by Joyce Meyer
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from The Amplified Bible (AMP). Old Testament copyright © 1965, 1987 by The Zondervan Corporation, Grand Rapids, Michigan. New Testament copyright © 1958, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
Warner Books Edition
Copyright © 1996 by Joyce Meyer
Life in the Word, Inc.
P.O. Box 655
Fenton, Missouri 63026
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
FaithWords
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First eBook Edition:: October 2002
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ISBN: 978-0-446-54921-9
Contents
Introduction
1: Life Is a Journey
2: Make a Decision To Enjoy Life
3: Regret and Dread
4: Joy and Peace Are Found in Believing
5: Simplicity
6: Childlikeness
7: The Complication of Religion
8: Legalism in Practical Matters
9: Too Many Problems To Enjoy Life
10: Diversity and Creativity
11: Joy in God’s Waiting Room
12: Freedom in Relationships
13: Don’t Poison Your Joy
Conclusion: Finish Your Course With Joy
References
Bibliography
About The Author
Other Books by Joyce Meyer
Introduction
I believe that life should be a celebration. Far too many people don’t even enjoy life, let alone celebrate it. I frequently say that many people are on their way to heaven, but very few are enjoying the trip. For many years I was one of those people.
God has taught me a great deal about how to enjoy life. He has showed me that the life He has given us is meant to be enjoyed. Jesus came that we might have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows) according to The Amplified Bible version of John 10:10. There are many other similar Scriptures in the Bible that I will expound on in this book.
I believe that reading this book may be life changing for you. Perhaps you are as I was at one time. You truly love the Lord with all your heart and are trying so hard to please Him that you are forgetting to live to the full the abundant life He has provided.
Enjoyment of life is not based on enjoyable circumstances. It is an attitude of the heart, a decision to enjoy everything because everything — even little, seemingly insignificant things — have a part in the overall “big picture” of life.
When I finally realized that I was not enjoying my life, I had to make a quality decision to find out what was wrong and rectify it. This decision demanded learning new ways of handling situations.
Once I discovered that the world was not going to change, I decided that it was my approach to some of the “lemons” in life that needed adjustment. I had heard someone say that lemons can make us sour or we can turn them into lemonade. My decision to make lemonade instead of turning sour required that I learn balance in my work habits.
I was a workaholic who found great satisfaction in accomplishment. Of course, God desires and even commands us to bear fruit. We should not waste time and be “do-nothings,” but an unbalanced attitude in this area causes many people to experience burnout from a lifestyle of all work and no play. I was one of those people. Actually, I didn’t know how to play and truly enjoy it. I always felt I should be working. I felt safe only when I was doing something “constructive.”
I also had to change my attitude toward people. I learned that one of the reasons I didn’t enjoy life was because I didn’t enjoy most of the people in my life. I was trying to change them so I would find them enjoyable instead of accepting them the way they were and enjoying them while God was changing them.
I believe that all of us truly need teaching on this subject of how to enjoy where we are on the way to where we are going. I pray that this book will be a major blessing in your life, and that, as you read it, God will bring you to a crossroads — a place of decision — where you can choose to begin celebrating life.
1
Life Is a Journey
The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows).
John 10:10
I have come to the conclusion that there is nothing as tragic as being alive and not enjoying life. I wasted much of my own life because I did not know how to enjoy where I was while I was on the way to where I was going.
Life is a journey. Everything in it is a process. It has a beginning, a middle and an end. All aspects of life are always developing. Life is motion. Without movement, advancement and progression, there is no life. Once a thing has ceased to progress, it is dead.
In other words, as long as you and I are alive, we are always going to be going somewhere. We are created by God to be goal-oriented visionaries. Without a vision, we atrophy and become bored and hopeless. We need to have something to reach for, but in the reaching toward what lies ahead in the future, we must not lose sight of now!
I see this principle in every area of life, but let us examine just one of those areas.
Spiritual Life
Let’s say an unsaved person who has no relationship with God becomes aware that something is missing in his life and so he starts searching. The Holy Spirit draws him to the place where he is confronted with making a decision about placing his faith in Christ. He accepts Him and then moves from the place of searching for an unknown something to discovering what or who that something is. In so doing, he enters a temporary place of satisfaction and fulfillment.
