Put in Work
Special Announcement At The End!
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Read Time: 8 mins
Do not waste time arguing over godless ideas and old wives’ tales. Instead, train yourself to be godly. “Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come.” This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it. This is why we work hard and continue to struggle, for our hope is in the living God, who is the Savior of all people and particularly of all believers.
1 Timothy 4:7-10 NLT
I had the privilege of working with some children from a local group home. They told stories of parents committing heinous crimes and loved ones experiencing debilitating hurts and something about their expression stuck out to me. The trauma changed their worldview. Their experience changed their expectations. One girl mentioned how she saw her grandparents, father, and mother die and now she can’t seem to shake the nightmares, anxiety, and worry associated with feeling like her step-father may be next. I bet that the majority of you were not worried about death as a 10-year-old, but this girl was because of what she had experienced. Her experiences informed her expectations.
Your time in this sinful environment and tenure with painful experiences have informed what you anticipate for the future. What you've experienced has informed what you expect. For you, it may not be a fear of death, but poverty has changed the way you view provision. You have a hard time believing that your needs will actually be provided for. Maybe the lack of safety in your home growing up has you struggling to feel safe in your adult life. Maybe you have experienced emotional abuse and now you have a hard time opening up for fear of it happening again. Your experiences built beliefs and those beliefs built expectations. Now you are reacting to your expectations.
Our brains function like hiking trails. The more a path of thought or action is taken, the broader and deeper the path is imprinted. The more an action is repeated, the more it is cemented into your consciousness and expectation. Synapses are like roads in the brain and the more one fires, the more lanes to the highway of expectation are added. This plasticity of the mind is what shapes many of our reactions in negative ways but it can also be used to transform our minds towards the positive. You don't have to be stuck in a cycle of reacting to your traumas. You can change your worldview by being intentional about your actions. Actions that reinforce fear build pathways and muscles of fear, but actions that force you to have faith build a proclivity to lean towards a worldview of faith. If you want to be renewed by the transformation of your mind, you have to be intentional about the stimuli you feed it.
I tell you this because, in the same way, our experiences and actions in the physical realm inform our expectations and reactions for the future, our experiences and actions in the spiritual realm inform our expectations and reactions from and to God. But you aren’t stuck. The neural pathways that are created by repeated action and stimuli are plastic. That means that even if a negative road has been embedded, it can be replaced by another by employing enough consistent action.
If we desire to replace the mindsets, expectations and desires our sinful environments have lent us, we must be intentional about building pathways to the spiritual. If we want to stop living in response to our trauma, insecurity, fear, and heartbreak, we must be intentional about building paths to our desired action. If we want to be spiritually strong, we have to practice building the synapses of spiritual strength. We have to practice that faith alone if we want it to come out publicly. We have to lean into this action of building our faith if we want the effects of our past trauma to stop haunting us and hurting others.
So what does this look like? The Bible says we are changed by the renewing of our minds. How do we train our minds to see the world through a lens of faith instead of a lens of fear? We do this by intentional faith workouts. God wants the best for you, so He has outlined spiritual workouts to lead you to the desired outcome of growth. God wants to be your trainer.
Many of the spiritual disciplines that Christ outlines are simply consistent workouts to keep our faith in shape. They are workouts to help train your mind to trust God and not yourself. Giving is intended to be a consistent workout. I know it doesn't make sense sometimes but that's a part of the workout. Fasting is intended to be a consistent workout. I have a friend who fasts every Friday. Like the person who runs a few miles every morning, that type of consistency pays dividends in their spiritual stamina. I really think service in church is one of the most underrated spiritual disciplines. Do you recognize how much faith you need to consistently work with unqualified, over-opinionated, humans, just like yourself? Working with and loving real people is one of the best ways to get a mirror look at what hurt your humanity may be causing for others. Go all in and get involved with your local church and I promise you that your prayer life will increase.
I feel like our societal mindset has made it hard for us to view God and the discomfort He allows in a positive way. Oftentimes the very challenges you are running from are the very answers to the prayers you've been praying. We must recognize that God won't give us more than we can bear. We can trust Him enough to lean into the pain He allows and ask what are we supposed to be learning or exercising through it. The spat with your spouse is a chance for you to grow as a man. The problem at work is a chance for you to grow as a leader. You wanted to be better and God is using the storms to refine you.
I truly appreciate some of the historians at my church who have recognized the pattern in which great leaders and administrators all passed through my church while functioning as young pastors. After hard moments of learning they always pull me aside and encourage me by saying they don't know what God is preparing me for but it must be great considering the lessons I'm learning so young. I want you to look at your problems and then look at all the other great people who went through similar things. God is training you for the exceedingly and abundantly He wants to do in your life.
