How to Partner with God in Reclaiming Your Identity

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The most common malady in the human experience is loss. We have all experienced it in the past. We will all experience it in the future. It is a sad fact in this fallen world. By far though, the greatest loss is ourselves. That is trauma’s worst consequence—the loss of our identity. The good news is God wants to restore our lost identity. We can partner with God and reclaim our lost identity. I recently saw a brilliant illustration of this process.

Our new favorite Internet-TV series is The Chosen, a dramatization of the gospels that is done extremely well. Instead of trying to cram everything into a two or three-hour movie, they are presenting the life and ministry of Jesus as a multi-season series. This gives them the luxury of developing fictional but plausible backstories for the various characters that meet Jesus, like the disciples, Pharisees, and others.

Jesus is not the main character, although he becomes more and more of a central character as the series develops. The main characters are the people who meet Jesus. The vision of the production is to introduce Jesus to viewers through the eyes of the people who met him, so viewers can have similar experiences meeting Jesus. The stories surrounding its production and the impact it is having around the world are truly the fingerprints of God. This series is reaping amazing Kingdom fruit.

(You can download The Chosen app on your device from your app store, and watch the series for free.)

Spoiler alert. The first episode of season 1 is all about Mary Magdalene, whom Jesus delivered from multiple demons (Luke 8:2). There is nothing in scripture about her initial encounter with Jesus, so The Chosen gives her a fictional but plausible backstory. The trauma in her life has completely robbed her of her identity, even to the point of her name. She goes by the name of Lilith, which means “night monster.” None of her friends even know her real name.

3 Steps to Partnering with God in Reclaiming Your Identity

At the end of episode 1, Mary meets Jesus, who restores her identity in a way that’s amazingly practical for us. There are 3 steps, and Jesus wants to partner with us in each one.

1) Jesus Called Her by Her True Name

When Jesus shows up, the demons plaguing Mary aren’t happy being around him. Mary bolts. Jesus goes after her, stopping her dead in her tracks with one word:

“Mary.”

He calls her by her true name. Not the false name, the false identity, the trauma has given her, that everyone else knows her by. But her true name. Her true identity. The one she thought was lost forever. BTW, “Mary” means “beloved.”

How to Partner with Jesus when He Calls Our True Name

Agree with him. Mary stopped and turned. He had her attention. Does he have ours? Do we acknowledge our true name?

Agreement means action, not just an intellectual nod while we continue on with nothing changing. We stop. We turn to him. And we, in our heart of hearts, buy into the truth of our real name, the one he gave us.

Don’t buy into the false identity anymore. Mary stopped going by the name Lilith. And whenever someone calls her Lilith, she reminds them, “I’m Mary now.”

At one point Jesus says, “You always were” (episode 8).

One area where we are actively encouraging people to keep, and even celebrate, their false name is by condoning transgenderism. These individuals have suffered such deep trauma that it has completely stolen their identity down the most basic, fundamental level: their gender. Rather than helping them reclaim who God created them to be, we slam the door of God’s healing in their faces by celebrating the false name they give themselves when they “switch” genders. (“Switch” in quotes because they aren’t really switching genders; they are just pretending. They still have the same XX or XY chromosomes God created them with.)

2) Jesus Quoted Her Life Verse to Her

In the episode, there was a particular verse from Isaiah that her father had taught her. She’d saved the paper with that verse for many years, but finally had given up. She tore it up and threw it into the sea. Goodbye identity.

After he calls her by her true name, Jesus miraculously quotes her life verse to her. He’s reminding her of who she really is.

How to Partner with Jesus when He Quotes Our Life to Us

Agree with him. Let your heart leap! It may not be a Bible verse per se, but Jesus will remind us of our life’s passion. That part we thought could never happen, that we’d given up on.

Agreement means action. Think about it: If this passion, this calling I thought was dead, were really to happen, what’s the first thing I’d do? Then do that. One step at a time. Keep doing the next right thing.

3) Jesus Claimed Her

Finally, Jesus says to Mary, “You are mine.” He claims her. It’s in that place of holy surrender to him that the healing happens. Mary collapses into him sobbing tears that were many years overdue.

How to Partner with Jesus when He Claims Us

Agree with him. We have a choice. We can surrender to him, or we can go our own way. Will we release our defenses and trust him, or will we continue to protect ourselves? The choice is up to us.

Agreement means action. What does this look like? Being claimed by Jesus is all about lifestyle. If you agree with his claim on your life, you can’t live a lifestyle that breaks his heart. For example, we get healing for addictions through a recovery process. We save sex for marriage. We start tithing and our tips at restaurants substantially increase because we’re living in generosity. We love hanging out with God’s people, the church.

It’s All in Our Agreement

Are you noticing a pattern here? Although healing can be a painful process, Jesus is doing all the heavy lifting here. We partner with him through our agreement and our actions coming out of that agreement.

There are many voices vying for our agreement. Who are you agreeing with today?

Tell us your story in the comments. It will help others when they see they aren’t the only one. And please share this post so we can bless as many people as possible with the freedom that comes from agreeing with Jesus.

3 Ways to Not Let Your History Control Your Destiny

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Our destiny is the adventure God created us to live. Yet so many of us are not living it, and our history is why—all the wounding, trauma, pain—and the fear it brings. The good news is our history does not have to control our destiny. Jesus is bigger than your fear, and he wants to heal your pain.

To keep us from that healing, our enemy wants us to live in our pain. Forever. He’s terrified of us living our God-given adventure. If we do that, his kingdom of darkness will take major hits and there’s nothing he can do about it. His only hope is to be pre-emptive. That’s why you feel so much fear and spiritual resistance whenever you start to move in your calling.

Our enemy’s strategy is, “I will wound them with so much trauma that the overwhelming pain and resultant fear keeps them from ever moving into the life God created them to live.” Those are the components of the enemy’s strategy: Trauma, causing pain, causing fear, which keeps us stuck. And that’s his goal—to keep us stuck in the pain, never moving into the adventure God has for us. Because he’s terrified of that.

It’s a diabolically brilliant plan. It works on every one of us, taking us hostage to fear. He’s got just one little problem though: The cross. The empty tomb. The love of a relentless God who just won’t stop meddling with things.

Actually, it’s a big problem. The blood of Jesus demolishes all the structures, lies, and plans of our enemy over our lives. The power of the love of God is stronger than the power of the trauma, pain, and fear in our lives.

