Joyce Meyer - Pardon the Interruption - Part 2
- Watch
- Audio
- Donate
- How to know Jesus
Hi, and welcome to, "Enjoying Everyday Life". Whether we like it or not, interruptions are inevitable. We've all been there. We're on track to do something, but then we get off track because of an interruption from a person, an email, a text, or a phone call. Even our watches are always buzzing us to tell us something. But yesterday, here, we established that interruptions by people are often an opportunity for ministry. And Joyce made a statement that was so good: "We need to study the stops of Jesus". Jesus was interruptible. So, let's continue today right where we left off as Joyce, Lisa Harper, Erin Cluley, and I, share our thoughts on interruptions by God and people, and what to do with them.
Ginger Stache: So, let's talk a little bit about what things bother you about being interrupted, because the idea of being interrupted does not sound so great.
Joyce Meyer: You know, the Bible tells us that we are to be, "Ready in season or out of season". In the Amplified, it says, "Whether it's convenient or inconvenient". 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. I really believe in having a plan. But we have to submit that plan to God every day and say, "If you want me to do something else, I will".
Lisa Harper: When you're modeling Jesus, I love that even and the disciples told the kids, I always imagine that story, ms. Joyce, 'cause I like to put things in modern context because they are real stories. So, if they were to happen today, what would it look like? And so, I always imagine Jesus and the disciples in the food court of the mall. And Jesus and the disciples, I mean, the disciples have gone down to sears, if they even have sears anymore, to get some camping equipment. And Peter and Jesus are standing in front of Chick-fil-A 'cause it's a Christian company and they're about to order. And these little kids, their moms are homeschool moms. And so, they're in comas. They just have gone to the mall for a lesson on capitalism because they're so tired of these children. And the little boys are over here in a table. They're, you know, eating sugar. And one of 'em recognizes Jesus. And they make a beeline for Jesus. And Peter, one of the three closest to Jesus says, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Y'all hold up. Y'all are all sticky. You got apple pie goo on your shirt. You go to the bathroom, clean yourselves up. And when you come back here, you form a single-file line". And Jesus says, "No, pete. Let 'em pass". And those kids just launch themselves, messy, sticky kids, into the lap of the Messiah. And you go, "My goodness". And of course, we have to get our work done. If you're at a conference, you have to make it to teach to the 20,000 people who are there. You can't talk to every single person. But I've seen you, ms. Joyce, over and over again make time for people and for that one person, I have so many stories of people who go, "You know Joyce meyer"? And I'm like, "Well, not real well, but I sure do like her". And they'll say, "One time", and then they'll go back to a date 20 years ago. "She looked me in the eyes, I'd watched her on television for years. She's shaped my walk with Jesus. But she said, 'hello, and how are you doing'"? And that moment for them, you were Jesus with skin on. Because you stopped, and you said, "You matter". And we're supposed to model that.
Joyce Meyer: Pray that I always do.
Lisa Harper: Well, you do as much as you can. You do as often as you can. And I just, I have to tell myself sometimes, "It's always people over program. It's always people over protocol. It's always people. People matter to God".
Joyce Meyer: And we do have to keep reminding ourselves of that. You know, when we first started going out of the country, and I had to learn that people in a lot of these other countries, they are much more relationship oriented than they are work oriented. And it was offensive to them if we did not take the time to eat with them, to see their cultural dance, to listen to the songs that the kids had prepared. And, you know, in the beginning, I was all antsy inside. It's like, "I've got to get to work, here".
Ginger Stache: Talk about interruption, how many times have we heard, "Just five more songs"?
Joyce Meyer: Yeah. "Just five more songs," yeah. I'm like, "Five. Five more songs".
Lisa Harper: After you've eaten mystery meat, and you're sick in the heat.
Joyce Meyer: Yeah. But God really, it really bothers him when we mistreat people.
Lisa Harper: I agree.
Joyce Meyer: I had to really learn that, that it bothers him when we mistreat people. And one of the best stories is the story of the good Samaritan. Because you have this man lying on the side of the road that had been beaten up and was bleeding. And two religious people, 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.
Lisa Harper: That's right.
Joyce Meyer: And wonder how many times we've crossed over to the other side so we don't really have to face it. But then the Samaritan comes along, who's not even really on page with them religiously. But he was going somewhere. But he stopped, bandaged his wounds, put him on his horse, took him to an inn. And the thing that I love, he couldn't stay. He had to go somewhere. But he said, "You take care of him till I get back, and I'll pay you whatever it costs". He didn't put any limits on what he would spend.
Lisa Harper: Right, I love that.
Joyce Meyer: That, to me, is one of the most interesting...
Lisa Harper: Oh, I love it.
Joyce Meyer: He said, "Whatever it costs, I'll pay it". I wonder what our lives would be like if our attitude was, "Lord, I want to follow you. Whatever it costs, it doesn't matter".
