by Joyce Meyer
It is sad that today many times people give up in the hard times and never get to enjoy the fruit of all their labor.
It is easy to start something, but it is much harder to finish it. In the beginning, we are filled with emotion, and usually have all kinds of enthusiastic support. Everybody cheers us on. But as the days go by and the great and glorious cause becomes a matter of daily, consistent hard work, often we are left with nobody to support us and urge us on but ourselves and God.
That’s when we have to decide if we are going to see it through to the finish. That’s when we have to realize everything we are going through at the moment will one day pass and we will enjoy the fruit of our labor. In the meantime, we need to enjoy where we are while we are on the way to where we are going.
“THIS IS IT!”
Six days after this, Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John and led them up on a high mountain apart by themselves. And He was transfigured before them and became resplendent with divine brightness.
And His garments became glistening, intensely white, as no fuller (cloth dresser, launderer) on earth could bleach them.
And Elijah appeared [there] to them, accompanied by Moses, and they were holding [a protracted] conversation with Jesus.
And Peter took up the conversation, saying, Master, it is good and suitable and beautiful for us to be here. Let us make three booths (tents) — one for You and one for Moses and one for Elijah.
For he did not [really] know what to say, for they were in a violent fright (aghast with dread).
MARK 9:2-6
I get so encouraged when I read about Peter. Who else would have had the audacity to talk in a situation like that? No one except Peter — and maybe me.
Can you imagine the scene? Jesus is being transfigured before the very eyes of the astonished disciples and is having a personal conversation with Elijah and Moses — and Peter “takes up the conversation.” In his babbling, bubbling enthusiasm, he offers to build tents for the three of them. Although he doesn’t really know he is saying it, what he means is, “This is it! There’s no place to go from here! This is wonderful! Let’s just camp here!”
That’s exactly what I thought when I received the baptism of the Holy Ghost: “This is it! There’s nothing greater than this!” But I soon discovered there were other things God wanted to do in my life.
It is interesting to me that in the Gospels we never find Jesus saying, “This is it!” Instead, what we often find Him saying is, “This is that which was prophesied and has now come to pass.” Then He moves on.
One of our problems is, we get caught up in the “This is it” mentality. We like to think that things, especially pleasant things, are never going to change. When we win a victory, we like to think that is the end of our troubles, and we will never have to fight another battle. But the Lord is trying to tell us that is not so. As soon as we overcome one problem, we will have another one to overcome.
One season always leads to another.
If the situation we are in at the moment is not very pleasant, it will at least prepare us for the next situation, which may be more to our liking. In the same way, a pleasant situation may have to change for a while so we can be prepared for something even better. That has happened to me in my life.
I once had a job in a church in St. Louis which I thought I would never leave. I had been a part of that nice little group of people whom I loved and admired so much for a long time. My name was on my office door and my parking place, plus I had a front row seat in the sanctuary. I felt important! I would have been perfectly content to stay there the rest of my life — but God had other ideas for me.
Then it was hard for me to leave that place and situation I loved so much, but now I am seeing the fulfillment of God’s plan in having me give it up to move on with Him.
When the Lord first called me out of that church into independent ministry, at first things did not go well at all. I left a comfortable position in a stable environment to go running around the countryside in a rusty van with four bald tires, no money, no place to sleep at night — and the number of people who came out to hear me was not always that great either.
I remember one place I preached where the total audience was no more than twenty people — and they all looked like they were dead. I felt like I was preaching a funeral. In fact, I have been in funerals that were cheerier than that service.
It was so discouraging to stand up and try to tell that handful of unresponsive people something that was going to make a difference in their lives. Finally, at the end of the service I thought I would walk back to the tape table and cheer myself up by finding out how many tapes we had sold during the meeting.
“Did you sell a lot of tapes?” I asked Dave, who was manning the table.
“No,” he answered, “but somebody did return one.”
In that dismal service, not only did I feel that I had not reached my sparse audience, but I had not sold a single teaching tape. BUT SOMEBODY DID RETURN ONE!! What an insult. I was so discouraged and embarrassed that I wanted to run and hide. I felt like quitting.
The church had also arranged a dinner for me after the service at a local restaurant. They had invited the church staff and other people they knew, as well as Dave and me. When we got to the restaurant only about forty percent of the people they invited showed up. Even the dinner was a failure. I could not understand at the time why these kinds of things had to happen. Why, God, why?
I later realized that kind of thing had to happen to prepare me for what is taking place now in my ministry. We are now enjoying phenomenal success and explosive growth. Before I could enjoy the fruit of my labor for the Lord, I had to go through some hard things. These trying times help us get more deeply rooted in God. They work humility in us and cause us to be very thankful when the blessings come. I had to grow and develop. Like all of God’s children, I had to go through some training, correction, and discipline.