But we have a choice. The Holy Spirit won’t just burst his healing into our lives like Satan did with trauma and sin. God loves and trusts us enough to honor our choice. Our healing is a partnership with Jesus. It’s our choice.

So here are 3 ways to partner with God and not let your history control your destiny.

1) Decide to Not Play the Victim

Enough is enough already. I’m sick of the pain and wounding in my life, and I pray you are too. The first step in getting free is deciding we want to be free. It’s acknowledging the pain in our lives and believing God can heal it.

2) Get Healing

Step 2 is to proactively get healing. We need to seek it out, and actively take steps to pursue our healing. Healing comes in many forms. For some of us, it’s counseling. For others, deliverance. And then there’s inner healing, prayer ministry, or medication. For most of us, it’s going to be a unique combination of the above.

Some of us need medication first to level us out enough so we can receive counseling, inner healing, and/or prayer ministry effectively. Some of us need deliverance or prayer ministry first.

It may take several tries until we find the counselor, pastor, prayer minister, and/or doctor that work for us. That’s normal. Keep trying.

Pro Tip: Ask to sign releases so your pastor, counselor, prayer minister, and/or doctor can talk to each other. You want everybody on your team on the same page. That doesn’t just happen by chance. Be proactive. Ask them to call each other and talk about your case.

3) Limit Negative Influences in Your Life

Misery loves company. The only thing worse than being miserable is being miserable alone. Some friends are just toxic, and they need to go. People who identify with you because your wounding matches theirs may not be happy when you get healthy.

I know a young woman who has a very difficult relationship with her godly parents. A few years ago, through interventive counseling and prayer ministry initiated by her parents, she was on the verge of a breakthrough and healing in that important relationship. But she had a friend who has a bad relationship with her own toxic parents. This friend sabotaged the young woman’s healing. Who else would the friend commiserate with if the young woman got healing?

“Bearing your heart to your hurting friends is not helping. Because all they do is accommodate you in your pain and understand it. You call that sensitivity; I call it enablement.” –Dan Mohler

When someone resents or downplays our healing, that’s a sign that friendship is unhealthy. The young woman would have been better off pulling away from that friend. But because her healing was hi-jacked, she’s now into decades of total estrangement from her parents.

But what do you do if you’re married to the negative influence?

I know someone who, every time they get inspired to move forward in their calling, excitedly talks to their spouse about it. This spouse is like a wet blanket. Their response is always, “Ok that’s great, but…” And they point out the difficulties, issues, or obstacles. The result is the person either doesn’t move forward at all, or moves forward in a limited way.

Now, yes, there’s a balance here. When you share an idea or a plan, most people will just say, “Wow, that’s great!” and won’t share any checks they have in their spirit about it. You want someone in your life who will tell you what no one else will.

Spouses are great for this. A healthy spouse is a great sounding board. While they tell you the obstacles they see that maybe you don’t, they are willing to help you work through them. If your spouse is truly supportive, you’ll come away from the conversation feeling encouraged, not discouraged. You’ll feel empowered, not limited. They are excited about you moving forward, not threatened by it.

If, maybe out of their own wounding, they are consistently a wet blanket of negativity, talking to them is not helping you. You are stuck with a significant negative influence in your life. You need to realize this and acknowledge it.

A negative reaction typically comes from fear. Because of their wounding, your vision is scary or intimidating to them. But you are not helpless. You need to find a way to share it that is less scary. And you can.

If you need ideas for dealing with this situation, download our free guide “7 Ways to Deal with a Wet Blanket Spouse.”

Download the Guide
“7 Ways to Deal with a
Wet Blanket Spouse”

Do not accept it like it’ll never change. Don’t let your spouse be your excuse for not walking into your destiny. That’s not fair to either of you.

Your Turn

So how about it? We want to help you walk out of your history and into your destiny. What in your past has kept, or is keeping, you stuck? How did you walk, or are walking, out of it? Tell us in the comments—your story and vulnerability will help others. Or shoot us an email [LINK http://identityinwholeness.com/contact-us/] if it’s too personal. We’d love to hear from you. And please share this post on social media to bless others.

How to Hear God Like Your Radio

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Hearing God in your life is a lot like listening to the radio. In order listen to your radio, you’ve got to 3 things. You’ve got to turn it on. Then you’ve got to tune it in to the station you want. Then you’ve got to set your volume—turn it up! Listening to God in your life regularly is a lot like that. Here’s how it works.

Turn It On with Faith

Faith turns your radio on. Without faith that God actually can, will, and wants to speak to us, we’re not going to hear anything.

Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

Hebrews 11:6

I hear non-Christians say all the time, “Yeah, right, Christian, I’d believe in God too if he talked to me. But I’ve never heard him.” It doesn’t work that way. Of course they’ve never heard him. Their radio’s off! They have no faith.

The station can be broadcasting at full power, but if you’re radio’s off, you’re not hearing it. The exciting adventure of hearing God in your life all starts with faith.

Tune It In with Consistency

Personally, I listen to 91.9 FM, WGTS, one of our local Christian music stations here in the Washington, DC, area. I also listen to 107.7 FM, WWWT, for news. Say my radio is set on 107.7, and I want to listen to some Christian music, not news. So I turn on my radio, and all I get is news. Then I get mad at WGTS. “Why don’t they broadcast? Why can’t I hear Christian music like everyone else can? I’ve been listening all day!”

You’d probably say to me, “You goof! You’ve got your radio set to the wrong station. Tune-in to 91.9.” And you’d be right. There’s nothing wrong with WGTS; they’ve been broadcasting just fine. The problem’s with me. I’ve got my radio set to the wrong station.

I’m not going to hear the Christian music station if my radio is set to the news station. Duh! That’s pretty obvious. None of us would really do that with radio stations, webinars, or Pandora. But we do it all the time with God. We think he’s not speaking to us when in fact he’s speaking all the time. We’re just not tuned-in to his frequency. So how do we tune-in to God’s frequency?

Consistency. We are listening to whatever spiritual radio station we consistently spend our time at.

If we consistently watch secular TV shows or movies, where godless behavior (like sex outside of marriage) and lifestyles (like LGBTQ) are portrayed as good and acceptable, we’ve tuned into the world’s frequency. We’ll have no discernment when it comes to elections or other important things in life. We’re deceived by the spirit of the age because that’s the frequency we’ve tuned our spirits in to.

But if we consistently spend our time with God, in worship, reading his word (the Bible), listening to teachings, meditating on him, we’re tuned in to his spirit.