Please notice that I said temporary, because soon the Holy Spirit will begin drawing him to press on to a deeper place in God. The process of conviction of sin will begin in his daily life. The Holy Spirit is the Revealer of truth (John 14:16,17), and He works continually in and with the believer to bring him into new levels of awareness. Entering a new level always means leaving an old one behind.
In other words, we are always heading somewhere spiritually, and we should be enjoying the journey. Seeking God’s will for our lives — allowing Him to deal with us about attitudes and issues, desiring to know His call on our lives and yearning to fulfill it — all these things are part of the journey of Christianity.
“Desiring” and “seeking” are words we will use frequently in this study, and both of them indicate that we cannot stay where we are. We must move on! However, this is precisely the point at which multitudes of us lose our enjoyment of life.
We must learn to seek the next phase in our journey without despising or belittling the one in which we currently find ourselves.
In my own spiritual pilgrimage, I finally learned to say, “I’m not where I need to be, but thank God, I’m not where I used to be. I’m okay, and I’m on my way!”
The spiritual struggle that most of us go through would be almost totally alleviated if we understood the principle being discussed on these pages.
The Ben Campbell Johnson relational paraphrase of Jesus’ words in Matthew 11:29 gives some insight into what our attit
ude should be concerning our personal spiritual growth. It reads as follows: “Take the burden of responsibility I give you and thereby discover your life and your destiny. I am gentle and humble; I am willing to relate to you and to permit you to learn at your own rate; then, in fellowship with me, you will discover the meaning of your life.”
Notice that in this passage Jesus says, “Take the burden of responsibility I give you. …” Many of us take a responsibility the Lord has never given us. We actually try to become “Holy Ghost, Jr.” Instead of allowing the Holy Spirit to work the Word in us and change us from glory to glory, or from degree to degree (2 Cor. 3:18), we try to do it on our own. We struggle so hard trying to get to the next place we feel we need to be that we fail to enjoy where we are.
We absolutely must realize the importance of each phase. Each phase is vital to the next one. For instance, a child cannot be two years old until he has lived each of the days between the ages of one and two. Wherever it is we are headed, we are not going to get there any faster than God takes us. We must learn to do our part and trust God to help us enjoy the journey.
I believe I change daily. I have goals in every area of my life. I desire improvement in all things. This time next year I will be different from what I am now. Various things in my life, family and ministry will have improved. But the good news is that I have discovered the soul-satisfying secret of enjoying where I am on the way to where I am going.
We might say that there is always something new on the horizon. The Lord showed me this truth in a vision almost twenty years ago as I was considering enrolling in a Bible school program sponsored by our church three evenings a week. It was a major commitment for my husband Dave and me. At the time we had three small children at home, and yet we felt God calling us to a new level of ministry. I was excited, but apprehensive.
Once we made the decision, I began to feel that this commitment would be “the thing” that would make “all” the difference in the world. It seems that we humans are always looking for “it!”
As I was considering this decision, God gave me a vision of a horizon. My husband and I were heading toward it, but as we finally came near to it, another horizon appeared out beyond the first one. It represented yet another place to reach for once we had arrived at the current one.
As I pondered what I was seeing, the Lord revealed to my heart that there would constantly be new goals out in front of us. I felt He was telling me not to think in small terms, not to become narrow-minded, not to make small plans, but to always be reaching for the next place that would take me beyond where I was. I regret to say that even though I did the reaching and I was not complacent, it took several more years before I learned to enjoy each step of the journey.
I was always going somewhere and never truly enjoying anywhere. I was deceived by thinking that I would have joy when I arrived — that now was only a time of sacrifice and hard work.
I am very thankful for the Holy Spirit’s patient and continuing work with me as He taught me to enjoy every aspect of my life — the beginning of projects, the middle and the finish, the people in my life, my home, myself and the ministry in which God has placed me.
Now, I am as thankful for the rainy days as the sunny ones. I am even thankful for the time I spend in the airports I wait in because I travel so much … on and on the list goes.
Once we learn the principle, we can apply it everywhere.
Jesus said that He came that we might have and enjoy life. If you have not been enjoying your life, it is time to begin. If you have been enjoying your life, thank God, and look for ways to enjoy it even more.
2
Make a Decision To Enjoy Life
I call heaven and earth to witness this day against you that I have set before you life and death, the blessings and the curses; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live.
