The Fall of Joyce Meyer – Literally – Part 2 | Joyce Meyer | Enjoying Everyday Life Teaching

Ever feel like giving up? Today on Enjoying Everyday Life, you’ll hear some practical encouragement as Joyce Meyer joins Ginger and Erin, and in true Talk It Out fashion, gets real about never giving up, despite the circumstances.

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.

I’m Joyce Meyer, and I believe that god can heal you everywhere you’ve heard.
Hi, everyone. Welcome to enjoying everyday life.
We are so happy to have you with us today.
Last year, Joyce went through a surgery, which led to complications, and then she fell and broke her leg.
One problem after the next. The injury forced her to take a break from teaching, but God worked all things together for good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose.
That’s what the word promises us.
Well, Joyce opened up about the entire experience on the talk it out podcast to share what happened.
And how the lord was with her every moment along the way.
And I think it will encourage you in whatever circumstance you may be in as well.
So come on in and join us.
There’s no point in trying to get answers to questions that only god has that he’s probably not gonna tell you.
Yeah. Oh, there’s so much wisdom
out there. I mean, there’s so much people you drive yourself crazy trying to figure stuff out. You know? Mhmm.
I mean, I I wrote a book during this time when I was down, it’s called Don’t Overthink it.
And it won’t be out for a couple of years, but we just we we think about stuff and think about it and think about it and think about it and we get ourselves so confused.
And so I found that just not thinking about it and just dealing with whatever I had to deal with each day.
Day by day.
I mean, there’s there’s details to this that, you know, wouldn’t be proper for me to tell on TV, but just, I mean, even like I went through these different stages of how I could get to the bathroom.
And I mean, everything from sliding out of bed on a sliding board to sliding into a wheelchair sliding onto the toilet to slight sliding back.
I mean, it was like it was an ordeal just to have to go to the bathroom.
And, uh, but I just took each thing. As it came.
And I slept good at night, which I was thankful for.
Yeah.
And, uh, brought my coffee pot up, and I was thankful for that. I had my coffee every morning.
So finding those things to be grateful for in the midst.
I still got up like I do at home 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning.
I had my time with with god.
And, uh, I we don’t really we make ourselves miserable when we have trouble.
We do.
It’s not really the trouble that makes us miserable.
It’s the way we look at it that makes us miserable.
Yeah.
And, you know, the devil is gonna try to take advantage you anytime you’re down. That’s when he he attacks.
And you you just have to really watch your thinking.
And, you know, one really humorous thing was the last conference I did before this all happened.
I prayed I said, God, I would love to have a 3 month break.
Well, the next time I ask for a 3 month break, I’m gonna be very specific that I don’t want a broken leg.
Not that kind of a break.
Wasn’t exact that my family said, which may be true.
They said this probably the only way that you would have actually taken 3 months off and been still. Yeah.
And it, um, it has been good for me.
That says a lot that you that you can say that.
Because that’s the first time in 40 years that I’ve ever been still that long.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, uh, when you said a little earlier how when you would had all this quiet time, and he would sit and be still.
It what struck out to me is that or stood out to me was that you weren’t taking that time.
Okay. Well, I’m gonna think about this since I had nothing else to do.
It wasn’t trying to be very spiritual or trying to accomplish anything. You really just sat in the stillness.
And I think that’s That’s hard for us to do. Yeah. It is. But that’s that’s beautiful.
He still doesn’t know that I’m God.
Could you always feel him with you in those moments?
Like, did you have crazy?
I don’t get into the feeling thing. I know god’s with me.
Yeah.
So I don’t, I don’t even really get into. I feel god or I don’t feel god.
You know, sometimes I do. Most of the time, I don’t. Uh, but I know.
And, you know, knowing is a lot better than feeling because feelings come and go.
But when you know Yeah. That you know that you know, then you don’t have to get into all that.
Yeah. That’s that’s really good.
You know, I I would check-in and get updates on what was going on.
And I was just just to be a witness, always amazed, at your attitude.
I mean, it it was just always positive, honest.
It’s not like you have to hide what’s really happening. But trusting god.
And, um, I remember you called me when you had the fall where you broke your leg.
And you you could tell. Obviously, this is not something that anybody wants to go through, but, you know, it it was still like, God’s gonna take care of this.
And can you believe I hurt my bad leg or hurt my good leg? Yeah.
But but still, and then even talking with your family, talking with all of your kids, they’re like, they they said they never saw you have a bad attitude or a really downtime through the entire experience.
And I believe I I really believe that was all the prayers that people or praying for me.
I don’t think we even begin to comprehend how powerful prayer is.
And when I mean, there was could have been millions of people praying
for me.
