Dr. David Jeremiah: How Can I Have Peace in Hard Times? | Praise on TBN
Dr. David Jeremiah: How Can I Have Peace in Hard Times? | Praise on TBN
Dr. David Jeremiah sits down with Sheila Walsh on TBN’s Praise to discuss his new book, “Encouraging Words for a Discouraging World”, and share how we can have peace in hard times, trusting in God’s purpose for our lives.
On the air since 1973, TBN’s flagship ministry and talk show Praise is one of the most recognizable — and most watched — Christian programs in the world. Taped before a live audience and hosted by TBN’s own Matt and Laurie Crouch along with other popular personalities, Praise features the best in contemporary Christian music and worship, fresh and impacting ministry voices, engaging interviews from a wide variety of guests, and a fast-moving hour of relevant talk you won’t want to miss!
we look to the news we look to the political situation we get caught up in what everybody else’s we need to teach ourselves to understand those things to know about them to be aware of them but not look to those things for well-being my well-being is not who’s going to be president next year or um what inflation is going to look like in two months when it’s all said and done and you pillow your head at night thank you Lord for a great day and for my children and for my family and for your word and for the
church I get to be a part of and when you start in that gratitude train it takes you through the smoke in the darkness in a pretty pretty good way those moments in life where something you did not see coming comes out of the blue so I want you to take us to September the 3rd 2023 Labor Day I don’t know what plans you had but they were about to change tell me what happened well you know Sheila up until Labor Day I had been on this little course uh to get as healthy as I could actually I quit eating bread I quit eating sugar I lost wow maybe 20
lbs and I came into labor day thinking man I’m in the best shape I’ve ever been we had just come back from uh Europe Don and I had celebrated our 60th wedding anniversary amazing we took a cruise all around all around Italy and walked everywhere I felt great we came home and we were in Coronado in a condo go there for the weekend of Labor Day I went to get out of bed on Labor Day morning and my left side my right side was paralyzed I couldn’t move it was like I I first I thought I I had just slept wrong maybe
my leg had gone to sleep but I realized that I had no strength wow Don and I talked about what to do we got uh my older son David and his son Bradley to come and help me get up they took me to the scripts Hospital in La Hoya and I was there for a month my gosh I had apparently from what they’ve told me I had uh gotten a virus called transference myelitis which attacks the sheath around your your spinal cord and makes it impossible for signals to be sent and received by various parts of your body it was like overwhelming did
they give you any indication as to how you might have contracted something like that well Sheila you know because you traveled all over the world the first question they ask you is have you been out of the United States I always think that means all disease is somewhere else except for here and I had been out just two weeks before so the first thought was that maybe I had gotten this virus in Europe but more recently uh we read a paper that said some people have received have gotten this virus as the uh result of vaccine
wow so I don’t know what what caused it or where it came from and it is very kind of rare and it’s hard to find people who know much about it even the male clinic uh was kind of mystified by it so it is what it is take me to that those first few nights in the hospital because I mean we all know and love you as this incredible Bible teacher this vibrant Pastor who shares the word of God what was that like to suddenly find yourself in a vulnerable place just you used the right word very vulnerable very
weak very in many ways frightened wondering is this is this the end of my journey is this is this recoverable can you get back I kept asking can you come back from this and everybody basically said yes but it’s not an easy process and it’s it’s not a quick one and I’ve developed a little um metaphor that this disease has a very short onramp and a very long offramp wow so uh I’ve been working at it now for8 months I’m walking much better and doing much better but I still have a long way to go
when you actually got out of the hospital did you have to go to another hospital for Rehab yes I went to a rehab hospital uh and it was even more um I don’t know what to say it was a rehab hospital just kind of makes you realize this is I mean the exercises I had to do there some of the things I they seem Mickey Mouse to me I know they were important but um that was hard too yeah I think I remember and it was much something much different but our son had to have some rehab after a football injury and he said Mom it’s hard to keep
doing this I just want this to be over sure is that how you felt yeah the problem is in rehab you the return on investment is not very good yeah you you put all this effort in and and you to say okay tomorrow I’m going to be better and you may be but it’s hardly enough to witness you have to put in an awful lot of work to to achieve a little bit of result and it’s discouraging I I wonder as a man of Faith suddenly put in a different situation how did how did you deal with that you know I’m I’ll be honest with
