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One Thing that is Harming Your Spiritual Growth

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spiritual growth

Photo by Andrik Langfield on Unsplash

Every follower of Jesus is trying to grow in their spiritual practices. But what if our personalities get in the way? What if you are an introvert or an extrovert? You are stunting your spiritual growth because you only do certain spiritual practices instead of ones you tend to dislike or find uncomfortable.

I kept hearing people like Jon Tyson and John Mark Comer talk about a book I had never read, “Invitation to a Journey.” They kept saying, “It’s the best book on spiritual formation.” They were right. 

There were so many insights that stood out but easily, one of the biggest aha moments came when I read this:

Each of us will tend to develop models of spiritual life that nurture our preference pattern. If extroversion is our dominant preference, we will select models of spirituality that bring us together with other people in worship, fellowship groups, prayer groups, Bible-study groups, and spiritual-formation groups. We will want corporate spirituality and not get as much out of private individualized spirituality. If our preference is introversion, we will adopt models of spirituality that emphasize solitude, reflection, meditation, and contemplation. -Robert Mulholland Jr.

As I thought about my own life and preferences, Mulholland was right. You can see in your own life how you make your spiritual life and practices around the ones you enjoy the most. 

Now, that doesn’t mean you abandon the ones you prefer, but it does mean that we need to look at our spiritual lives and see if we are doing what we prefer or engaging in places that are not our preference. 

You might wonder, does this matter?

One thing we are often unaware of that harms our spiritual growth.

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I would say yes. 

If we only do what we enjoy or find comfortable, we will not grow all our spiritual muscles. Much like a weightlifter who only does an upper body workout, eventually, their legs will weaken. 

Think about how you experience a church or a community. Based on your preference, it is easy to elevate one practice over another. Maybe you wonder why others don’t do more of _____ or why your church doesn’t emphasize ______. Without realizing it, our preference gets elevated, and we begin to judge other Christians because they don’t do what we think is so important. That doesn’t mean it isn’t important, but we can elevate worship, prayer, or solitude over something else because it has helped us or we enjoy it more than other practices. 

This is especially important for pastors to understand. 

Unknowingly, for pastors, we create our churches around our preferences and expect others to grow the way we do. So, as a leader, you must know what you are most likely to emphasize, to make sure you are creating a well-rounded process of developing disciples. 

One thing pastors are often unaware of in their churches.

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How to Pray When Life is Hard

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Photo by Amaury Gutierrez on Unsplash

Much of our lives are spent avoiding pain. And it makes sense because no one likes being in pain or difficulty. It makes sense that when it comes to our faith journey, we focus on the parts about joy, celebration, and happier feelings.

But that leaves us wondering what we do with our pain. What do we do when life hurts? When relationships become hard? How do we handle the difficult moments? How do we walk with a friend through difficult moments?

When they happen, we are usually unprepared for them; at least, I am. We often expect God to keep us from those situations and feelings; we expect God to bless our faithfulness when that blessing means ease and things going up and to the right.

But we see a different story through Scripture. We see that while pain and suffering are not God’s original design, they are part of living in a fallen, broken world. No one, including Jesus, is immune to pain and difficulty. We must learn how to navigate those moments and how they shape and impact our faith. God has given us ways to do that through the Psalms of Lament.

According to John Calvin, “The Psalms are the anatomy of all the parts of the soul. There is no human emotion that anyone finds in himself whose image is not reflected in this mirror. All our griefs, sorrows, fears, misgivings, hopes, cares, anxieties.” 

The Psalms are the anatomy of all the parts of the soul. There is no human emotion that anyone finds in himself whose image is not reflected in this mirror. All our griefs, sorrows, fears, misgivings, hopes, cares, anxieties. -John Calvin

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The Bible has space for our feelings of grief, disillusionment, and heartache, so our faith needs to as well. But many of us today focus on happier feelings in the modern church. 

To help with that, I encourage you to write your own lament. A lament has a few parts: Invocation, complaint, affirmation of trust, petition, statement of confidence, and vow of praise. 

The Bible has space for our feelings of grief, disillusionment, and heartache, so our faith needs to as well.

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Invocation

This is where you ask for help. Here are some questions to consider: 

  • Who are you addressing? This might seem obvious, but we must know who we are addressing. The Psalms of Lament focus on the character and power of God. We must remind ourselves who God is and what he has promised to do. 
  • What are you asking for? Is it for sleep, peace, dealing with fear or anxiety?
  • This is also a place to remind ourselves of what God has done in the past. List out how God has moved in your life and faith journey or the lives of others. In lament, we often only focus on our pain and grief, so our hearts must be reminded of what God has done. 

