Joyce Meyer - Interrupting Satan's Plans

Every one of my children, when they were growing up, every one of them, some a little more than others, but every one of them I wondered if they were gonna make it. Come on now. I had concerns and every one of them, I tried to change them. I said, I tried to change them. Well, you know there's an interesting thing about God, he works but He waits till we're done. Amen? And but really and truly, all things are possible with God, but we do have to get out of God's way, and we have to learn that our prayers are much more valuable than our works of the flesh.

Can I tell you a secret? You cannot ever make somebody else love God. No, I don't care how much you want to. The very best thing that you can do is pray and simply be a great example. Live your life in such a way where your kids, and your spouse, or your mom and dad, or whoever you're concerned about, where they see something in you that they want and just pray.

I don't know why we think that, "Well, I've done everything else I know to do, I guess I'll pray". I mean, that's just the silliest statement. That should always be our first line of defense.

So, our two boys really run all the logistical part of the ministry. I did that for a lot of years but not anymore, thank God. I just preach, and teach, and write, and pray, and do interviews, and do my television, and get to deal with the stuff that I'm the most gifted for.

And but our oldest son David, my gosh, I thought that boy would kill me. I mean, I didn't know what the problem was then, now I look back and I wish I would have known then what I know now. We all say that but we can't, you know?

And I struggled with him really mainly because he was just like me, and I didn't know that. And we were both real strong willed and I swear from the time he was in his crib, I could see him looking through those little bars thinking, "How can I take over the world"? And so, you know, we think having a strong willed child is the worst thing out there but then you also get one that is like undisciplined, and kind of lazy, and don't care about nothing, and everything's okay.

And so, you bounce back and forth between just trying to change everybody in your family. I had one that was a perfectionist, one that's a phlegmatic, two that are type a cholerics. And so, like everybody else, you just have fun. And then Dave is just okay with whatever. You know, he's just like Dave's just good. I always say there's about three areas that you don't want to mess with him with but if you can handle that, all the rest of it's pretty good. We don't bother his golf. My daughter got him a sign the other day that said, "I gave up golf once and it was the most terrifying weekend of my life".

Well now, that boy that I thought would drive me crazy runs our world missions and we have works all over the world. And matter of fact, I got a text from him this morning and it had the temperature gauge on it where he's at in India. And we have a foreign director over there that's worked for us for 19 years that runs our office in India, his name is Scott and he said "I'm going to Scott son's graduation today and here's the temperature. Where he's at today, it's 107," amen.

So, he's worked very hard and made a lot of sacrifices but I'll tell ya, I remember the day that I told God, "I cannot do this anymore. I just cannot do this anymore". I was going to the office to tell Him that he could not work for me because it was just too hard. We just could not get along.

Now, I want you to listen, and God whispered in my heart, "Don't give up on David". And I think somebody here needs to hear that today. Whatever the name of your child is, or your spouse, or your whoever it is, don't give up on them. Just because you can't do anything certainly doesn't mean that God can't do anything, amen? What if I would have given up on him? What if God would have given up on you? What if God would have given up on me? You know, we give up on people a lot quicker than God gives up on us. He doesn't plan to give up on you. I don't care how long it takes and how hard you are to deal with, God is never going to give up on you. Amen?