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Pardon the Interruption: Annoyance or Opportunity? w/Lisa Harper | Joyce Meyer’s Talk It Out | E 129

When someone interrupts you, what do you do first? Get frustrated? Slow down? Wish you were invisible? Join Joyce, Ginger, Erin, and our sweet friend Lisa Harper for an eye opening-episode that will help you find and make the most of the divine opportunity in every interruption.

How do you normally respond to life’s interruptions? Take a minute to ask God which interruptions tend to be the hardest for you to handle. What’s He saying? Write out a short prayer asking Him to show you how to best love others the next time you’re interrupted.

Speaker 1: And then he said, how interruptible are you? And I’m a planner.
Speaker 1: I’m a I’m a get it done and and some of his personality and some of his gifting and some of it has been sinned because when I was growing up, my I I kinda balanced my worth and my work.
Speaker 1: I thought if I’m not productive, god has already lowered the bar to let me into the kingdom.
Speaker 1: And so I’ve gotta just keep my head down and be a good girl.
Speaker 1: Um, I could I could talk about grace, but I just I really didn’t think god liked me very much.
Speaker 1: But when this professor said that I thought, oh my goodness. Here I am in my late fifties.
Speaker 1: By the grace, we’ve gotta get to talk about Jesus for living.
Speaker 1: I I think I’m learning too fast, but I think I’m just racing right past miracles. Hi,
Speaker 2: friends come on in. It is time to talk it out.
Speaker 2: And you are going to not like this when we start, but at the end, you are going to love because we’re talking about being interrupted, which nobody loves the idea of, but there are great things that can happen from being interrupted Joyce is gonna tell us about it.
Speaker 2: Erin Clooley’s gonna tell us about it. And special guest, do we love having Lisa?
Speaker 1: Thank you. Much for letting me come back.
Speaker 2: We love having you.
Speaker 1: I love I’ll just keep blowing up your phone till you’re like, alright. Done.
Speaker 2: That’ll be an interrupt a very, very in opportune time, so I’m sure.
Speaker 2: So let let’s talk a little bit about what things bother you about being in because the idea of being interrupted does not sound so great.
Speaker 3: I am better if god interrupts me than I am if people do.
Speaker 3: I’m I don’t know why, but I guess, you know, I’ve just settled in my heart that god is gonna interrupt us.
Speaker 3: You know, the Bible tells us that we are to be ready in season Right. Our out of season Right.
Speaker 3: Amplified says whether it’s convenient or inconvenient.
Speaker 3: And so if you’re gonna hang with god and walk in his will, you’re gonna have to it’s good to have a plan.
Speaker 3: I really believe in having a plan, but we have to submit that plan to god every day.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: And say if you want me to do something else Right. I will. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And don’t even mind people interrupting me if it’s not for something silly and ridiculous.
Speaker 3: They don’t like. Uh-oh. Well, I have the list.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, I hope she doesn’t say something.
Speaker 2: I’m done. No.
Speaker 4: Let us know what those things are.
Speaker 3: None none of you have ever done that.
Speaker 3: But, uh, I’m doing a lot of serious stuff, at least as serious to me.
Speaker 3: You know, when I like, for example, if I’m writing a book
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: You know, you you you really you get into it. You get, like, lost in it.
Speaker 3: And so sometimes Dave will come and say, Let me read you this. And I’m like, Dave.
Speaker 3: I’m writing. Because if somebody pulls you out of that now,
Speaker 1: then
Speaker 3: it takes you a while to get back to that place where you were at.
Speaker 1: Kinda slow. I do think
Speaker 3: that people need to be respectful of other people’s time.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I need to be respectful of what people are doing, and they need to be respectful of what I’m doing.
Speaker 3: But if somebody interrupts me, was something that’s really important, then that’s a different story. Yeah.
Speaker 4: You’re really good at being interrupted because I watch you. I’m watching you all the time.
Speaker 4: And so I sit by you. Our offices are near each other, but you are constantly being interrupted.
Speaker 4: Thank you. It’s scary. Yeah. And and peep because people need so much from you.
Speaker 4: And so I I watch you handle people trying to take your time in in the kindest way, but you have to quickly be kind to them.
Speaker 4: And it’s just that’s hard. You do a really good job with it.
Speaker 4: And I watch and think, I don’t know that I would be so graceful
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you. That’s nice.
Speaker 4: Coming in all the time.
Speaker 2: It’s not always what’s happening on the inside. Yeah. I used to say
Speaker 3: when I had don’t have to do this now because we’ve got a lot of other people, but when I used to run the office and everything, when I would come in here, I would have so many people wanting a little piece of me.
Speaker 3: Right. I always said by the end of the day, I felt like a bone that had been picked completely clean.
Speaker 3: You know? To give you. Well There’s nothing left to give you.
Speaker 3: And, uh, uh, but we have to develop patience.
Speaker 3: But, you know, Jesus We people always talk about studying the steps of Jesus. Mhmm.
Speaker 3: And I think we need to study the stops of Jesus.
Speaker 2: Oh, that’s
Speaker 1: crazy because
Speaker 3: he yeah. He always let people stop him.
Speaker 3: I don’t I don’t know of a time when he said, don’t bother me.
Speaker 1: That’s right.
Speaker 3: He always took time Absolutely. For people, and I think we need to remember that in our time.
Speaker 3: My daughter told me a story about something she did that I think just makes a good example.
Speaker 3: She was leaving the grocery store and an elderly man was waiting at the curb to cross, and there was a lot of traffic, so they both had to wait a while.
Speaker 3: And he started talking to her, and she really was kind of in a hurry and wanted to get home, but she said, I kinda sensed in my heart that he really needed that he was a lonely man, and he needed somebody just to take time to listen to him for a while.
Speaker 3: And so she said, I felt like god wanted me to do that.
Speaker 3: And see, these are ways that we can serve god
Speaker 1: Yeah. Right.