Complaint

This part can be hard for many of us because it can feel “un-Christian,” but this is an important part of the lament. We have complaints, grief, and heartache to bring before God. He won’t strike you dead. The psalms are filled with complaints. People even complained to Jesus, like when Lazarus died and Martha came to Jesus and said, “If you had been here, our brother wouldn’t have died” (John 11:21). That’s a complaint.

It is okay to complain to God in prayers of lament.

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Things to think through are:

  • What is the problem? The issue that you are facing. 
  • What is your complaint?
  • What do you think God has not done?

Part of the complaint in many psalms is also a time to confess our sins to God.

Affirmation of Trust

This is the place where we look to why we can trust God. What has God promised in his word? As you think of your complaint, what God has promised speaks to that. Here are some examples of promises of God. 

Petition

This is the place where we ask God. Questions to help with this part are: 

  • What are we asking God to do?
  • What are we asking God to heal or to deliver us from?
  • Be specific in how you are asking God to move.

Often, I think we aren’t specific in our prayers because we don’t want to be disappointed if God doesn’t do something. But we must pray specifically. 

Statement of Confidence

This is the place of hope. This is where we say, “God, I know you can answer. I know you can heal. I know you can change this person or situation.” 

Vow of Praise

Many psalms end with a verse of praise. Even if God doesn’t do as I ask or on my timetable, I will still serve and praise Him. 

How to write your own psalm of lament.

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What if I Can’t Forgive Myself?

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One of the things I will often hear from people is, “I know God forgives me, but I can never forgive myself.” Or, “I know ___ blank forgave me, but I can’t move forward. I’m stuck and can’t forget what I did.”

Our past continues to creep up on us and doesn’t stay in the past, no matter how much we’d like it to. 

In Genesis 3, we understand how God wants us to deal with our past and the things that keep us stuck. I’m so thankful to Chuck DeGroat for pointing these out. 

When Adam and Eve sin, God comes and asks 4 questions: 

  • Where are you?
  • Who told you? 
  • Have you eaten from the tree?
  • What have you done?

What gets us stuck, and keeps us stuck, is we start with the 4th question: What have you done? And that is all we focus on or answer. But there is more happening in us and around us that God wants us to face. 

And most importantly, God doesn’t start with “What have you done?” So, it is a good idea to start where God does. 

In these questions, we find what is broken in our lives, the shame we carry, and the way forward. 

Where are you? This is the question about hiding. God isn’t confused about where Adam and Eve are, and He isn’t confused about where you are. He is asking about where we are internally. Why? He wants us to know where we are. 

What do you use to hide? It might be your personality, jokes, work ethic, or something else. But all of us do something to hide whenever we feel exposed. Part of forgiving myself is seeing what I use to hide and keep people at arm’s length. 

Where did this come from?

Somewhere in your early life, you probably learned what it means to be safe and secure in relationships and have continued to do that again and again in your adult life. But as one of my mentors says, “What worked for you as a little person works against you as an adult.” We need to see what we do to hide, where that came from, honor how that protected us in life, and see how that can keep us from freedom now. 

But this hiding might also be the brokenness we carry and our secret sins. 

Who told you? This helps to identify who told us about our nakedness and our shame. 

What are the voices that have gotten us to where we are? This isn’t about blaming but about identifying our past. 

Have you eaten from the tree? This question helps us to identify what we did. 

What Adam and Eve did, and our tendency now, was to blame someone else. This is another way of staying safe and distancing ourselves from what we did. We have less ownership and guilt if we can say it was someone else’s fault. 

Ultimately, this often leads to regret, shame, feeling forgotten, guilt, and bitterness.

But God won’t let us stay there. He patiently moves forward and asks, What have you done?

As I said, we usually start here, but God doesn’t. We need to get to this question, but this question isn’t the starting point. God wants us to get under the hood of our lives and ask deeper questions before getting to what we have said or done. 

But in the goodness of God, He doesn’t leave us standing there with what we have done. He helps us to name it and move forward to freedom. 

In 1 John, John writes to his church struggling with sin and seeing themselves correctly.

