7 I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. 8 Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ 9 and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith. 10 I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, 11 so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!
12 I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. 13 No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.
(Phil 3:7-14 NLT)
Thoughts are the language of the mind, just as feelings are the language of the body. Thoughts and feelings taken together make up our state of being or mindset.
We wake up in a feeling, and feelings are attached to events that we remember, and memories are usually stickier when they are more intense, but we tend to focus on the threats as a survival strategy. But a feeling that lasts for the day is a mood. If it lasts for weeks, it’s “how I’ve been doin’ lately.” If it lasts for months, it’s a season. If it lasts for years, it’s our character. We say, “Why is that guy so bitter?”
When we live by feelings, we’re living by a narrative about the past — usually a narrative we tell ourselves to explain our story, what it means, and who we are on the basis of that narrative. Often, pain is the determining narrative component. Thus, we end up anchored to the pain of the past through a story that tells us who we are and ends up defining our expectations for the future as predominantly negative.
Being anchored in the past, which is by definition unchangeable since it’s already happened, is disempowering. We begin to take on victim thinking, powerless thinking. In fact, even traditional thought about how we got the way we are — nature and nurture — are both disempowering!
Standard wisdom says that the best predictor of your future is your frequent past. But I say the best way to predict your future is to create it. Create it by being anchored in a hopeful vision of the future while cooperating with the Lord in the present.
Dr. Thobaben said, “No it’s nature, nurture, chance, choice, and grace.” And choice and grace are connected. Because our will — our mind — our spirit — is the place where grace acts. When we partner with God’s Spirit by exercising our will in the path of obedience and agreement with God, that’s where we break out of the orientation I have been describing so far. And as we do that we lift our eyes away from back on the past and down on the present to forward on the future and up on the great victorious God and Father of our Lord Jesus.
“My anointing isn’t for ministry, it’s for relationship.” Life is for living, songs are about living, writing is about living, and living is about relationship with Jesus. Specifically the simple things of daily life. Resting while you work. Not worrying. Receiving love. Trusting God and being small. Enjoying the gift of life and learning to share in God’s own enthusiastic joy over a million little wonders. Learning to love well.
Dream Small (Josh Wilson)
It’s a momma singing songs about the Lord – It’s a daddy spending family time that the world said he cannot afford – These simple moments change the world
It’s a pastor at a tiny little Church – Forty years of loving on the broken and the hurt. These simple moments change the world
Dream small – Don’t bother like you’ve gotta do it all – Just let Jesus use you where you are. One day at a time – Live well – Loving God and others as yourself. Find little ways where only you can help – With His great love, a tiny rock can make a giant fall – Dream small
It’s visiting the widow down the street – Or dancing on a Friday with your friend with special needs. These simple moments change the world – Of course, there’s nothing wrong with bigger dreams. Just don’t miss the minutes on your way, your bigger things, no, ‘Cause these simple moments change the world
Jesus said that “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak (Matt 26:41).” We are meant to subject our body to our spirit by choice! That’s why one of the most important fruits or effects of being shaped by God’s indwelling Spirit is that we become self-controlled. That is to say that people who are mature in the Holy Ghost have learned how to keep going after God’s will even when their body and their emotions are telling them to quit, and they have learned how to quit or stop when their body or their appetites or their desires are telling them to do it. They know how to feel the burn and push through.
When you start out with a vision from God, there may be a great crowd with you, but at some point the cost of actually staying the course will get high enough that not everyone will have the stamina to pay the price when they realize that it isn’t going to be the party they signed up for. At that point, you may feel abandoned, betrayed, rejected — Paul felt that way (2 Tim 4).
9 Do your best to come to me quickly, 10 for Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia. 11 Only Luke is with me…16 At my first defense, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me. May it not be held against them. 17 But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength…
(2 Tim 4 NIV)
The cost of following Jesus with integrity is really high! But perseverance is essential!
