Pete Wilson's Blog, page 11

Grateful

I progressively want to become one of the most thankful people on the planet. I think sometimes we have the tendency to start to think that the good things that happen in my life happen because I deserve them.

My family.

My house.

My job.

All of it is the direct result of the goodness of God.

Gratitude arises from the ongoing perception that all of life is grace — that life is an undeserved and unearned gift from God.

Here’s a question I want you to think about: In my walk with Jesus am I becoming a more grateful person or am I becoming more and more of a grumbler?

Now, of course, everyone wants to be grateful. Who wants to be ungrateful?

The question is: What’s your plan to become a more grateful person? How are you going to do that? Nobody just drifts into gratitude.

Col 3:17  And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

 

The Whole Story

Never forget that you don’t know the whole story about other people. Some of the most successful people you can imagine have also dealt with the most devastating failures you can imagine.

Take, for example, Michael Jordan. Here’s a guy who is almost the personification of success when looking at his basketball career. After fifteen seasons in the NBA, he is hailed on the league’s website as “the greatest basketball player of all time.” One of the most electrifying players on a Chicago Bulls team that won six NBA championships during his tenure, Jordan was named the league’s MVP five times, was on the All-NBA First Team ten times, owns three All- Star Game MVP awards, ten scoring titles, three steals titles, and other honors. Although he retired from the NBA in 2003,  Jordan still holds the record for the highest regular-season scoring average and highest career play-off scoring average. In 1999, ESPN named him the greatest North American athlete of the twentieth century. He has been inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame two times. And don’t even get me started about the success of his licensing and endorsement operations.

Yet here’s how Jordan characterizes his career: “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

Looking at Michael Jordan, would you have ever guessed that he failed so often? Most of us wouldn’t.

Oprah Winfrey was sexually abused as a very young girl. She gave birth to a son when she was fourteen years old, and the child died soon after birth. She contemplated suicide. But she finished high school, was a debate champion, and was chosen as one of two high school students in Tennessee to attend a White House conference on youth. After graduating from college and getting her first job as a TV coanchor in Baltimore, Winfrey was fired, told she was “unfit for TV.” In 2013, Winfrey, by this time the head of a billion-dollar media empire, told the graduating class of Harvard that “failure is just life trying to move you in a different direction.”

One more story. Here’s some text from a letter received by some hopeful young musicians back in 1979:

 

Dear Mr. Hewson:

Thank you for submitting your tape of “U2” to RSO. We have listened with careful consideration, but feel it is not suitable for us at present. We wish you luck with your future career.

Yours sincerely,

Alexander Sinclair

RSO Records (U.K.) Limited6

 

In case you didn’t already know it: “Mr. Hewson” refers to Paul David Hewson, the band’s lead singer. You probably know him as Bono.

Now, the point I’m making is not tied to the celebrity or financial success of these examples. The main message here is that you cannot, simply by looking at people, conclude anything about the challenges they have faced in the past or are facing in the present. It’s easy to think that nobody else has it as rough as you. Everything comes easy for them. The reality is we’re all a mess and we all need God.

Take time today to really get to know someone’s story.

A Love Beyond Your Imagination

God doesn’t love us because of who we are, but because of who he is. We don’t earn this love — it’s not based on our performance.

Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Rest in that today.

Spiritual Transformation Happens in the Waiting Room

God often uses waiting as a crucible in which to refine our character. Faithful waiting on God makes us stronger, not weaker.

Waiting is also a sign of humility. Remember that, long ago, persons of lesser rank who served nobility and royalty were said to “wait upon” them. In a similar way, they were said to “attend” to their lords and rulers. Even today, the French word for “wait” is “attend.” Maybe there is something to learn here.

Maybe we should think of waiting on God less as passively sitting around until something happens and more as actively attending—listening carefully for God’s voice and watching intently for evidence of His moving in our lives and in the world around us.

Now, believe me, I understand that those of you reading these words today, who are in the midst of waiting for a miracle, or waiting for a dream to be realized, or waiting to be delivered from a dark, scary place, probably feel helpless. You feel as if you’re doing nothing, but you’re actually doing something very important. In fact, this waiting—this attending to God—may be the most important spiritual work you could possibly do. While you are waiting faithfully on God, you are also allowing your hope to grow up. And if you can’t be still and wait and hope—even when you have no reason to hope—you can’t become the person God created when He thought you into existence.

Isaiah 40:31 They that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not be faint.

Spiritual transformation doesn’t take place when we get what we want, it takes place while we’re waiting. It is forged in us while we’re waiting, hoping, and trusting, even though we have yet to receive what we long for. Spiritual transformation happens in the waiting room.

Waiting also helps us learn the vital lesson that just because a dream is delayed doesn’t mean it is denied. When we continue to hope patiently and place our trust in God and in His schedule—not ours—we begin to gain the type of long-range perspective that allows us to have peaceful souls, even when the storms of life are raging about us. With God, we can wait out the storm and see the sun breaking through the clouds. When we trust in Him, we will eventually see the rainbow and the rebirth of our hopes and dreams.