you and I I’m I’m encouraged by this I never felt like I needed to answer question why I never thought God was after me in fact I’ve told people in all of this God has not been unfair not at all and I have to realize when I had cancer years ago people used to say things to me like this how did you get cancer aren’t you a pastor you know like if you’re a pastor you get a pass and and I would say I can tell you one reason why I got this because I’m human yeah humanity is not different for um
Believers and unbelievers I have a human body and it became susceptible to this virus and I got sick did you ever feel um like the Lord was distant you know not really um I think I was distant for a while you know I didn’t you know I tell people that sometimes you can be hurting so bad you can’t pray and they look at me like what you know that’s when you should pray and that’s when you normally do pray but I can tell you about two or three times in my life where things were so frustrating and
struggling for me I couldn’t pray I was getting ready to go have a biopsy on my spleen when I had cancer years ago and they told me it was going to be very painful and we went into the room for the surgery and Donna says you want to pray and I said honey I can’t pray and she prayed yeah it was the most incredible PR ever heard so that’s what happens in times like these you be you get surprised by what happens to you you you can’t say okay now this is you don’t know what’s going to happen but the one thing that
was in constant was I never felt far away from God I knew he was there with me and deserted me I think it’s amazing um Barry and I often talk about how much we love you and Donna 60 years married 60 years of journeying through good times and hard times and I wondered how hard this was for her cuz she must have been so worried about you and she still is uh we just had this discussion today about she doesn’t know what to feed me cuz I kind of lost my appetite a little bit I’m not eating that good and she’s really
worried about me that I should be eating better and I’m trying but um she she’s just such a wonderful person and you know she she’s had some times when I have taken care of her when she’s had surgery and all that I don’t think anything as challenging as this but she’s just such a wonderful servant-hearted lady and she just no matter what I need and sometimes I say honey I hate to ask you for this can you get don’t don’t apologize I’m here to serve you I love serving you that’s the
way she is I’m so blessed to have her in my life beautiful um how many weeks were you away from the pool pit because that’s your passion yeah I was a month and a half maybe yeah and I I know enough Guys across the country I I wondered why they even wanted me back cuz they had some of the greatest preachers across the country I’m sure they want it was really cool yeah but what was it like the first time that you were back in the pool pit you know because of what I do this is my life and you know sometimes I ask myself is there
a David Jeremiah apart from preaching I guess so but I don’t know him very well and U I wanted wanted to do that more than anything else and so I know the first time I came back what uh I had to come across the platform with a A Walker and um I was so excited about being back but so kind of intimidated embarrassed that I had to come back in weakness and um the guys at the church built me a little chair that made me look like I was standing up in the pulpit and my wife said said honey it’s like you’re having a fireside chat with
everybody you need to keep doing this I said well I hope I don’t have to keep doing this but don’t you think that was a beautiful gift that you gave to those who not only were there in the building but those who watched from around the world that you were willing to show that he is strong when we are not you know uh somebody told me once Sheila that when you’re strong as a pastor people listen to you but when you’re weak they watch you wow I remember when I had cancer the feeling that all eyes were on me
he talks about this life can he really live to this life and I felt the same thing that day I felt the eyes of the congregation on me but what was so cool I got a standing ovation it was like a I felt like a hero coming back from war yeah but I think that’s one of the things that people love about you that you are willing to be honest and vulnerable I think sometimes we feel as if we have to kind of be like God’s PR agents make it seem like we’ve got it all together but I’m sure that that day
spoke volumes to people actually I had a lady uh wrote me a note and said she has walked with a walker and she’s very upset about it she didn’t want to do it and told her family she wasn’t going to do it and then she said I I watched that day as you came across the platform in front of thousands of people on your Walker and I thought okay I got it that’s yeah it was an example to encourage her yeah that that’s that’s beautiful one of the things that I um it’s kind of almost ironic that what you
