Joyce Meyer - God's Answer to Stress - Part 2

God’s answer for stress is rest. But it’s not just resting your body, it’s resting your soul. And I wanna encourage you to start paying more attention to what’s going on inside you, because that’s where you get tired. Do you know that a day of anger is like 40 hours of hard labor? Unforgiveness will just suck all the energy right out of you. Don’t be mad. Don’t be unforgiving. The people that you’re mad at are out having a good time, and they couldn’t care less that you’re mad. You’re not hurting them by being mad at them, or by not forgiving them. It’s just the devil’s way of you continuing to hurt yourself. Just forgive them. Let it go. When you’re worried about something, ask yourself, «Is this gonna really matter in five years»?

You know, it’s not work that makes us tired. It’s what’s going on inside of us, while we work. And the Bible says we live in two places. My feet are on this platform, but I’m also seated in heavenly places with Christ Jesus. The rest that God offers us is not a rest from work, but it’s a rest in work. And it’s all about your soul. You know, if you have a guilty conscience, you keep doing something that your conscience condemns, you’re putting stress on yourself. Just get in agreement with God because he’s not gonna change his mind. It will be God’s way or it will be no way. Amen? I mean, you can do it your way if you want to, but you’re not gonna like the outcome. Our soul is our mind, our will, and our emotions.

And so if you can keep your emotions calm, and your mind positive, and stay in agreement with God’s will, it won’t be your work that’ll make you tired. God didn’t tell Martha not to work, he told her not to worry. Hmm. «Come unto me, all you that are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest». Wow. «Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls». Rest, wow! You can come to him anywhere, anytime. «My yoke is easy and my burden is light». Wow. We must learn to take his yoke upon us and learn the lesson he has for us in the current circumstance. What? I don’t wanna learn anything from this. I just want it to go away.

You know, sometimes, and you may not like this, but sometimes you’re better off to embrace the situation and say, «God, this is the way it is right now. So, I wanna get all I can out of this. I wanna learn something from this». Something that I found out that is just about more valuable than anything is experience. And the only way you get experience is by going through things. I can truly say at this point in my life, that I trust God. I spent a lot of years trying to trust God. But every time I’ve had a problem and God’s been faithful and come through, I’ve had a little more experience with God, then it’s easier for me to trust God the next time. You cannot grow up to be a mature Christian, or to be transformed into the image of Christ, without having some circumstances that you don’t like. It is not possible.

And it’s going to be part of our life on and off until Jesus comes back to get us. Two of our team members were put in rooms that were right underneath the bar in the hotel, and it sounded like they were bowling all night. Now, why would a hotel even sell a room that was underneath something like that? So they offered to move them at midnight. That would be a lot of fun, wouldn’t it? Thank God it wasn’t me, but I’ve… 'cause that would stress me out. This yoke that Jesus talks about, «Take my yoke upon you,» you know, that comes from two oxen being yoked together, so they’re pulling the load together, and it’s not just all on one of them. Jesus wants us to stay yoked to him, so he’s always pulling the load with us. We’re never pulling that load by ourselves.

See, I’m working up here today, and I’m gonna work again in the next service. But I’m resting too. Because I’m not worried. I’m not concerned about what you think of me. It’s not my responsibility… thank you. But it’s not my responsibility to make you like me, that’s between you and God. I’m free to be me. And you know, have some security and some confidence. I’m writing a book on rejection, and I said, «My husband is so secure I don’t even think he would know if anybody was rejecting him». And even if he did, he wouldn’t care. You know what he’d say? «Well, that’s their problem». A yoke in the vine’s Greek says, «Serving to couple two things together,» and it’s used metaphorically, of «Submission to authority». It refers to «Balance, or to balancing out a load».

Now, I wanna read you this from Watchman Nee’s book called, «A Balanced Christian Life». If you’ve never read any of his stuff, I don’t agree with everything he says. He talks a lot about suffering, but I learned a lot about it because the Bible talks about suffering. We don’t like to talk about it. People don’t like to hear it. But it’s gonna hurt. And you know what? What do they tell a woman giving birth? «Breathe. Breathe, relax, the more you fight it, the worse it hurts». Come on. And the more we fight the things in our life that we don’t like, that we cannot get rid of, we might as well just settle down and embrace 'em, learn something from 'em until God does what only God can do. Amen?

What God is leading us into today is for us to be willing to take up his yoke in the small things of each day, as well as in the big things of life. Some preachers find it hard to labor with their fellow workers. Some sisters find it arduous to live with their in-laws. Some employees find it difficult to work with their colleagues. And some students become wary of their relationship with their teachers and other students. These are yokes to bear. You are, of course, tired of them. You wish you could leave them, or they would leave you. You feel cast down and you have no peace.