James Dyson was asked if he thought it was his intellect, his creativity, his hard work, or just luck that made his vacuum business such a success. He spent his forties in debt and failing. Now he’s hugely successful. He said definitely not his intellect, others are far smarter. Definitely not his creativity, others are far more creative. He said it is luck, but not alone. He said 50% of the things he tries fail. BUT, he never quits. At just the point when it’s so hard that you want to quit, you need to remember that it’s like that for everyone, and most people quit there. So that’s exactly the time to put in extra hours, extra effort, extra sweat, blood, and tears. But that’s the exact moment when you are pulling away from the pack. That moment of greatest weakness is the moment of greatest victory if you just don’t quit. Exactly when you most want to quit is the most important moment to persevere, and that’s what sets you in the right place at the right time for “luck” to find you.
So we wake up and we tell our body NO and our spirit YES. We make our agreement explicit with the truth and we choose HOPE.
Again, we are either defined by:
- A hopeful vision of the future or
- The pain of the past
For freedom Christ set us free. Forgiveness received and extended is such a big deal to Jesus because he wants us FREE from the past. He wants our past redeemed and healed so we aren’t anchored to it. How can you sail a ship with it’s anchor dropped and dragging in the rocks of the dangerous shallows?
Facts aren’t the truth. Just because a perspective involves some facts doesn’t mean it’s the truth; the devil is a liar who uses facts to deceive, and Jesus is The Truth who spun fictional parables in order to reveal ultimate reality.
You can’t help what you see, but you can help what you look for. Being trained to see God at work is a skill. Three people can be in the same experience and all see radically different things. The question is, what does Jesus see as he is here and now. God has often told me in the past that the story I’m telling about what happened in my life is not the same story he’s telling in heaven. I desperately need to know what the story is that he’s telling when he talks about my life, because the facts can lead me astray, but his voice is the truth that will set me free.
Setbacks aren’t the right feedback. Focus determines direction. The original creative vision for your life that emerged in your “first love” is. You need to stay the course with that vision for your life.
Layla wrote this huge poster and hung it on the wall in our hallway — which has become a prophetic mantra of sorts. I asked her if it came from a song or a book or if she heard it in a movie. She said, “No, I just thought of it and wrote it.” It says this: “No matter what they hear or say, just keep going your way.” This is the prophetic wisdom of the child, tapping into what God is saying over the Miller household and releasing it without even knowing how on point it is.
Anais Nin: “People don’t see the world as it is. They see it as they are.”
Wayne Biggs told me, “Don’t take it personally.” But we’re so used to it being our responsibility to obsess over our pain and let that tell us who we are that we don’t know what it would be like to simply say, “That’s not what God says about me and this changes nothing, it only reveals that person’s heart, not mine. I’m staying my course, and I won’t move in resentment or self-pity either.” That is so odd we don’t even know if that guy is healthy! I’ve heard a lot of talk about how Dan Mohler isn’t balanced, isn’t healthy, and can’t be trusted because it doesn’t work in real life. That’s how upside down the kingdom feels to the world.
“This doesn’t feel right and it doesn’t feel safe.” Well of course not! We haven’t been trained by truth enough yet for truth to feel true. Moving from the old self to the new self happens in an instant in the heavenly realms, but making the adjustment on earth to what is real in heavenly places feels…a little weird. We’re talking about a biochemical, emotional, psychological, relational, intellectual, physical, and spiritual transformation, leaving one way of being behind and taking on something entirely different.
Ok – let’s sit quietly with Jesus for a moment.
Don’t try to achieve everything all at once. For now, learn to receive love. Learn to recognize God’s presence in public, at work, in the busyness of daily life. Dream small.
Sit with Jesus. Relax. Imagine your life, in Christ, lived well. Imagine your hope-filled future…
This is the life He’s offering. Let Him activate the creative centers of your brain. Let him rewire your synapses. Mind, in Jesus’ name, be renewed. Heart, in Jesus’ name, receive hope.
Let this hopeful imagination of your life generate a new emotional state. It is your privilege to live from this place of hope. You get to enjoy it, now, before it has even happened. Your body gets to taste a sampling of the future as you are leaning toward it.
With eyes on the prize, now you are prepared to see opportunities where before you only saw potential threats. Now you are positioned to see the goodness of God in the land of the living (Ps 27). Now we aren’t living from defeat with a hope-so that maybe one day things might go our way. Now we’re living in victory already. We feel as though we’ve already won.
This is hope. And it looks good on ya.