Speaker 3: That maybe are not big. Everybody’s clapping for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But heaven is clapping for it because that’s what god want.
Speaker 3: He wants us to pay attention to the little things that people need that we’re maybe not gonna get credit for here, but that are important to him.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, the the wonderful things that come come from interruption only come if we allow our heart to let it.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: You know, otherwise, we’re we’re pushing people away.
Speaker 2: We’re even pushing god away and saying, you know, I don’t have time for that right
Speaker 3: now.
Speaker 2: And we we are a culture that kinda has a do not disturb sign on us quite And so Joyce is gonna tell us a little bit more about the danger of that do not disturb sign.
Speaker 2: So let’s listen to that. And then we’ll talk about being interrupted by god and by people and the good things that can come of it.
Speaker 3: I wanna share with you a message that I that is it’s been one that’s been very important to me and something that has really helped me in my life, and I hope that it will help you It has a funny little title.
Speaker 3: It’s called don’t disturb me. You might be thinking, well, what in the world is that about?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I think a large majority of people in the world today, that’s just their attitude.
Speaker 3: I’m busy. I’m going somewhere. I’ve got my plan. I’ve got my thing.
Speaker 3: I’ve got my day figured out. And so if you got a problem, don’t bother me with it.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, Jesus wasn’t like that.
Speaker 3: Now we stay in a lot of hotels, and in hotels, they always leave us one of these to put on her door.
Speaker 3: But today, people are wearing them on their bodies.
Speaker 3: I’ll just wear this around for a little bit just so you get the picture.
Speaker 3: We have such a huge opportunity in front of us today, but we’re gonna have to get more like Jesus and a lot less like a carnal selfish, self centered Christian who just goes to church and thinks that’s all there is to it.
Speaker 3: You know, just because you go to church, that doesn’t make you a Christian.
Speaker 3: I could go home and sit in my garage all night, and it wouldn’t make me a car.
Speaker 3: Jesus said, I want you to go and bear fruit.
Speaker 3: So maybe I just like to ask you tonight to think a little bit this next week about what kind of fruit are you bearing in your life?
Speaker 3: Are you coming here and just being fed and you love that?
Speaker 3: You love for somebody else to do all the work and dig out all the messages and just feed you all the good stuff, but What are you doing with it?
Speaker 3: I hope a lot. I’m not accusing anybody.
Speaker 3: I hope that every message you hear you hear it with the intent that you’re going to do something with it.
Speaker 3: Now We’re gonna use the parable of the good Samaritan tonight, and I want you to listen to it like maybe you’ve never heard it before.
Speaker 3: There was a pharisee and he said to Jesus, what must I do to inherit eternal life?
Speaker 3: And he said, you shall love the lord your god with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and all your strength, and you shall love your neighbor, even as you love yourself.
Speaker 3: I say those 2 scriptures out loud every morning because that’s what god has called us to do, is to love him and to love people.
Speaker 3: Amen?
Speaker 2: You know, one of the things that we find is that it’s easy to love people when we’re prepared for it.
Speaker 2: Right. When we’re in the mood for it, when we have the time for it, whatever it may be.
Speaker 2: But, god, really does love to kinda jump in our path Mhmm.
Speaker 3: To
Speaker 2: interrupt us with the things that he wants or to interrupt us with another person with a way that that god wants us to help them.
Speaker 2: And those are the hardest times sometimes. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, I think sometimes we think that what we’re doing is so important. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 3: But, you know, part of it when god interrupts us may just be a test, but I think a lot of times too is just we just we want everything to be convenient for us.
Speaker 3: You know, I’m I don’t mind doing that if if I get to plan for it, but don’t don’t bug me with it right now.
Speaker 3: I’ve got a definition here for convenient, suited to personal comfort and ease, suited to your own personal situation.
Speaker 3: And I think we can pretty much say today that in our Western lifestyle, we’re pretty much addicted to comfort.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. And ease. We don’t wait We don’t mind doing it, but I don’t want it to be hard.
Speaker 3: I don’t want it to be uncomfortable.
Speaker 3: I want it to be on my timetable, and we do have to be ready.
Speaker 3: To be interrupted if we’re gonna serve god.
Speaker 3: When you think about the disciples that do you well, before they were disciples that were fishermen, and it’s interesting to me that when Jesus said, follow me.
Speaker 3: They were all doing something.
Speaker 1: That’s right.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Every one of them was busy doing something, and they dropped everything
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And followed him. Mhmm. And so I think there’s a deeper message there Right.
Speaker 3: That we need to get for our lives, you know, is is Jesus saying to some of the people that are watching today or listening today, follow me, but you’re too busy following your own plan
Speaker 1: to
Speaker 3: really hear what god’s saying.
Speaker 2: And
Speaker 3: let me just add before I be quiet with somebody else talk is that you may think that the path you’re taking is gonna lead you to happiness but there’s no path that’s better to follow than the one that god wants to take you down.
Speaker 3: Amen.
Speaker 1: That’s really. Amen.
Speaker 4: I was just reading Luke 1 the other day. And then I was talking to some people about it yesterday.
Speaker 4: And that the story of Mary, and Angel Gabriel comes to Mary.
Speaker 4: And he says you’re going to have a baby.
Speaker 4: So first of all, woah, that’s that’s kind of big.
Speaker 4: And then he’s going to be the savior of the world.
Speaker 4: And so I’m reading this passage and she asks one question. She’s like, how is that possible?
Speaker 4: Which feels like a fair question to ask because she’s engaged.
Speaker 1: She’s about 14.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah. And she’s engaged to be married, not not yet married. And she’s pure.
Speaker 4: And so that feels fair, but that’s the only thing she says. And then she says, okay.
Speaker 4: Uh, she accepts that and she’s ready to go. And I thought I don’t know that I would no.
Speaker 4: I don’t know it. I know that I would not have responded.
