Category: personal growth

  • Be The Change You Want To See

    You have two choices. They’re the same two choices your neighbor has. And the same two your wife or husband has. Your boss, your teacher, your brother and sister – all have the same two choices to choose from each day.

    A) Will I follow the easy path life presents me?

    B) Will I chart a new path because I am compelled to be the best I can be?

    If you answered B, then taking each day as it comes is not an option. It’s an intentional life choice, filled with uncertainty and unpredictability. But it’s also fraught with new experiences and delightful adventures.

    Think differently.

    Pop culture won’t get you where you want to go. It’s the common thread of our existence today, and yet it’s harmful effects drain the lifeblood from aspiring artists and world changers everywhere.

    It’s time to think differently about relevance. Too many people seek to be relevant through commonality. I know the same music and movies as you. I follow the same celebrity gossip that you do. We have common ground because we consume the same things and idolize the same people. That mentality generates more of the same. If you want sameness, this is your path.

    But if you seek a life of purpose and meaning, pop culture is NOT your ally. Seek out the voices in the shadows. Seek out recommendations from the experts in your areas of interest. The Gene Logsdons and Graham Cooke’s of the world can’t be found on TMZ or Facebook News

    Shop differently.

    Do you buy new things instead of repairing old? Do you throw things away that bore you and replace them on a whim? Do you spend more and more money on holiday gifts to prove your affection for friends and family? That’s the path of consumer culture. Buy to feel better. Shopping as entertainment.

    It’s time to shop differently. Consider the products you normally buy. Where are they made? Under what conditions? How does the creation of these products affect the natural habitat of birds, fish, and mammals we need to maintain ecological balance? Could you build what you need instead? Perhaps a neighbor would be willing to trade so that products aren’t wasted or prematurely disposed.

    We create the world we want to live in every time we spend a dollar. Whether on plastic baubles or meaningful experiences.

    Work differently.

    What type of career path will you choose? Will you seek a job where the salary is guaranteed but the opportunity is limited? Will you sacrifice creativity for stability? Or will you blaze a trail and create the job around the meaningful work you already want to do?

    When you go to work, will you punch the clock and bide your time, or will you make the most of every minute? Success occurs when opportunity aligns with preparation. Preparation takes place for years prior to opportunity. This is your time. Your opportunity. Use it wisely.

    Church differently.

    Do you show up once a week to listen to someone speak and then return to your “real” and completely different life? Or do you seek to BE church and hone your God-given gifts and abilities by sharing them with people every day? Service, encouragement, teaching, prophecy, administration, shepherding… opportunities are everywhere.

    Eat differently.

    Is food a convenient pleasure? Or is it an intentional sacrament. Without getting legalistic, there is much meaning and richness to be found in the simple act of eating a meal. How you choose to think about food impacts the quality and convenience of each meal. And your direct involvement affects your connection to the world from which your food came. Are you drawing a closer connection to the soil? Or do you partake in a vacuum?

    Play differently.

    Does recreational time require expensive purchases or simple pleasures? Are you sedentary or active? Do you engage with others or isolate and consume? Recreation recreates your soul. How you partake defines your path and who you will become.

    Be the change.

    Intentionality. Each day you choose who you will be five, ten, twenty years from now. The smallest choices steer the largest ships. Where are you headed? Look to your choices. They tell the tale.


  • God’s Promise Means Prayer Time Is Over

    You can’t Be The Change until you can be yourself. And you can’t be yourself until you see yourself as God sees you. As you pursue Him within the context of a social group, you start to receive words of knowledge and prophecies from other believers. And much of the time, God’s words about you sound like He’s talking about someone else.

    God sees you outside of Time.

    God himself is not subject to Time, so he knows you both as you were, as you are, and as you will be – all at the same time. So when God speaks to you, He speaks to the you who stands before the throne at the end of it all, full of glory and His righteousness.

    He talks to us as though we are already the finished product. As though we’ve already completed all the trials and been purified. And in so doing, He prophesies to us who we are becoming. Who we will become in Time.

    Each promise He gives is done.

    It’s given. If we hear His promises from a perspective that cognitively steps outside of Time and sees that things “just are”, then we realize that outside the timeline the fulfillment of the promise already exists. But within the timeline we have not experienced it yet. But it’s there nonetheless. So we know that the promise realized already is and we cease petitioning God for that thing and we begin thanking him for that thing.

    This is a critical step I missed for years and I don’t want you to suffer the same fate. You don’t HAVE to sit around and resent the fact that what God says isn’t happening. You don’t have to be miserable and depressed because you don’t know how to make what God says come true. 

    Graham Cooke fleshes this out a little in his series, Living Your Truest Identity. ,

    The importance of knowing how you are known in heaven. God loves to give us inheritance words. The whole language of heaven is the language of promise. Everything God does and says has promise attached to it.

    The law of life in Christ Jesus – When God grants you something, he expects you to take him for granted. If you read Isaiah 61, the mission statement of Jesus, he’s granting us things in the context of change and transition. When God gives you something, it’s the end of prayer. When God makes you a promise, what he’s saying is, You no longer need to pray about this anymore. It’s the end of prayer and it’s the beginning of proclamation.