I’m not saying don’t watch TV or movies or listen to secular music. I am saying filter what you watch and listen to through the Holy Spirit. I don’t care how funny or hip it is, if it’s portraying godless behavior and lifestyles as good, desirable, and acceptable, then watching it is harming your relationship with Jesus. And hence it degrades your ability to hear God.

If you want to hear God, tune into Heaven’s station, not Hell’s. You are tuned into the station you spend the most consistent time with. Simple.

Turn It Up with Focus

Now that your radio is turned on and tuned in, we just need to turn it up. The volume on your spiritual radio is focus. Here are 3 specific things you can do to focus your life on Jesus so you can hear God better. I’m sure you can think of many more.

1) Baptism. If you haven’t been baptized since making Jesus your Lord and Savior, then it’s a great thing to do. It’s a public declaration of dedicating your life to Jesus. Going under the water and coming back up again is symbolic of dying to the world and being alive to God.

2) Communion. This has different names in different denominations, like the Lord’s supper or the Eucharist. It’s like coming over to your parent’s house for dinner. You don’t do it to check a box (hopefully), but to spend time with them. Communion is dinner at God’s house. It’s a special activity with a community of other believers where the veil between Heaven and Earth is thinner. Taking communion regularly with the community of God’s people is a great way to turn up your spiritual radio.

3) Fasting is taking the time you would have spent doing something, and instead spending that time with God. Fasting food is the most common, taking the time you would’ve spent preparing, cooking, and eating and giving that time to the Lord. But if you’re diabetic, pregnant, or have some other medical condition where your doctor advises against it, do not fast food.

There are lots of other things you can fast besides food. Fasting TV or media is excellent. Again, it’s not just not watching. It’s taking the time you would’ve spent watching and spending that time with the Lord. You can fast sports. You can fast video games. You can fast just about anything.

Pro Tip: It’s usually best to set a well-defined timeframe at the beginning, like “I’m going to fast sports for 2 weeks.” It’ll be easier if you’re clear about the duration up front.

Don’t you feel special when your spouse or special someone sets aside time just for you? God loves fasting, and will often meet you at a deeper level in that place.

So There You Have It

You turn your spiritual radio on with faith that God will actually talk to you. You tune in to his frequency with consistently spending time with him more than spending time on things of the world that detract from him. And you turn your volume up by focusing your life on God. Three great ways to do that are baptism, communion, and fasting.

Your Turn

Where are you at in your spiritual journey? Do you hear God regularly? Are you hungry for more? Do you identify with what we’ve talked about in this post? Tell us your story and thoughts in the comments, and please share if this would bless someone else.

Why You Don’t Want Clarity but This Instead

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We all want clarity before moving forward. But that’s not how God has wired the universe. Clarity is backward facing. It looks at the past events and actions in our lives and says, “Oh, that’s why that didn’t work out, but that’s why this did.” Looking back, we see how God orchestrated them for good in our lives. We see what we’ve learned. We see how far we’ve come. We see what God did.

Clarity looking through your rearview mirror. It does you no good driving forward.

My Favorite Mother Teresa Story

A reporter went to Calcutta to do a story on Mother Teresa. As he was leaving, he asked her, “I’ve got some important decisions coming up in my life that I have to make when I get back. Would you please pray for me for clarity?”

She said, “No.”

“What?!? You’re Mother Teresa! How can you not pray for me?!?” said the surprised reporter.

“I can’t pray for you for clarity because I’ve never had it,” she calmly replied. “But I will pray for you for faith.”

Read that again. That’s huge.

Another Word for Faith

Faith is often an abstract concept to us, and we don’t always know what it means. Another word for faith, on a very practical level, is direction.

Mother Teresa could just as well have said, “But I will pray for you for direction.”

Direction is forward facing. It requires faith because you don’t know if it’s actually going to work or not until you try it.

Sometimes it’s just a single next step. Sometimes it’s a few steps. But it’s almost never the whole journey, mapped out end-to-end, like we would like.

God Gives Direction, Not Clarity

Look at God’s call to the heroes of the Bible. Moses. Gideon. Samson. David. And in the New Testament, Peter, Paul, even Jesus’ mother Mary.

They were all given first steps. None of them were told the end of the story. They were just given direction. They objected because they didn’t have the whole story, quite reasonably, usually telling God why this is a bad idea or that it just outright isn’t going to work. But every time, God just chuckles and says, “Nevertheless, I will be with you.”

Take that first step. Do the next right thing.

Uncharted Waters

God can’t give us the whole plan up front because each step is a direction of its own. A direction assumes a starting point.

If I was giving you directions to New York City and said, “Get on I-95 North,” that only works if you’re roughly in the same geographical location I am. I’m in the Washington, DC, area, so those directions would work if you’re starting south of New York City somewhere along the East coast.

But if you’re starting in Los Angeles, CA, then “get on I-95 North” does you no good at all. You’d better get on I-10 East first.

Directions only make sense if the starting point is known. Suppose God gives you Step 1. But he can’t give you Step 2 until you’ve done step 1, because you wouldn’t understand it. Because it’s from a different starting point than you expect. Because Step 1 is going to take you to a place you didn’t expect.

That’s the way it so often works, isn’t it? We tend to think so binary, either this is going to work or it isn’t. But what happens is often in the middle. It works, but differently than we expected. So the starting point for Step 2 isn’t where we thought we’d be.

So after we actually do Step 1, and get to whatever surprising place God knew it would lead us, now we’re ready for Step 2. Having completed Step 1, we’re finally at the starting point for Step 2. Now it makes sense. But it never would have made any sense before we completed Step 1.

Clarity Needs These 3 Things. Especially #3.

Yes, God does bring us clarity. But it requires these three things.

As we’ve said, clarity is backward facing. After we’ve done the thing, then we get clarity about it, looking back and learning from our experience. So the first thing clarity needs is action. That’s why “analysis paralysis” is a thing. There’s no clarity until you do something.

Second, clarity needs time. You don’t always get clarity the day or week or month after doing something. Sometimes, you’re still too close to it.

Have you ever seen those science pictures where they show you a close-up of something, and you have no idea what it is? Then they zoom out and you can clearly distinguish what the object is? Clarity and time are like that. Sometimes, you need some distance.

Third, and most important of all, clarity needs healing. You can look at events in your life, even from a long time ago, and still not have clarity about what really happened if you haven’t received healing.

Healing’s a two-way street. God is more than willing to give healing, and sometimes it comes over time, which is one reason why time is so important in all of this. In fact, he’s dying (literally) to bring healing into our lives. He really wants to heal.