There was a group in his church that, when it came to sin and struggles, though they didn’t sin, they weren’t sinful (or as bad as our culture talks about it), and there were no consequences to their sin. It didn’t do anything or harm anyone.

Now, no matter what you think of sin, you do things wrong. There’s a good chance that in the last hour, you’ve done multiple things wrong. You may not call them sins. You might call them mistakes or failures or missed opportunities. But (and this is crucial) if we don’t see them correctly, we will miss God’s grace and forgiveness. And if we don’t see them correctly, we will end up with regret, shame, guilt, and eventually bitterness.

This is why John points us to confession in one of the most famous verses in the Bible.

1 John 1:9 is a great reminder: If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Confession is being honest with yourself and God about who you are and who He is.

Confession is being honest with yourself and God about who you are and who He is.

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It is seeing yourself through the lens God sees you, which is the only path to freedom.

This path takes us from comparison, being the victim, and even moping around. It takes us to freedom because, through confession, we can let go. We can drop our bags of sin, guilt, shame, and regret.

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5 Questions to Ask to Forgive and Let Go So You can Move Forward

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Photo by Alex Shute on Unsplash

Forgiveness is one of the hardest things to do when you have been wronged.

But within our culture and churches, there is a lot of confusion about forgiveness, the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation, and the difference between forgiveness and trust.

In Luke 17, Jesus is talking to his disciples about this very thing, and in it, he raises some important questions we have to deal with: He said to his disciples, “Offenses will certainly come, but woe to the one through whom they come! It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to stumble. Be on your guard. If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and comes back to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”

One of the things that gets in our way of forgiveness and experiencing the freedom that comes from forgiveness is our hearts and inability to forgive and let go.

In this passage, Jesus gives us a few questions to pause and ask the next time an offense happens.

5 Questions to ask about forgiveness.

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Did they sin against me, or did I not like it? This is a phrase Jesus uses often, “If your brother sins against you…” Just wants us to stop and ask, did they sin against me? This is the first question we must ask ourselves about forgiveness and reconciliation.

Many times, if we are honest, that person did not sin against us or God; they just did something we didn’t like. Our preferences and desires are not laws of the universe, as much as we think they should be.

Now, that doesn’t mean you don’t say anything. It might be worth a conversation. But it does change how we view it.

Can I overlook this? Proverbs 19:11 says it is “a virtue to overlook an offense.”

This means not everything offensive is worth a conversation. There are some that you should say, “I’m choosing to overlook that.”

Now, what that is for you and me might be different. But we need to ask the question at least.

5 things that help us to forgive and let go of our hurt.

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What is happening in me? Jesus says to be on your guard. In other translations, it says, “Watch yourself.” Why? When someone sins against us, we need to ask what is happening in us. Why are we so bothered by that? What button did they push in me?

Often, when an offense comes, there is a lesson for us to learn.

Many times, the reason we find something offensive or are bothered by something is because it connects to something in our past. 

How do you know? Does your reaction match the situation? Ruth Haley Barton said, “The more volatile and out of control our responses are, the more we can be sure that we are reacting out of old adaptive patterns rather than God-graced, Spirit-filled responses.”

When we are upset or frustrated or hurt, it is an opportunity for us to look at what is happening in us.

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What if they repent? We have to be honest about one reason we don’t go to people who sin against us: we don’t want them to repent.

If they repent, then I have to forgive them. You’re supposed to forgive them regardless, but I have a different thing to face if they repent. Many people don’t bring up their hurt with the other person because if they apologize and seek reconciliation, now I have to face the music and move forward. If I stay put, I can stay mad and not move forward. It gets to stay their fault. 

But it isn’t just around repentance that can trip us up now. We aren’t sure what a healthy relationship would look like with someone who has hurt us or someone we have a dysfunctional relationship with. 

For example, if you have a broken relationship with your child, parent, spouse, or friend. You know what that looks like. You can navigate their silence, insults, or mean words, lashing out and slamming doors. You don’t know how to navigate the relationship when those aren’t present. What if that stops all of a sudden? You are in a new relationship with the same person, which can be disorienting. 

If that person who has sinned against you repents, you lose the upper hand you think you have. You lose the ability to sit in judgment of them like you are. I’m not saying those are good things you are doing, but we all do those things at different points.

