Joyce Meyer - Finding God's Will for Your Life (Talk It Out) - Part 2

Well, thank you so much for being here today. I'm gonna start going through these points, finding God's will for your life. So many people are frustrated. Now, you know, maybe there's some people that don't care, but we should care. We should, that's one of the first things we need is to, God gives us free will, but he wants us to use our will to choose his will. And that just makes it real easy. He gives you free will and sometimes we think, "Well, then, I can just do anything I want to". Well you can, but your life's not gonna work out good. He wants you to use your free will to choose his will so he's not forcing you to try to follow him, but you're doing it because you want to.

So, the first thing is because so many people are frustrated about this trying to hear from God thing, "Well, what do you want me to do with my life"? That I really just wanna say again, trust instead of trying. Don't be, it's really not your responsibility to figure out what God's will is. It's his responsibility to speak to you. If you want to know, then it's his responsibility to show you. God knows a lot more than we do, and we act sometimes like we should know more than he does. And so, trust God instead of trying all the time. Should you be doing something spiritual or something secular? Well, everybody's not gonna be called into the five-fold ministry: evangelist, pastor, prophet, teacher, those kind of things. There's all kinds of gifts that God gives people.

So, this is really simple if you just get this. It doesn't matter what you're doing as long as you're doing it with and for God. See, you can be an office manager and if your purpose every day is to go to work and represent God. And you're doing that because you believe that's what he wants you to do and you love him, then that very secular job becomes spiritual because you're doing it with and for God. Going to the grocery store can become spiritual if you're talking with God while you're doing it.

So, you're a spiritual person. So, you don't have to be worried about, "Well, should I be in ministry"? Everybody is in ministry. Every person who has Christ in their heart is in ministry. We're all called to the ministry of intercession and we're all called to the ministry of reconciliation. And you can take any one day and just the number of people that you run into. I went to the drug store, two days ago, to buy something, and I asked the checkout lady, "How are you today"? And she said, "Honestly, I'm not very good". She said, "I've got", she told me what she had wrong with her, and I said, "Oh, where does it hurt"?

And she told me where it hurt. And so, I told her, I said, "Okay, I'm gonna leave here and I'm gonna pray for you". And she said, "Oh, thank you. I appreciate that". Or you see somebody that you can tell is struggling and you pray for them. I mean, you can go out and you can make a whole day out of just praying for people or just being kind to them. Do you know how many people that are in the world that nobody really cares about them? And they just need somebody just to care or somebody to say, "I appreciate the job you're doing". I love to, like sometimes, when I'm out shopping and I'm in a big department store and there's somebody, some lady that's got her mop bucket and she's cleaning the bathroom.

Well, I mean, really, in the natural who wants a job cleaning bathrooms all the time? But that's their job and somebody needs to do it. And I love to tell those people, "I appreciate the job you're doing. I know you work hard and thank you for doing it". I mean, that can change somebody's whole day. So, you're called into ministry. Every one of you are called into ministry. You can do it right where you're at. If you wanna know what God wants you to do, you gotta learn how to step out and find out. Don't be afraid, like I said before, it's like going to pick out an outfit. The next thing is offer yourself to God.

I love Romans 12:1, "I appeal to you therefore, brethren, and I beg of you in view of all the mercies of God, to make a decisive dedication of your bodies", a definite decision to dedicate your body and I love the Amplified, "Presenting all your members and faculties as a living sacrifice". So, you can say, "God, I give you my hands today, my feet. I wanna touch what you want me to touch. I wanna go where you want me to go. I give you, my eyes. I don't wanna look at anything you don't want me to see. I give you, my ears. I give you, my mouth". Hmmm... "I don't wanna talk about anything today you don't want me to talk about. I wanna treat people the way you want me to treat people".