Yeah. There were. And, uh, that, um, I think that’s the only way that I could have had the attitude that I had during that time.
And, uh And if I
can say this completely out of love, it’s not because you’re the most patient person in the world. Naturally
I’m glad you said that in love.
I because I was saying about myself, but I have a story. Well, I’m not. I’m not.
So that’s when you really see god working because I had a time, um, several years ago that I I broke a bone in my foot and had to wear the boot for a while.
And it, you know, it was not a terrible thing. It was an annoyance.
And for a while, I looked at it as an annoyance.
Like, it I all I could see was that boot. Like, the ugly boot was just huge.
I was sleeping, and it was so much fun.
Goodness. Yes. And it kind of became, like, this representation of all that was wrong in the world. Wow.
That was a heavy boost. I can no longer do the things that I like to do.
Um, you know, I I’m not even myself anymore because I can’t do these things.
And then you realize how messed up that whole thought process is.
Pajamas for 2 months, and you guys know how I like my clothes.
I even went one day to get my nails done in my pajamas.
That is desperation
Yes.
For a nail appointment
and dedication to your nails.
That’s right.
But I’ll bet they were cute.
They were. You couldn’t really tell. They were put y’all on
the phone though.
But it is easy to let that problem become the biggest thing in our life.
Yeah. Yeah.
And and god really had to come to terms with me and say, listen.
You know, you need to change the way that you’re looking at this.
Or it’s not going to go as well as I wanted to for you.
So I had to adjust my thinking and my attitude through all of it.
Yeah. And I wanna stress again for the viewers today.
And the listeners that you gotta watch your thinking. Yeah.
And, you know, you you don’t have to think whatever the devil dumps in your head.
I I like to say, don’t let the devil use your mind as a garbage dump.
You know, you just think on the things that you’ve been taught. God is good.
He loves me. This will pass. Everything comes to an end eventually.
You know, there’s gonna be a conclusion.
I don’t know exactly what it will be, but I know god loves me in whatever it is.
He’s gonna take care of me. Mhmm.
And I didn’t have any concern about the ministry because I know that we’ve got a lot of brilliant people here that keep things going and you know, I was still on television every day.
And, um, I didn’t like canceling the conferences, but You know, we have things in life that we don’t like.
Thank god. I’ve got conferences to go back to.
What things will you do differently now after this experience?
Well, I hope and pray that I will be a little more careful.
Can’t be guaranteed because I know how I am. So
Who would have a goal, though?
But, you know, I have a goal. Yeah. You know, to try to be more careful.
And, um, you know, I don’t I don’t know that it changed me, but I hope it slows me down a little bit.
You know, I say I hope because I know how I am, but I hope it does slow me down a little bit because it’s I’ve certainly had to go slower Mhmm.
You know, for a while. And, uh, it’s amazing the things that we appreciate when you’ve been through something like that.
Yeah. Just being able to get up and walk to the bathroom. Mhmm.
You know, because I would have to wake up in the middle of the night.
And then after they finally let me not, I could sleep without the boot.
Then when I would get up to go to the bathroom, I had to get up and put the boot on before I go to the bathroom.
And a lot of work.
Yeah.
And, uh, so there’s a lot of things that I I’m a pretty thankful person anyway, but I I hope that I Remember.
And and I think also it gives you more compassion for people that are going through things. Mhmm.
You know, we’re Everybody goes through stuff.
Yeah.
There’s nobody that doesn’t go through stuff, and that won’t be the last thing that I’ll go through.
And I don’t that’s not a negative statement. It’s just a fact. In the world, you will have tribulation. Mhmm.
But let me repeat again what I started with. You never know what’s gonna happen.
So don’t wait to get strong until you have a problem. Stay strong.
Because the strong spirit of a man will sustain him in bodily pain and trouble.
So how do we get there now? What are the steps we should take to be ready for whatever comes?
Well, you know, the answer. Spend time with god. Regular time with god. Study the word.
And I I like I like to stress study because we hear so much read your Bible. Read your Bible.
Read your Bible. But I really think the only way you get the most out of it is if you dig a little deeper, then just a quick read.
I think you need to to study. And there’s so many bible studies available.
And we have a lot of them.
You can buy them in bookstores and we you need to You know, I I wish that when people even, like, come to my conferences and hear sermons, even like watching the TV program, that they would write down the scriptures, and then when the program’s over.
Just get your Bible and look them up. You know, everything has become so convenient for us today.
You know, you can asked a computer to give you a scripture and it pops right up.
But I think there’s something to dig in through the Bible and finding it for yourself.
And actually looking at it and reading it instead of always having somebody spoon feed it to you.
But regular time with god, believing the word, being good to other people.
I think that that’s nothing makes the devil matter.