But we have to be just as willing to receive it. That requires several difficult things on our part:

  • Humility. “Healing?!? I don’t need healing. I’ve got this.”
  • Vulnerability. It’s scary letting someone else, even God, into a place of pain.
  • Spiritual Maturity. The more healed you are, the more you’ll accept more healing.

Your Turn

So cut God a break. Don’t pray for clarity. Pray for direction.

What is your “next right thing” that God is leading you into? Are you hesitating? If so, you’re in good company; everyone in the Bible did. But when you know it’s God, even if it doesn’t make sense, follow his direction and step out. The clarity comes afterward. We’d love to share the journey with you. Reach out to us on the Contact page. And please share this post if it would bless others.

2 Practical Ways to Faith Jesus

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On July 15, 1859, daredevil and tight rope walker Charles Bloudin walked across a tightrope 1100 feet long, suspended 160-200 feet in the air, without a net. Over Niagara Falls. Pushing a wheelbarrow. Walking backward. Blindfolded.

When he reached his destination on the other side, the crowd roared with amazement. When he was ready for his return trip, he asked the crowd, “Who believes I can carry a person across in this wheelbarrow?” Everyone raised their hand and shouted an enthusiastic “Yes!”

His next question quieted the crowd. “Who wants to get in the wheelbarrow?” Every hand went down. He had no volunteer from the audience on the return trip.

This story shows us two very practical things about walking out our faith.

1) Faith is a Verb. Practice It.

The crowd believed Charles Bloudin could re-cross Niagara Falls with someone in the wheelbarrow. But none of them had faith that he could.

“To believe” is just intellectual ascent. It’s something we do with our mind. Once a thing is proven to us, it gets filed in our mind under “Things We Believe.” We don’t need to waste energy thinking about it again. So if you’re like me, you free up that memory and forget the proof, just remembering that it’s something you believe. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s an efficient way to manage our finite intellectual capacity. But it’s got nothing to do with our heart.

Faith, on the other hand, is all from the heart. It’s an on-going thing. This is the sense of the Greek word often translated “faith” in the New Testament. The closest we can come in English is “to believe”, which diminishes it to just theoretical intellectual ascent, or “having faith”, which makes it sound like a possession we bought and keep on our shelf with other keepsakes.

But real faith is an active thing. We would understand it better if we treated it like a verb, saying things like, “I faith in Jesus.” Continual. On-going. From the heart.

2) Don’t Be Afraid to Go First.

Everyone watching Charles Bloudin that day believed he could carry someone else across the Niagara Falls tightrope in the wheelbarrow. They all wanted somebody else to go first.

That’s a problem in the Kingdom of God. Because God always calls us to go first. He’s calling us to something unique that no one’s ever done before (at least not like we’re going to do it). He makes all things new, and our calling is no exception.

Moses had this problem of belief without faith. When God called him, Moses saw and heard some amazing things (Exodus 3):

  • A bush burning that didn’t burn up.
  • God standing in the middle of the fire and speaking with him.
  • Getting God’s name, a completely new revelation on the Earth of who God is.
  • His staff turns into a snake and back again.
  • His hand turns leprous and back again.
  • God’s promise to be with him.

Moses’ response? “Please send someone else to do it.” He believed God could do it. But he didn’t have faith that God would actually do it through him. He wasn’t “faithing” God.

In the end, God gave Moses the boost he needed. Moses had the faith to get into God’s wheelbarrow as long as his brother Aaron got in with him.

God’s ok with that. He knows it’s hard for us to actually step out into the impossible realm he’s calling us to, even if we want to. If our hearts remain soft and willing, he will give us the boost we need. By Exodus chapter 8, Moses was talking to Pharaoh directly without needing to speak through Aaron. Moses grew into who God already knew he was.

So will you. So will I. Continue to practice your faith, don’t take it for granted. Faith is not a “one and done.” Treat it like something that needs constant maintenance, like a car or a garden, because it does.

Don’t be afraid to go first. God is calling you to something unique, that the world’s never seen before. Even if it’s something others have done, the world has not seen anyone do it with your unique gifting and style, and the world desperately needs to.

Your Turn

Tell us your story in the comments. What is God calling you to do that’s bigger than you? What have you done in the past that you never thought you could? We’d love to walk this journey with you, and please share this post if it would bless someone else.

Credit where credit is due. I got the excellent concept of faith as a verb from Pastor Jim Bethany at Richland Baptist Church. You can listen to his excellent teachings here. And the story of Charles Bloudin comes from Creative Bible Study.

Why Life is Sacred and What that Even Means

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Sacred. What does that word even mean? We hardly use it anymore today. It sounds like a vegetable. “Yeah, we just planted some sacred between the beets and the squash.” But it’s a very important word. Because life is sacred. When our hearts lose the truth of that last sentence, we descend into the very worst of humanity. But when we live that truth, we reflect the best.

Google says sacred means:

  • Connected with God (or the gods) or dedicated to a religious purpose and so deserving veneration.
  • Religious rather than secular.
  • Of writing or text, embodying the laws or doctrines of a religion.

Wrong. That’s not even right! We totally don’t know what the word even means anymore. Sacred is not just a synonym for religious.

Wikipedia’s Sacred page starts with: “Sacred means revered due to sanctity and is generally the state of being perceived by religious individuals as associated with divinity and considered worthy of spiritual respect or devotion; or inspiring awe or reverence among believers. Objects are often considered sacred if used for spiritual purposes, such as the worship or service of gods.”

Wrong again. “Sacred means revered due to sanctity”? That’s a circular definition! At best, Wikipedia makes it sound irrelevant to everyday life. But nothing could be more relevant to life than an understanding, at the heart level, of this word.

Yes, both Google and Wikipedia capture the way the word is often used, but that’s not what it means. It is used in these ways because of what it means. So let’s find out what it really means.

Merriam-Webster reaches back a little further than the birth of the Internet. While listing similar definitions to Google and Wikipedia, Merriam-Webster also says this, which is the real definition of sacred:

  • Entitled to reverence and respect
  • Highly valued and important

Sacred is often used for religious meanings because we traditionally have considered God, and the things of God, worthy of respect and highly important. But sacred really means entitled to and worthy of reverence and respect, highly valued and important. Irreplaceable. Something you don’t mess with.

That’s your life. That’s my life. That’s our lives. That’s all human life. Human life is sacred, not to be messed with, because we’re created in the very image of God (Genesis 1:27). None of the animals were, only people. We alone are this unique blend of physical and spiritual life.