See, really, these are the things that God wants from us. It's not so much what is this big thing I'm called to do, but he wants us to just get out in the world and live his word in front of people. It's not so much about what I'm supposed to do, as it is, being the person, he wants me to be. And I think a lot of times people are trying to find this very specific will that God has for their life, but they've never even gotten around to doing what the Bible says is the general will of God for their life. So, offer yourself to God. The Bible says it's a reasonable thing that God's asking for us to offer ourselves to him. Just continue growing in God, that's his will. Serve the Lord with gladness. I love this.

A young girl told me one time, well, she was actually almost in her fifties by this time, but she'd never been married. And of course, she wanted to be married and she went through that whole thing and, you know, frustrated about that. And then she's asking God, "What do you want me to do"? And he took her to Psalm 100 verse 2, "Serve the Lord with gladness". And she said that she knew then that was what God just wanted her to do. And then, so if she's doing that, she's doing the thing that God has shown her to do for right now, then he may lead her to a marriage situation. But, really, when it all comes down to it, what does God really want from his children? He wants to see us happy, enjoying our life, and to the best of our ability, doing what we believe that he would want us to do. It's not about, "I have to be a preacher". "I have to be a great singer".

You know, if that's what you're supposed to do, that'll fall in place. I know I'm not supposed to be a singer. I don't have to struggle with that at all. And Paul said, you know, "I've learned how to be content". God wants us to be content. You know, I mean, how many years was I preaching every week, but I wasn't content and I wasn't glad and I had unforgiveness in my heart? And so, I was doing something spiritual, but I had all these issues that I needed to deal with. And sometimes we try to cover up our issues by doing something spiritual. So, instead of giving God obedience, we give him a sacrifice.

See, we didn't do what he told us to do, but we're trying to do all these many good works to cover up for the fact that we didn't do the one simple thing that he asked us to do. So, serve the Lord with gladness. I love when all my kids come over and they're just laughing and having a good time and we're all laughing. Sometimes we laugh so hard we almost cry. And God wants to see us happy. And I think a lot of people, some how they feel guilty if they're just happy. You know, he wants you to enjoy your day. Thank God in everything. That's one of the big ones in the word. Are you thankful or are you complaining and murmuring and grumbling? Are you looking at what you don't have or looking at what you do have?

And 1 Thessalonians 5:18, "Thank God in everything no matter what the circumstances may be, be thankful and give thanks", so, express your thankfulness. "For this is the will of God". So, if you're looking for the will of God until you get that specific thing, be thankful. Be a happy little person. Serve the Lord with gladness. Be content. Be a blessing everywhere that you go. I was asking God for something one time and he said, "Why should I give you anything else? All you do is complain about what you've already got". Maybe somebody can use that, I don't know.

All right. Learn to trust your heart. So many people just don't. You're afraid to trust your heart. I forget now, who it was God said this to, might have been Joshua or somebody else, but he said, "Do all that's in your heart for I am with you in all that you do". That's scary. It just sounds like too much freedom to me. "God, I'd rather you just give me a list, do this, this, this, this, and this". Because see, when we do it God's way, then we have to take responsibility. And so, we'd rather get all these specific instructions. And I remember, my son, David, who runs the missions department many years ago, he said, you know, "I need to know how to handle these specific situations". And I said, "I can't tell you that, David, because you're dealing with different people in different situations".

And it was something about giving employees time off or something. And I said, "You know, somebody may come to you and ask you for something that's a little bit outside of our regular guidelines". And so, because he tended to be more of a rule follower, he was gonna follow the guidelines all the time. But I said, "If you've got somebody who's really going the extra mile for you and, you know, they stay late and come in early and they've been with you 25 years, you know, maybe in that situation God would have you break the rule," you know. I mean, Jesus broke rules. And the pharisees just hated it. But we can't, you're gonna have guidelines and rules for your life, but sometimes you're gonna have to go outside of them a little bit if you're going to really be led and guided by the Holy Spirit.

