Determination – Pt 3 | Enjoying Everyday Life | Joyce Meyer

Are you building walls or bridges? Discover how being determined to trust in God’s justice can build a bridge between you and God, rather than a wall, today on Enjoying Everyday Life with Joyce Meyer.

Joyce Meyer, one of the world’s leading practical Bible teachers and New York Times best-selling author, shares encouragement and advice to help us enjoy our daily lives.

With a heart to share Christ and love people, Joyce’s messages help people in all walks of life to grow in their faith, learn to study the Bible, find healing from the wounds of life, get answers to life’s questions and encounter the love of God in a powerful way.

hey thanks for watching Joyce’s YouTube channel we pray you find encouragement and exactly what you’re looking for here did you know that these videos that you watch for free are available with the help of our Joyce Meyer Ministries Partners as a result people are learning how to apply God’s word to their lives and come out of some really dark places if God’s using these teachings to bring you closer to him let me encourage you to join us and become a partner today join the team that is sending his word

around the world you can do big things together with us scan our QR code now and begin sharing the love and knowledge of Jesus Christ everywhere this program is made possible by the partners of Joyce Meyer Ministries most of our depth in God comes through the pain that we go through but it is a choice and you have to be determined when things happen that you don’t understand to not let it become a wall between you and God I’m Joyce smer I’ve seen God’s power transform my own life and he will do it

for you thank you for joining me today on Enjoying Everyday Life I believe you’re going to really enjoy the program today I want to talk about are you building walls or Bridges do you have questions about your life why was I abused why do I look the way I look why wasn’t I born into a family with more money or better social standing why why why why did my loved one die what about birth defects what about children with cancer do you know the wise of Life can build a wall between you and God if you’re not wise to Satan’s

deception God is good period into the conversation and there is no Injustice in God when I study the character of God or I teach on the character of God my favorite aspect of God’s character is that he is just and what that means is that he always makes wrong things right yeah in the world there’s a lot of Injustice life is not fair but God will always make things that are wrong right in your life if there’s always that if isn’t it if we trust him keep a good attitude we need to be people of Integrity you know a lot of people today

don’t even know what that word means you could go out and do what they call a man on the street interview and we’ve done that and it’s amazing aming how many people today don’t even know what that word means and integrity just means you’re honest you do what you say you’re going to do how hard is it to find people today that actually do what they say they’re going to do God is good there’s no Injustice in him he’s perfect but we do live in an imperfect world with imperfect people in a world where the sin

principle has been at work for gener generations and generations and generations Satan is at work for many tragedy becomes a bridge to God it’s kind of interesting it seems like unbelievers many times when they have a tragedy it will drive them to God but Believers it seems like many times when they have a tragedy it separates them from from God which is kind of an interesting thought you know I guess Believers think that everything should turn out good for them because they’re Believers but that’s not always the

case we go through things that are unfair things happen that we don’t understand but we need to be careful about what I call why God why now you can ask God all the question questions you want to but generally you’re not going to get the answer that you want and probably to tell you the truth a lot of times when we ask God why we’d really rather he not tell us because we might not like it if he did and this is my personal opinion I’m not saying that it’s wrong to ask God why but I think instead of hearing why

God he’d much rather hear I Trust You Lord I will say that again instead of hearing why God I think he’d much rather hear I trust you there’s a pastor that I know in El Paso Texas whose beautiful little wife died of cancer and of course him and all the church were praying for her and she died and he said the first thing he said to God was I’ll never ask you why and I don’t know about you but I to me that’s that’s proving that your faith is deeply rooted in God I mean when you really get

right down to it God does not have to explain himself to us he wants to hear I trust you I don’t understand it it hurts it seems unfair but I know you are good I know the devil’s bad but I trust you to take this and work it out for my good I I lean on that scripture so much because I believe that with all my heart I’ve seen that in my life the sexual abuse that I went through from my dad and my mom knowing it but not doing anything about it marri the first guy that came along when I was 18 that was five more years

of Injustice and him cheating on me and you know uncles that tried to abuse me a grandfather that tried to abuse me a boss that I worked for that tried to abuse me and you know I really got to the point where I thought I will never ever trust a man ever well I had to get over that what we do when we’ve been hurt many times is we feel like we’re owed something and really the truth is you are but we always try to collect from people that can’t pay us see for a long time I tried to collect from Dave for what my dad did to me you say

well what do you mean by that well I wanted him to make me feel good about myself I wanted him to give me security and and make all those feelings those bad feelings I had to go away but there’s a scripture in Matthew 18 where the man was trying to collect a debt and I love what the Bible says it says and he could not pay and you know how God is with the scriptures sometimes it just jumps off the page at you and comes alive and I was reading that one day and that he could not pay it was just like and I realized my dad couldn’t pay