you’ve written this great new little book this called encouraging words for a discouraging world and I wondered do you ever like in tough Seasons find the very things you’ve written yourself come back to minister to you you know what uh even worse than that I’ve been watching myself preach and one day I got so blessed I called down and I said I don’t know when I preached this or what was going on but God really used this in my life is that great so I guess you know the Bible says David encouraged himself
in the Lord so maybe that’s what we do now were you aware uh I know that whenever Barry and I heard you know we have been praying for you every single day were you aware of the thousands probably Millions around the world who were praying for you so many people communicated that to me I knew for a fact that um my congregation was praying you know we’ve gone through some birthdays and holidays since then and every message I got was we’re praying for you Pastor and I knew that and Sheila do you think you can feel prayers
oh yes I do I do too and I felt their prayers yeah yeah it’s like a it’s like an undering yes and I think and I also love when you talked about those moments where you feel you those rare moments when you can’t pray that’s when I go back to the Romans 8:26 and 27 right that in those moments that the Holy Spirit himself intercedes with groanings in according with the will of God I know that’s true yeah I know that’s true powerful so in this book you’ve got um 10 biblical promises um and every single
one of them as I read through I thought this is a word for today okay this is the perfect timing for this one of the things you talk about is fear and I think a lot of people a lot of our audience um are dealing with fear fear of what they’re dealing with or fear for the future what do you have to say to those who feel they’re gripped by fear first of all um it’s not sinful to be afraid it’s sinful to live in fear but if it were sinful to be afraid there wouldn’t be 360 fear knots in the Bible
that’s true you know when when the Bible was constructed and the information was laid out when the Holy Spirit you know con conveyed this to us obviously God wanted us to get that message that we live in a fearful world but we don’t have to be afraid yeah if you’re just joining us I’m here in San Diego California um Turning Point Ministries with Dr David Jeremiah who has been through um a war and continued to fight that war so if you find yourself in a place like that right now I just want you to know you are not alone God is
with you and and I think that’s one of the things that we are very grateful literally I don’t go anywhere in the country where people don’t say I just love watching with Dr Jeremiah I love I mean even flying here people at the airport how’s Dr Jeremiah doing you know how he’s doing that I think your strength but also your vulnerability has brought real comfort and hope to people what would you say to people who feel our world is chaotic and we find oursel in an election year again and it’s going
to get worse how do we stay rooted in the Lord when everything around us is just nuts well I tell you one thing n and I have done we’ve turned the TV off a lot you know we we as you can well imagine we watch um positive news if as much as we can we watch uh people that tell you the truth about what’s going on but the truth about what’s going on is is pretty sad um and I think we need to monitor what we take in to our minds the the Bible says we need to renew our minds through the word of God I always think about um one time I got a
a preparation for a stem cell transplant and they took my own blood out of one arm and then um they put it through a machine and put it back in my other arm they were harvesting uh the right cells for this particular thing and I think that’s what the Bible teaches us that we take in the word of God and by taking in the word of God we flesh out some of this negative stuff so the first thing I would say is limit the amount of negative input but make sure you maximize the The Power of Positive input from the word of God
in every way possible absolutely you talk about in fact you quote in the book from I think you quote from a friend of yours who talks about disruptive moments things you didn’t see coming that kind of intersect with your life and change it we read a lot about peace in the Bible Christ promised his peace and when I told people I was coming here I would have a chance to talk to you one of the main questions was would you ask Dr Jeremiah how do we access the Peace of Christ when nothing around us seems peaceful well that’s a a
very important question Sheila very very insightful on the part of your friend um you know when you’re in the hospital as I I was there for a month uh at night it gets very lonely and uh but I found that if I would read spiritual material and as much as possible on my phone listen to things watch things that was encourage me I’ll be honest with you during that whole time I never had a hard time sleeping I didn’t lay awake at night I slept that’s great woke up and um the the piece of God passes
understanding that’s why it’s hard to explain that’s true you know it’s hard to explain that something just comes over you and that you realize it’s something that similar to happens to me sometimes when I’m preaching I’ve told uh Donna and some of my close friends that sometimes I’m preaching I get this feeling that I’m standing alongside the pulpit and somebody else is preaching wow and I realized that’s not me it’s the spirit of God speaking through me in such a profound way that I almost feel