Human life is sacred. You don’t mess with it. When we forget this truth, or ignore it, we make devastating consequences for ourselves. We deal ourselves a huge loss.

During her American visit in the ‘90s, when Bill Clinton was president, Mother Teresa was asked by Hillary Clinton, “Why haven’t we had a women president yet?” Mother Teresa didn’t even blink, “She was probably aborted.” HRC was not amused.

Every life has a tree of life attached to it. Children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, etc. And that’s just heredity. Think about impact. We all touch thousands of lives. That touch matters, for good or ill. Those lives will never be the same.

Who’s inspired you? Who has pulled you back from the brink? A parent? A teacher? A coach? An author? A friend? Where would you be if that life never existed?

It’s a Wonderful Life, the black ‘n’ white movie with Jimmy Stewart, is more than just a drippy Christmas movie. It’s an amazing example of this concept. You know the story. George Bailey, at the height of his despair over his own failed life, gets the tremendous gift of seeing what the world would be like without him. Turns out he’s not a failure after all. His life held back tremendous evil in his town, hugely affecting everyone in ways they would never know. Hundreds of men would’ve died on the other side of the world during WWII, because his medal-of-honor war hero brother wasn’t there to save them, because George wasn’t there to save him when he fell through the ice when they were children. Every life matters.

Life is sacred. You don’t mess with it.

The worst of humanity comes out when we lose sight of this truth. The Nazis. ISIS. North Korea. Stalin’s purges in the old Soviet Union. Abortion.

We’ve lost over 60 million lives due to abortion in America alone (which is a small number compared to the rest of the world). To put it in perspective, the Holocaust was 18 million. Our numbers are 3 times that, and counting.

If you count not just the deaths, but the devastation left in abortion’s wake, it’s at least 180 million. Because there’s a mother whose maternal nurturing identity was devastated with the death of her child. There’s a father whose paternal provider/protector identity was cut to the heart, replaced by a false identity of failure. And we haven’t counted grandparents or siblings yet, who also lost a family member.

The lie in the culture is about quality of life over sanctity of life. Do any of these lies sound familiar?

“It was for the best, she’s got three kids on welfare already.” It doesn’t matter how poor the mother is. Do we really believe only rich people deserve to live? I thought money couldn’t buy happiness?

“The ultrasound and amniocentesis show the baby has Down’s syndrome. You should abort.” Have you ever known a child with Down’s syndrome? I have. These precious children bless the lives of everyone who meets them. Yet some countries have aborted almost every one of them, to their great loss. The eugenicists of the ‘20s would be so proud. God forgive us and lead us to repent.

“She had her whole life ahead of her. She had to abort. Now she can go to college and her life can get back to normal.” Had to abort? That doesn’t sound like a choice. The truth is, her life will never get back to “normal,” whatever that means. Once she’s pregnant, she’s a mother. She can either be a mother who has a child, or a mother who lost one. But she will never again not be a mother.

All of these common excuses for abortion reflect quality of life, not sanctity of life. Life is sacred. You don’t mess with it.

If one life, especially the most vulnerable—the unborn who have no voice of their own to stand up for themselves—is not valued, then no one’s life is safe.

The culture of death does not stop with abortion. It starts there. Here’s the slippery slope:

  • Abortion
  • Assisted suicide
  • Euthanasia for the comatose
  • Euthanasia for the elderly
  • Euthanasia for the disabled
  • Euthanasia for the “undesirables”
  • The Final Solution

Sound familiar? Have you seen this movie? Haven’t we already had this nightmare? How many times do we have to stumble blindly down this road?

Let’s not let history repeat itself again. We can stop this.

Speak up for life. Support your local crisis pregnancy center. Help an unwed mother. Be the change we want to see. God will always strengthen us for this and answer that prayer. Perhaps we were born for such a time as this.

If you have had an abortion, or fathered an aborted child, get healing. Jesus loves you and has so much healing for you, but you can’t walk through it yourself. You need help, and it’s so available, just waiting for you. Here are some resources to help you find a Christ-centered, post-abortive recovery program in your area. And if you can’t find one, email us. We’ll walk through it with you.

http://www.rachelsvineyard.org/weekend/sites.aspx

http://hopeafterabortion.com

https://optionline.org/after-abortion-support

http://afterabortion.org/help-healing

https://www.healingafterabortion.org/mission–vision-statement.html

So who’s made a significant impact in your life? Where would you be if that person wasn’t there? Tell us in the comments. And please share on social media if you think this post would bless someone els

How to Live Beyond Happiness–In Deep Joy from Your Spirit

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What is Deep Joy anyway? Sometimes it’s easier to explain what a thing is not, so let’s start there. Deep Joy is not happiness. Deep Joy is so much better than mere happiness.

Happiness is situational. When circumstances are great, we’re happy. When they’re not, we’re not happy. Happiness is based on circumstances, and therefore is out of our control. Happiness is from the outside in.

But we buy the culture’s lie that we can control our happiness. We just have to do one simple thing:

  • “Buy this widget!”
  • “Read this book!”
  • “Get that next promotion!”
  • “Work harder! Try harder! Play harder! Go, go, go!”
  • “You just need a relationship!”
  • “Just have enough sex!”

Sound familiar? How many of us live chasing these elusive lies?

Hint: If you live for “that next thing”—the better job, the faster car, the bigger house, the next relationship—you’re living for happiness. And happiness never arrives. There’s always one more thing.

Chasing happiness is like buying your life from a used-car dealer—it’s just never going to live up to the marketing hype. And then we get cynical out of anger at ourselves for having believed the lie. The wounding silences our spirit. We start protecting our heart by living out of our soul.

And then our definition of happiness changes to “just not feeling the pain.” Living out of our soul, we exist to quiet the pain we pretend we don’t hear but just won’t shut up.

One of the dumbest things I often hear my fellow parents say is, “I just want my kids to be happy.” Honestly, I want to smack them. I don’t want my kids to be unhappy, but I want so much more for them than happiness. I want them to live in Deep Joy.

Don’t get me wrong—happiness isn’t bad. Personally, I like happiness; I’ll take it. But I love Deep Joy.

Deep Joy is from the inside out. It’s an inner fulfillment that’s independent of your surrounding circumstances. You can be unhappy and in pain, because your outward circumstances stink, but still have Deep Joy and light radiating from your inner being. Regardless of your circumstances, living in Deep Joy leaves you fulfilled and satisfied, always with something to give others. But it comes from your spirit. You can’t get there living out of your soul.