WHOM GOD LOVES, HE DISCIPLINES
You must submit to and endure [correction] for discipline; God is dealing with you as with sons. For what son is there whom his father does not [thus] train and correct and discipline?
Now if you are exempt from correction and left without discipline in which all [of God’s children] share, then you are illegitimate offspring and not true sons [at all].
Moreover, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we yielded [to them] and respected [them for training us]. Shall we not much more cheerfully submit to the Father of spirits and so [truly] live?
For [our earthly fathers] disciplined us for only a short period of time and chastised us as seemed proper and good to them; but He disciplines us for our certain good, that we may become sharers in His own holiness.
For the time being no discipline brings joy, but seems grievous and painful; but afterwards it yields a peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it [a harvest of fruit which consists in righteousness — in conformity to God’s will in purpose, thought, and action, resulting in right living and right standing with God].
HEBREWS 12:7-11
In verse 11 notice the phrase “but afterwards.” No training, correction, or discipline seems pleasant at the time it is being administered to us, “but afterwards” we come to appreciate it.
GOD’S PROMISES
Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore will I deliver him; I will set him on high, because he knows and understands My name [has a personal knowledge of My mercy, love, and kindness — trusts and relies on Me, knowing I will never forsake him, no, never].
He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him.
With long life will I satisfy him and show him My salvation.
PSALM 91:14-16
In this passage God promises us three things if we are in trouble: 1) He will be with us, 2) He will deliver us and honor us, and 3) He will grant us long life and will show us His salvation.
> I believe the message the Lord is giving us in these verses is simply this: “No matter what you are going through at the moment, sooner or later it will pass. Someday it will all be over and done. In the meantime, cast your care upon Me and trust Me to work out everything for the best.”
THIS TOO SHALL PASS
Heaven and earth will perish and pass away, but My words will not perish or pass away.
MARK 13:31
When my three children were small, I thought they would drive me crazy, especially my daughter Laura.
I was Mrs. Neat-n-Clean. To me, there was a place for everything and everything was supposed to be in its place. Laura would have none of that. Her personality was totally different from mine. The moment she came in the house, one of her shoes would fly in one direction, and the other shoe would go in the other direction. From the front door on, she would start strewing her car keys, her purse, her books, her clothes. If I wanted to know where Laura was, all I had to do was follow the trail of her belongings through the house.
But eventually “it came to pass” that Laura grew up, got married, and started a family of her own. When she got her own home, she discovered if she didn’t clean up her messes, they would stay right there forever. So “it came to pass” that she started cleaning up after herself.
Now when I go visit her, everything is nice and dean. We have a wonderful relationship together. She is one of my best friends, and we spend a lot of time with one another.
But when she was younger, I thought, “I can’t stand this!” How many times did I tell the Lord, “Father, You have got to do something about this daughter of mine. You have got to change her!” I have since learned God doesn’t always change those people we want Him to change; instead, He often uses them to change us.
I finally realized that what we believe to be our worst enemy often, in actuality, is our best friend. In my case it was those difficult years, the ones that have now “come to pass.” I thought those years would never end, but they did, and they changed me into a better person. God uses things to change us that we think are absolutely too difficult to endure.
One time a woman came to me upset because she was pregnant and already had a house full of kids. Because she was a Christian, she wanted God’s will, but she also didn’t want to have that baby. She was really distraught.
“This too shall pass,” I told her. “Just think, a few months from now you will have a cute little baby, and you’ll love it so much everything will be fine.”
That seemed to settle the issue for her.
Sometimes we need to look ahead with the eye of faith to the time when the situation will be over.
When God is dealing with you, don’t look at the training, correction, and discipline you are going through for the moment. Look at the fruit you are going to bear “afterwards.” When you don’t see the manifestation of your prayers, realize that God is building faith in you, and “afterwards” that faith will be used to bring you into a greater realm of blessing.
My husband enjoys life so much it used to irritate me. For the first few years of our marriage, he was always happy while I was always mad. When I got mad, I refused to talk. He would say to me, “Joyce, you may as well talk to me, because this time next week you’re going to be talking to me anyway.”
What he was saying was, “This too shall pass.”
As I was preparing this message, Dave said to me, “Joyce, do you know how I was able to get through those early years of our marriage?”
“How?” I asked.
“I just remembered I had asked God for a wife,” he answered. “And I had asked Him to give me somebody who needed help!”
The funny thing is, three weeks after we were married, Dave looked at me and asked, “What’s wrong with you?”
