05/18/2026
Dear friends,
I read a Facebook ad today for a devotional book, but while I wasn’t interested in that, something struck me.
I suddenly thought of a day my son, Patrick, and I were watching Joyce Meyer. He was 4, and wanted to meet her, which I thought was precious. I would have loved that too, so I could share with her my gratitude for making me think. She helped me reach a lifetime goal.
I’ve been to many Joyce Meyer conferences. They have helped me grow tremendously over the years. It’s not her, but the way the Lord has taught her to teach.
While I’m speaking about a woman’s ministry today, this totally applies to men as well.
Most Christian women are doing exactly what Joyce Meyer has warned against her entire ministry. (Most men struggle with this too, but this particular ministry is directly influencing women.)
Joyce Meyer is a woman who survived things most people never recover from.
She built a ministry that reaches over 200 countries worldwide. Her programs air in over 100 languages. She’s written more than 150 books, several of them New York Times bestsellers. She has spent her entire life doing one thing. She helps women find freedom, healing and power through God's Word. She keeps saying something that most Christian women have heard and never once stopped to think about.
She said this bluntly….
"Reading is totally different than studying. So many people look at it as an obligation. “I have to read the Word today.” But reading and actually understanding what you're reading are two completely different things."
Soak that in for a moment.
Most Christian women have spent their entire lives doing one, while believing they were doing the other; reading rather than UNDERSTANDING the Word as well.
Joyce Meyer has spent decades watching women open their Bibles, read their chapters, check the box, and walk away unchanged; still anxious, still feeling distant from God and still carrying the same burdens they carried before they opened the page.
She knows exactly why, and teaches about it.
She said herself that the mind is a battlefield, and the only weapon you have in that battle is the Word of God. She wrote an entire book about it called Battlefield of the Mind…a fantastic read that I’d say is an actual MUST read!
She watched women fight battles they kept losing; not because they weren't trying, but because they were going into the fight without understanding the weapon they were holding.
Reading the Bible without understanding it is like trying to fight a battle with a sword you've never been taught to use. It’s like you’re holding the weapon is in your hands. You can see it. You can even carry it around, but it’s not doing what it was designed to do. Why? Because you don't actually know how to use it.
I understand that because I’ve been that woman.
I have been to church on most Sundays since my grandmother got saved at 65 and started taking me at age 10. And I had a Bible that I genuinely tried to read. I would start reading plans in January, more times than I can count. I’d make it through Leviticus wondering what animal sacrifices have to do with me and my salvation. It seemed odd to me that I was supposed to be reading this to get intimate with God. No understanding whatsoever….
I would read Romans and close the book not being able to explain a single thing I'd just read.
I read through the Psalms and felt comforted in the moment, but couldn't tell you two days later what God was actually saying.
I’d start again in January, slow down by March and quietly stop in April. Then I’d have this shame. You know what I mean. I was a “real” Christian who hadn’t read the Bible. This went on for years.
Joyce Meyer watched this happen to millions of women, and she kept saying the same thing, “You have to study it. You have to understand it. You have to let it get inside you.” And I’d hear this at her conferences. It made sense, but I just couldn’t make that connection, despite my efforts until I weighed it out inside. But she made me think.
I didn’t have a problem with motivation. It wasn’t discipline. It certainly wasn’t my faith. It was that nobody ever gave me the context to understand what I was reading. I’d hear sermons, but not on how to understand the Word.
The Bible is letters, poems, prophecies and histories written for specific people in specific moments in history. It’s without anyone telling you who wrote it, when they wrote it, why they wrote it, what was happening in the world at the time or how it connects to everything else. Without that context, the most powerful weapon I had access to was sitting in my hands, again, unopened because of frustration and failure.
I decided to pray about my understanding, as well as my conviction to become all I was to be. I desperately wanted to know and understand. I needed to understand in order to love Him more…to love ME more. I told that honesty and firmly to God.
I purchased a new bible that was to read the entire Bible in a year. It had it broken down into a bit of Old Testament, New Testament, a proverb and a psalm each day. I actually enjoyed Proverbs so much, and would leave my best friend messages explaining what I understood. I was able to decipher what the other “stuff” was saying too! I was excited! It was like a light had been turned on. ( Please note that I am not saying you have to go out and purchase one of those Bibles.)
Joyce Meyer has spent 40 years trying to help women do what finally happened for me.
The Word got inside, and the battlefield changed. I finally got it!
"You cannot have a strong, vibrant, victorious Christian life if you don't know what the Word of God says."
Joyce Meyer
I used to think that was about the big moments, the crises and the hard seasons. Now I understand something deeper. You can't fight a battle you don't have ammunition for. You can't stand firm on promises you've read, but never understood. And you can’t live the life you’ve been promised completely if you've only ever read the surface of what God said.
I want to encourage each of you to not just read, but pray to understand. The Word actually becoming a part of you will change you forever!
Thanks, Joyce!
Blessings!
Michelle Conrad