Speaker 3: Maybe if an angel appeared be you.
Speaker 1: This is true. Okay. Fair enough.
Speaker 3: That’s what
Speaker 2: they have.
Speaker 3: That brings it in. That does. That might have put a little in and fear of god.
Speaker 2: Uh, right. Okay. Yeah. Oh, sure.
Speaker 1: The glowing guy with wings tells me I might Yeah. Might be persuaded.
Speaker 4: That’s a good point. Then she goes to Elizabeth, and she is, like, she’s just all in on this.
Speaker 4: And god has totally changed the plans he had for her because Before the angel came, she was engaged.
Speaker 4: She was gonna have this life that she has planned ahead of her.
Speaker 4: And now it the whole thing spins and she’s in in to go.
Speaker 4: And I thought, I wanna be like that. I wanna be there in a reputable.
Speaker 3: When you think about it, all the heroes, the big people we read about Abraham, Joseph, Esther Ruth
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: They saw. I mean, they all had other plans.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 3: For their life. Yeah. I mean, god comes to Abraham and says, walk away from everything that you know.
Speaker 3: And go to a place that I will show you
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: After you go. Right. Well, most of us would say show me, and if I like it, I’ll go.
Speaker 2: That’s exactly right.
Speaker 3: And, uh, but he What a test of faith.
Speaker 3: You you go, leave everything, and why did Abraham have to leave everything?
Speaker 3: Because his family were idol worshipers.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: And god had to get him away from that influence.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Right.
Speaker 3: And sometimes, you know, god might be asking you to leave a group of friends you have or or or leave a job you have.
Speaker 3: And it’s we we don’t wanna leave the places where we’re comfortable, but Right.
Speaker 3: Sometimes you gotta leave to get to the place where I really want you to be.
Speaker 1: I I think goes back to I love that you started with that definition of of comfort and convenience because in my own tiny little world, it been in the places where he has rocked me out of a comfort zone that I’m actually most alert because I’m kinda thrown.
Speaker 1: I don’t have my bearings and I need his voice.
Speaker 1: I can’t I can’t step without breaking my ankle if he doesn’t tell me where to step.
Speaker 1: So I think some of it is his kindness going I know if you stay in that place where you figured it out, you’re going to be less likely to turn to me for direction.
Speaker 1: And so I’m gonna basically mess things up.
Speaker 1: So you can’t walk out your plan because if you walk out your plan, you’re not gonna walk out. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I must be one of those people god really has to jump in front of us.
Speaker 1: He does that a lot to
Speaker 2: me. Yeah. It’s like, I I just must be one of those that he knows.
Speaker 2: I’m I’m gonna have to make it big and obvious for this one because she’s she’s not real quick and big take up sometimes.
Speaker 2: Well, I can say men
Speaker 3: to that, we had to offer a job here four times before she finally accept
Speaker 2: That is a great example. It’s just almost all the major things in my life.
Speaker 2: I had a different thing going on.
Speaker 2: Tim and I were not gonna have children because, you know, I just knew that that’s not what god had for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And that that just changed, like, one day when when god basically, I thought I was pregnant and found out I wasn’t and just had such disappointment that shocked me.
Speaker 2: And it was god saying you you see if you open your heart to some of the things you think you don’t want,
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: And and the same thing with with getting married. I I didn’t think I’d want to get married. And were
Speaker 1: you gonna be an Amy Carmichael?
Speaker 3: Oh, you you were gonna be one
Speaker 2: I I really had other ways that I thought god wanted me to do what he wanted.
Speaker 2: You know, I would take care of children in other ways. So you’re right.
Speaker 2: It was always following god, but it was following god my way.
Speaker 1: For sure.
Speaker 2: And not god’s way.
Speaker 1: The way it’d been modeled to you. I had that. I have to get it.
Speaker 1: Especially as a woman, you were are such a trailblazer, but I thought I’m a conservative stream of the church.
Speaker 1: The only way I can work for god is to be a missionary in Africa.
Speaker 1: I I didn’t know there was another way.
Speaker 2: God has to jump in front of a lot of us to just kinda stop us in our tracks and show us that my my plan for you is different, but it’s good and it’s so much and better.
Speaker 1: Better than anything you could do.
Speaker 2: Yes. So much better.
Speaker 3: Well, instead of planning and then praying that god will make our plan work. Yeah.
Speaker 3: We need to pray first and find out what god’s plan is. Wrong the other way. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, we offered Ginger a job. She said, no. 2nd time we offered her a job, she said, no.
Speaker 3: Third time, she said, no.
Speaker 3: And then you said, well And the 4th time, the 4th time, she’s her and her husband said, well, maybe we pray about this.
Speaker 2: It did. It took us that long.
Speaker 3: And that was 20 years ago. Of course.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And when we did we we kind of told god, how about 3 to 5 years? Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I don’t know that you
Speaker 4: told him your timetable. Like, he listened so well.
Speaker 3: Yeah. You know,
Speaker 2: it’s, like, obedience in moderation. Yeah. Yeah. That’s good.
Speaker 3: It’s awesome. Obedience in moderation.
Speaker 2: You know, that’s fine. The goodness of god. Yeah.
Speaker 2: When you find out the goodness of god and what he has for you and how it’s so much better than you ever knew
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Than it it changes your plan and it changes who you are.
Speaker 2: And At least I know this has been something that’s kind of been on your mind as well as about being interrupted by other people to be there for what they need.
Speaker 1: 100%. I was sitting in a class a couple of years ago and was just lambasted because our professor said Jesus ministry took place at 3 miles an hour.
Speaker 1: And you think, what? And he said he walked everywhere he went.
Speaker 1: And then he said, how interruptible are you? And I’m a planner.
Speaker 1: I’m a I’m a get it done.