Many of us still don't want God to be a Spiritual strength coach. The concept of God seems to have been hijacked and softened. We expect God to be this cuddly, anything-goes, push-over instead of a good father who believes in us. While shepherds do tenderly care for their sheep, David in Psalm 23 says that the rod and staff of a good shepherd are what are used to comfort. True care doesn't come from empty compliments and surface tenderness, it sometimes comes from rebuke, correction, and uncomfortableness. True love involves training. True love sometimes means seeing more in others than they see in themselves. God sees a masterpiece when you just see marble. Discomfort is just the process of God pulling beauty out of you. While God is tender and affectionate, part of His character is loving us enough to give us a way out of stagnation and mediocrity. Our softened society seems to have forgotten that one aspect of love is caring enough to help people not stay stuck in bad places.
You may desire someone to sit with you and cosign your mediocrity to make you feel better. That’s not what I want to do, and that's not what God wants to do. If you want to grow in your walk with God, God has workouts for you. If you sign up for a college course, you should expect the professor to challenge you intellectually. If you sign up for a personal trainer, you should expect the weight to get heavier. This doesn’t mean He will be cruel or give you more than you can bear. This is God giving you exactly what you need to be your best. In anything else, we recognize that curated discomfort is designed to bring us to a desired destination. However many of us struggle when this is the spiritual reality God wants to bring to us.
The difference between the boys and the men spiritually is their relationship with suffering. It's all about work ethic. Some wait for storms to come while others are disciplined enough to partner with the trainer and work out on their own. Those who grow are those who trust the trainer and stop fighting the process. I've recognized that the people I respect the most have an intentional discipline. They live life with the habits that their future selves would need to sustain. They fast regularly to remind themselves of their dependence on God. They give regularly so it's not crazy when God asks them to help someone in need. There is a sense of dedication and intentionality that the faithful among us hold dear. This is why you cannot be jealous of those that God uses in great ways. You have no idea the pain they endured to make it there. God may just trust their consistency more than yours.
Paul understood this concept of spiritual work ethic more than anyone. He had suffered and now is giving Timothy a charge in his own ministry. Paul told his young protege in ministry that physical training is good but spiritual training is even more important. Physical training has its place, but spiritual training impacts you in every aspect of this life and the life to come. The difference between the successful and the mediocre is their relationship with training.
This must be consistent because you never know when it will be needed. You will never know that your practice in faith is paying dividends until it shows up during a crisis. I remember a loved one calling me to tell me that they had cancer and I'm proud to say my reaction was not to worry or fret or give up. When I took the time to feel and process what I heard, I fell to my knees and started to sing “I will always worship you.” As I sang and danced in my apartment, it got so loud that my neighbors under me started to bang on my floor to get me to stop jumping. That moment showed me that my practice was working. When I was little, Chiefs Safety, Eric Berry having cancer hit me hard, now I'm singing through similar storms of higher magnitude. I can be proud of how far my faith has come. It had become muscle memory to trust God at a new level. Like looking in the mirror and seeing more muscle mass, in that moment I realized that at least at that level, my faith was pretty solid.
I tell you this because if we aren’t intentional about building our faith in the good times, we will have no strength for the bad times. Some of you need to go head first into that difficult ministry or job and exercise your faith. Some of you need to exercise your faith through radical giving. Husbands, some of you need to exercise your faith by loving the wife who is acting unlovable. Wives, some of you need to exercise your faith by respecting the husband who has nothing to offer. One of my married friends told me about the 7,7,7 rule they use to consistently work out their marriage. They do something like a date night every seven days, a weekend trip every seven weeks, and a full vacation every seven months. That consistent work pays dividends.
This sinful world has pushed you to run away from discomfort, but if you want to rework the synapses of your brain, you must be intentional about exercising your faith.
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Can I tell you one of the ways God is growing my faith in this season?
You know we’ve been doing ROAR for a few years now and every experience is a faith exercise. We never have enough money, time, or people, but God always comes through on what He calls us to. I am planning three ROAR events, along with a leadership conference and a wedding lol. But just like a gym junkie, I'm actually very excited.
On September 21st, 2024 we will be in the DMV at Sligo SDA church for our biggest ROAR yet. I’m praying for thousands of God seekers to come and experience God together. I’m praying for a mass baptism and tangible life change. Will you pray and plan with me? I want to start a movement of energized visionaries who are on fire for Jesus. I need my ministry leaders in the entire northeast to begin getting their buses now. Contact me if you need help with room blocks or trip ideas. I need every conference, every worship leader, and every God seeker to be in the room! Register Below!
ROAR DMV 2024
I need you to partner with me in faith. Promote it among your teams. Fundraise to make the trip. Pray for the encounter. God is going to move and we want to work in faith to add fuel to the fire. I want to see thousands set on fire for Jesus.