Please understand, however, that this is a yoke which God has given you. This is the yoke that he wants you to bear. This is the portion God has appointed to you. He wants you to submit to such a circumstance because it is the best for you right now. Hmm, how can you learn to love everybody if everybody has to be just the way you want 'em to be? I got a tattoo when I was 80. Oldest person they ever tattooed. I had «Love» put on my foot so I remember to walk in love. Okay, now listen to this. Pay attention to this. Sometimes God puts a careful person and a careless person together. Or a strong person and a weak person. He may put a healthy person with a sick person. Or a clever person with a stupid person. Or a quick-tempered person and a slow-tempered person. Or a tidy person with a sloppy person. Or a spender with a saver. And he does it on purpose because the intent is, is that we balance one another out.

See, I mean I’m running 90 miles an hour, got a new idea every five minutes, and Dave is like, «Well, we’ll see». I mean it used to drive me nuts. «We’ll see». «No, I don’t wanna see, I wanna do it. And I wanna do it now»! And he said, «You’re always nine miles ahead of God». I said, «Yeah, and you’re 100 miles behind him». And so, but the two of us kind of balanced each other out, you know. I put a little fire under him, and he put my fire out a little bit. And those of you that are just really fed up with the person you’re married to, remember why you married 'em. Don’t just look at all the stuff you don’t like. Sit down and make a list of what you don’t like and what you do like.

I actually did that one day, and there was maybe two things I didn’t like about Dave that drove me nuts. But there was 50 things that I just adored about him. See. You’re never gonna find a perfect relationship because you’re in it. Amen? Oh, rest. Hebrews 4:10 and 11, «For he who has once entered [God's] Rest…» can anybody feel how good that is? «For he who has once entered [God's] Rest has ceased from [the weariness and the pain] Of human labors, just as God rested from those labors peculiarly his own. Let us therefore be zealous and exert ourselves and strive diligently to enter the rest [of God, to know and experience it for ourselves], that no one may fall by the same kind of unbelief and disobedience [into which they fell in the wilderness]».

Now, as I said, this rest that he’s talking about is a spiritual rest. It’s not laying down and taking a nap. It’s not, although that’s good sometimes, too. But pay attention to what’s going on inside you. When you start feeling stressed out, pay attention to what’s going on inside you. What are your thoughts? What’s your attitude? Are you mad at somebody? Are you frustrated with somebody just because they are the way they are, and you don’t want 'em to be that way? How many of you are in relationship with somebody, spouse, kids, friends that you just really would like to change them? Well, see, we have to learn to love people the way they are, not the way we want them to be. God takes us the way we are, and then because he loves and accepts us freely, unconditionally, that makes us want to do better for him. But, when we start trying to make people change, they become resistant to that, and will act even worse.

For years, I tried to change Dave. Didn’t work. He’s still the same, except now he can’t hear, so that’s the most frequent word in our house is «Huh? Huh»? He has two sets of hearing aids and he won’t wear 'em. One, he says they itch his ears. But Dave doesn’t have a hearing problem, I mumble. You know, I knew that I married Mr. Right. I just did not know his first name was always. I don’t know what it is with men, but they have a very hard time saying, «I’m wrong». I mumble! It’s not that he’s hard of hearing, I mumble. Do I sound to you like I mumble? No, or he says, «You talk too soft».

Now, one thing I don’t do is talk soft. It’s a rest in work, not from work. If your emotions, your heart, or your will, is set against a thing that you’re doing, there will be no rest. So, like I said, if you are going to a job every day that you hate, you’re gonna be so tired when you come home that night. And it won’t be because of the work. It’ll be because of the attitude. Is anybody learning anything today? What would happen if just some of these things that keep you stressed out all the time, if you would just say, «You know what, I’m just gonna embrace that, and if God wants to change it, he’ll change it. And I’m just, I’m gonna be happy with what God’s given me».

I tell you, the stress would leave. Then the last thing I wanna say, not the last thing I wanna say, but the last thing I have time to say is, we have to stop hurrying. Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry. That will stress me out and probably will stress you out also. Amen? We take on way too many things. We take on commitments without even thinking about all the commitments we already have. We take on commitments without thinking through what it’s really gonna to take. And then we hate it. So we end up doing these things that we hate to do, that we should’ve said, «No to». But we didn’t because we wanted to keep somebody else happy. And now they’re happy and we’re unhappy. Amen?

So, Father, I pray in Jesus' name, for every person here today that needs to make some changes in their life, so they can rest and not stress. Help them make the decisions they need to make, and stop just wanting every problem to go away. I pray for their joy, for their peace, and for their spiritual growth in Jesus' name, amen.

Ginger Stache: Candid conversation, Joyce, let’s talk about how easy it is to work so hard and especially in ministry because you really believe in what you’re doing.

