The Way God Wants Us To Be

Joyce: That’s so true. Victoria, what do you think about this area?  What are some of the areas where you think people need to seek to improve themselves?

Victoria Osteen: in discipline. I think we could all be more disciplined. Just like Joel was saying, sometimes we don’t take our time as seriously as we can, and we’re just always looking for something, always trying to… Where’s this, where’s that? I know those are areas that I’ve really helped myself and disciplined myself — put my keys in the same place. It sounds simple but really it can save you so much time and frustration when you just make small little changes in your life.

Pastor Joel: yeah.  It’s funny, Joyce, I read a study — I don’t have the exact figures, but a guy who studied offices and helps people be more productive said that if you turn to answer your phone on the credenza behind you, in a year you’ve wasted like 14 days. So it’s just being smart and working smart.  I think the other thing that goes back to our habits is a lot of our habits we’ve learned from our parents and the people who have raised us. You spoke a message one time on thinking generationally. I really liked that. I wrote a lot in the book about that; about so much is being passed down. Let’s leave the world a better place. Let’s leave my family line better off than the way it was before. I like to think about it like that:  I’m not only improving for myself, but I’m making it easier on my kids who are coming after me.

Joyce: That’s right because whatever your children see you do is actually more important than what you tell them to do. I think a lot of times we’re telling people something instead of modeling something for them. One of my passions is to really light a fire in believers — those who have faith in Jesus Christ — to get out in the world and be a good example. You’re talking about complacency. I’ve recently released a book called “I dare you.” the subtitle is about living with passion because I think so many people just kind of go through the motions. They just kind of get up every day and whatever happens, they try to deal with that.  They’re not really happy in life but they don’t want to take a step of faith to do any better. You can get passive. You can get in an attitude where you’re just putting up with stuff instead of saying, “I’m going to live the best life that I can live. It’s not all going to be done for me.” you can’t just expect God to do everything for you because we’re partners with God. He has a part and we have a part. Very often I think God is showing people what to do, but they won’t go to that next level of excellence. We just get too satisfied with mediocrity, and that’s not the way God wants us to be.