What if they don’t repent? We do have to ask ourselves what we will do if they don’t repent. Jesus says, “If they repent, forgive…” Does that mean that our forgiveness is based on their apology? No. Our forgiveness is a choice we make, regardless of what they do. In his great book Forgive, Tim Keller said, “To forgive someone’s debt to you is to absorb the debt yourself. Forgiveness, then, is a form of voluntary suffering. In forgiving, you choose to bear the cost rather than retaliating.”

To forgive someone’s debt to you is to absorb the debt yourself. Forgiveness, then, is a form of voluntary suffering. In forgiving, rather than retaliating, you choose to bear the cost. -Tim Keller

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While repentance and reconciliation are always the goal in a broken relationship, that isn’t always possible. The other person may not repent or even be alive to repent. So forgiveness is not dependent on the other person. Reconciliation is, but not forgiveness. 

Forgiveness is a choice you make on your own. 

And often, when I’ve been deeply wounded, forgiveness will come before I feel like forgiving. 

I told a story on Sunday about a situation where I was wounded deeply. Katie and I, before we even had a conversation with the person who hurt us, started to pray for them. She started first, and then slowly, God softened my heart. 

5 questions Jesus wants us to ask about forgiveness.

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Praying for the person who has hurt me has a way of seeing them the way God does and softening my heart towards them. Now, that doesn’t mean that I am excusing what someone did. But it does help me to see them, myself, and God more clearly.

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One Key to Changing Your Church Culture

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Photo by Ross Findon on Unsplash

One of the most difficult aspects of a change in leadership is changing the culture of that church, group, or organization. 

You can change the values, the mission statement, and the strategy. But those changes to values and strategy won’t matter if you don’t change the culture. 

Why?

Because whatever the culture is, that is what people do. 

Tod Bolsinger said, “Culture is the set of default behaviors and usually unexamined or unreflective practices that make up the organizational life and ethos of a company, organization, family or church. In short, organizational culture is the way we do things around here.” 

Organizational culture is the way we do things around here.

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To change culture, you must look at how things are done. How do decisions get made? Who needs to be in the room for those decisions to be made? Do decisions get made by a small group after the meeting?

You can have the most outward-oriented strategy as a church, but you won’t be effective if your behaviors don’t match that. 

Many new pastors come into a church and think that if they change the mission, vision, or strategy, they have changed the church. 

But the group will always default to culture. 

How does that culture get set?

Culture is rarely decided on. A meeting is held to work through vision, values, mission, and strategy. But a meeting is rarely held to decide culture. Culture simply happens. It happens through behaviors, policies, celebrations, and demotions. When you cheer someone on, culture is set. When you scold someone or redirect someone, culture is set. 

John Kotter said, “Organizational culture is usually set by the group’s founders and reinforced through success. When a value leads to a behavior resulting in a desired outcome, the values and behaviors become embedded in the group’s DNA.” 

Culture is reinforced through success.

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One important thing leaders need to do is listen to the stories people tell. You will find the culture and where things came from in those stories. 

To change a culture, you must connect that culture change to success. 

People will always default to what brought success in the past. If they see momentum from a ministry project or behavior, they will seek to replicate that. 

As you change culture, focus on new behaviors and do whatever you can to connect them to success. 

To change culture, focus on new behaviors and do whatever you can to connect them to success.

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7 Ways to Find the Best Ministry Ideas for Your Church

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Has this ever happened to you? Someone approaches you after your service and asks, “Do you know what our church needs? A ministry for _______.” Or, “do you know what we did at my last church? We did ______.” 

Now, that blank is often a good idea. It might be a great idea. 

What many people and pastors fail to realize is that usually the person asking it doesn’t want that. They may think they want that or want to be a part of it, but they don’t.

When to say yes to something at your church.

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Typically, when someone in a church says, We need a women’s ministry or a class on finances or prayer or parenting, we need a group for empty nesters or college students, church leaders jump and start one up because “they don’t want to lose this influential person.” 

When this class or ministry starts, do you know who probably won’t be there?

That’s right.

The person in the original conversation.

Why?

When it comes to our spiritual growth, we usually don’t know what we need. 

When it comes to our spiritual growth, we usually don’t know what we need.

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We often want what we think others have. We look at the end product of another church, another ministry but don’t ask, “What led them to start that? What need were they trying to reach? Does that need exist in our church or city? If it does, what is the best thing to reach it?”

Another reason pastors jump at these ideas is they aren’t clear on what their vision is and what the church should or should not be doing, so they do ideas to make up for that. 

