One of God's very blessed spokespersons has this announcement for we who cannot hear Him by ourselves:
"God is the ultimate party planner and wants you to learn how to celebrate the victories in your life".
So tempts the teaser for Joyce Meyer's new read, Eat that Cookie. . .Buy those Shoes! wherein once again the ever-reliably left-brained Dave - Mr. Meyer - finds himself antagonist in the parable. Yes, Dave accidentally did it again; made the missus feel less than the perfect creature that God placed at his side. He did not do it on purpose, Dave was simply incapable of calculating weight comparisons of chocolate chip to golf ball. (I'll wager he's memorized the formula by now.) In ignorance of Joyce's stress level, Dave questioned her taking 1/3 of a chocolate chip cookie from a serving tray when cookies were not permitted on their joint diet plan. Thankfully God had pre-positioned a right-brained conduit at Joyce's other side who quickly assured Joyce that she deserved the cookie and not only that, she deserved a new pair of shoes, too. Joyce explains on page 4 of her book:
"My friend rescued me from the guilt that could have hounded me that day, and I am thankful to God for using her. I didn’t need guilt as I approached the final session of the convention. I needed the cookie and the thought of shoes later that day!"
Well by God there we have it. A simple solution straight from Him, through the anonymous friend to Joyce, then on to the publishers, and into our shopping cart. For an approximate twenty bucks we can get a glimpse of how Joyce manages to avoid guilt in the face of accusations which on the surface appear justified. God has been relentless in his testing of Joyce's response to guilt but due to legal constraints she is unable to pass along the lessons from her really big trials. Heaven knows what relief efforts were required to assuage the after-effects from the 70 deaths at the 2001 Destiny Crusade in the Philippines, the five children who died in 2006 on a church picnic, and the three who died at the hands of a ministry employee in 2009 (and there was this in 2003). Seems to me Rick Ross Institute slimmed down its articles archive but a timeline remains that emphasizes the financial controversies of Joyce Meyer Ministries. It is an impressive list of victories courtesy of (on faith we say this) the ultimate party-planner.
God loves Joyce Meyer so much that he allowed the devil to take sacrifices from her flock and strike extreme blows to the ministry's finances. Meyer prevailed but her victories were the result of advanced spiritual techniques that will not be taught to, because they can not be understood by, even the least fleeced. That's why God gave us parables - like the one about the smart cookie.
