changes." What is the trial? There's a change. You were doing fine, and then the doctor says, "You get a lump in your breast." Well, you got a, you got prostate problems. And you go, "Well, now that announcement brought a change." You call it a trial, a test, but there's something that changed. And when it changed, James, James just look, "Come little joy." Why? You know something? What do you know? He says, "You know that you're that this trial comes to test your faith, to develop your perseverance, to make you what? Mature." Hey boy, say mature. Say it loud one more time. Whenever you see the word tribulations and trials, the word matures always in a sentence because maturity is tested by changes. When the unexpected happens, when adversity comes against you, that will test your maturity. So I have a little statement here I want you to remember. Please get this CD. It says, "A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him." Life will throw many bricks at you. Catch them and lay a foundation to move them higher on them. In other words, don't allow the things negative that are happening in your life to make you negative. Turn them into a positive and use them as a foundation for your next move. Critics are true stone throwers. Catch the stones and build steps because a great mature mind will always use adversity for advancement.

Hebrews 11:7 says, "Remember your leaders who spoke the Word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith." How Jesus Christ? It says, "It is the same yesterday, today, and forever." The only thing that is stable is Jesus Christ. Everything else is changing. This gives us confidence. How about God himself? The Bible says in James 1:16, "Do not be deceived, my dear brothers. Every good and perfect gift comes from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no change or even shifting like shadows." God is stable. I heard something today that really concerned me. The atheist is now. I knew this was coming, okay? But finally, it's finally an atheist said today that he is going to protest against the new president laying his hands on the Bible and saying, swearing on God, because that's against his belief and it's violating his conscience. So they want to take God out of the swearing of the President of the United States on the Bible. So what they're trying to do is to move the last solid thing that doesn't shift out of the foundation of the presidency. Presidents come and go, but God. There's no shifting. We got to build our nation's on God, not on people. Prime ministers die, presidents die, even atheists die. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Young people, put your faith in God. There's no confidence in anything else. Tell your neighbor, "This is the year to trust God." The Bible says in Isaiah 40:3, "Forget the former things; do not dwell on them in the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Do you not perceive it?" God says he doesn't change, but he keeps doing new things, which means that he doesn't change, but he changes changes. So the only way for you to remain stable is to stay in touch with God and hang on to God. So any change to change, you don't change with the change. You stay with the God who doesn't age. My faith in God is stable. I shall not be moved. David says, "Even though the hills fall upon me, I shall not be moved." He says, "Why? Because my trust is in the Lord." Bible calls the Lord a strong tower, a cleft in the rock, a pillar ground which is the truth that doesn't move. This is what we need to stand on. And therefore, the goal of life is to understand and interpret the change so it doesn't move you. You use it to advance yourself. 2009 would be a year of so many changes that some of you are gonna wonder, "Is God against me?" But he isn't. Please repeat after me: Not all changes are improvements. Write that down. Please. If you used to weigh 110, 90, 150, that's an improvement? No, it's a change. It's not an improvement. So we know that change will happen, but not all change is improvement. However, the problem is, without an improvement that can be put out a change, there can be no improvement. If you want to improve, you have to change something. So my point here is, you can let things happen, or you can decide what happens. You can determine whether you will change to improve your life, or you can allow things to happen that will destroy your life. I had a decision to make in South Street, Bay in town, and I made some decisions that changed my life. My life ran a different direction. And there are young men that I was brought up with in the same street, and their lives are completely opposite to my life right now. And the only difference was the changes that we made based on our decisions, and our decisions created our new futures, different futures altogether. And so we need to understand that changes come, but we can also decide what kind of change will come.

Change and crisis are part of life, but they also produce creativity and innovation. And I believe this is why 2009 should be the most creative year you and I have ever had. This would be the year that we see some of the greatest developments in our lives, in our countries, in our communities, because we are going to use the crisis to make us creative. My number one word this year would be innovation. That's my personal word. I am going to use every situation to maximize my creativity to make me think beyond my norm so that I can think in new ways.

