Tag Archives: Growth

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Strategically Simplifying

Choosing The Best Things

For the past few weeks, I have been evaluating some of the things in my life, and reducing or reorganizing a lot of it. What I’m doing has been called by many “simplifying.” But I’m trying to be much more strategic than that.

Strategic simplification

Often, the things that we have can get in the way and become a distraction to us. I believe that is the case much more often than people realize, and when “things” get too important, we lose track of our proper priorities.

The Bible calls that idolatry.

But what we need to stop and realize is that it’s not the thing itself that is the problem, it’s our motives and attitudes towards it. So when we start looking into our lives to simplify things, and to remove distractions, we need to look more into our hearts than into our homes. Because that’s where all of this is rooted.

So I have been seeking to be strategic as I simplify my life some. I have been reevaluating a lot of stuff. Do I really need to keep this? It this something that God can use through my life to accomplish good for his Kingdom? Or is this something that I am attached to too deeply? Those are the kinds of questions I’m asking.

But it’s not just about the physical possessions. Sometimes it’s other things as well. And sometimes, in order to simplify our lives, we need to strategically add some things in as we take some others away.

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Sometimes, You Just Need To Throw Stuff Away

What To Do When Life Gets Full

Right now, I am in the process of purging some of the things in my life that I have accumulated. I’m shooting for something more simplified, maybe even leaning towards minimalism, in theory. And I’m finding it very hard to do.

Sometimes, You Just Need To Throw Stuff Away

My life is complicated.

I don’t state that in a complaining fashion, because I know just how many different things I have going on in my life. Some I can control, others I cannot. My wife and I have a large family, with seven kids. A couple of them are in early adulthood, a couple of them are teens, or soon to be, and the rest are younger children. That fact alone ensure that we are busy, and that we live in a cluttered home.

I’m also in ministry. Every time I see something that might be a resource, I’m tempted to grab it and hold on to it. More on that in a moment.

My wife is also very frugal. She’s always thinking ahead, so if she sees a deal on something that we don’t need now, but will need later, it’s quite likely to be brought home and stored until we need it. She saves us a lot of money that way.

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Sometimes, You Just Need To Take A Deep Breath

What To Do When Life Gets Crazy

You may have noticed that things have been pretty quiet around here lately. That has been both good and bad, for a number of reasons. I hope that I can maintain a regular schedule again soon.

Sometimes, You Just Need To Take A Deep Breath

Sometimes, it’s just time to take a step back from things and take a deep breath. In a way, that has been good for me. I have been able to focus on a few things that needed some attention, and a few things that I have wanted to do for a long time. But at the same time, stepping back wasn’t great, because the habit of writing regularly has slipped a little. This is still a priority in my life, and a slipped habit will be a bit of an obstacle to overcome.

Let me share with you a few of the things that have impacted my schedule over the last few months.

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Accountability

Habits To Keep You Rooted

There are several key habits that we must develop if we want to grow in our spiritual maturity. Many habits are beneficial, but there are a few that I would classify as critical that we incorporate. Accountability is one of the crucial ones.

Accountability

Accountability can be difficult, and especially for guys. Maybe it is because women seem to be able to understand relationships better than most men. I don’t know. But it can be tough for a man to build an accountable relationship with being very intentional about it.

But… If you can develop one accountable relationship, it will change your life. It really will. Unfortunately, most men live their lives without ever even attempting to build this type of relationship into their life and growth.

Accountability is, at it’s most basic level, simply an intentionally formed, deep friendship with someone who has permission to ask you some tough questions in and about your life. Proverbs 18:24, describes this kind of friendship very clearly:

A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

If this is such a necessary part of our spiritual life, then there must be some benefits from developing such a relationship. Let me suggest four benefits, and then a few tips on how to incorporate accountability so it can be most impactful.

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Hanging Out With God

Habits To Keep You Rooted

Habits. We all have them. Good and bad. Many of the bad habits we work hard to break, or at least reduce their influence in our lives. And we often set goals to build better habits into our lives in place of them. They are a key part of our lives, either way. And one of the most foundational spiritual habits that we can develop is hanging out with God.

Habits: Hanging Out With God

Do you have what many people call a “quiet time” with God? I have never really liked that term. I always seem to associate “quiet time” with my mom wanting me to calm down so she could have some quiet. So she would send me off to be quiet for a while with a book or something.

Later, as I grew in my faith, I kept hearing people talk about “quiet times.” Frankly, that never appealed to me because of that association I had in my mind. When I later learned to call it something else, a whole new aspect of my relationship with God was opened up to me. I started to call it, “hanging out with God.”

After all, that’s what I do with my friends. That’s what I do with people from our church. That’s a big part of my life, really. I hang out with others. And because of that, those relationships are deepened and richer as a result. So why wouldn’t that work in my relationship with God?

It does.

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Habits To Keep You Rooted

Developing Habits That Can Help You Stay Close To God

For the past few months, spiritual disciplines have been heavy in my thoughts. There are several reasons for this, I think, and examining this has led me to make some stronger choices in this area of my life.

Habits

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused me to pause and think. After all, I have had a little more time since so much of our culture has shut down or been restricted in some way because of this virus.

On top of that, I have been preaching a sermon series for the last several weeks called Spiritual Makeover: Becoming Who God Created You To Be. In this series, I have been looking at several disciplines and characteristics that God wants to develop in our lives to more fully become who he has designed us to be. The characteristics are quality he instill in us, but the disciplines are more of the part we play in the process.

And when you add to this equation the time I spent in Colorado last month with several other ministers, digging into this very idea, and these very disciplines, you can begin to see why this has been dominating my thoughts so much.

And because it has been so much on my mind, there have been some changes in the way I approach many of these areas. I have improved myself in many ways, and have seen some significant growth in some areas. Other areas are already stronger, and these have received more of an encouragement booster in my life to continue on as I am. Either way, I have been seeing some encouraging growth in my life for several weeks now, and I hope that it is evident to those who are watching.

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The Quarantine Life

What I’m Learning Through The COVID-19 Pandemic

The past few weeks have been pretty quiet around here because of the quarantine. Along with most of you, I’m learning to live with the major disruption to my life and routine because of the coronavirus.

Quarantine Life

When this all started, I think we all expected it to be kind of like the other virus fears we’ve experienced, like SARS, or H1N1 from a few years ago. No one could have foreseen the complete devastation that would result from this new virus, and the disruptions to our lives.

This thing has caused several major changes in our culture and our world, from food and toilet paper shortages, to economic problems and unemployment on a national and global level. And it has had an impact on a personal level for us all, too. We’ve learned a new reality: social distancing… Quarantine…

From where I sit in the middle of America, we are moving into our fourth week of this. And we have a couple of weeks yet to go, at the very least. That could extend pretty easily if this virus doesn’t slow down.

My emotions have been a roller coaster. One minute, I’m confident that this will be over soon, and we can get back to normal — maybe a new normal, but still normal. The next minute, I feel like cowering under my desk, in abject fear that this is the worst thing that could ever happen. And my perspective shifts like this multiple times a day, it seems.

Yet through it all, I have learned a few things. And these are things that I have to hold on to tightly, so that I don’t completely lose my perspective on this whole thing.