me back for what he took away from me how could he give me back my innocence he all my childhood he couldn’t give that back to me Dave couldn’t give it back to me there’s only one person that could give it back to me and that was God and that’s why it’s foolish to try to collect from people even the people who hurt you that’s why it’s silly to say I’m going to think I’m going to get you back well no you really won’t you’ll just hurt yourself more and more and more and I know I harp on this thing

about forgiveness a lot but I don’t really intend to shut up because there are so many there’s so many angry Christians it is probably the single biggest problem that we have in the church Satan gains more ground in the life of Believers through unforgiveness than through any other thing and we say but it’s so hard well yes and no you know I mean Jesus forgave us on the cross he said father forgive them for they know not what they do you say yeah but that was Jesus well Stephen said the same thing and he wasn’t

Jesus he said father forgive them for they know not what they do you know my dad knew that what he was doing was wrong but I honestly don’t think that he understood how bad it was going to hurt me and he actually when he got around to apologizing to me which was not until he was 80 he told me that he said I had no idea that what I was doing to you would hurt you that bad there was no talk about sexual abuse and there were no television programs where people were sharing what people had done to them and he came from that

background himself and so what good was it going to do me to hate him a statement that God gave me that has helped me over the years is hurting people hurt people and if you can believe that when somebody hurts you that they hurt you because they’re hurting and that doesn’t excuse it that doesn’t excuse what my father did he was responsible he knew it was wrong but I do think a lot of times when people hurt us they don’t really realize how bad they’re hurting us or or how deep those wounds may go and so it’s useless to

spend your life or I should say waste your life trying to collect from somebody who really can’t pay you back you know how how could he give me my childhood back he couldn’t he couldn’t do that trust requires unanswered questions see if you’re going to trust God you you have to not know something not understand something but trust him anyway yeah so you’re always going to have some unanswered questions and my advice to you is stop trying to figure so many things out I was a person I say that was

addicted to reasoning well how can you be addicted to reasoning well when I was having a problem I could not settle down until I thought I had it figured out which was interesting because you can think you have something figured out and still not know what you’re doing we used to have these I don’t think they have them now maybe they do these little mail slots for each person that worked here and uh every once in a while I’d send somebody a message and they wouldn’t respond and I would say well

why didn’t you respond they’ say well I didn’t didn’t get it and I would find out that I put it in the wrong slot and that’s what God told me he said you think you’ve got so many things figured out but you got a lot of stuff in the wrong [Music] slot and Only God really knows and we need to trust him that if we need to know if you need to know he will tell you and someday you will know the Bible says that when we get to heaven we will know then even as we are known so you will know it’s some

point but it may not be when you want to know even now I look back at my life and there’s so many things that I understand now that I didn’t understand then and I heard the statement I love it we live life forward but we understand it backwards how many of you can look back at some of the things that happened in your life and maybe even something you thought was so terrible and now you realize it was the very thing that brought you closer to God yes most of our depth in God comes through the pain that we go

through but it is a choice and you have to be determined when things happen that you don’t understand to not let it become a wall between you and God but let it become a bridge that leads you to him and especially people that don’t have a personal relationship with Christ if you’ve had a tragedy in your life don’t don’t get into that well I don’t believe there’s a God if there was really a God then this wouldn’t have happened if God is good then this wouldn’t have happened God never promised us a

trouble-free life he just promised to always be with us that’s in everything and I don’t know where we ever got the idea that we should be the special group that never has any problems all through the Bible people had problems a couple of days ago we talked about Joseph look at all the unfair things that happened to him and yet he trusted God and God gave him favor and everywhere he went he was promoted yeah it’s the same thing with a life of Daniel if you you read about him I think he outlasted about five

Kings and he was thrown into the lion’s den and his friends were thrown into the fiery furnace and but they always trusted God and I love what it says about his friend Shadrach Meshach and abedo they said we will not bow down to you and if God can Deliver Us from this he will and he didn’t mean that he wasn’t able but if it was his will to deliver him he would and if not we’re still not bowing down to you right you see that’s the attitude we need to have even if I have to suffer to do the right

thing I’m not going to bow down to you remember when Jesus was being tempted in the wilderness the devil said if you’ll bow down to me just once just once but see the devil will tell you what just once never I mean that can’t hurt anything just once that just once lie boy you got to watch out for that he said if you will bow down to me just once I’ll give you all these kingdoms and their preeminence and their glory and I realized something recently by looking at that scripture you know the devil can bless

you so see we can’t we can’t always assume well this person must be doing what’s right because look at how blessed they are you know there’s all kinds of ungodly people in the world that are blessed a lot more than people that are Godly and that makes us mad we don’t understand that but I don’t care how much money you have or how many things you have you have nothing if you don’t have righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Ghost Romans 14:17 says the kingdom of God is not meat and drink