So here’s the deal. We are three-part beings—body, soul, and spirit. Our soul is our mind, will, and emotions.

So often, because of the hurts we’ve received in this life from other wounded people, our hurt and our wounding take over and we live from our soul instead of from our spirit. When we live from our soul, either our mind or our emotions are in charge.

When our mind is in charge, we think we’ll be safe if we have it all figured out. We are in control. Nothing happens without a plan, without our pre-approval. We deceive ourselves into thinking we can push down the pain if we’re in control. We can become a sterile shell of a person. We look great on the outside and fool everyone else, but inside we’re empty and hurting.

When our emotions are in charge, we’re focused on what will make us happy in this moment, ignoring the long-term consequences. We lose our grasp on cause ‘n’ effect. We can get into addictions—food, drugs, alcohol, sex, porn, TV—whatever makes us feel “happy” (i.e., not in pain) at the moment. We know the pain is crouching ready to pounce at any moment, but we delay it for just one more instant.

Too many Christians live out one of these two tragedies. That’s because, even though we’re forgiven, we’re not healed. And there’s a mile of difference between being forgiven and being healed.

Living from our soul is not life, it’s just existence. But Jesus died (and lives!) so we can have abundant life. He said himself, “I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly!” (John 10:10)

When we live from our spirit, our will is in charge. Our spirit is connected to Jesus, the author of Deep Joy, who sets the direction for our life. From our will, we choose to believe His promises instead of believing our own fear and pain. Our emotions, like pain sensors in our body, are there to tell us when we’re hurting, but they should never set our direction. Our mind is there to devise a good, solid plan for going where our will chooses to go, but it should never set our direction.

So here’s three practical steps for living in Deep Joy from your spirit. You can do these all at the same time or in any order. Often they repeat throughout our life and go deeper each time around.

1) Settle the Question.

Deep Joy (fulfillment and satisfaction independent of circumstances that overflow your spirit) only come from one place—relationship with Jesus, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He wants to be so much more than your Savior. He wants to be your Lover-King.

Have you, or will you, say “yes” to making him Lord of your life? Is there some area of your life where he’s not Lord? Are you willing to give that area (maybe your whole life) to him? Not because you have to, because you want to, because you’re blown away by his love for you. If you haven’t reached that point yet, that’s ok. Ask him every day to make his love real to you. And then hold on, because here it comes.

2) Go to the Pain.

Instead of letting your mind or your emotions protect you from the pain, choose to go to the pain.

Cattle run away from thunderstorms, but because the storm’s moving the same direction, they get soaked a lot longer trying to avoid it. But buffalo run straight into the thunderstorm. Moving in the opposite direction, they get through it must faster.

“Embrace the fireball of pain,” like John Sandford said. Go there and explore it with your spouse, your pastor, a counselor, a trusted friend, and most of all with Jesus. Let him bring healing and help you forgive. This is a process, be gentle with yourself. But go there. You were created to be brave. You and Jesus can do this.

3) Replace the Lies with the Truth.

The pain has such a grip on us because we’ve believed a lot of lies. But lies are built on a house of cards and replacing them with God’s truth blows them away. Sometimes getting one promise of God into your spirit can topple decades of lies.

For example, I believed no one would ever love me. That lie led me to make some really poor choices in my life, even as a life-long Christian. But I’m replacing it with God’s truth, Psalm 139. (In particular, verse14, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” Verse 17, “How precious about me are your thoughts, O God.” Verse 5, “You have laid your hand upon me.” And many more.)

When the lie invades your mind, whack it over the head by saying out-loud, even if you’re just whispering to yourself, “I take that thought captive to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5), and I choose to believe ____.” Fill in the blank with your promise(s) from God. I found mine in Psalm 139. Where are yours? Here’s another promise of mine, and many other people, whose lies tell them they’ve fallen too far to be redeemable:

Jesus gives me a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of despair, and a garment of praise instead of mourning. (Isaiah 61:3)

Beauty for ashes, gladness for despair, and praise for mourning. I love it! That’s where my Deep Joy comes from.

So how about you? Does this resonate with you? Will you live out of Deep Joy instead of chasing elusive happiness? Tell us your story in the comments, and please share on social media if this would bless someone else.

Morality and Integrity Won’t Change the Culture. Character Will.

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I always thought morality, integrity, and character were all the same thing. Turns out they’re not. I just read an exceptional book called The Noticer Returns by Andy Andrews that has taught me the difference. It’s an important distinction. Our culture is suffering because the church doesn’t know the difference.

Morality vs Character

I believe the Holy Spirit spoke to me when I read this:

“While morality is not doing what is wrong, character is actively doing what is right. … Without the spine to do what is right, it is possible to be a moral person with weak character.” – Andy Andrews in The Noticer Returns

I felt like I heard God saying, “Your culture is suffering because the church is moral but with weak character.” While not being deceived by the Spirit of the Age ourselves, in many ways we’ve compromised with it through our silence.

For example, do we allow media (TV, music, movies, etc.) in our homes that glorifies unrighteousness or sexual immorality? Even though we don’t participate in that behavior ourselves, do we let our children watch it and listen to it?

The latest Star Trek reboot movie had a scene at the beginning where Sulu left his daughter with his homosexual partner before departing on the Enterprise’s next mission. It was only 30 seconds. It didn’t matter to the rest of the story. Most Christians tolerated it. But we shouldn’t have. We should have walked out of the theatre.

It’s my fault that scene was there, me and Christians like me. You see, I grew up watching James Bond, Top Gun, and similar movies. They were great movies although they had a lot of illicit sex. But I tolerated it because those scenes were only a couple minutes long and weren’t key to the story. I had the morality to not participate in that wrong, but did not have the character to take a stand against it.

Morality in a culture does not stand still. It is moving one way or the other. Because we as Christians tolerated those movies we grew up with, we now have to tolerate homosexual scenes in something as innocent as Star Trek. Disney is also starting to include them.

Morality in a culture does not stand still. It is moving one way or the other.  If we tolerate homosexual and transsexual scenes, however insignificant they seem, within 10 to 20 years we will be tolerating scenes glorifying pedophilia. Possibly sooner. The seeds are already being sown in our culture today with the phrase, “Love is love.” Although today it is meant to justify same-sex marriage, it also justifies pedophilia.