Lisa Harper: And I love Luke's context, because he's the only one who tells that story. And Luke, he's the only gentile author of scripture that we know of. So, he was an outsider. He's not considered clean, because he's a gentile. I love that he makes the Samaritan the hero, because the Samaritans were considered dirty half-breeds when you go back to Assyria and the Jews and all the stuff. And I could see him making the Samaritan the guy in the ditch who needed our help. But instead, he makes him the hero. And the priest and Levite, they're coming home from temple. They don't have to keep themselves clean. They're going to the suburbs. They could have helped the guy, because they didn't have to stay ceremonially pure, because they're not going to temple. They're headed home on some r and r. Every facet of that story just screams, "People matter. People matter. People matter. Status doesn't. You know, ethnicity doesn't. Sociodemographics don't. People matter. See people". 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 apartments at the people who are in the mansions. And I know that's not theologically sound. We're all gonna have the same houses.
Ginger Stache: Whatever. Not theologically sound.
Lisa Harper: But I'm like, I love the way God doesn't just show compassion for the least of these. He makes them the heroes in the story. And I'm like, man, we miss it the way we have hierarchy. And we see people as interruptions instead of as, you know, miracles.
Joyce Meyer: How many people put their religiosity above just dealing with the hurting and the...
Erin Cluley: I have to say this, too. I mean, I have tears in my eyes to think of, like, sitting with the three of you. I'll try to do my best to not sob 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. And you will, if God puts a people group on your heart, you'll go to the ends of the earth to help them. If God puts foster care on your heart, you're gonna make a change. And you see people that none of the rest of us sometimes stop to see. And the two of you, I mean, 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.
Joyce Meyer: Yeah, well, it took a while.
Erin Cluley: The way that God is using you...
Joyce Meyer: I mean, God had to deal with me pretty strong, firmly, to get me to the point where I'm at. And when I got it through my head that it is the most important thing to God, and my relationship with him, is how I treat people. That's where we show our love for God. Because he said, "If you've done it under the least of these, my brethren, you've done it under", the least. And if you have not, I mean, that's really one of the most powerful scriptures in the Bible to think about. He basically, "How you treat people is how you're treating me".
Lisa Harper: Yeah, that's right.
Joyce Meyer: And so, I have the reverential fear of God on me about mistreating people. And what is ministry about? It's about meeting needs.
Lisa Harper: Yeah, that's right.
Joyce Meyer: It's not about being famous or well-known or...
Ginger Stache: And we're all in ministry.
Joyce Meyer: Thinking you're a big shot because you're on television, you know. I would be nowhere if God didn't put me there. And I certainly couldn't keep myself there. And so, I appreciate the compliment, but I have to give it back to God.
Erin Cluley: Look at all the tears, Joyce. It just made me so emotional for a second. But what it does to me, I'm a mom with a couple kids at home. And I think, those are my people. So, I need to let myself be interruptible for those two kids. "Mom is working right now. I am doing things for Jesus, so don't talk to me".
Joyce Meyer: Yeah, right.
Erin Cluley: "I am working for the Lord". "But mom, I had a really hard day at school. I need you to stop and talk to me". So, I need to take these lessons and apply them to my life as a mom at home and be interruptible.
Joyce Meyer: Well, I can tell you a funny story. I was going to preach one night, and we got stopped by a train. And it was a long train.
Lisa Harper: I bet you enjoyed it.
Joyce Meyer: And I was going, it looked like I was going to be late. And there's nothing I dislike worse than being late when I'm supposed to preach. I just can't stand that. I really like to be on time. And so, the train passes, and we get a little ways down. And then Dave stops to let a couple of people into the line of traffic. And I said, "We don't have time", I said, "We've gotta go. We don't have time for that"! He said, "Well, I'm just trying to be nice". I said, "I don't have time to be nice. I'm trying to get to church"! And then, of course, I had to tell on myself at church. It's like, "I don't have time to be nice right now: I've gotta get to church".
Lisa Harper: One of the best things, because I get a lot of gentle spankings from the Lord, because I'm such a slow learner.
Joyce Meyer: I'm glad yours are gentle.
Lisa Harper: Well, I was trying to be polite. Some of 'em really wallowed me. But the first time I went to meet Missy, in Haiti, my daughter, who I got through the miracle of adoption, I just couldn't stop hugging people. And I didn't know how contagious scabies was. And third world countries, basically full body lice. And I was itching a lot, but it was hot. And I was in menopause. I was always hot or itchy or something anyway. Well, anyway, I had to go straight from Haiti to speak at a conference. I won't say where it was, 'cause there's still people there that are mad at me. But I go to this conference. And like three days in the conference, I just had this, you know how sometimes you'll be talking or sharing with a group of people, and you'll have like the balloon over your head? Like you'll think, "Well, that's just curious". And you're thinking something that is not coming out of your mouth. And I thought, "That's the weirdest thing that all these women are itching". And I went...