Than when you’re having trouble and you continue being good to other people. Yeah.
That just I love acts 1038.
It says see how god anointed Jesus of with the holy ghost and power who went about doing good. Mhmm.
Yeah.
And I thought surely we can all do that. We can all went about doing good. We just yeah.
Mean, really, if you just get up every day and have the purpose of just being kind to people and giving people compliments and helping people wherever you can.
You’ll be a way far ahead of where a lot of Christians are.
We don’t We don’t have a relationship with god just to see what all we can get. Mhmm.
But we wanna serve him. Yeah. And serving him means serving people and helping them. Yeah.
I love what she’s saying. It makes me think of the word, um, intentionality because everything you’re saying, if I’m gonna prepare now, I have do it on purpose.
Right.
And I
have to think about helping other people during the day Right.
And not just wait for things to come happen to me and just one day well with me, but I have to I need to leave this room on purpose and do whatever.
I need to study my bible and I need to go where god’s calling me to go on the offense, not the defense and make the time.
Yeah. Find the time. Yep. Find it. It it’s not gonna happen. Right? You have to make the time.
Right. It’s an appointment. Yeah. Just like you know, any appointment you have that’s really important to you, you’ll keep it.
Mhmm. And the most important appointment that we should have every day is our appointment with god.
And yet, people seem to find it very easy to break that or put it off to another time.
And you don’t have to be legalistic about it, but in some way, shape, or form, we need to get the word in us every day.
I was thinking this morning when I got up Jeremiah, I said, I found your words and I did eat them.
And they were the joy and the rejoicing of my heart.
And the word of god is literally the food that we need for our spirit. Yeah.
And so if you look at it like that, I mean, you you eat breakfast because you’re hungry and you wanna be strong during the day, you, you know, you go very many days without eating and you start getting weak.
Well, if people go very many days without feeding their spirit the word.
They start getting weak in faith and weak spiritually, and then the enemy sees that and he attacks.
And So it’s really very practical to look at the word of god is the food you need to keep your spirit strong.
Yeah. That’s good.
And there’s so many ways to get it today. I mean, you can listen to it. You can watch it.
You you can. Yeah. There’s so many different ways.
You know, you got all the twitters and the twitters and Facebook and all the different Yeah.
Things podcast, and there’s just there’s no excuse for anybody today. Not to listen to the word.
You can listen when you’re driving to work. You can listen when you’re driving home.
You know, anytime you have downtime, you can listen to the Bible on tape.
There’s a lot of different ways to get the word in you.
A great thing to pray too is that that word becomes such a part of who we are that it it pours out of us when we need it.
Yeah. Right. Because, like, you’re talking about being prepared. You you don’t know what’s coming. Right. Around any corner.
And for that to be your go to well
Yeah.
Is is such a valuable things. So praying that I’ve found to be really beneficial.
This may sound strange, but it actually was good for me to see that I really believe what I preach.
Yeah. I’ll bet it was.
It was just like, yeah. I really believe this.
Yeah.
Yeah. And because you don’t really know what you believe till it’s put the test.
That’s true. Yeah.
You know, no matter how much you underline in your Bible or how many seminars you go to, you really don’t know what you believe until it’s put to the test.
True. And so you you don’t know if you’re a positive person until you have a problem, and then you see if you’re gonna get negative or stay positive.
And, All I can say is I’ve come a long way in 40 years because I sure didn’t start out that way.
If this would’ve happened to me 40 years ago, man, you could’ve heard the complaining around the world.
So god’s way is the right way.
Yeah. Um, I I had a wonderful friend and mentor who was much older than I was. I was in my twenties thirties, and she was in her seventies and eighties and and beyond a little bit.
And she was always very active and always doing doing so much. And helping people and sharing the word.
And then she got to the point in her life where she could not do those things anymore.
And she she was you know, shut in.
And, um, I just remember talking to her and her saying what a difficult transition it was, Um, but working through that realizing that her prayer ministry would never stop.
You know, she could do that no matter what was going on in her life.
That the god always has something for us, whatever condition that we’re in, whatever stage we’re in, And so just seeing her walk that out like you’re talking about because that had been her life for so long.
That’s beautiful.
And seeing how Yes. You know, god, he reminds us. He’s consistent. He stays with us, and he helps us.
We have to see what we need to do and make the choices and and be that disciplined person to be able to carry it out.
Yeah.
Right.
It’s it’s inspiring. It is.
People get so upset when things change that they don’t want to change. Yeah.
But it’s like fighting the losing battle.
You know, it’s like if something has changed, then the next thing you need to do is change your mind about the change.
Mhmm.
Yeah. So because it’s happening.
Yeah. It’s happening. Whether I want it to or not, it’s happening. Right.