Deuteronomy 30:19
In the Word of God we are exhorted to choose life. The Hebrew word translated “life” in Deuteronomy 30:19 is chay, and means, among other things, “fresh,” “strong,” “lively” and “merry.”1
In John 10:10, Jesus said that He came that we might have life. According to Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words, the New Testament Greek word translated “life” in this verse is zoe and means, in part, “… life as God has it, that which the Father has in Himself, and which He gave to the Incarnate Son to have in Himself, … and which the Son manifested in the world. …”2
The biblical dictionary then goes on to say, “From this life man has become alienated in consequence of the Fall, … and of this life men become partakers through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. …”
The life being referred to here is not simply a span of time. It is a quality of existence — life as God has it. We human beings lost that kind of God-like life due to sin, but we can have it back through Christ Jesus. It is God’s gift to us in His Son.
Quantity and Quality
I cannot imagine that God does not lead a thoroughly enjoyable life. To even begin to have an understanding of the quality of life that God enjoys, we must change our modern perspective of what constitutes real life.
Our society has fallen into the trap of believing that quantity is greater than quality, but this is not true. This lie from Satan has been fuel for the spirit of greed that prevails in our world today. It is becoming more and more difficult to find anything that is of excellent quality. In most industrialized nations of the world, especially in America, there is an abundance of everything, and yet there are more unhappy people than ever before.
I believe that if we had more quality and a little less quantity, we would experience more real joy in our everyday lives. It would be far better to live forty years to the fullest, truly enjoying every aspect of life, than to live a hundred years and never enjoy anything. Thank God, we can have both a long life and a quality life, but I am trying to make a point.
Here is an example: Think of fragrances. A few drops of pure perfume will smell stronger and stay on longer than a much heavier application of a more watered-down version such as cologne or eau de toilette. Real perfume usually comes in much smaller bottles and is much more expensive. The diluted versions come in larger bottles and are less expensive. Most of us automatically go for the bigger bottle with the lower price. When giving a gift, we think it looks more impressive if it is packaged in a large container.
Some of us wouldn’t even know what we had if we received a present of real perfume. Because it usually comes in very small bottles, we might even think we had received a gift of little value. We might conclude that our benefactor was cheap and didn’t care enough to spend more money on us, when all the time we were holding something of much greater value than we realized.
There are many examples I could use, but suffice it to say that in most things of life, quality is far superior to quantity.
As believers, you and I have available to us the quality of life that God has. His life is not filled with fear, stress, worry, anxiety or depression. God is not impatient, and He is in no hurry. He takes time to enjoy His creation, the works of His hands.
I noticed in the account of Creation as recorded in Genesis 1, Scripture frequently says that after God had created a certain portion of the universe in which we live, He saw that it was good (suitable, pleasant, fitting, admirable), and He approved it. (See verses 4,10,12,18,21,25,31.) It seems to me that if God took the time to enjoy each phase of His creation, His work, then you and I should also take time to enjoy our work. We should work not just to accomplish, but also to enjoy our accomplishments.
Learn to enjoy not only your work and your accomplishments but even the ride to work in the morning. Don’t get so frustrated about traffic and have your mind on what you need to do when you arrive that you fail to enjoy the trip.
Most people dread and even despise the drive home from work at night. They are tired, traffic is heavy, and they begin to think about all the things they must do, but don’t want t
o do, when they get home — cook dinner, go to the store, cut the grass, change the oil in the car, help the children with homework, etc.
Don’t do that. Learn to enjoy every aspect of your life. Enjoy your home, your friends and your family. Don’t just have children, but take the time to enjoy them.
All it takes to begin to enjoy life to the fullest is a decision.
A Decision Can Change It All!
We will never enjoy life unless we make a quality decision to do so.
Satan is an expert at stealing, and our joy is one of his favorite targets. Nehemiah 8:10 tells us that the joy of the Lord is our strength. In John 10:10 we are told that “the thief” comes to kill, steal and destroy, but that Jesus came that we might have and enjoy life.
Satan is the thief, and one of the things he seeks to steal is our joy. If he can steal our joy from us, we will be weak, and when we are weak, the enemy takes advantage of us. Weak believers are no threat to him and his work of destruction.
In order to live as God intends for us to live, the first thing we must do is truly believe that it is God’s will for us to experience continual joy. Then we must decide to enter into that joy. Below is a list of Scripture passages in which Jesus Himself revealed that it is God’s will for us to enjoy life.
The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows).
John 10:10
I have told you these things, that My joy and delight may be in you and that your joy and gladness may be of full measure and complete and overflowing.