like I’m not there wow and uh I don’t I’m not a supernaturalist in that respect I’m I have a mysterious spirit I just know that’s true that’s what’s happened to me and the Bible does say when we are weak then he is strong and sometimes I’ve come to the pulpit not just during this time of sickness when I have been so tired so weak and said as I was sitting in the Pew down uh where I sit before I go to preach and saying Lord if you don’t come through un strong I can’t do this please help me and he
always has one of the things I wondered because Barry and I always tune in online on Saturday evenings and watch your service but I remember saying to Barry one night you know Dr J is going to preach tonight but he’s going to preach two times tomorrow yeah how hard has that been by the time you get to that third time preaching well you put it in the context it’s three major addresses in a 24-hour period exactly I don’t know who came up with that schedule but I think it was me um when you’re 40 that sounds pretty
good that’s true but you know what um here’s how the rhythm of that works for me Saturday night is a is a oneandone thing you know you come to that you do it then you have the evening to rest up and the first service in in the morning is the hardest of the three really I don’t know if that’s because your bi rhythms aren’t up yet or whatever you would think that the last service would be the hardest because you’d be the tiredest but we uh we made a strategy change at our church a year ago where we
we built into our structure this incredible kids program in the second hour and what has happened is we’re getting all of these young couples in the second so the second hour on Sunday now is the largest service we have wow it’s packed wow and when you walk into that service and you’ve already practiced twice you you’re ready to go and so that’s how that works one of the things I’ve noticed about you over the years is and it happens with your school you have such a passion for the younger
Generations who are coming up and perhaps that’s because of your own you have a beautiful family um your children and your grandchildren but you seem to have constantly poured back into the younger generation you know it’s an interesting thing that seems like such an obvious thing to do because statistics prove that most people come to Christ before they’re 18 yeah now just take that thought and translate it into a Church’s budget where do we put all of our money do we put it in children’s do we put it in Youth Work do
we I have two really incredible young men who one is in charge of our kids and one’s in charge of our young people they’re just knocking the ball out of the park and what I tell them is don’t you ever come back and tell me you wanted to do something but you couldn’t do it because you didn’t have the funds if it’s a worthwhile strategy you tell me what it is and I will find the money and I tell our people when we give we need to make sure that we always are funding that department and the other
part of that is as you get older as a pastor you don’t want to lose the younger families true and the way you keep the younger families is you minister to their kids they will come where their kids want to come and that’s what we do that’s exactly right cuz when our son Christian was young that was our main priority where is there a church that’s going to really pour into his life I can listen to tapes later but I want my son to be um so that’s a brilliant strategy the we’re talking to
Dr to David Jeremiah here in beautiful sunny San Diego at Turning Point Ministries he has a fabulous new book it’s called encouraging words for a discouraging World 10 biblical promises to bring comfort in chaos one of the chapters you talk about uh and I remember this so well 2018 those young boys in a soccer team and their coach were trapped in a cave in Thailand I remember being glued to my televis is praying for for those boys it seemed impossible and yet we all watched as the these amazing divers came up with a
strategy to bring these and not one single child was lost but you relate that to the fact that God is our refuge that there is no cave too dark for him that’s something that you must have experienced yourself when it seemed like the lights had gone out well you know on two occasions in my life I’ve kind of come close to the ultimate vulnerability and uh one of the good things about it is this is the second one and I already know that I went through the first one you know the Bible doesn’t uh make any um bones about the
fact that God does not waste our difficulties he uses them and the Bible actually says Sheila that if you haven’t had any of those you are incomplete w you you are not complete um I remember years ago someone told me that if you’re going to be useful to God as a pastor you have to be crushed first and I didn’t know what that meant I didn’t know why that would be said and I don’t know if it’s totally true but you know if you’re going to communicate to people and and most of the time talking to them
about their challenges you better have had some yourself cuz they won’t listen to you if you don’t have some yourself no that’s absolutely true and I think it’s just this beautiful truth that God is a redeemer that he and even even the fact that Christ himself kept the scars um and there’s something beautiful about that that that we don’t talk from our weakness when it’s open wounds but when they’re scars that we have so much to share with other people and and I’m sure the fact that you have been willing to