Speaker 1: And and some of his personality and some of it is gifting and some of it has been sinned because when I was growing up, my I I kinda balanced my worth and my work I thought if I’m not productive, god has already lowered the bar to let me into the kingdom.
Speaker 1: And so I’ve gotta just keep my head down and be a good girl.
Speaker 1: Um, I could I could talk about grace, but I just I really didn’t think god liked me very much.
Speaker 1: I knew I had to save me because it was in his job description, but I already felt so dirty.
Speaker 1: You know, by the time I gave my heart to Jesus. I just thought I better behave.
Speaker 1: And so I’ve always been a worker bee.
Speaker 1: It’s hard for me to I’m much more Martha than Mary strategically.
Speaker 1: But when this professor said that I thought, oh my goodness.
Speaker 1: Here I am in my late fifties, by the grace, we’ve gotta get to talk about Jesus for a living.
Speaker 1: I I think I’m running too fast, but I think I’m just racing right past miracles And I did a deep dive into what Joyce has preached so beautifully so many times into how interruptible Jesus is.
Speaker 1: And, uh, couple of the passages, you know, Mark 10 Bartimas.
Speaker 1: Jesus is on his way to Easter. He’s made the turn.
Speaker 1: He’s headed to Jerusalem, and there’s a blind guy that says the crowd tells him to shut up The word there, a pit of my own Greek in Greek says, basically, it means you better hush up or we’ll hush you up.
Speaker 1: I always say every parent has a pit of my own.
Speaker 1: You know, when you aim the rearview mirror so that you can smack their knee.
Speaker 1: The so the crowd didn’t just say, you know, Bard maya’s hush.
Speaker 1: They said if you don’t hush, we’ll hush you up. Jesus is passing by.
Speaker 1: A crowd is formed, not because they trust to them as Messiah because they wanted to see if he did tricks.
Speaker 1: They had gotten a, you know, old fashioned Facebook forwards that where if he went pea paralytic state cartwheels, so this crowd is formed.
Speaker 1: He’s on his way to Jerusalem to the cross.
Speaker 1: It’s it’s the very last time he stopped before that week of fashion.
Speaker 1: And Bartame is in their culture because he’s blind. He’s completely ostracized.
Speaker 1: Because it was assumed in in the 1st century.
Speaker 1: If you had an ongoing medical condition, you had to confess it.
Speaker 1: And so Bard is one uh, commentator says he’s basically sitting on the curb.
Speaker 1: It says he’s away from the crowd, but he hears Jesus is passing by.
Speaker 1: Obviously, it doesn’t seem he’s blind. And he starts hollering son of David at mercy on me.
Speaker 1: Obviously, he believes the prophecies that Jesus would come through the lineage of David.
Speaker 1: So that’s kinda like his professional faith, but Jesus is on his way to Easter.
Speaker 1: And the crowd tries to hush him up, Bart keeps hollering.
Speaker 1: And truly one of my favorite verses in the entire gospel of Mark is there at the beginning of verse first 41 in March chapter 10, it says, and Jesus stopped.
Speaker 1: Right. And Jesus stopped. Yeah. And, of course, he goes on to heal Bartemayas and that says Bartemayas followed him along the way.
Speaker 1: He’s counted among that. The early Christians who started the church but she go Jesus puts Easter on pause. Mhmm.
Speaker 1: For this one man, nobody else will give the time of day twos.
Speaker 1: Matter of fact, they threatened to beat him up if he doesn’t shut up, and you get their story after story after story of the king of all kings would set aside his agenda, or were people his agenda?
Speaker 1: Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. You know, he always took people over protocol.
Speaker 3: More people, his agenda. That’s Mhmm.
Speaker 2: I like that. I found when when we go into other countries to see our hand of hope outreaches, and by the way, joy thank you for being so persistent and continuing to ask
Speaker 1: me because it’s been such
Speaker 2: such a joy and a pleasure. But we we’re working really hard. We don’t have a lot of time.
Speaker 2: And we’re trying to get a lot done. And we we have a definite agenda and a lot to do.
Speaker 2: And one of my very, very favorite things is to be interrupted by the kids.
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2: It just it makes me so happy. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Because they have such need and they have such hardships in their life. And we’re very busy.
Speaker 2: So everyone’s running and doing their thing.
Speaker 2: And then someone will just come up and, like, grab my leg or, you know, pull on my shirt and you look down, you have a friend for life.
Speaker 2: Right. Mhmm. I mean, they so often in at these times, I’ll have at at least one, if not several that are just kind of my my sidekick for the rest.
Speaker 2: To film croquettes. Yeah. Exactly. And it’s the most wonderful thing.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: And it would be so easy to just keep doing what we know we need to do and pat them on the head and go on.
Speaker 2: Right. Because that’s our job. That’s the ministry. That’s what’s supposed to be happening.
Speaker 2: But I would miss that on such joy. It’s not it’s not about what we’re giving them.
Speaker 2: It’s so it’s so often about what they’re giving us.
Speaker 2: So those interruptions that you think are an inconvenience sometimes are the greatest things that can ever happen.
Speaker 1: Are so holy one. You’re modeling Jesus. I love that even the disciples told the kids.
Speaker 1: I always imagine that story, miss Joyce, of because I liked put things in modern context because they are real stories.
Speaker 3: So
Speaker 1: if they were to happen today, what would it look like?
Speaker 1: And so I always imagine Jesus and disciples and the the food court of the mall, you know, and Jesus and disciples.
Speaker 1: I mean, the disciples have gone down to, you know, Sears if they even have Sears anymore to get some camping equipment.
Speaker 1: And and, you know, Peter and Jesus are standing in front of Chick fil A because it’s a Christian company and they’re about to order and these little kids, their moms are homeschool moms, and and so they’re in comas.
Speaker 1: They just have gone to the mall for less on capitalism because they’re so tired of these children.
Speaker 1: And the the little boys are over here, unit table.
