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It is hope—a picture of your preferred future—that will give you the sustenance needed to press through to your highest potential regardless of what your circumstances or surroundings look like.
There will be wisdom and energy that comes no other way: to finish strong, without accepting a lowered ceiling, you must learn to live by hope.
The LORD is faithful to all his promises and loving toward all he has made. (Psalm 145:13 NIV)
At some point in my healing process, I had to anchor my soul on hope—hope that I would return to wholeness, that my marriage would be wonderful, and that my family would be healthy—even though I couldn’t see it happening at the time.
we must come to a point where we fully surrender to Christ. Nothing held back. And the events of great suffering in your life will bring you to that point. You can choose to recede or you can choose to surrender. I chose to surrender.”
Don’t discount the value of having someone else monitor your spiritual journey.
When we wrestle with our own infirmities, we are not disqualified from God’s plan for our lives. It may just mean we will arrive at it differently from the way we had intended. We may arrive leaning on the arm of a friend.
The very nature of the healing process will require that you disclose your feelings and inward pain.
You need divine mentors.
Everything you have gone through, someone in the Bible has gone through before you.
Elijah struggled with depression. Joseph struggled with abandonment. David met with discouragement and distress. Let these mentors walk through those seasons with you.
SOAP, write a reflection of that in a notebook. S stands for the Scripture. Write it down. O is for an observation—write down what it is saying to you. It can be just a few sentences. A asks you to make an application to your life. How will you be different today because of what you have just read? Don’t leave the Bible without an application. Choose to be renewed by what you have read. Then finally, P stands for prayer—write down something that you are asking God to help you with. Your journaling will assist you in gaining insight from your experiences, and it will help you navigate the days
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The secret to success has always been a bias for action.
“The easiest thing to be in the world is you. The most difficult thing to be is what other people want you to be. Don’t let them put you in that position.”
A life of intentionality is the restructured life I chose,
You see, my goal in life is not necessarily to get rich. It is to BE RICH—in my faith, my marriage, my family, and my ministry. It is a choice that I made when I defined what rich would mean. It is an attitude, a value, a decision, an intention.
Choose to live life on purpose, to love intentionally, and to plan accordingly!
Living an intentional life includes consistent monitoring and assessment.
what we do not observe willingly is often imposed upon us forcefully.
Life Calendar
You may order this from www.lifejournal.cc
To ensure that I fulfill the daily necessities of life, I use the acrostic PEPRD to keep the spice of life alive. P = Prayer—Always spend at least a few minutes in prayer to connect your soul with God’s heart. E = Exercise—Do some amount of exercise every day, even if it is a regimen of core exercises in the privacy of your own living room. P = Planning—Take time to plan your day, your month, and prepare your heart for the people and tasks you are about to encounter. R = Reading—Read something every day. It could be a magazine or a book of choice in order to increase your knowledge, give you
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Richard Swenson (NavPress) when planning your week: The Overload Syndrome: Learning to Live Within Your Limits Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives
Establish a monthly Personal Retreat Day (PRD) away from your office and centered on God’s agenda.
Family Powwows—I take time seasonally to bring all my children around a table, and we discuss our futures, plans, and dreams.
After seven years of consistent ministry, take a three-month sabbatical to renew your hunger.
Bob Buford’s Half Time, that will help steer you away from a midlife crisis and into a midlife renewal.
You can get more help from their excellent Web site: www.efca.org.
I check myself to see if I have been faithful to my top 5 percent of responsibilities that God has asked of me: my faith, marriage, family, ministry, and health; then I check to see if I am enjoying life.
One Thing at a Time: 100 Simple Ways to Live Clutter-Free Every Day by Cindy Glovinsky
we will accelerate our growth by deliberately turning away from falsehood and denial.
Your first commitment must be to discover and accept new truths no matter how difficult or how unpleasant they may seem at the time.
You cannot rectify problems if you deny that they exist.
I contacted Focus on the Family, and they referred me to SonScape, a restoration camp for pastors and Christian leaders in Colorado (www.sonscape.org). It was the best eight days of my life.
God’s people were instructed to keep His example by doing nothing to advance their own cause on that day.
Over the years of ministry, I have found that even good ideas get tired. So do good men and women, and when that happens, the endeavor that you are leading is affected. The growth areas are left unattended, the vision flattens, and a leader slowly morphs into a manager. When that happens, you need a break—a break that has one purpose alone: to restore your hunger.
A leader’s role is not to maintain. It is to gain altitude!
we will always require good managers to keep the gears turning and bearings greased, but only leaders can advance the ministry and give it the significant lift it needs for the future.
Good, dependable managers are worth their weight in gold, but they function optimally only in tandem with leaders, because upward lift and vertical trajectory requires leadership energy.
Without wise and hungry leaders, a church’s endeavors will flatline.
Only I can give myself permission to rest or to overachieve, to pace myself or to run at the pace others expect of me.
People’s needs are great, and their expectations are endless. If you don’t say “when,” they will drain you. You have to be the one to say, “Whoa! Hold it!” Because if you don’t, they certainly won’t.
You cannot base your life and ministry on the expectations of others. It will drain you faster than water through a colander.
There are also generous grants available to finance a pastor’s sabbatical. One resource can be found online at www.louisvilleinstitute.org, or you can contact the Lily Endowment Sabbatical Grant program at their Web site: www.lillyendowment.org/religion_ncr.html
Prayer is thinking deeply about something in the presence of God.
40s When you are in your 40s, the questions seem to circle around life issues such as: • Who was I as a child and what influences shaped me? • Why do some people seem to be doing better than me? • Why am I so disappointed in others and myself? • Why are my limitations seemingly outpacing my strengths? • Am I making a contribution? Am I making a difference?
QUESTIONS TO ASK IN A SEASON OF SELF-ASSESSMENT: 1. What was my original calling from God?
2. What activities that I am involved in do I love the most?
3. What activities and people have been draining my tank?
4. If I retired today with several million dollars and no debts, what would I do?