talk about this and to talk about the hard things that you have been through I think it makes the rest of us feel less Al alone you know one of the great things about what you just said and this is not known apparently by a lot of people is that Jesus Christ is going to be in heaven throughout eternity in his humanity and his scars will be visible and we will see them and we will always be a reminded of the price he paid for our Redemption but his scars are visible today too no one has suffered as he suffered and the Bible actually says
that when we’re allowed to suffer it is a fellowship with Jesus that is as close as anything can be I don’t have that all figured out yet but I know that um as I’ve said before God is Not unfair here’s something I I I hope this isn’t taken the wrong way but I love this I read this in a book by Spurgeon during this time I’ve been sick and here’s what he said God never places heavy burdens on weak shoulders wow and I remember kind of sitting up straight you know if I’m to be positive about
something let’s be positive about this he’s trusted me with this I don’t know where it’s all going I I know that my responsibility is to be a good Steward of my life and wake up every day and try to do better which I’ve always done and uh whatever that means and wherever that leads that’s my journey right now but I have to tell you I I have learned more about Christ in the hardest moments of my life I mean the Glorious moments are lovely and we all enjoy them but in those dark moments you discover that
everything you thought was true you discover it is true that the Lord is your Shepherd that he will walk you through the darkest night and you’re not alone I you talk in your book um on the chapter on might about strengthening ourselves in the Lord and I’m thinking about people watching at home thinking how do I how do I do that how do I prepare myself now for something that might come up because when you’re in the middle of a crisis it’s a bit too late then to look for a verse in the Bible and the bottom line is that’s a message
for every single person because nobody gets from the Cradle to the Grave without some bumps so true you go through issues and sorrows and surprises and um the the thing that you have to do is live your life not in fear of those things but in an awareness of them and and uh in the same way that you do in other parts of your life the way you Drive the things that you do the the the the the the protections you put around yourself and if you just maintain your walk with the Lord and stay strong in him that strength carries you through
whatever you may think it’s dormant for a while maybe you don’t feel like you need it but when you need it it’ll be there but what you said is so vital don’t try to find it in the midst of your discouragement because it’s very difficult if you have to start there it becomes really difficult is it sinful to worry you know I don’t want to paint that broad brush on so many people I know who are worriors but let me just tell you what I know I don’t think it’s wrong to have a concern about something
but I think it’s wrong to live in a constant worrying um situation the Bible tells us that we don’t need to worry because God is in control if we believe God is in control why are we worrying someone told me uh not long ago that many Christians live on the cross between two thieves one thief on the one side’s robbing them of Peace because of what’s happened in the past and the thief on the other side’s robbing them of Peace of what they fear is going to happen to them in the future future yeah and God
tells us where to live every day in the moment knowing that he’s sufficient for this day I am learning so much about that right now that I knew but didn’t you know I really understand that if I’m going to be able to do what I’m doing and focused I have to be a one at a time day person I can’t be too far in the future but I can’t be a whatif if I’m a whatif person then I lose all of my strength and all of all of my ability yeah one of the things you mentioned in the book that I did not know I know that
I’ve seen this when I download books to Kindle it will show you um passages that have been underlined by people they’ve highlighted a certain passage and quote some statistics in here that the number one highlighted verse and I don’t know if it’s just currently but it’s that verse from Philippians be anxious for nothing right um what does that tell you about where people are living well I don’t have to be the spokesman for that because you can hear it every day um the people that are going to drugs and
alcohol to deal with their anxiety isn’t isn’t exploding yeah um professionals who deal with this say they can’t keep up with the schedule um unfortunately our churches are filled with people who are overcome with anxiety I think that’s what’s so important you know uh I read that when Spurgeon was at the Zenith of his ability as a preacher he never lost sight of the fact that he preached every week to trouble to people and when you hear his sermons and you read them and I haven’t read all of them because there’s