Speaker 1: They’re, you know, eating sugar, and one of them recognizes Jesus. And they make a beeline for Jesus and Peter.
Speaker 1: 1 of the 3 closest Jesus. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. Y’all hold up.
Speaker 1: Y’all are all sticky. You got apple pie goo on your shirt and go to the bathroom, clean yourselves up.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Then when you come back here, you form a single fall line. And Jesus says, no.
Speaker 1: Pete, you let them pass. Mhmm.
Speaker 1: And those kids just launch themselves, messy, sticky kids into the lap of the messiah. And you go, my goodness.
Speaker 1: And, of course, there’s We have to get our work done. If you’re at
Speaker 3: a Right.
Speaker 1: At a conference, you have to make it to teach to the 20,000 people there, you can’t talk to every single person.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But I’ve seen you, miss Joyce, over and over again, make time for people.
Speaker 1: And for that one person, I I have so many stories of people who go, you know, Joyce Meyer, and I’m like, Not real well, but I
Speaker 2: really like her.
Speaker 1: And and they’ll say one time, and then they’ll go back to a date 20 years ago.
Speaker 1: She looked me in the eyes. I’d watched you on television for years.
Speaker 1: She’s shaped my walk with Jesus, but she said hello. And how are you doing?
Speaker 1: And that moment for them, you you you were Jesus with skin on because you stopped and you said, you matter.
Speaker 1: And there’s always Well, you do as much as you can. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You do as often as you can, and I just I have to tell myself sometimes It’s always people over program.
Speaker 1: It’s always people over protocol. It’s always people. People. And we
Speaker 3: do have to keep reminding ourselves of that.
Speaker 3: You know, when we first started going out of the country, I remember, especially in Africa.
Speaker 3: You know, I went I had an agenda. I had
Speaker 1: You had a big agenda.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I had so many things.
Speaker 3: I mean, I felt like when they put the trips together, then they were gonna get every ounce out of me that they could.
Speaker 3: Right. And, uh, I had to learn that people in a lot of these other countries, they are much more relationship oriented than they are work oriented.
Speaker 3: Right. And it was offensive to them if we did not take the time Right.
Speaker 3: To eat with them to see their cultural dance. To listen to the songs that the kids had prepared. Right.
Speaker 3: And, you know, in the beginning, I was like, all antsy inside. I was like, I I gotta worker.
Speaker 3: I’m not gonna
Speaker 2: talk about interruption. How many times have we heard just just 5 more songs?
Speaker 3: Oh, no. Yeah. Just 5 more songs. Yeah. I’m like, 5. 5 or something.
Speaker 1: Actually, you’ve eaten mystery meat.
Speaker 3: You’re absolutely right. Yeah. And, but god really it really bothers him when we mistreat people.
Speaker 1: I agree. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I had to I had to really learn that it it bothers him when we mistreat people.
Speaker 3: And one of the best stories is the story of the Good Samar because you have you have this man lying on the side of the road that had been beaten up and was bleeding and 2 religious people.
Speaker 3: Right. A priest and a Levi saw him and crossed over to the other side of the street so they didn’t have to really see him.
Speaker 1: That’s right.
Speaker 3: And wonder how many times we’ve crossed over to the other side so we don’t really have to face it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But then the Samaritan comes along who’s not even really on page with them religiously. Right.
Speaker 3: But he was going somewhere.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: But he stopped banned his wounds, put him on his horse, took him to an end, and the thing that I love, he couldn’t stay.
Speaker 3: He had to go somewhere, but he said, you take care of him till I get back, and I’ll pay you.
Speaker 1: That’s right.
Speaker 3: Whatever it costs. He didn’t put any limits on what he would spend.
Speaker 1: Right. I love that
Speaker 3: one. That to me is one of the most interesting. Oh, I love it.
Speaker 3: You know, he sent out out whatever whatever it costs Right. I’ll pay it.
Speaker 3: I wonder what our lives would be like if our attitude was Mhmm. Lord.
Speaker 3: I wanna follow you whatever it costs. It doesn’t matter.
Speaker 1: Right. Yeah. And, Luke, I love Luke’s context because he’s the only one who tells that story.
Speaker 1: And, Luke, he’s the only gentile author of scripture that we know of. Sue’s an outsider.
Speaker 1: He’s not considered clean because he’s a gentile. I love it. He makes the Samaritan the hero.
Speaker 1: Because the Samaritans were, you know, considered dirty hat freeze when
Speaker 3: you get
Speaker 1: back to a Syrian and the Jews and all the stuff.
Speaker 1: And I could see him making the Samaritan the guy in the ditch. Yeah. He needed our help.
Speaker 1: But instead, he makes him the hero and the priest and Levi, they’re coming home from temple. Yeah.
Speaker 1: They don’t have to keep themselves complaining. They’re going to the suburbs. They could have helped the guy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Because they didn’t have to stay humanly pure because they’re not going to temple.
Speaker 1: They’re headed home on, you know, some r and r.
Speaker 1: Every every facet of that story just screams people matter. People matter. People matter. Status doesn’t.
Speaker 1: You know, ethnicity doesn’t. Associate demographics don’t. People mad or see people.
Speaker 1: And I think some of us, I think, are just gonna have our hair blown back when we get to glory we’re in the subsidized departments at the people who are in the mansions.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Uh, and I know that’s not theologically sound where all of
Speaker 2: you Whatever the same hospice, but I’m like, I
Speaker 1: love the way god doesn’t just show compassion for the least of these. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He makes some of the heroes and the story.
Speaker 1: And I’m like, man, we miss it the way we have hierarchy.
Speaker 1: And we we see people as interruptions instead of as as, you know,
Speaker 3: how many people put their religiosity Yeah. Above just dealing with
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The hurting and the
Speaker 1: Yep. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I have to say this to I mean, I just have I have tears in my eyes to think of, like, sitting with the 3 of you.