And so, you know, we can make a decision here at the ministry and don’t care what decision you make, not everybody’s gonna like it.
Nope. But if it’s gonna be that way, then they have to just change their mind about the change and say it’ll work out.
You know, it may not be what I prefer, but it’ll work out, and I’m gonna have a good attitude about it.
Attitude really is so important. Mhmm.
It’s just like your attitude makes your breaks you and it really does determine How far you go in life and how successful you are.
I’d rather have somebody that’s a little less intelligent with a good attitude.
Than somebody that’s really brilliant with a bad attitude working with me.
You also talked about the importance of putting on the full armor of god.
That being spiritually prepared in that way, tell us a little bit more about that and why that’s so important.
Well, it it it’s interesting that you think about armor and, you know, we think about fighting the devil and we think it’s all this, you know, you gotta be really get after him, but it’s it’s just the opposite.
Peace fights the devil. You put on the shoes a piece.
You put on the breastplate of righteousness, knowing who you are in Christ.
Yeah.
So I didn’t go down the route of what did I do that caused, you know, that opened the door for this to happen.
Now, I did say, God, if I did anything to open the door for this, then show me what it is.
But if god doesn’t show me something, I’m not going on a digging expedition trying to come up with something just Yeah.
You know, so I have something to feel guilty about.
We are the righteousness of god in Christ, and the Bible says to put on
Mhmm.
That righteousness and to put on the shoes of peace. Yeah.
And so often it’s like we have all these things, but we’re not wearing them.
Yeah.
We’re not and wearing them, you know, put on as an action work, like you said, intentionality. Yeah.
It’s like I I stayed who I was in Christ. I was peaceful.
Where the hellman of Salvation and not to me. That just simply means to think like a Christian.
Yeah.
You know, don’t think like somebody that doesn’t have god in your life. But Yeah. Mhmm.
But thank god is with me and he’s gonna gonna help me in this and, Wheel the 2 edged sword, which is the word of god.
And so I would speak the word to people, and I I’m I made sure that you know, when people talk to me that I would tell them, god, god’s gonna take care of this.
It’s gonna be alright. And so it really was even an opportunity to witness to other people.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, it is time to walk it out. So
Yeah.
Joyce, thank you very much for sharing about your fall. We appreciate it
so much.
And there is so much to learn Absolutely. Through other people’s experiences, hopefully through our own experiences.
And like you said, just to pray. God, whatever it is you wanna show me, I’ve got an open heart.
Help me to see it.
Right. Yeah.
And if not, you know, if if you don’t get that, I’m gonna trust you in the meantime.
Right.
Um, I don’t know if you guys have seen the last season of of the chosen, but there was one scene.
I did say the last name.
Yeah. There was one scene with one of the disciples
Oh, little
job. Who wanted healing and and just that conversation may not be exactly scriptural, but that was really powerful.
It was we don’t always get the answer that we want, but Jesus was telling him, you know, I I can work through this for my good and for yours.
And that’s that’s what trust is all about. I thought that was really powerful, and I
I did not go down the road of why did this happen to me? Yeah. Why? Why? Why?
You know, like you said, had to cancel the conferences? Why? Why? I just it don’t go that way.
Yeah.
Just
That’s really good.
I trust you.
Yeah. Well, we are going to, as we said, at the end of all of our podcasts, give you something to hold on to.
To really pray about and to write down some scriptures so that you can through in your life, you know, maybe it’s something physical like Joyce has been talking about.
Maybe it’s something else. Maybe it’s something in a relationship that is difficult Um, we all have those trials like Joyce was saying, we are guaranteed that there are going to be times in life that are a little bit more difficult than others.
So, um, here are some scriptures for you to walk it out with this time. Write them down.
We’re also going to have them on our website, joycemeyer.org/ talk it out with the episode.
You can find them there. But proverbs 1814, this is a great one.
It says the human spirit can endure a sick body, but who can bear a crushed spirit?
So it just it goes on to talk about exactly what Joyce was saying that you need to focus We all do right now on doing the right things in Christ, knowing who you are, knowing what his word says to be ready for whatever comes.
And then another one, ephesians 6 10, finally be strong in the lord and in the strength of his might put on the whole armor of god.
That you may be able to stand against the wiles of the double. That doubles a wily one.
Oh, yeah.
So we’ve we’ve got to be ready Joyce, would you mind just praying for people as we close out
today? I’d love to. Father, I pray for everybody watching that is going through something.
I pray that you would help them be peaceful and content and to know that their problem does have an end and that it will end well and that something good will come out of it.
God, you’re so amazing. You take bad things and you weren’t good out of them.
And so I pray that everybody watching would know that and have peace that passes all understanding.
And I ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.