Here's the scripture I thought was interesting in the book of Psalm 37. It says, "The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and he delights in his way. Though he failed, he shall not be utterly cast down, for the Lord upholds him with his hand. I have seen the young and I have seen the old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread." But look at the rich first part. He says, "The steps of what? A good man." I want ordered by the Lord. That means if you are walking in God's will, the best you can, whatever changes take place in 2009, he got you covered. Oh, hallelujah. Say with me, "The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord." That means if you lose your job, that didn't happen without God knowing it. And if you are faithful to God and obeying God's Word to the best of your ability, that so-called firing was actually an ordering. Oh, I'm trying to get to understand it. Compete here. See, in other words, God will order your steps sometimes through what they call a crisis. You think about today. The only way for Joseph to get to the throne of Egypt was through a crisis. His brothers threw him in a pit. The tour is closed off, dipped his coat in animal's blood and took it back to his father and says, "A wild animal ate your youngest son." Your son. And the father wept. And then they ran back to check on Joe, and he was still in the pit. But Joseph had already had a dream, and it was the dream that because we go into the pit, remember he saw himself sitting on a throne feeding his family. And Joe believed the dream more than the pit. I can imagine Joe's to Joe. Joe, sitting in that pit, thinking, "This is not what God showed me. So there's got to be temporary." Do you understand? Crisis are always temporary because God's plan for your life is never a crisis. Joseph was in the pit, not when I went to Egypt. My wife and I had a chance to go to Egypt, and we went to the Sinai Desert, and they showed us these areas with the pyramids and showed us, you know, where they had to travel from Israel all the way down to Egypt, the route they took. And they said in the desert, you know, they had these flash floods. A flash flood is when it rains in the mountain and the water runs down the mountain, and it would run through the desert, and it's like a flash flood in about two minutes. Water would show up in from nowhere, coming from the mountains, right through the desert. And they dug these big pits in the desert to catch the water because it didn't come all the time. Where they came, they would keep the water to kind of feed the, you know, the camel some water, and people can get water to drink in the desert. They started kept water. So the pits were all over the desert. However, the pit they threw Joseph in was right next to the highway that went from Israel to Egypt. It was the right pit. And it just so happens that a caravan was on that particular road the same day they put Joe in the pit, and the caravan came right along to pit. His brothers sold them to this caravan of people going to Egypt, and that was what they call slavery. They made him a slave. Well, in God's mind, that was a free ride to the prince position. In other words, some of us, we get put in a pit, but it's the right pit because your steps are awarded. If there wasn't a different pit, the caravan would never have gotten them, and he couldn't get to Egypt to become prince and become ruler. Tell your neighbors, "Stay in the pit. There's a caravan on the way." This year will be the best year for you, whether you know pit or the palace, because everyone is ordered by the Lord. If you trust in the Lord, the Scriptures teaches very clearly that nothing bad can happen to you if you are called by the name of the Lord and according to his purpose. So even when they sell you into slavery, it's actually advancement to your new position. This is how God works in changes. Crisis and change, therefore, produces true leadership. It actually manifests who you are as a leader. Crisis and change this year will cause you to become mature. Matter of fact, it will test whether you are mature because it will challenge your traditions. It'll make you wonder, "The things I used to trust in, I can't trust them anymore." One of the greatest ways to create new traditions is through change in crisis. I put it to you then that you have to release and maximize your potential through crisis in Jesus name.

I suggest to you then that we have four types of people in the room today. First of all, we get people who have changes happening to them. Then there's change that happens around us that's happening to us right now around the world. Then there's change that happens within us. Sometimes we can't control our heart problems, our kidney issues. We didn't plan on having a liver problem, a brain tumor. Things that are changing, we don't even know they're there. There must be growth in your body now that they haven't found yet. There's changes that happen on the inside of us. But then there's change that we can make happen, and that's the kind of change that we want to go into this new year with, 2009. Then there's people around us who have to respond to these changes. We get people who watch things happen. We get people who let things happen. And then their most behaviors will say, "What happened?" We are the people, 2009, who will be called the people who make things. That's God's will. That's going through. And I challenge each one of us here tonight to be among those who make things happen. There are people who will say, "I'm open to change as long as it doesn't affect me." Long as they don't cost me anything. But all change will cost. And for us to make it through 2009, we're gonna have to manage change. We're gonna have to deal with things we never thought was gonna happen to us. This country is gonna go through some tremendous stressful times. Remember this message. Play it seven times until you get it. No matter what happens to the Bahamas, we are stronger than what happens. This country can overcome any crisis. You telling you, y'all better go with me. No Bahamian is weak. We are strong people. When you check our history, we came through hell and high water, and we still standin' proud and strong. Right? Because God has given us a spirit of resilience that comes from his word. This country is stronger than any crisis. And so is our moment then to submit ourselves to his will. It doesn't matter what change takes place, we're gonna be successful.

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