Need more proof? Pedophiles are starting to rebrand themselves as “minor-attracted persons.” Yes, I realize that term is correctly used by child abuse prevention organizations to enable people to get help, but the media is already starting to misuse it.

Although the church has the morality to not participate in homosexuality (mostly), do we have the character to take a stand against it, loving the people while taking a stand against self-destructive, immoral behavior?

Being moral, not doing the bad thing, is good. But it’s not enough. We need to risk the disapproval of the culture and have the character to actively stand up against what’s wrong and stand up for what’s right.

Integrity vs Character

“A person of integrity, trustworthy and reliable, is prepared and capable of performing the task for which he was created, but it takes character to speak up, step out, and perform that task.” – Andy Andrews in The Noticer Returns

A church in my city displayed their character beautifully. There was a young, non-Christian woman who came home from college pregnant. Her parents helped her with the pregnancy, but required her to go to church with them. She would sit in the back corner, obviously pregnant, and bolt out the door after the service was over.

The pastor noticed this behavior and asked some of the women in the church to make sure they talked to her. They did more than talk to her; they loved on her. She was amazed that they liked her and showed friendship toward her. They didn’t condemn her or try to fix her. She was blown away by the massive baby shower they threw for her. Through their love and generosity, she met Jesus. She now sings in that church’s worship band.

Integrity is worthless without the character to act on it. The women of that church had the character to act on their integrity. Will we?

I’ve often heard it said that “Integrity is what you do when no one’s looking.” I would submit that character is what you do when the culture’s looking and disapproves.

As the church, as God’s representation on the earth, we have the answers. Will we act on them and stand up, by word and deed, for what’s right? Will we show love to the ones the world throws away? Will we testify to the world with tears of love that its immorality is destructive?

But What Can I, Personally, Little Old Me, Actually Do?

Will you commit to this action pledge with me?

In the situations and conversations I find myself in, at work, at home, around town:

  • I will speak up for what’s right. I will not tolerate racial jokes or injustice against any group.
  • I will speak up against what’s wrong. I will turn off media that portrays unrighteous or immoral behavior as good.
  • I will show love to everyone. Even if they hate me, I will choose to see them a person for whom Jesus died and loves.
  • I will ask the Holy Spirit how to speak life into every difficult conversation I find myself in. I will not be silent and let good be spoken of as evil, or evil as good.

If we will personally commit to these 4 things, we will change our little corner of the world. And all those little corners will change the world at large.

Your Turn

What do you think? If you disagree, please leave a (respectful!) comment, and let’s have a conversation. If this post resonates, tell us your story in the comments; it will bless others. And please share this post on social media if you think it will bless others.

White Repentance: How Not to Miss a Daniel 9 Holy Moment

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We are in a holy moment. It’s one of those times when heaven bends near to earth. If we don’t miss it, our actions now can affect great change on the earth.

A Daniel 9 Moment

Daniel 9 is one of the most mind-blowing chapters in the Bible. Because they abandoned the Lord, the people of Judah had been conquered and hauled off to Babylon. Daniel was a righteous man. He had nothing to do with the sin of his nation.

Daniel 9 is a beautiful prayer, where Daniel repents on behalf of his nation. Even though he personally had nothing to do with it, he owns his country’s sin, even from past generations, as his own. And he repents for them. There’s a spiritual Kingdom principle on display here—the righteous repenting for the unrighteous.

Repenting for Generational Sins

We talk about this all the time in inner healing. Often, the sins of our ancestors manifest bad fruit in our lives. We often see patterns in families, conditions or events happening generation after generation. For example, the first male infant dying. The onset of mental illness in adults in their 40s. A particular kind of abuse. Every adult male dying of a heart attack in their early 50s.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that every heart attack is a sign of generational sin. But if every adult male for the last five generations has died of a heart attack between ages 50-55, there’s something generational going on. Now these are extreme examples, but it’s very common in inner healing to go back through your family line and look for obvious patterns.

The good news is the blood of Jesus is stronger. We can repent for the sins of our ancestors and break judgements and curses off our family line. And it’s not just possible in families. Daniel 9 is an example of one righteous man repenting for the sin of his whole nation. We can do this for our family, our nation, and our race.

White Racism in America

Rebellion is usually a bad and ungodly thing. So in the 1770s when the 13 American Colonies decided to rebel against England and form their own country, Thomas Jefferson was charged with writing a document that intellectually defended why rebellion was actually the moral thing to do in this case.

While writing the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson couldn’t justify the Colonies’ right to be free, without also justifying their slaves’ right to be free. He couldn’t reconcile freeing the Colonies from tyranny and establishing a free people while enslaving a people within our own borders. So he wrote the abolition of slavery into the original draft.

That sparked a heated debate in the Continental Congress. It was a non-starter for the Southern states. The Northern states knew, if they were going to pull off this Revolution thing at all, that all 13 colonies had to be united. So they capitulated and dropped that clause out of Jefferson’s Declaration. (NOTE: I am not justifying their decision; just relaying what happened.)

With that fateful decision, by refusing to abolish slavery, the founding fathers baked racism into the country they founded, into the very fabric of this new nation. They tabled that decision, deferring to fight that battle another day.

Please don’t get me wrong. This is the best country on the planet and America has blessed the world. People are fighting to get here. But I think that decision had consequences, unintended by those who opposed slavery at the time, but none the less. Allowing that spiritual stronghold to remain at the founding of the nation did us no favors.

So fight that battle another day we did. Less than 100 years later, the Civil War became the bloodiest devastation this nation has ever seen, before or since. In his second inaugural address, President Lincoln correctly discerned the heavenly justice being wrought upon his country by that terrible war.

“….  all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword…” – President Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address

Lincoln correctly discerned Heaven’s judgement: Every dollar made through free and stolen slave labor was repaid by the economic devastation of war. Every drop of slave blood taken by the whip was repaid on the battlefield by the musket ball and the bayonet.

Yet after slavery officially ended, even after that terrible war, racism persists, even to this day. Spiritual strongholds die hard.

Our Chance

So now we find ourselves, I believe, in a holy moment. We have a unique opportunity.

To my white brothers and sisters: We have a unique opportunity to listen. It’s a rare gift. We have an opportunity to make our black brothers and sisters feel heard. They have felt unheard and invisible for far too long. Although we weren’t even alive during slavery, it’s our generation’s responsibility to hear the pain our brothers and sisters feel today because of the enduring effects of racism.

We have an opportunity, I believe a heavenly window, to repent for the generational sins of our white race. But Dave, I had nothing to do with it! I treat everyone the same! I abhor racism! Yeah, I know. So do I. I don’t practice racism either. And I know we are all just as shocked by the police brutality we’ve witnessed.

