This program has been made possible by the friends and partners of Joyce Meyer

Ministries. I'm going to make a statement now I want you to remember this until you

can be happy for somebody who got what you wanted.

You're never going to get yours.

I want to ask a question. Is there anybody here who would admit that you ever have problems with jealousy?

And I'll ask again so the people who wouldn't put your hand up the first time.

The title of my message tonight is what do you do when God doesn't pick you?

I heard somebody groan down here in the front.

I don't know if this ever happened to you but when I was in grade school they probably do things a little different now.

But when I was in grade school I can remember the way that we played softball at recess.

They would take everybody that was going to play and you stand over here and then they would pick two captains.

And then the captains would take turns picking who they wanted on their team.

The first nightmare in the world was to be the one that was left standing last that didn't get picked.

I'll tell you what every insecurity that anybody ever had came out at that moment.

I think that was a foolish way to do it. It could have been very traumatic for some people.

You know we don't all get picked for everything obviously and we don't all get picked for what we think we would like to do.

And sometimes God tests us and he doesn't pick us at least not at that time just to see how we'll respond and see if we can be a blessing to whoever was picked.

In the Bible we have an interesting analogy I think between Noah and Abram.

Noah of course built the ark and he was made fun of nobody had ever seen rain.

What in the world does he think he's doing? I don't know how long it took him to do it but I can imagine that he went through a lot

while he was trying to obey God. And at the end God really blessed him and he made a covenant with him and he said he'll never I'll never flood the earth again and he sealed that covenant with a rainbow.

You know rainbows are beautiful. How many of you like to see a rainbow after a hard rain?

...