But how do you know what to do when that new idea comes up? How do you make sure you don’t miss what God is doing in your midst?

7 ways to know if now is the time to start something new or kill something old.

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Does it reach our target as a church? Every church has a target whether they admit it or not. The target of your church, whether that is families, singles, students, or empty nesters should drive many of the decisions of your church. Your target is who you are best situated to reach and who God has called you to reach. You want to reach everybody but are best suited to reach certain people in your city. Who that target is will determine the ministries and ideas you run with as a church.

Your target is who you are best situated to reach and who God has called you to reach.

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Does the answer to question 1 matter? Sometimes, the answer to question 1 doesn’t matter. God is calling you, your church, or your team to move forward with the idea that your target doesn’t matter. This won’t happen a lot, but I wanted to put this in there.

Can we afford to do it? Do you have the structure, the bandwidth, and the finances to make something happen? Just because it is an idea doesn’t mean you can afford it in this season. Maybe your team doesn’t have the energy for a new idea. That’s okay and something you need to be honest about. You might not have the financial bandwidth to do all that you want to do. 

Can we afford not to do it? If you don’t do something, what happens? Not enough pastors list what happens if they say no or not. Often, we live in fear of people, losing people, making someone angry, and never list out, “What happens if we say no?” Often, saying no will not mean the world ends. Saying no might mean you lose people, but saying no may not mean anything. You at least need to play out what happens if you don’t do something. 

Is now the time to do this? Just because an idea is good or great does not mean now is the time to do it. Church planters often feel this tension as the larger church down the road can do a lot more than they can. That’s okay, let them.

As a leader, you must constantly ask, can we do this? Is now the time? Or do we need to wait?

If we do this, will it hurt something else we do? Many times, we unknowingly undermine something that we are already doing by doing something else. Too many churches continue to add to their ministry list without taking something away. 

Can we be great at doing it? Too many churches do too much because that’s what churches do instead of asking if we do this, will we be great at it? Can we do this better than someone else? Don’t just do concerts, Awana, or classes to have them. Be great at the things you do. This will mean you will do less. How do you know what you can be great at as a church? Look who has God has given you and what gifts and passions they have. 

The reality when this conversation happens is the person who says, “We should do ____” wants to see their church be great, and healthy and reach more people. You, as a leader, though are held accountable for knowing when the time is right to say yes.

2 overlooked but incredibly important principles for pastors and churches.

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How to Grow Through the Hard Times

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Every one of us experiences hard times, but we view those hard times differently. Some of us are surprised by them when they hit; others seem to expect them (and they miss the good times when they come); some see them as a nuisance you must deal with; others see them as moments to grow and learn from. 

Scripture tells us we shouldn’t be surprised by them. Paul goes so far as to tell Timothy: But know this: Hard times will come in the last days. Throughout history, Christians have debated if they are in the last days. We might be now, we might not be yet. But we should live with the awareness that hard times will come. We shouldn’t be surprised by them. We shouldn’t look for them but see how to learn and grow from them. 

That’s what Paul wants Timothy to do. He gives him a list in chapter 3 of things that can lead to hard times. In verses 2 – 4, he lists 19 different sins that can lead to hard times. To learn and grow from the hard times, we must know what can lead to them and what we should be pursuing out of them. 

Here is the list:

  • For people will be lovers of self
  • Lovers of money
  • Boastful
  • Proud
  • Demeaning
  • Disobedient to parents
  • Ungrateful
  • Unholy
  • Unloving
  • Irreconcilable
  • Slanderers
  • Without self-control
  • Brutal
  • Without love for what is good
  • Traitors
  • Reckless
  • Conceited
  • Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God

Look at this list; which stands out to you as you struggle? It is important to know because that area is where we are most prone to fall into temptation, but also the area that can lead to the greatest heartache and difficulty in our lives. 

The 19 sins can fall into 3 categories: love of self, pleasure, and money. 

Paul gives Timothy a charge on how to fight this:

To fight the love of self, pursue humility. 

To fight the love of pleasure, pursue integrity. 

To fight the love of money, pursue generosity. 

Why do this? Tim Chester says, “All too often, we think of holiness as giving up the pleasures of sin for some worthy but drab life. But holiness means recognizing that the pleasures of sin are empty and temporary, while God is inviting us to magnificent, true, full, and rich pleasures that last forever.”