Daniel didn’t have anything to do with the sins of his people that led them into captivity in Babylon. Yet he repented for those sins, as if they were his own. And heaven heard. We can do the same thing.

In this holy moment, we have the opportunity to end racism in this country once and for all. I know change doesn’t happen overnight, but we can, in this moment, commit to see it through.

Call to Action

Will you, as a white Christian, join me in repenting for the sins of our race? Go into your prayer closet and cry out to the Living God in repentance, like Daniel did.

Will you take this pledge with me?

I will speak up and not be silent when I hear it from others.
I will film and post injustice when I witness it.
I will get involved, and willingly pay the price for doing so.
In as much as it depends on me, I will not tolerate the existence of racism.

To my black brothers and sisters: Please forgive us. Forgive my people for our shameful and sinful treatment of you. Forgive us for not hearing your pain, and so often blaming you for it. Forgive us for looking the other way. No more. Although there will be pockets of hatred in all races until Jesus returns, please know that the vast majority of whites are just as horrified by the death of George Floyd as you are. I pray in the wake of this that police reform sweeps the country. And I pray that you feel seen and heard. You deserve to be. #BlackLivesMatter.

Your Turn

We’d love to hear your story, questions, and respectful dialog in the comments. And please share if this post would bless others.

How to Fail with Grace

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Failure is a part of life, and how we handle it reveals our character. I’m not talking about the iterative failures, like practicing a skill and getting gradually better. I’m not even talking about moral failures or sin, although how we handle that also reveals our character.

I’m talking about the “can’t get there from here” failures, where you realize it’s time to cut your losses and move on. I’m talking about when you realize something not only didn’t work, but isn’t going to work.

There is a time to “stay the course,” and not let a failure dissuade you from your goals. But there is also a time to cut your losses and move in a different direction. How to tell the difference is the sticky wicket, but that’s the subject for another post.

Reality checks hurt. But they are also extremely useful. Here are 4 things to do that transform present failures into future successes.

1) Treat Everything Like an Experiment

I recently failed at a major video project I’d put a lot of time and effort into. Called Having Hard Conversations, it was a series of four videos targeting adult Sunday schools and small groups in churches. The goal was to talk about things we aren’t typically talking about in church, but should be, like depression, trauma, suicide, and being post-abortive.

After making two of the four videos (depression and post-abortive), I realized I just was not hitting the video production quality the project required to be successful. Although the actual content was excellent, it was clearly amateur video, not production quality. No pastor would use, let alone buy, these videos for his adult Sunday school or small group. They’re just not sufficient quality.

This can be scary to admit, because “failure” is the worst label anyone can be taunted with. But the truth is, I didn’t fail. The project failed. There’s a huge difference. It was a good idea, and I tried my best. The only way to know it wasn’t going to work was to try it.

Some of us came from families where it wasn’t ok to try and fail. If you didn’t do something perfect the first time, you were shamed. That taught us to never try, to never take risks. This comes from the lie that your value is your success.

But the truth is, you are not what you do. Failing at stuff does not make you a failure. You didn’t fail; the thing you tried failed. The experiment failed.

So try new stuff. Treat everything like an experiment. It’s ok if it fails. It’s no reflection on you.

2) Lick Your Wounds

Even so, it still hurts to fail, especially coming to the realization that what you worked so hard at just isn’t going to work.

Be honest with yourself. Allow yourself to grieve the loss of that idea. Grieving gives your heart closure, and opens the door for the next thing. You don’t want the next idea to be saddled with baggage from the previous one.

So lick your wounds, and admit it hurts. Then pick yourself up, dust yourself off, re-evaluate, and move forward.

3) Learn Something

Do a “lessons learned” session. What went right? What went wrong? Write these lessons down so you don’t repeat what didn’t work, but can leverage what did.

It’s healthy (and important!) to learn what you’re good at, and what you’re not good at.

One of the biggest failures in the Bible was the Apostle Paul’s trip to Athens, Greece. You can read the story in Acts 17:16-18:1.

The upshot is that Paul was greatly distressed to find Athens so full of idols. There was even an idol to an unknown god, in case they missed one. Paul knew the Greeks were into logic. So when he got to speak to the city’s thought leaders, he made a very logical argument. He cleverly used the “unknown god” idol as an entry point. He referenced their own poets and literature. It was actually a brilliant speech to lead someone from idol worship to Jesus.

It was also a dismal failure. They laughed and sneered at him. Then they pocket-vetoed him. As they dismissed him, they told him “we want to hear you again on this subject.” Yeah, right. They never called him; it was just an easy way to show him the door.

Paul had very little success in Athens. But he learned something. He made a resolution within himself. His next stop was Corinth, and, based on his failure in Athens, his message in Corinth was very different. He wrote about it later:

I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power. – Paul, 1 Corinthians 2:2-5

This is a very different approach than he used in Athens. No more wise and persuasive words, he resolved to know only Jesus crucified, and use only the argument of the Spirit’s power.

Paul learned from his failure. So can we.

4) Increased Clarity Is a Win

From his failure in Athens, the Apostle Paul got great clarity about what his message should be moving forward, and it shaped the rest of his ministry.

Before starting my video project, my well-thought out plan looked like a winner. It should’ve worked, but it didn’t. Now I know why. I learned a ton along the way. My faulty assumptions were revealed. Professional quality video is a lot harder than I originally thought.

I still think Having Hard Conversations is an important message, and I’m not giving up on it. If our churches are going to host the Third Great Awakening, our churches have to become a safe place for people to grieve and heal. I’m still passionate about seeing that happen.

Having failed at producing adult Sunday school quality, full-length, professional video, I have better clarity now. I can’t bring about the change I want to see through that means, at least not with my present resources or abilities.

But I have a ton of great soundbites from experts, as well as my own soundbites, that would make a lot of great, short (< 5 min) videos on YouTube. Maybe we launch a YouTube channel on this subject. A two to five-minute video on YouTube requires a lot less quality, and can be just, if not more, impactful to the culture at large.

The seeds of your future success are your failures today.

So try stuff. You can’t move on to what works until you’ve discovered what doesn’t. And you only discover what doesn’t work by trying stuff.

What About You?

What have you failed at, where you realized you had to cut your losses? How did you do that? Your story will help others; please tell us in the comments. What are you struggling with now? Can the community help you? And please share this post if it will bless others.