Ginger Stache: Oh, no.
Lisa Harper: I had given this entire conference this...
Ginger Stache: Talk about sharing the love.
Lisa Harper: You get this stuff called Permethrin from Walgreens. It's not a big deal. You get rid of it, you just have to burn your clothes. But anyway, as I'm leaving and they had to race me to the plane, I was about to miss my flight. I'm telling the guy who runs the whole thing, and he was new, and he was trying to like make everything all nice. And I said, "I've given all the women, here, scabies". And he thought I was teasing him. And I said, "Oh, no, sir, I'm not playing". I said, "Here's what you need to get".
Ginger Stache: "It's some sort of spiritual thing, right"?
Lisa Harper: And he looked at me like, "You nut job! You have just infected". I was like, "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to". But it was so good for me because God was like, "Your baby goes through this every day. Every day millions of people around the world are hungry and they itch. You get a prescription at Walgreens, and it'll be over in a week. It is good for you to remember people". And I thought, "I'm gonna have to make a little sermon about why we all need scabies every now and then". Because it just makes you more compassionate.
Ginger Stache: Yeah, absolutely. And your life was majorly interrupted when God brought you this beautiful little girl and said, "Things are gonna change, now".
Lisa Harper: Oh, dramatically! I had to, I was telling somebody recently, I became a mom at the age of 50 through the miracle of adoption. I lost two babies before Missy. And I'm honestly not sure I would've been brave enough because I had everything kinda planned. And losing the second child just four days before I was supposed to bring her home, it just wrecked me. And I remember thinking, if he didn't allow my heart to be so eviscerated, I don't know if I'd be brave enough to give it away. It was kind of already in pieces. And it took two years. Missy almost died a couple of times during the adoption process. But somewhere in my stubborn, crooked heart, I thought once I brought her home, it would be easy. And I mean, I've never been so tired. And I had to call...
Lisa Harper: Friends of mine because I thought, "I'm single..."
Joyce Meyer: How old was she when you got her?
Lisa Harper: I brought her home, she was four and a half. She was two and a half when I started the process right after her first mama died. And she didn't speak a lick of English. She was real sick. And still, I had everything organized. You know, I had bins with signs on the bins.
Erin Cluley: labeled bins.
Lisa Harper: "Man, we're gonna knock this puppy out". And, as a matter of fact, Christmas always reminds me of our first Christmas together. Missy got real sick during the night. So, I pulled her into my bed. This is way TMI for a Christian podcast. But...
Ginger Stache: Go for it. That's what we are all about.
Lisa Harper: Listen, Joyce is my spiritual mentor. I'm just gonna be honest. And I put her in my bed because she had a fever. And because of some of Missy's medical conditions, if she gets sick, it can be pretty serious. And so, you know, in the middle of the night, just the antennae, your mama antennae 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. And you're reeling for the light because I'm thinking it's a fever. And as I'm going to turn on the light, my nose said, "That's not fever". And she had gotten really sick out of both ends. And it was on the wall. I mean, it was everywhere, in her hair, in my hair. And I was like, "Ah! Ah"! I was speaking, Ms. Joyce, Chris Caine was coming to town, and we were doing this big, like, fancy Christmas extravaganza that morning. And so, it's 3 o'clock morning.
Joyce Meyer: Extravaganza. We've never done an extravaganza.
Lisa Harper: Oh, my heavens. I am cleaning horrible stuff off the walls, outta the thing. I lived in the country. I just took my bedding and threw it out in the grass. I thought, "I'll deal with it later. Can't even deal with that now". Well, I get to this Christ, of course, I hadn't slept. I haven't slept a wink. I'm just, I'm driving to this thing to speak about, you know, the wonder of advent. And I get there. And a friend of mine there has six kids. And she said, "Well, you seem a little tired". I was like, "I'm exhausted"! And she said, "What were you doing"? I said, "Well, I was cleaning poo-poo out of my child's braids". And she said, "Well, Lisa, you've never had an episiotomy, but you know what it is to be a mother, now". But this is what being a mom is. This is what being a spiritual mother is. It's messy. And it's all about people. And it doesn't matter if your sermon rhymes. It doesn't matter how many followers. It matters how well you love the people God allows you to rub shoulders with. That's the gospel. He made himself nothing to be made in human form to love us, rat finks like us. We could at least do some measure of that same kindness to the people we get to be with.
Joyce Meyer: And we have to remind ourselves of this all the time, over, and over, and over. I preach about this a lot. And if nothing else, I preach it for me. Because we are so naturally selfish and self-centered that we really, it's something that you have to keep in front of you. It's something you have to do on purpose. There are some things you may do accidentally, but this is something you have to do on purpose.
