Every year, the cycle repeats. And this year was only different in that it came with greater intensity than usual.
I love Facebook memories. Sometimes I’m appalled at what I once believed and made public, other times I’m impressed. But during the holidays there is one constant internal response to memories…the realization that I’ve been around one certain mountain every single year and haven’t conquered it yet. Christmas comes and I wrestle with my inadequacies. The New year is almost here and everything I’d hoped and planned to change hadn’t budged…or seemed to. Then the week between Christmas and New Year is filled with dogged determination that THIS year will be different. Then Christmas comes again…and it’s one more year over…one more year around that mountain…and it isn’t gone. This year I had a difficult time mustering the dogged determination of other years…there was little if any hope that I would conquer this mountain.
One event of this year added a different element to this year’s cycle for which I was completely unprepared. I had been commissioned as a five-fold teacher in mid-October and immediately plunged into doubts about it, overwhelmed with the weight of it, questioning the legitimacy of my calling. I began to consider withdrawing from leadership. I knew I could teach…that wasn’t my problem. The crux of it was that one of my core values is that what I do must be affected by the supernatural. I didn’t want my teaching to come from natural ability but from supernatural anointing. If it wasn’t, I believed that I was defrauding those I taught.
So, the New Year was fast approaching…I felt as if I hadn’t accomplished anything in the past year. I was still facing the same mountain…and I didn’t know if I had it in me to fulfill that which I’d been commissioned to do.
I strongly believe that one of the most amazing aspects of the Kingdom is that its advancement relies on synergism between humanity and divinity. Me and God. You and God. Occasionally, God will fight FOR you, but usually He fights WITH you. He doesn’t level your mountains…He gives you the authority to conquer them. The things that He asks you to do…the dreams He’s placed inside of you…the potential that is waiting to be unleashed…are things you can’t do without Him and He won’t do without you.
“Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth—that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too.” -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I sat down one morning to have my quiet time…I confess I had been feeling a bit like a jilted lover, expecting to be stood up again. I was doing an Advent series by N.T. Wright which included a variety of readings from the apostles. The reading that morning was from Hebrews 12:
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders us and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.”
Tom Wright described a distance race commonly held at the university he attended in northwest England. It was a ten mile race over steep, difficult ground. What he remembered most vividly was the final stretch, the last half mile or so. He knew there would be spectators, but he wasn’t prepared for the hundreds of people lining the course, cheering on the runners, shouting encouragement and congratulations.(1) As I read that scene in conjunction with Hebrews 12, I “saw” Paul. Generally when God speaks to me, it’s a sense that I get, which is what this was. But, Paul was part of that crowd. Paul is one of my heroes. He is one phenomenal teacher. He connected dots from the Old Testament passages, re-interpreting them, to teach the early believers this superbly fantastic reality of the New Covenant and the Kingdom…his knowledge of secular literature and his society is interwoven when necessary…and he articulates so well. I would love to be half the teacher Paul was.
And here I see him…among the crowd lining the streets of my race, encouraging me. He believed in me! It was like I could hear him saying, “You got this, girl!’ I got the sense that he wanted his ceiling to become my floor. All that in one split second. And in that split second, it was like an atomic bomb went off in my head…my doubts dissipated…my depression evaporated.
Who are your heroes? Who do you see lining the streets of your race? Who do you look up to that is in that great cloud of witnesses…encouraging you, believing in you? Who wants their ceiling to become your floor? One is Jesus. He says that those who believe in Him will do the same works He does and even greater. His ceiling….your floor! He believes in you!
We have a huge crowd of witnesses around us, encouraging and believing in us…now let’s throw off everything that hinders.
We often make resolutions…WHAT we will do this year, without considering very long the WHY or HOW. What we often don’t realize or consider is that our brains are constructed with an internal system that guides our decisions. It has several components, depending on who you talk to, those components are:
- Core values
- Beliefs
- References
- Habitual questions
- Emotional states
This internal system can help or hinder us in our race…in achieving our potential. If you change any one of them, you will change your life. It will change the way you make decisions and consequently your life. I’m going to talk about 3 of them: beliefs, references and questions. I’d encourage you to pray about your core beliefs. Often we end up making resolutions that actually don’t line up with our core beliefs. One needs to change if we want to get to the end of the year having accomplished our goals.
Beliefs, not circumstances, determine our destiny. Your beliefs, will largely determine if this year is different than last year.