Joyce Meyer: Well, I think God tells us pretty plainly in the Bible that we need at least one day out of seven to rest. And although we don’t live under the law, that’s wisdom for your health. And so I think of two words, balance and variety. I think, you know, when we talk about burnout, we always talk about it from the standpoint of working too hard. But I’ll give you another example that I think is interesting. Dave’s job when he was in the army was to play basketball to entertain the troops. They had baseball teams and basketball teams that would go around and entertain the troops. And so he was good at basketball, he was tall. And so they had a coach one time that had them practice four hours every day. They would scrimmage, which means run up and down the court, up and down the court. And he said he would eat unbelievable amounts of food and he still lost 25 pounds during that period of time. And he actually burnt out on a sport that he loved, and got to the point where he just didn’t even wanna do it anymore, because the guy was overdoing it. So it, you can burn out even on something that you enjoy, if you overdo it, and do it too much. So we can burn out on anything. And that’s why, if you think about it, why did God put so many different varieties of fruits and vegetables on the earth? I mean, why not just grow carrots and apples and nothing else? Because we actually need variety. And that, so if you work too much, and in ministry, I think we think sometimes because we’re working for the Lord, that we’re exempt from all those other rules. Oh, i, you know, I can do this. God will cover me. Well, I mean, I got really sick from working too hard. And it took me a long time to come back from it. And I don’t know that I will ever come back 100 percent, because I just really wore my adrenals out just working, working, working, working, working. And I had done it for so many years. And then you have to take time to be… And I think especially in the western culture, everything is about work. You know, not «How are you,» but «What do you do»?

Ginger Stache: That’s true, yeah.

Joyce Meyer: And so many people you say, «How you been»? «Busy»!

Ginger Stache: Yeah, we say, «How are you doing»?

Joyce Meyer: Uh-huh, right.

Ginger Stache: And in Australia, they say, «How are you going»? Yeah, and I just find that so interesting. It’s just different perspectives of what we think is important. It becomes who we are.

Joyce Meyer: Yeah. When you meet new people, it doesn’t take very long before you wanna find out what they do. And so, are we really interested in them as a human being, or are we just trying to find out what they do, so we can see if we’re gonna be impressed enough with 'em to press on in the relationship? And it’s, you know, I’m a worker anyway. And I’m motivated by accomplishment. That’s part of my temperament that God has given me. And it’s a good thing, because you don’t build something like what we have here if you’re not a hard worker. But there were things that I could have, and should have said, «No,» to, that would have given me the breaks that I needed to not get to the point where it affected my health in a very major way.

Ginger Stache: Yeah, well, look at the longevity of your ministry, and how much more God has in store. So a lot of that does have to come from learning and adjusting along the way, I assume.

Joyce Meyer: You know, we don’t like to tell people, «No,» because number one, you don’t wanna hurt their feelings. But I think even more than that, I think we really don’t want people to be mad at us.

Ginger Stache: Yeah, that’s very true.

Joyce Meyer: And I think a lot of times we say, «Yes,» because we think if we say, «No,» they’re gonna get angry. And we want everybody to like us. And if you’re gonna follow the Holy Spirit, then you have to be willing to say, «No,» when you know that, «No,» is the wise thing to do. Anybody if you wanna do what God wants you to do, I mean, even if you wanna be a great mom, you know, you can’t maybe run around with everybody all the time that wants you to run around with them. It’s not just about being in ministry, but we all have to know how to say, «No,» as well as how to say, «Yes».

Ginger Stache: Yeah, exactly what you said, balance. And when I was a young mom, and now that our family dynamics have changed, you know, you have to refigure that balance all along the way.

Joyce Meyer: Yeah, and I think that we just, we really have to, people that are strong, and I’m strong, you’re strong. Most type «A» personalities are strong, they are strong people they don’t give up easy, and they can do a lot. But I think a lot of times we don’t want to look weak…

Ginger Stache: That’s really, that’s very true.

Joyce Meyer: To anybody. And so, we’ll take on things that down deep inside, we know we shouldn’t just because we don’t want anybody to think that we can’t do it. It’s okay to rest. You’re not weak, if you’re tired. You’re not weak, if you rest. And there’s not something wrong with you if you just can’t say, «Yes,» to everything everybody wants you to do. And I think one of the things we have to realize is when people ask you to do something, they wanna hear, «Yes,» they don’t wanna hear, «No». And so, you will have to take a chance on people being unhappy with you. If you’re going to take care of yourself, then you’re gonna either be happy with you, or you’re gonna keep everybody else happy with you, and end up being unhappy with you.

Ginger Stache: A little bit of encouragement for people. It’s okay to slow down. It’s okay to ask God to let you rest.

Joyce Meyer: It’s okay to say, «No».

Ginger Stache: Thank you. Yes, absolutely.

Joyce Meyer: And it’s okay not to always have to feel like you’re strong.