Lisa Harper: I love that it's on the building, ms. Joyce. That you drive up and you see, "Love God, love people". You know, the body of Christ is a metaphor. It's what we were made for. I love that your ministry, your ministry just, that is your ministry. It's your heart. I love that y'all love people so well for the sake of Christ.
Ginger Stache: Like you were saying, it does not come naturally to most of us. I mean, erin, your words were so kind. And I think about the way that God has to jump out in front of us to teach us these things. And one of the things that has really helped me learn so much is just about how this is all about surrender. Because we wanna hold onto the things we want to hold onto. We've got to let go of things to love people well. And the other is humility. Because when I think that I'm too good...
Erin Cluley: Oh absolutely.
Ginger Stache: To stop, to stoop down, to do whatever it may be... And nobody thinks that on the outside, but that is the answer. You know, if I don't do it, it's because I think I'm more important than they are. And so, when God gives you that Revelation, wow. Talk about the love that comes out of that, because you realize, "I'm nothing. I am nothing". And so, you have to kind of walk in that, and build it, and develop it all the time, and mess it up, and start all over, and do it again.
Joyce Meyer: I think to bring it in balance, because there's always a balance. This does not mean that everybody who wants to interrupt you, you should always stop...
Erin Cluley: Oh, that's so good.
Joyce Meyer: And just do what everybody wants you to do, even your kids.
Lisa Harper: Sure.
Joyce Meyer: We do have a mandate from God of what he wants us to get done. And the devil will use well-meaning but unsuspecting people to derail you and get you off track. So, you have to listen to the Holy Spirit in this too and know when to say, "Yes" and when to say, "No".
Lisa Harper: It's like we were talking in another podcast about the whole of scripture. Because when you said that, I thought, remember Nehemiah and the wall. And he had to go, "No, I'm not coming off the wall". And there were some legitimate people saying, "Come do this". And he said, "Nope, this is my main purpose right now". I love that you used the word "Stoop". It's one of my favorite ways to think about Jesus. The king of all kings, the Messiah, perfectly holy, perfectly transcendent, condescends. And I think of him that, you know, the Passover, when he stooped, and took on the form of a servant, wrapped a towel around his waist, and washed their nasty feet. They walked everywhere they went. They've got grimy feet. And he washes their feet. And I think, and it was one of those conundrums, I think, did he know that when he laid down his scepter in glory that he'd be picking up a towel and washing our nasty feet? And yet he said, "This is, I didn't come to be served. I came to serve and give my life as a ransom for many". And so, sometimes, I'm not wise enough to know when I stay on the wall and when I stoop. But if I'm gonna to err, I'd like people to be my mistake.
Joyce Meyer: Yeah, that's good.
Ginger Stache: Yeah.
Joyce Meyer: You know, there's a scripture that I wanna share before our time's up, today. This taught me a lot, and I think it's a good lesson. You know, when you think of Sodom and Gomorrah and God destroyed them. And we usually think it was because of sexual sin. But this is what Ezekiel 16:49 says, "Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, and they did not aid the poor and the needy".
Lisa Harper: Wow.
Joyce Meyer: And that was what destroyed them. It wasn't, not that the sexual sin was right, but that wasn't really why they were destroyed. Matter of fact, these other things may have led them into the sexual sin.
Lisa Harper: Probably, right.
Joyce Meyer: Probably did. So, they chose idleness, ease, convenience, and selfishness. And that was what brought about the destruction.
Lisa Harper: In other words, they didn't love people.
Joyce Meyer: Yeah, they didn't love people. And so, if we're gonna call ourselves Christians...
Lisa Harper: Man, that's good.
Joyce Meyer: Then we have to make loving people a priority. Because I think that the way we love other people is the way we love Jesus.
Lisa Harper: Amen.
Ginger Stache: Yeah.
Lisa Harper: Amen.
Ginger Stache: Well, this has been such great encouragement. And it's not easy stuff. I mean, this...
Joyce Meyer: No.
Ginger Stache: This is hard stuff. Knowing the boundaries and just letting ourself be paused when we don't want to, I mean, it's difficult. But there are such opportunities in it. I mean, God wants to do so much in our life, so much more than we can even imagine. If I can just slow down enough, now and then, to say, "Ok, God, I'm here. I'm ready. Do what you will". Whether it's through somebody else or just something he wants to drop in my lap to bless us. So, here's a scripture as we walk it out, something to remember. This is Ephesians 4:2. It says, "With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love". Those are key words, and they are not easy ones. But with God's help, all things are possible.
Lisa Harper: Amen.
Ginger Stache: Thank you, Lisa. It's always so fun having you here.
Lisa Harper: Oh, I love being with y'all. Thank you.
Ginger Stache: Great conversation, you guys. Thank you. And we will see you all next time. Bye-bye.