Speaker 4: I’ll try to do my best to not solve through saying this to you, but, like, you could you are Joyce Meyer, and you have taught around the world but you will help anybody who needs help.
Speaker 4: Mhmm. And you will if god puts a people group on your heart, you’ll go to the ends of the earth to help them.
Speaker 4: You god puts foster care in your heart, you’re gonna make a change.
Speaker 4: And you see people that none of the rest of us sometimes stop to see and the 2 of you.
Speaker 4: I mean, I’ve just to be around these amazing women who you guys you have positions that you could feel really confident in yourselves and you’re the most genuine humble people that I’ve ever met.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, it took a while.
Speaker 3: But the way that I got it to be with pretty strong firmly to get me to the point where I’m at.
Speaker 3: And, uh, when I got it through my head, that it is the most important thing to god, and, you know, my relationship with them is high truth people.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: That’s where we show I love for god because he said if you’ve done it under the least of these, my brother, and you’ve done it under the least.
Speaker 1: That’s right.
Speaker 3: And if you have not, Mhmm. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, that’s really that’s one of the most powerful scriptures in the Bible to think about.
Speaker 3: He he basically knows how you treat people is how you’re treating me. That’s right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That’s right.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And so Yeah. I I have the reverential fear of god on me about mistreating people.
Speaker 3: And what is ministry about? It’s about meeting needs.
Speaker 1: Yeah. That’s right.
Speaker 3: It’s not about being famous or well known or
Speaker 2: and we’re all in ministry.
Speaker 3: Thinking you’re a big shot because you’re on television. Yeah.
Speaker 3: The I would be nowhere if god didn’t put me there.
Speaker 1: That’s right.
Speaker 3: And I certainly couldn’t keep myself there.
Speaker 3: And so I appreciate the compliment, but I have to give it back to god.
Speaker 4: Here’s Joyce. It just made me so emotional for a second, but but what it does to to me, I’m a mom.
Speaker 4: With a couple kids at home. Yeah. And I think those are my people.
Speaker 4: So I need to let myself be interruptible for those 2 kids. I am mom is working right now.
Speaker 4: I’m doing things for Jesus. So don’t talk
Speaker 2: to me.
Speaker 4: I am working for the lord, but, mom, I need I had a really hard day at school.
Speaker 4: I need you to stop and talk
Speaker 1: to me.
Speaker 4: So I need to I need to take these lessons and apply them to my life as a mom at home
Speaker 2: and Oh, yeah. Interruptible.
Speaker 3: Oh, I can tell you a funny story. I was going to preach one night.
Speaker 3: And we got stopped by a train. And it was a long train.
Speaker 1: I bet you enjoyed it. And I was going
Speaker 3: It looked like I was gonna be late, and I there’s nothing I dislike worse than being late when I’m supposed to preach.
Speaker 3: I just can’t can’t stand. I really like to be on time.
Speaker 3: And so the train passes, and we get a little ways down.
Speaker 3: And then Dave stops to let a couple people into the line of traffic.
Speaker 3: And I said, we don’t have time. We he’s I said, we gotta go and have time for that.
Speaker 3: He said, well, I’m just trying to be nice. I said, I don’t have time to be nice.
Speaker 3: I’m trying to get to church.
Speaker 3: And then, of course, I had to tell them myself at church, but it’s like, I don’t have time to be nice right now.
Speaker 3: I’ve gotta get church. That’s the way we are sometimes. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It’s also 1st world culture. It’s it’s produced, produced, produced, produced, one of the best things because I get a lot of gentle spankings from the Lord because I’m Side yours are gentle.
Speaker 1: Well, I was trying to be polite. Some of them really walloped me.
Speaker 1: But, um, the first time I went to, um, to meet Missy in Haiti, my daughter who had got through the miracle of adoption, um, I I just couldn’t stop hugging people.
Speaker 3: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: And, uh, I didn’t know how contagious scabies was. Um, and third world countries are basically full body lies.
Speaker 1: And I was itching a lot, but it was hot. And I was in a pause.
Speaker 1: I was always hotter into your something anyway.
Speaker 1: Anyway, I had to go straight from Haiti to speak at a conference.
Speaker 1: I won’t say where it was because they’re still wiggled there.
Speaker 1: They’re mad at me, but I go to this conference.
Speaker 1: And and, like, 3 days in the conference, I just had this, you know, sometimes she’ll be talking or sharing with the group people and you’ll have like the balloon of your head like you’ll think Oh, that’s just curious.
Speaker 1: And you’re thinking something that is not coming up.
Speaker 1: And I thought, that’s the weirdest thing that all these women are itching.
Speaker 3: And I went Oh, no.
Speaker 2: I had I
Speaker 1: had given this entire conference. This I mean,
Speaker 2: you’re in the mud.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Get this done called promethrin from Walgreens. This is not
Speaker 3: a big deal. You get rid of it.
Speaker 1: You just have to burn your cuss, but He wait because I’m leaving and I had bed erase me to the plane.
Speaker 1: I was about to miss my flight.
Speaker 1: I’m telling the guy who runs the whole thing and he was new and he was trying to, like, make everything all nice.
Speaker 1: And I said, I’ve given all those women here skating.
Speaker 2: And I said,
Speaker 1: and he thought I was teasing him. And I said, Oh, no, sir. I’m not playing.
Speaker 1: I said, here’s what you need to get.
Speaker 3: It’s some sort of spiritual thing. Right?
Speaker 1: And he was like, he looked at me like, you not job. You have just infected.
Speaker 1: Oh, I was like, I’m so sorry.
Speaker 1: I didn’t mean to, but I it was so good for me because God was like, buddy.
Speaker 1: Your baby goes through this every day.
Speaker 1: Every day, millions of people around the world are hungry in the itch.
Speaker 1: You get a prescription at Walgreens, and it’ll be over in a week.
Speaker 1: It is good for you to remember people.