How to Use Our Yes’ and No’s

As Christians, we sometimes feel the pressure to say yes to everything and everyone. If we’re saying yes to God, then we must have to say yes to every person in need and every opportunity to serve, right?

The problem is, we say yes so much that we overcommit ourselves. This quickly leads to an overwhelmed schedule and an underwhelmed soul.

In Lysa TerKeurst’s book The Best Yes, she tackles how to cure the disease to please with a biblical understanding of the command to love.

But God

So often in the church today we are taught to cover up our brokenness. Our struggles. Our pain. Being a follower of Jesus does not mean you won’t have brokenness. But somehow in the church we’ve made it possible to continue to hide our struggles and our brokenness, and pretend like we have it all together.

It’s ok to not be ok. Believe God can redeem it all.

Genesis 50:20 “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.”

Psalm 73:26  “My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart; he is mine forever.”

Matthew 19:26 “Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But with God everything is possible.”

Acts 13:29-30 “When they had done all that the prophecies said about him, they took him down from the cross and placed him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead!”

 

Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone

There’s a common storyline we see throughout scripture, and that storyline is so often a part of our journey as well:

-God gives someone a dream.

-The dream requires they leave their comfort zone.

-They are paralyzed by fear (self reliance) or move forward in faith (God reliance).

What is the dream, the calling, the passion that God has placed on your heart? Will you live in fear today, relying on yourself to move forward, or will you step out into the unknown, in faith?

Living Free

I believe that everyone has a hiding place. Everyone has a place they want to run to when they experience fear or worry or anxiety.

I also believe the greatest purpose of your life can not be discovered while you’re hiding.

Matthew 14:29 “Come,” he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.

The boat is safe, secure, and comfortable. On the other hand, the water is rough. The waves are high. The wind is strong. There’s a storm out there. And if you get out of the boat—whatever your boat might happen to be—there’s a good chance you might sink.

But if you don’t get out of the boat, there’s a guaranteed certainty that you will never walk on the water.   If you want to walk on the water, you’ve got to get out of the boat.

So let me ask you a very important question: What’s your boat? Your boat is whatever represents safety and security to you apart from God himself.

-Money

-Relationship

-Geographical Location

-Job title

When you’re hiding you might be surviving, but when you’re hiding you’re not thriving.

You know one of the most interesting stories in Scripture is the journey of the Israelites. After 400 years of slavery God sets them free. What do they do with their freedom? They complain. They couldn’t stand the unknown. They couldn’t stand being out of the boat and being on the waves and having to trust God, so they actually beg to go back.

Want to know why some of you are stuck in your past?  

Want to know why some of you are living lives of mediocrity?

You choose it. I know that may sound a little harsh, but it’s true isn’t it?

You’ve consciously—or maybe subconsciously—made a choice that you would rather stay in the predictable patterns of your past (no matter how painful they might be) than take a risk and venture into the unknown where you have to risk failure.

Sadly, for the Israelites, fear won out that day. We will never know for sure what might have happened had the people not allowed their fear to overwhelm them. That day, the Israelites proved to all of us that:

There’s a difference between being set free and living free.

I’m praying for you today as you consider stepping out of the safe and comfortable, and trusting God in new and exciting ways.

Don’t Use Social Media as a Measurement Tool

Are you exhausted from trying to keep up? I wish I just didn’t know where they went on vacation. I wish I just didn’t know who they went out with Friday night. Social media can be a great way to stay connected with friends and family, but seeing someone else’s highlight reel makes us think that they’ve got it all together, all the time. That everything is going just perfectly for them.

Did any of these people post any of the updates with the intent of making me feel bad?  Of course not. But if I’m not careful, it’s terribly easy to view my social media streams as a constant reminder of…

–       all the stuff I’m not doing,

–       dreams I’m not fulfilling,

–       and rooms I’ve failed to decorate in a Pinterest-worthy manner.

In our comparison-soaked culture, it’s hard to avoid looking around at what other people are doing with their short time on earth, and slipping (often subconsciously) into “How am I stacking up?”

This isn’t a social media problem. It’s a comparison problem.

Envy Breeds in Proximity

You know, when you go through Scripture, it’s amazing just how prominent the baggage of envy is.

Cain versus Abel, and then God’s favor is on everyone else. Everyone is getting married and finding the person God’s given them.


Jacob hates and envies Esau. You feel like one of your parents favored your sibling.


Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery out of envy. You’re comparing yourself to people who know their vision and purpose.


Leah was envious of Rachel who had lovely eyes. Why does everyone else have the perfect body?

We don’t compare our houses to the mansions across town – we compare our yard to the yards on our block. When we compare, we want to be the best or have the best of our group. Envy breeds in proximity. So not quitting this comparing is absolutely devastating to our ability to form and maintain healthy relationships.