Here again, that much freedom sometimes frightens people because we're "Just give me a list. What do you want me to do? Sit down here on my bed, Jesus". You know, it used to frustrate me when I would hear these people preach and say, "Oh yes, Jesus came into my room, and he sat on the bed and talked to me for two hours". And I'm thinking, "Why have you never done that for me"? You know, so, I'm like, "Okay, Jesus, I need these answers. Come sit on the bed and talk to me". No, he's never sat on my bed and talked to me. I have to just walk it all out and figure it out. And most people have to do that. I don't know about the people that he comes and sits on their bed, but, you know, it hasn't been me. We have to love this, "Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and do not rely on your insight or understanding".

Now, Romans 8:6, get this says, "The mind of the flesh is sense and reason without the Holy Spirit". So, the mind of the spirit must be sense and reason with the Holy Spirit. In other words, I use my mind, I use my reason, but I'm doing it with the Lord. I'm having this conversation with him or I'm making sure that it agrees with the word. But the mind of the flesh is when I just get into sense and reason and just, "Well, I'm not gonna do that. That don't make any sense". Well, a lot of times God asks you to do things that doesn't make any sense. I think it's in 1 Corinthians 2:14, it says, "The natural man doesn't understand the spiritual man". And I look at that this way sometimes, it's like my head doesn't always understand what my heart is telling me to do.

So, you can't just be led by your head. You have sense and reason with the Holy Spirit. You're talking to him about this. When God led me to quit my job so I could have time to study, to teach the Bible, 40 years ago, it didn't seem like a very smart thing to do because our bills were $40 a month more than our income was gonna be. And so, normally, that would be foolish to do something like that. But Dave and I both felt so strongly that was what God wanted me to do. And every single month, for six years, God made sure that we had that $40 and he used so many different ways to do it. And it, man, it gave us so much faith for what we need now. You know, we never worry about the money that's needed for this ministry because we've seen God be faithful with $40.

And so, a lot of times God will teach you in the little things how to trust and believe for the big things. But here's the other side of that. If the first month came along and God didn't give us the money to pay the bills, I would have said, "I missed, God" and I would've went back to work. And that's what people don't want to do. They don't wanna say, "I was wrong. I didn't hear from God". And there's no problem with doing that. If you're secure in your relationship with God, you don't have any problem telling someone, "You know, I thought I was hearing from God. I'm learning how to do this, but I just made a mistake, and I didn't hear from God". And that's all right. "A righteous man falls seven times and gets up again".

When a baby's learning how to walk, you do not expect them to not fall and get a few bumps. And you'll go and they'll cry, and you'll hug 'em and love 'em and get 'em back up on their feet and they'll try again. Well, that's really what God does with us. He comes and he hugs us. He gives us a hug in the spirit and, you know, he comforts us. God is the God of all comfort and, you know, he's trying to say, "It's okay. It's okay. You're my baby and, you know, you made a mistake, but it's all right. It's not the end of the world".

What does God want us to do with our mistakes? Learn from them. I always say, if I make a mistake, at least I know not to do that again. So, I have learned something out of it, and I don't need to feel bad about it. Use common sense. A lot of people just don't even use common sense. And to be honest, I think that's one of my greatest gifts is I'm very practical and I just use a lot of common sense. I call it "Sanctified common sense". And I believe that's what wisdom is. I really believe wisdom is just sanctified, which means holy, common sense. So, there's faith, there's foolishness, and there's presumption. A lot of people, when they think they're hearing from God, they'll do something that they think is in faith, but it's actually foolishness or presumption.

And see, that's not the way God works. God doesn't force and push and shove and make you feel, "I have to do this, I have to do this, I have to do this". He leads us and he guides us. But the devil is a manipulator, he drives us. But the Holy Spirit leads us, remember that. When you feel like, "I have to do this, if I don't, I'm gonna be in trouble," that's not God. That's just not the way that he works. So, learn to trust your heart and follow it. Walk in faith, not in fear. Sometimes you have to do things afraid. I mean, I've told the story many times of the first time I got up in front of a big audience, which I'd prayed and believed for years and years.