Speaker 1: And I thought, I I’m gonna have to make a little sermon about why we all need scabies to be known then.
Speaker 1: Because it just makes you more compassionate.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely. And your life was majorly interrupted.
Speaker 2: When god brought you this beautiful little girl and said things are gonna change now.
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. Dramatically, I had dust tones with somebody recently.
Speaker 1: I I became a mom at the age of fifty through the miracle adoption.
Speaker 1: I lost 2 babies before Missy, and I’m honestly sure I would’ve been brave enough because I had everything kinda planned.
Speaker 1: Mhmm. And Liz and the second child, just 4 days before I was supposed to bring her home, It just wrecked me.
Speaker 1: And I remember thinking if he didn’t allow my heart to be so viscerated, I don’t know if I’d be brave enough.
Speaker 1: To give it away. Yeah. It’s kinda already in pieces. And it took 2 years.
Speaker 1: Missy almost died a couple of times during the adoption process.
Speaker 1: But somewhere in my stubborn crooked heart, I thought once I brought her home, it would be easy.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Uh-huh.
Speaker 2: And, I mean, I
Speaker 1: have never been so tired, and I had to call friends, Marcus. I thought I’m single. Yeah.
Speaker 3: How old was she when you got her?
Speaker 1: She I brought her home. She was four and a half. She was two and a
Speaker 3: half
Speaker 1: when I started the process right after her first mama died. And, uh, you shouldn’t speak a lick of English.
Speaker 1: She was real sick. And, uh, I and still, I had everything organized. Y’all had bins with sauce with bins.
Speaker 1: Yeah. They would have bins. Man, we’re gonna knock this puppy out And and, uh, as a matter of fact, Christmas always reminds me of our 1st Christmas together.
Speaker 1: Missy got real sick during the night, so I pulled her into into my bed.
Speaker 1: This is way TMI for a Christian podcast, but, uh, go for it. That’s what
Speaker 2: we said. Joyce is my
Speaker 1: spiritual mentor. I’m just gonna be honest.
Speaker 1: And I’ve put her in my bed because she had a fever.
Speaker 1: And, uh, because of some of Missy’s medical conditions, if she gets sick, it can be pretty serious.
Speaker 1: And so you know, in the middle of the night, just the antenna, your mom and antenna will go off, and I woke up, and I just stuck my hand over on her forehead to see if it was hot, and it was wet.
Speaker 1: And, um, you know, you’re reeling for the light because I’m thinking it’s a fever.
Speaker 1: And as I’m going to turn on the like my nose said, that’s not fever.
Speaker 1: And she had gotten really sick out of both ends. And it was it was on the wall.
Speaker 1: It I mean, it was everywhere in her hair and my hair. And I was like, what? Oh my god.
Speaker 1: I was speaking, miss Joyce Chris, Chris Kane was coming to town.
Speaker 1: We’re doing this big, like, fancy Christmas extravaganza that morning.
Speaker 1: And so it’s three times more than and I haven’t. I am cleaning horrible stuff off the wall.
Speaker 1: I was saying. I lived in the country. I just took my bedding and threw it out in the grass.
Speaker 1: I thought I’ll deal with it later. Can’t even deal with that now.
Speaker 1: Well, I get this and of course, I hadn’t slept. I let by the I haven’t slept a wink.
Speaker 1: I’m just I’m driving things to speak about you know, the wonder of Advent.
Speaker 1: And and I get there, and there’s a friend of mine there has 6 kids.
Speaker 1: And she said, well, Well, you you seem a little tired. I was like, I’m exhausted.
Speaker 1: And she said, what were you doing? I said, well, I was cleaning.
Speaker 1: Poopoo out of my child’s braids.
Speaker 1: And she said, well, Lisa, you’ve never had an episiotomy but you know what it is to be a mother now.
Speaker 1: But it was that this is what being a mom is. Yeah.
Speaker 1: This is what being a spiritual mother is. It’s messy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And it’s all about people, and it doesn’t matter if your if your sermon rhymes.
Speaker 1: It doesn’t matter how many followers.
Speaker 1: It matters how well you love the people god allows you to rub shoulders with. That’s the gospel.
Speaker 1: He made himself nothing to be made and human form to love us. Wrap things like us.
Speaker 1: We could at least do some measure of that same kindness story.
Speaker 3: And we have to remind ourselves of this all the time over and over and over.
Speaker 3: I preach about this a lot and nothing else. I preach it for me.
Speaker 3: Because we are so naturally selfish and self centered that we really it’s something that you have to keep in front of you.
Speaker 3: It’s something you have to do on purpose. Mhmm.
Speaker 3: There’s some things you may do accidentally, but this is something you have to do on purpose.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I love that it’s on the building, miss Joyce.
Speaker 1: That you drive up and you see love god, love people.
Speaker 1: You know, the body of Christ doesn’t metaphor. It’s what we were made for.
Speaker 1: I love that your ministry, your ministry just that is your ministry. It’s it’s your heart.
Speaker 1: I I love y’all love people so well, but you take it Christ.
Speaker 2: Like you were saying, it does not come naturally to most of us.
Speaker 2: I mean, Aaron, your your words were so kind and and I think about the way that god has to jump out in front of us to teach us these things.
Speaker 2: And One of the things that has really helped me learn so much is is just about how This is all about surrender.
Speaker 2: Mhmm. Because, you know, we wanna hold on to the things we wanna hold on to.
Speaker 2: We gotta let go of things to love people well. And the other is humility. Yes.
Speaker 2: Because when I think that I’m too good
Speaker 4: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: To stop to stoop down
Speaker 3: to
Speaker 2: do whatever it may be. And nobody nobody thinks that on the outside, but that is the answer.
Speaker 2: Right. You know, if I don’t do it, it’s because I think I’m more important than they are.
Speaker 2: And so when god gives you that revelation Right.
Speaker 2: And, wow, to talk about the love that comes out of that because you realize I’m nothing.