“It’s never the environment; it’s never the events of our lives, but the meaning we attach to them—how we interpret them—that shapes who we are today and who we will become tomorrow. Beliefs are what separate a Mozart from a Manson. Beliefs are what cause some to become heroes while others lead lives of quiet desperation.” -Tony Robbins
You say, “Wait a minute, here. Our circumstances determine our beliefs.” No, how we interpret them…the questions we ask..the things we focus on… that become reference points that determine our beliefs. Two people could each lose a child and one will abandon their faith and the other strengthen their faith. Two sons raised by the same alcoholic, absent father…one turns out like his father, the other completely different.
Let me give you a personal example.
I believe in my head, and to some degree, in my heart, that God wants to heal every person. But, I’m afraid to risk praying for healing because I think the person might be disappointed. Do I believe He heals? Absolutely! But, I’ve prayed sometimes and people haven’t been healed…and those become my reference points creating doubt as to what will happen this time. What if my reference points were the times people were healed. Like the night I laid my hand on my son’s head commanding it to heal. He had been diagnosed with a TBI, bruising throughout his brain, hemorrhaging in 6 lobes, axonal injury and an undetermined recovery. But, he was completely, miraculously healed to the astonishment of every physician that saw him in the next couple weeks. Or, maybe the evening I laid hands on a friend’s ankle, commanding it to heal and the pain to go…and it did! Unfortunately the reference points are in my mind…the repeated times I’ve prayed for my husband’s stomach to heal and the pain to leave…and it didn’t happen. The moment I heard the almost audible voice of God telling me I was going to be a part of the supernatural healing of a friend…and it didn’t happen. The time I prayed for a friend’s back and nothing happened.
My reference points every single December are the times I failed rather than the times I succeeded. I’ve had numerous prophetic words, affirmation and encouragement about my teaching gift….but I doubted it because my own insecurities were my reference points rather than the encouragement and affirmation I’d received. We choose our reference points that eventually become part of our belief system.
Reference points are like table legs that beliefs rest upon. The stronger the emotional intensity of the event, the stronger the reference point. The strongest and most solid legs are formed by personal experiences that have a lot of emotion attached to them, either painful or pleasurable. This is why parents have such an impact for good or bad, in the lives of their children. And, it’s why intimacy with God can destroy faulty beliefs and build healthy ones.
The questions you ask provide answers that become reference points. Sometimes we are asking the wrong questions. Stanilevsky Lech was a Jew sent to a death camp during World War 2 who had watched his family shot before his eyes. Life was a horrific nightmare. While all the other prisoners were asking, “How can we survive this place?” He was continually asking, “How can I escape this place?” Only a few feet from where he worked was a truck loaded with naked, dead bodies of men, women and children who had been gassed. As the work day ended, he snuck behind the truck, stripped his clothes off and quickly dove under the dead, decaying bodies. When the truck dumped it’s hideous contents into an open grave outside the camp, he waited till the Germans had left and ran naked 25 miles to freedom.(2)
The 2nd most common prophetic word I’ve received is about writing a book, and it’s the 2nd most common affirmation or encouragement I’ve received. But, I haven’t written it because of the questions I’m asking. Rather than asking, “What do I have to offer?” I’m asking, What else is there to write about when it seems like there are books about everything and anything? How can I write about a hodgepodge of thoughts?
We also need to throw off fear. When we begin to consider moving from the comfortable couch of status quo into the messy and full of potential new, fear will be an obstacle. Probably no other issue comes anywhere close to threatening your potential than fear. We were created to carry more power than any instrument or creature on earth. Yet, we don’t tap into it because of fear…fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of making a mess, fear of mistakes.
There’s a popular story about a mother who took her five year old to a piano concert. Somehow he got separated from her and she looks up to see him on stage, playing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” The concert pianist comes out, whispers to the child to keep playing and adds his own touch to the song, creating a beautiful masterpiece. It’s fiction…but that’s what God does with our efforts. Now, what impact on the song would the child playing a wrong note be? And how upset or frustrated would the pianist be that the child messed up? Not very likely. God is delighted when we try…when we step out and risk. It’s an amazing and crazy thing that God’s plan is to include us in His plan to redeem humanity…that He invites us and empowers us to model imperfectly what Jesus demonstrated perfectly when He walked on this earth. He’s not after perfection or accuracy. He knows that will come with time and practice.
“Life is about inviting Christ’s love to flow through us, even when we don’t know how the chapter ends. We’re the least likely hands and feet Jesus could have ever chosen as His own. But He chose us all the same.” -Chad Johnson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us…”
The Greek word for run, when used metaphorically as it is here, often has the connotation of risk or peril. You have a race marked out for you…God-ordained opportunities, God-given passions, God-sized dreams…and you have the choice to take a risk and seize it…or let it pass you by. We are hardwired by His Spirit to experience a life of risk. All you need is faith the size of a mustard seed. Often in the New Testament when it encourages us to live by faith IN Christ, the preposition is actually OF in the original. We live by the faith of Christ. His faith is planted in our hearts in seed form. Risk is that seed of faith sprouted.