Now the time came, and I'm not, I mean, I'm pretty bold and fairly confident and I was so scared that when I opened my mouth to talk, all that happened was a little squeak came out. And I mean, the devil was screaming in my ears because there was like, all the speakers were sitting on the front row. There was Dr. So-and-so, and reverend so-and-so, and prophetess so-and-so, and Joyce, from Fenton. And I just felt like so out of my league and over my head. And I wasn't one of the main speakers. I was just doing a workshop. And so, they wanted the workshop speakers to get up and tell what they were gonna be speaking on. And that was when I couldn't do anything but squeak.

And so, I had a choice to make. I had to open my mouth and do it again, afraid, or I had to do what the devil was telling me, pack my stuff up and run back to Fenton. And so, I opened my mouth again and was able to tell people what I was gonna be speaking on. And the next day, my little room that held 300 people was completely packed full with people hanging out in the halls trying to hear what I was saying. You see, if you press through, even if you have to do it afraid, God will reward you and he will honor your boldness in the spirit. God wants you not to be presumptuous and foolish, but he does want you to be bold in the spirit and face the devil down and not let him control you.

Fear is probably the single biggest thing that keeps people from walking in the will of God. Fear that they're gonna make a mistake. Fear they're gonna miss God. Fear that they're gonna look foolish. All kinds of fears. And the devil has this "What if" trick that he likes to play on everybody. "Well, what if you fail and everybody knows you didn't hear from God"? "Well, what if you get up there and you make a fool out of yourself"? "Well, what if you get out in the middle of this and you don't have enough money to carry it through"? Well, guess what? I didn't even have enough money to start it, so you know, I certainly don't have enough to pull it through to the finish. And every day we live by faith. I mean sure the ministry's got some money set aside, but if God didn't keep the flow going, we'd maybe last three or four months.

And I never have to worry about it or feel pressured about it because I am convinced, now, of course, I've been doing this a long time, 47 years, so I've had a long time to get convinced. I wasn't all this put together 45 years ago. I was a mess. And I don't mean to make it sound like it's all easy because you've got to go through the hard part to get to the easy part. But as teachers often say, or as mothers say, "If you'll listen to me, I can save you a lot of trouble". Somehow or another though we always gotta go through it ourselves, learn the lessons the hard way. But that's part of the purpose in teaching and that's one of the reasons why the Bible says that younger people should listen to older people.

You notice I didn't say, "Old," I said, "Older". Older people because they have wisdom and experience. And I think that we are making a mistake if the generations don't work together. Because there's a lot of things that I can learn from younger people, but there's also a lot of things that they can learn from me. And I think sometimes older people think because you're young you don't have any brains. And then sometimes younger people think, "Oh, you're old, you don't know what you're talking about". And we need to have respect for one another because that's the best way that we're gonna get the best answers. Well, what if you missed God and he gets mad at you?

And here's a big one. What if you let go of what you have to head towards something new, and then you get out there and there's nothing, and you've lost what you had, and now you don't have anything? And boy that was a big one for me. I mean, I worked at a church here in St. Louis for five years and the grace just started lifting off of me to be there. And there were so many things that I wanted to do, so many dreams that we had that we could not be fulfilled.

Like I wanted to write books, and I had asked the pastor if I could write a book and he said, "No". He said, "You know, you're here to support me, you have to be in this as", which I understood that. You know it was like two plants trying to grow in the same pot and we were root bound. You know, God had me there for a reason to learn for five years but then it was time for me to go. But I didn't know to what. I was like Abraham when God said leave your family and all that you know and go to the place that I will show you. I mean, do you realize how scary that must have been for him?

You know, this one God that he'd been hearing from and believed in that nobody else had ever heard of? Why did he have to get away from his family? Because they were idol worshipers. Sometimes God has to get you away from something before you can hear from him. And boy, we don't like to give up what we've got because we're afraid that maybe there's gonna be nothing out there. It's scary. This is one of the big points. If you're gonna hear from God, I mean, it's like, "I'm unhappy here. I don't even know why I'm unhappy. I've loved this job. I love the people. I don't know why I'm unhappy". But when God lifts the grace off of something you'll get unhappy and if you don't let it go here's what will happen: you'll start finding fault with everybody there.