All too often, we think of holiness as giving up the pleasures of sin for some worthy but drab life. But holiness means recognizing that the pleasures of sin are empty and temporary, while God is inviting us to magnificent, true, full,…

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How to Bring Clarity to Your Church & Ministry

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If you’re anything like me, you need to focus. There are times when you need to hunker down and get things done. Yet, your mind wanders. You daydream or think about what will happen later today or tomorrow. It could be a conversation, a meeting, or a vacation you can’t wait to start.

Your lack of focus might come from no desire to do what you are doing, how hard something is, or because you didn’t sleep well last night.

I often cannot focus well because of the whirlwind around me.

Clarity and focus come from having “white space.” This is where you can shut down social media or email and think. To narrow down what matters the most right now.

I’ve heard John Maxwell say that leaders could stop doing 80% of what they’re doing, and no one would notice. That feels high, but there is some merit to it.

Leaders could stop doing 80% of what they’re doing and no one would notice.

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Each day you must be able to say, “If I accomplish nothing else today, here’s what must get done.” That focus helps you to stay on track.

When you find your brain wandering, stand up, walk around, get some fresh air, and then return to something.

Clarity for Your Church or Organization

Clarity doesn’t just matter for you; it has enormous implications for your team and church.

Many teams lack clarity. They are stuck in a whirlwind of activity, simply doing the thing right in front of them. This is easy to do in a church because worship services come around with such regularity (every seven days), so there is a deadline to that whirlwind.

For our team, just like in our family, we discuss what is most important for the next 2-6 months as a team. What are we all going to be working on and moving towards?

In a church setting, it is easy to lose sight of why you are doing something or why something started, and slowly, it is just what you’ve always done. 

Why Clarity Matters

Without clarity and focus, anything and everything is important.

This is where many churches and people get off track in their lives and ministries.

Clarity says this matters more than that.

That is hard to say because it determines ahead of time what you will think about, work on, spend money on, and give manpower to.

Whether you sit down and write this out or say it, you do this daily exercise.

The ones who accomplish things and see greater effectiveness are the ones who decide this instead of falling into it.

The days that I flopped into bed with a feeling of “What did I accomplish today?” were when I wasn’t focused and allowed my day to get away from me.

Amazingly, as you read through the gospels, you see Jesus’s incredible focus. He was fully present wherever he went. Whether teaching, healing, resting, praying, or spending time with his disciples, he was focused on what he was doing. When you think about what he did, you also understand what he didn’t do. He made the choices we have to make every day: what will get our time, energy, and attention?

Communicating Clarity

Patrick Lencioni said, “A leader is to create clarity, communicate clarity, and overcommunicate clarity.”

This is hard as a leader because to do this, you have to be clear on what you and your church are doing. This can lead to a divide, and some people may decide they don’t want to move forward with you, which is hard to navigate. 

Once you have clarity, you must communicate it and continue to communicate it. 

This can feel like a broken record, and you get tired of hearing yourself say it, but you must remember that every time you communicate clarity at your church, someone hears it for the first time. I say the same thing every Sunday when I stand in our volunteer prayer circle. Why? We need to be reminded why we are there, and every week, someone is serving for the first time, so they haven’t heard it. 

How do you know if you’ve communicated it?

One is you are tired of hearing it. But the second is you start hearing people say it back to you. And thirdly, you start hearing people pray for it. 

When these three things happen, people get the vision. 

How do you know if people get the vision? One is you are tired of hearing it. But the second is you start hearing people say it back to you. And thirdly, you start hearing people pray for it.

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The Kind of Person God Uses

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Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash

All of us want to live a life without regrets. But is that even possible? Yes and no.

The reality is that we will all navigate feelings of guilt, shame, and regrets. The reason is because they are powerful.

At the end of 2 Timothy, Paul says, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” 

Imagine getting to the end of your life and saying that. Saying I have done what I was supposed to do. I left it all on the field of life. I kept the faith. I ran my race.

But how does that happen? How do you and I get to where we can say that?

Much of what is in 2 Timothy is Paul telling Timothy (and us) how to make that true in our lives.

In chapter 2, he tells us three things that are true of a person who can say that: they are approved by God, they are pure, and they are a servant.

Approved by God

Paul tells Timothy that a follower of Jesus is one of God’s. Paul says in verse 19: God knows who belongs to Him. What a promise. 