    So when you go through your inheritance words and your prophecies, you understand that God is saying that you are released from supplication about these areas because you have a promise. So now I’m expecting you to stand on the promise and declare to me. I’m expecting you to rejoice. To give thanks. And to praise. Now I want you to stand before me and say, “Thank you that you have given me this. I rejoice in your promise. I rejoice in your intentionality. I rejoice in your faithfulness. And I’m grateful to You that you have now called me into a partnership with you that will enable me to grow in this area outrageously.

    When God gives you a promise, it’s the end of prayer. It’s the beginning of declaration and confession. We are proclaiming to the heavenly host, “I have permission in this area!”

    This changes everything.

    What if those things you’ve been begging God for that He’s already promised would come much faster to you if you just stopped asking and began declaring and thanking? This is what it means to “stand on the promises.” It’s so simple. So profound. And yet it’s not being taught most places. We’re taught to beg and plead for a drop of God’s goodness and to cover up our disappointments when it seems He’s no longer listening.

    Rather than beg like a pauper, let’s proclaim like entitled sons and daughters.


  • Success Is More About Doing Than Discovering

    I’m not one of those “how to be a successful entrepreneur” bloggers, but I respect good advice in whatever form it comes across my path. I want and need to become a better person on many levels. So hat tip to Amy Porterfield for pointing out this quote from ProBlogger.com:

    Success is more about DOING the ‘ordinary’ things you know you should do… than discovering the secrets you don’t yet…

    – Darren Rowse

    (more…)


  • When Will We Treat Malfunction As Unacceptable?

    I’m thinking of specific friends and acquaintances I’ve made over the years who got stuck in one rut or another. And it seems rather obvious that the rut is unavoidable, and we cry out to God over and over again to deliver us from our rut. We pray that He will swoop down like Daddy Warbucks and carry us off to our new mansion we had no idea was waiting.


    Except God doesn’t often work this way. So why do we handle our ruts the same way over and over again?

    At some point, we must stop doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results.

    Should we stop praying? Of course not. But there’s a mindset that needs to shift. One that goes from a belief of “All I can do is just sit here and wait for deliverance” to “what steps are available RIGHT NOW that I could take and be proven as a good steward?”

    When it comes to emotional malfunction – call it trauma, depression, heartbreak, addiction, inferiority, ADHD, panic attacks, PTSD – whatever the case, there are steps we can each take WHILE we cry out to the Lord for deliverance.

    It’s not that we assume the responsibility of wholeness completely. It’s more that we don’t pawn off our portion of responsibility upon the Father so that we have nothing to do but cry and whine at him month after month, year after year, until we grow disheartened and disillusioned.

    There are steps you can take today. Pray for those. Begin to channel your daily prayers into two directions: Father, deliver me and set me on the path of restoration and fulfillment of my purpose; and Father, I’m ready to take a step toward wholeness and restoration today – show me the step that is before me.

    I’ve invested thousands of dollars in alternative treatments for my wife and I. I was willing to do what sounds foolish for the sake of even the slightest chance of improvement. Why? Because it’s more important to become restored than to look and feel dignified. If you are unwilling to look foolish, you will miss out on the vast majority of what God has for you. It is an act of self humbling to lower one’s self to do something that appears foolish or undignified in the eyes of others – IF you do it for a purpose. Being foolish in and of itself is not humbling, but rather wasteful. But there is a significant difference between looking foolish and acting foolish.

    How did I find these alternative health treatments? Research. My wife, my mother-in-law, and I invested our time into seeking out treatments because remaining a malfunctioning person is unacceptable. It cost us television time; hangout with the friends time. And you know what? We’ve found more healing and restoration as a result of not allowing our peers to determine that remaining just like you are is acceptable.

    It’s a never-ending pursuit of wholeness and relationship with Jesus. I seek Father God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit because I want to become who I was meant to be. But I also pursue healing apart from prayer and waiting because sometimes I can’t see God as He truly is until I remove the hurts and lies. And sometimes I can’t see what is what until I treat my body’s ailments first.

    Body, Soul, and Spirit. Each has needs. Legitimate needs. The question is, as the only person who can guarantee continual effort for the sake of your own good, are you going to take up the mantle of responsibility and seek out your complete healing and restoration, or are you going to settle for brokenness and for living a sub-standard lifestyle?

    The choice is yours. And it’s mine. Let’s take it seriously.

    * image by alexbruda


  • A Father’s Day Reflection

    This is the best Father’s Day I’ve ever had. There are many reasons why, but I want to highlight a few.

    My marriage is more wonderful than ever

    [pullquote_left]I could not have married a more perfect woman for me. I knew her before I even knew her. I knew she could be trusted.[/pullquote_left]I can’t tell you the joyful peace I sometimes feel when my wife and I are united in love and purpose. It is discovering a fulfillment you didn’t know you longed for. I am so grateful that Heather is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. We are one, and I’m so blessed to experience her. I could not have married a more perfect woman for me. I knew her before I even knew her. I knew she could be trusted. (more…)