Take some risks for Jesus. It might be praying for healing in the store…or a prophetic word for the UPS guy. It might be filling up someone’s gas tank….or reaching out to restore a broken relationship. It might be awkward…but it could turn out awesome! it’s likely going to be uncomfortable…but thrilling as well.The worst risk is never taking a risk….staying inside your comfortable old rather than risking stepping out into an extravagant, but messy and uncertain new. Making some messes in the process far outweighs a life lived in the status quo.
The outcome of the risk might not be what you like. But, only 2 things matter when a risk didn’t accomplish what you thought it would:
1. Did the person feel valued for who they were, or the potential they carry?2. Did you attempt to love?
Furthermore, we don’t always know in the moment whether or not our risk was successful or not. Sometimes breakthrough, healing, or resolution occurs later. And we may never know.
After realizing the throng of encouragers surrounding us, and throwing off those things that hinder or sabotage us,
“let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.”
This “fixing our eyes” means to “look away from all else and focus on the one thing,” in this case, Jesus. In his book, Awaken the Giant Within, Tony Robbins describes a lesson on skid control in racing school. At any moment the instructor could hydraulically lift any wheel of the car off the ground, causing it to go into a skid. The lesson they were to learn was to “focus on where you want to go, not what you fear.” The tendency is to look at the wall when you lose control because you’re thinking you’re going to crash. So, Tony was out racing along when, without his knowledge, his instructor pushed a button and he began to lose control…and terrified, seeing the wall, he was certain he was going to crash into it. In the final moments, his instructor forced his head and focus toward the track. He couldn’t help but turn the wheel in that direction. It caught and he avoided the wall. It took him several tries, but eventually he learned to direct his focus to where he wanted to go when he was in a skid…he automatically turns the steering wheel…and the car follows.
A mind out of control will play tricks on you. It will convince you of things that aren’t even true. It almost convinced me to never teach again despite the numerous affirmations and prophetic words I’d received. But, a mind directed can be your greatest friend. Paul tells us to renew our minds. We are continually exhorted to repent, metanoeo, which is changing your thoughts, your mind. In the beginning it feels awkward….it feels untrue…it feels like it doesn’t fit or it won’t work, but consistently focusing on the correct beliefs will renew your mind until it eventually becomes a strong reference point… a thick neural pathway.
Resist fear…of rejection, failure, mistakes, messes. Focus on where you want to go…and your actions will take you in that direction.
I did set some goals for this New Year. Some of them are practical like losing weight or study-related. Some have to do with prophetic words I need to press into. One is what I’ve decided will be the theme for this year….the year of 1,000 risks. I don’t know if I’ll reach 1,000 risks by December 31, but I’m committed to taking risks and not allowing God-ordained possibilities to pass me by. To remind myself of this, I cut my hair shorter than it’s every been in about 40 years. I’ve only cut my hair twice in that amount of time, once was to donate and the other was on an adventurous whim. Both times, I let it grow back to it’s original length. This time, it’s staying short all year. Every time I wake in the morning to a rat’s nest of bed hair that’s sticking out everywhere, I’m reminded to take a risk today. Every time I look in the mirror, I’m reminded to step out of the comfortable old into the messy, extravagant new.
What kind of year are you going to have? What mountain are you committed to conquering? What kind of adventurous year do you want with Jesus?
Look at your belief system. Pray about it. Ask Him if there are lies you are believing that are hindering your race, or your ability to fix your eyes on Him. Ask Him for truth to replace those lies.
Pay attention to your habitual questions…and your self-talk. If you say you can’t or you say you can…you’re right. As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. You become what you focus on and meditate upon.
Look away from everything else…and keep your eyes on Jesus. Keep your focus on the race marked out for you. If and when you get knocked of course and begin to skid out of control, don’t change your focus to how you’ve messed up or failed. keep your eyes on the course…your actions will follow and you’ll be back on track in no time.
Risk. Risk. And risk some more. Step out of the safety of the boat…it’s the only way to walk on water. It’s the only way to leave the comfortable unremarkable old and experience the messy but extravagant and exciting new.
You are surrounded by an amazing crowd…who believes in you more than you believe in yourself….whose ceiling is your floor
Enjoy the ride!
Endnotes:
1. Wright, N.T. (2017). Advent for Everyone: A Journey with the Apostles. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, p. 40-41.
2. Robbins, Anthony. (1999). Awaken the Giant Within. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, p. 161-162.