Speaker 2: I am nothing. And So you you have to kinda walk in that and build it and develop it all the time and and mess it up and start all over and do it again.
Speaker 2: And
Speaker 3: I Right.
Speaker 2: I think about you, Aaron, and so many others and where where we’ve been as as a as a young mom trying to do that with kids every day.
Speaker 2: I mean, that is living in surrender. That that is walking into humility and loving people all the time.
Speaker 2: So what encouragement would you have for young moms who are doing this now.
Speaker 2: Well, uh, because I know you got it.
Speaker 4: Let me tell you.
Speaker 3: Well, actually,
Speaker 4: yeah, we pray a lot. Some we’ve sometimes we just cry, and it’s okay. Right.
Speaker 3: Well,
Speaker 4: actually, what comes to my mind when you say that is in areas where I’ve struggled with this feels super off topic, but when I’ve struggled with anxiety, It’s because I’m being interrupted usually by my kids.
Speaker 4: I don’t want to miss this thing because my kid might throw up in the night in a clean up at the wall or whatever it might be.
Speaker 4: And god has shown me so many times. That’s not the point.
Speaker 4: The point is that kid is the one who needs you in that moment, and they are not an an eruption to your life.
Speaker 4: They’re the reason that their life is in your hands right now. I’m trusting them with you.
Speaker 4: So it it is humbling myself and reminding myself, these are gifts, and they’re not an annoyance Sometimes, but they’re not an interruption.
Speaker 4: They’re the point. They’re the point of why I’m here.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: And god will God will sort out the rest of it.
Speaker 4: I just do the best I can, but the that is the point.
Speaker 3: I think to bring it in balance because there’s always a balance. Yeah.
Speaker 3: This does not mean that everybody who wants to interrupt you, you should always stop.
Speaker 4: Oh, it’s so good.
Speaker 3: Just do what everybody wants you to do, even your kit, Sure.
Speaker 4: Because about boundaries
Speaker 1: on that.
Speaker 3: So, you know, we have we have to we do have a mandate from god of what he wants us to get done.
Speaker 3: And Right. The devil will use Mhmm. Well meaning, but unsuspecting people to derail you Yeah.
Speaker 3: And get you off track. So You have to have to listen to the Holy Spirit in this too and know when Right.
Speaker 3: When to say yes and when to say no. It’s
Speaker 1: like we were talking in another podcast about the whole of scripture.
Speaker 1: Because when you said that I thought, remember, Neeami on the wall, and he had to go, no.
Speaker 1: I’m not coming off the wall. And there were some legitimate people saying
Speaker 3: to
Speaker 1: come do this, and he said, nope. This is my main purpose right now.
Speaker 1: I love that you use the word stoop. It’s one of my favorite ways to think about Jesus.
Speaker 1: The king of all kings, the messiah, perfectly holy, perfectly transcendent, condescends And I I think of him that, you know, at the Passover, when he stooped and took on the form of servant wrapped a towel on his race and washed their nasty feet.
Speaker 1: They walked everywhere. They went. They’ve got grimy feet. And he washes their feet.
Speaker 1: And I think there’s one of those conundrums.
Speaker 1: I think did he know that when he laid down a scepter in glory?
Speaker 1: That he’d be picking up a towel and washing our nasty feet.
Speaker 1: And yet he said, this is I didn’t come to be. Served.
Speaker 1: I came to serve and give my life as a ransom for many.
Speaker 1: And so sometimes I I’m not wise enough to know when I stay on the wall and when I stoop.
Speaker 1: But I’ve gonna if I’m gonna air, I’d like people to be my mistake.
Speaker 3: Yeah. That’s good. Yeah. You know, there’s a scripture that I wanna share before our time’s up today.
Speaker 3: This taught me a lot, and it it I think it’s a good lesson.
Speaker 3: You know, when you think of sodom and Gomorrah Mhmm. And god destroyed them.
Speaker 3: And we usually think it was because of sexual sin. Mhmm.
Speaker 3: And, uh, but this is what Ezekiel 1649 says.
Speaker 3: Behold, this was the guilt of your sister, sodom. She and her daughters had pride
Speaker 1: Mhmm.
Speaker 3: Excess of food Mhmm. And prosperous ease. And they did not aid the poor and the needy.
Speaker 3: Wow. And that was what destroyed them. Wow.
Speaker 3: It was it wasn’t not that the sexual sin was right, but that wasn’t really why
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: They were destroyed. Matter of fact, these other things may have led them into the sexual sin. Right. Probably did.
Speaker 3: And so they chose idleness, ease, convenience, and selfishness. And that was what brought about the disrupt.
Speaker 3: They didn’t love people. Yeah. They didn’t love people.
Speaker 3: And so if we’re gonna call ourselves Christians, And that’s good.
Speaker 3: Then we have to make loving people a priority.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 3: Right. Because I think that the way we love other people is the way we love Jesus.
Speaker 1: Amen. Yeah. Amen. Well, this
Speaker 2: has been such great encouragement. And it’s not easy stuff. I mean, this No. This is hard stuff.
Speaker 2: Knowing the boundaries and just letting ourselves be be paused when we don’t want to.
Speaker 2: I mean, it’s difficult, but there there are such opportunities I mean, god wants to do so much in our life, so much more than we can even imagine.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: If I can just slow down enough, now and then to say, okay, god. I’m here. I’m ready.
Speaker 2: Do what you will. Whether it’s through somebody else or just something he wants to drop in my lap bless us.
Speaker 2: So here’s the scripture as we walk it out, something to remember. This is ephesians 4 too.
Speaker 2: It says with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love.
Speaker 2: Those are key words, and they are not easy ones. But with god’s help, all things are possible.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Lisa. It’s always something to have in you here. Great conversation with you guys. Thank you.
Speaker 2: And we will see you all next time.
Speaker 2: Bye bye.