Many of us, though, struggle to believe that God loves us. We spend most of our lives trying to earn God’s love, trying to prove ourselves to God, trying to beat our willpower into submission instead of living in the grace of God. This is why Paul says in chapter 2, verse 1: Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. 

Right now, as a follower of Jesus, you have all of God’s love, all of God’s approval, all of God’s attention. There isn’t anything you can do to get more of God’s love, acceptance, and attention. 

What would it look like today to live as if that were true?

One of the things I’ve started to do is ask God for help in believing this when I struggle to believe it. 

An amazing promise for every follower of Jesus.

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Pure

Paul then says that the person who lives without regrets, the person God uses significantly, is pure. 

He uses the illustration of vessels in a house; there is gold and silver for a particular use, honorable use, and some things made for dishonorable use.

God uses those who are holy, set apart, different, and clean.

One of the themes in this book is Paul’s saying how he has lived his life without regrets; he has a clear conscience.

One of the themes in 2 Timothy is how to live a life without regrets; to have a clear conscience.

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In your life, do you strive for purity? Do you have things to help you have a pure heart, mind, body, and soul?

Servant

The third and final thing Paul says about a person God uses is they are a servant. 

All of this connects to the verses before (2 Timothy 2:1 – 13), where Paul says that a follower of Jesus is like a soldier, athlete, and farmer. 

A servant seeks to serve their master and Lord. Which is the heartbeat of every follower of Jesus: to serve the will of God. 

Do you look for opportunities to serve God and others? Without getting any glory?

3 truths about people who God uses to change the world.

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4 Ways to Get Unstuck when You’re in a Rut

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Photo by Luis Villasmil on Unsplash

Have you ever felt like you were in a rut? Maybe in your marriage, you and your spouse keep missing each other no matter what you try. Maybe as a parent, you feel like you are stuck and just can’t get moving. Or spiritually, this happens when we feel like we are going through the motions. The same thing happens with friendships, our careers, or fitness goals.

Stuck.

It describes so many people and how we live our lives.

Spinning our tires.

Not moving forward. Maybe even moving backward.

That feeling that no matter what you do personally or in your church, you never get anywhere. Nothing grows, nothing changes, nothing gets better, and sometimes it even gets worse.

Your marriage doesn’t change, your health doesn’t improve, and you still can’t talk to your kids or boss. You still have no idea what to do with your life, how to get out of debt, or how to let go of your past hurts.

Stuck.

When that happens, what do you do?

Here are 4 ways to get unstuck in life, marriage, or ministry:

4 ways to get unstuck in life, marriage or ministry.

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Have a Plan. You can’t change anything without a plan. You have to identify what is wrong, what needs to change, and what the future would look like if it changed. Often, we move forward without any kind of plan for what we hope to accomplish. When this happens, and nothing changes, we can lose heart and give up.

Be Intentional. After coming up with a plan, you can be intentional. In the same way that it takes very little effort to go into debt or put weight on, it takes an enormous effort to get out of debt and lose weight. A plan won’t be enough; you must create accountability and attach dates and times to things. If you will have a weekly date night, what night will it be? If you reach a certain benchmark at work, when will that be completed, and what steps will you take to get there?

You have all the time you need to do everything you want to do.

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Everything Gets a Minute. Anything worthwhile in your life has a minute attached to it. Whenever someone says, “I wish I could do ____, but I don’t have time,” they are usually lying to themselves. They don’t care enough to make that happen. The reality is you have all the time you need to do everything you want to do. If you want to do something, you will find the time. Taking a class, reading a book to grow, exercising, and getting more sleep, no matter what, you will find the time if you want something bad enough.

You might think, but I would still like to do ____ but can’t find the time. Then, it might not be the season for you to do that. Just because you want to do something doesn’t mean this is the moment. You might have young kids at home, so returning to school isn’t for right now. That’s okay. 

Everything that gets done in life has a minute attached to it.

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Every time you say yes to something, you say no to something else. You shouldn’t do everything. One reason many people get stuck is they try to do everything. When you say yes to signing your child up for a sport, you say no to less stress, dinners as a family, and other things. Is that bad? It depends on your life, goals, and what you hope to accomplish. Only you can answer that; the answer changes in different seasons as you age and your kids get older. A silly example: Katie and I have talked about how much TV we want to watch (this is the minute idea). Any time we add a new show that starts, we agree we need to stop watching another show; otherwise, we will spend more time than we want to watch TV.

Every time you say yes to something, you say no to something else.

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