The truth is, there were a lot of things wrong with me. Because I had been abused as a child, I had all kinds of problems. But I really didn’t think there was anything wrong with me. I thought everybody else had a problem, not me. So when Dave did something I didn’t like, I would refuse to talk to him. That was my way of trying to control our relationship, which was part of my problem — I thought I always had to be in control of everything in my life.
Later, Dave told me how he got through those trying times with me: he kept telling himself, “In three days’ time she won’t be this way; four more days and she’ll be different; a year from now God will have changed her.”
Again, his message to himself was, “This too shall pass.”
A TIME FOR EVERYTHING
To everything there is a season, and a time for every matter or purpose under heaven.
ECCLESIASTES 3:1
God has shown me the devil offers us two lies: the forever lie and the never lie. He tells us the negative things in our life will be that way forever; then concerning positive things, he wants us to believe that if they ever do change, we couldn’t stand it. Both of these lies create fear in our hearts. Both are untrue because sooner or later, everything changes. If we continue to believe God and place our trust in Him, bad things ultimately give way to better things.
When we do have good things going on in our lives, they may not stay exactly the same forever. We might go through another hard time, but eventually through Christ, the difficulty will be changed into even better times than the ones we had previously.
For example: If you’ve never had a vacation, the devil would like you to believe you’ll never get to have one. On the other hand, if you are on vacation and enjoying it, the enemy would like you to “dread” ever having to go back to work. He wants you to feel that things will never change, and if you believe his lies, then you won’t; be ready for the changes that surely will come.
Yes, things are always changing. Sometimes changes are exciting — sometimes they’re hard. But Jesus never changes — and as long as we keep our eyes on Him, we will make it through the changes in our life and continue growing from glory to glory.
The psalmist warns us, …if riches increase, set not your heart on them (Psalm 62:10). And the writer of Proverbs adds, For riches are not forever; does a crown endure to all generations? (Proverbs 27:24). In other words, nothing lasts forever, everything changes, this too shall pass.
When the Bible tells us we are not to set our hearts on the things of this world, it means we are not to get too wrapped up in anything in this life. That includes not only our money — our assets, bank accounts, investments, retirement funds, etc. — it also means our job, our possessions, and even our spouse or family.
As believers, our attachment is to be to the Lord alone and not to anyone or anything else. We are to enjoy what we have while we have it, but we are never to get to the point where we think we could not live without it.
One time the Lord had to deal with me along these lines in regard to my husband. At the time I had become very dependent upon Dave. He has always been so good to me and for me. He has helped me so much in my ministry, as well as in my personal life.
When I began to realize how dependent I was upon him, fear started gripping my heart, as I wondered what I would do if something happened to him. I was so upset I went to the Lord in prayer, asking, “Father, what’s going on here? Are You preparing me for the fact that Dave is going to die, or is the devil trying to frighten me with that possibility?”
The more I thought about it, the more disturbed I became. “Oh, my,” I thought, “what would I do without Dave? I don’t think I could make it!”
Finally, the Lord spoke to me and said, “I’ll tell you what you would do if Dave died; you would do exactly what you’re doing right now, because it’s not Dave who is holding you up, it’s Me.”
God was not trying to drive a wedge between Dave and me, but even in a marriage relationship that will last until death or the sound of the last trumpet, there is a fine line which must not be crossed. To do so is to court disaster. We must remember Who is ultimately holding us up and sustaining us.
I am enjoying my ministry right now
. Many good things are happening. We are in a period of growth. It is so gratifying to look back on those times when we were traveling around the countryside in a worn-out van with bald tires and rusty fenders, sleeping on the side of the road, holding meetings for a handful of half-dead people, and going to our tape table to find they were returning tapes instead of buying them. It shows how far God has brought us, and we are grateful to Him for that growth and development. But we do not think we have arrived. It is our goal to always be climbing.
Dave says, “I don’t want us to be a shooting star, one of those ministries that soars like a rocket, then explodes and fizzles.” Neither do I. We set ourselves to spend time with God and remain sensitive to His voice so that we can be obedient to His leading. In that way we will continue to minister in the way He desires and reach people with the messages He gives us.
Nobody knows what God is going to do with him or her. I don’t know exactly what God is going to do with me. When I was working in that church in St. Louis, I thought I would always be there. But then one day the Lord said to me, “I’m finished with you here.” God may have been finished there, but I wasn’t. I stayed on for another full year, until the anointing started lifting from me. From that experience I learned when God is finished, He is finished — and so are we!
I once read a book about a man who was an intercessor.1 Every so often in his life he would be called to go somewhere and start a new work for the Lord. Then later on God would say to him, “I’m finished with you here.” The Lord would call him to stop and intercede for a period of time. So the man would leave his work and go off somewhere alone. Nobody would hear from him for months or even years on end, until the Lord called him to do something else.