it’s not stuff it’s knowing who you are in Christ peace and joy those are the most valuable things to have so don’t bow down to the devil in any way shape or form because you think it’s going to get you something Shadrach Meshach and abedo went into the fiery furnace and they turned it up seven times hotter than it normally was but I love the end of the story don’t you like the end of the stories and when they came out it says they didn’t even smell like smoke I love that I went through a lot

in my life but I don’t even smell like smoke in other words who would think from looking at my life now the things that I went through but that’s what makes it even all the better that I went through all that stuff and God turned it all around for good and is using it to bless a lot of people Proverbs 20:24 man’s steps are ordered by the Lord how then can a man understand his way why do we even try to figure out our way you know when I was so addicted to reasoning I just could not settle down until I thought I had things figured

out and God had to work with me a long time to get me to give that up because all it does is torment you Exodus 13:17 says when Pharaoh let the people go God LED them not by way of the land of the Philistines although that was nearer for God said lest the people change their purpose when they see war and return to Egypt so he led them the long hard way because they really were not ready for the promised land yet now maybe you have a promise from God something that he’s told you that he’s going to do for you and don’t get

mad at me when I tell you this but maybe you’re just not ready for it yet in like that much did you see we always think we’re ready but when we are ready it will come to pass you just say God I trust your ways and I trust your timing my times are in the hands of the Lord but boy we don’t like that waiting stuff we want it now you know when we don’t like things about oursel by whose standard are we measuring ourself who says how tall is Too Tall or how short is too short or you know God has a plan for your life and he farmed

you in your mother’s womb carefully and intricately with his own hand those are some of the adjectives used in the Amplified Bible carefully and intricately you are not a mistake you’re not put together wrong God has a purpose for everything he does and the worst thing that you can do is not like yourself Isaiah 459 woe to him who strives with his maker a worthless piece of broken pottery among other pieces equally worthless and yet presuming to strive with his maker shall the clay say to him who fashioned it what do you think

you’re making or your work has no handles and Romans 9:20 and 21 says but who are you a mere man to criticize and contradict and answer back to God well what is Farm say to him that farmed it why have you made me this way has the Potter no right over the clay to make out of the same mass lump one vessel for beauty and distinction and honorable use and another for menial or IGN or dishonorable use I mean so so what if one person’s a CEO of the company and another’s a janitor why should we crab and complain

all we’re responsible for is to do the part that God gives us right and to do it with a good attitude and a thankful attitude because you know what and I think we don’t think about this enough the amount of time that we’re here is so short compared to eternity and we really need to be more eternity minded we really need to think more about that I’m going to live forever and ever and ever and ever and so really when you get right down to it why should we care so much what happens to us in these 70 or 80 or 90 or even if you live

to be a 100 which very few people do it’s nothing compared to Eternity and I always say we need to spend here getting ready for there not acting like here is all there is and you know nobody likes to hurt we don’t we don’t want to hurt we don’t want to have pain we don’t want to have losses in our life but is it really going to make us feel any better if we know why Romans 11:33 and 34 says oh the depth of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God how unfathomable inscrutable unsearchable are his

judgments his decisions and how untraceable mysterious undiscoverable are his ways his methods and his paths are past finding out we need to believe with all of our heart that God is a god of J Justice Jeremiah 9:24 says I am the Lord who practices loving kindness judgment and righteousness in the Earth for in these things I Delight says the Lord and in Zephaniah 3:5 it says the Lord in the midst of her is uncompromisingly righteous he will not do iniquity every morning he brings his Justice to light he fails not but the unjust person knows no shame

men fail but God never fails now blaming God for anything that you think is bad in your life is the absolute worst thing that you can do don’t ever blame God always say God I know you’re good I don’t know why this happened it hurts it feels unfair but you are good you know in talking to God about the abuse in my childhood he did give me a partial answer you know parents have authority over a child until they become of age and can make their own decisions so many times the things that happen to us in our life that are

painful they are the result of somebody else’s bad choice that you got in the way of and see we forget sometimes that free choice carries with it a lot of responsibility yes and so my parents made choices that not only hurt them but hurt me however and this is the big thing when I became of age and got away from their Authority I was free to start making my own choices and listen every good choice you make overrides one of the bad choices that somebody else made that hurt you can I say that again every good

choice that you make overrides one of the bad choices that either you made or somebody else made that hurt you so no more blaming god build Bridges not walls God is good and we don’t have to know why amen [Applause] so sometimes what we think will bring us happiness still doesn’t do it for us we try everything look out for number one but life still feels empty well you know we typically look at our circumstances and try to change them in order for me to be happy I know this because I thought this way for years I was always on my mind and