Read an Excerpt
Enjoying Where You Are On The Way To Where You Are Going
How to Live a Joyful Spirit-Led Life
By Joyce Meyer Warner Books
Copyright © 1996 Joyce Meyer
All right reserved. ISBN: 0446691046
Chapter One
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 whohas 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 attitude 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.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Enjoying Where You Are On The Way To Where You Are Going by Joyce Meyer Copyright © 1996 by Joyce Meyer
Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
