Category Archives: Personal Growth

Posted on

Sometimes, You Just Need To Throw Stuff Away

What To Do When Life Gets Full

Right now, I am in the process of purging some of the things in my life that I have accumulated. I’m shooting for something more simplified, maybe even leaning towards minimalism, in theory. And I’m finding it very hard to do.

Sometimes, You Just Need To Throw Stuff Away

My life is complicated.

I don’t state that in a complaining fashion, because I know just how many different things I have going on in my life. Some I can control, others I cannot. My wife and I have a large family, with seven kids. A couple of them are in early adulthood, a couple of them are teens, or soon to be, and the rest are younger children. That fact alone ensure that we are busy, and that we live in a cluttered home.

I’m also in ministry. Every time I see something that might be a resource, I’m tempted to grab it and hold on to it. More on that in a moment.

My wife is also very frugal. She’s always thinking ahead, so if she sees a deal on something that we don’t need now, but will need later, it’s quite likely to be brought home and stored until we need it. She saves us a lot of money that way.

Posted on

Sometimes, You Just Need To Take A Deep Breath

What To Do When Life Gets Crazy

You may have noticed that things have been pretty quiet around here lately. That has been both good and bad, for a number of reasons. I hope that I can maintain a regular schedule again soon.

Sometimes, You Just Need To Take A Deep Breath

Sometimes, it’s just time to take a step back from things and take a deep breath. In a way, that has been good for me. I have been able to focus on a few things that needed some attention, and a few things that I have wanted to do for a long time. But at the same time, stepping back wasn’t great, because the habit of writing regularly has slipped a little. This is still a priority in my life, and a slipped habit will be a bit of an obstacle to overcome.

Let me share with you a few of the things that have impacted my schedule over the last few months.

Posted on

The Quarantine Life

What I’m Learning Through The COVID-19 Pandemic

The past few weeks have been pretty quiet around here because of the quarantine. Along with most of you, I’m learning to live with the major disruption to my life and routine because of the coronavirus.

Quarantine Life

When this all started, I think we all expected it to be kind of like the other virus fears we’ve experienced, like SARS, or H1N1 from a few years ago. No one could have foreseen the complete devastation that would result from this new virus, and the disruptions to our lives.

This thing has caused several major changes in our culture and our world, from food and toilet paper shortages, to economic problems and unemployment on a national and global level. And it has had an impact on a personal level for us all, too. We’ve learned a new reality: social distancing… Quarantine…

From where I sit in the middle of America, we are moving into our fourth week of this. And we have a couple of weeks yet to go, at the very least. That could extend pretty easily if this virus doesn’t slow down.

My emotions have been a roller coaster. One minute, I’m confident that this will be over soon, and we can get back to normal — maybe a new normal, but still normal. The next minute, I feel like cowering under my desk, in abject fear that this is the worst thing that could ever happen. And my perspective shifts like this multiple times a day, it seems.

Yet through it all, I have learned a few things. And these are things that I have to hold on to tightly, so that I don’t completely lose my perspective on this whole thing.

Posted on

One Word 365 – 2020 Edition

Finding One Word To Live By For 2020

New Years Resolutions have never been something I have invested myself into. First, I never really saw much point. And second, when I did try, I usually failed at keeping them pretty quickly. My approach over the years has been more goal oriented, and not resolution oriented. Mostly.

One Word 365

Several years ago, I stumbled across the idea of choosing a single word to live by for the year. This has been a paradigm shift in my thinking in a lot of ways, and for several reasons. Let me give you a glimpse into my thought process.

I usually start thinking about this in October. That’s the time of year that I go to Colorado for a retreat called Wilderness. That’s where I review my Life Plan in detail and examine what God has been dong in my life closely to see how I can take further steps forward in the coming year. That week in the mountains is kind of my “spiritual fiscal” year. It’s a critical time for my spiritual and personal growth.

And that’s when I start asking God for a concept to focus on for the coming year. The past three years, I have used words that were all similar in how they were impacting my life: “present,” “unhurried,” and “balance.” Those all held similar goals and strategies for my life, and I feel like God taught me a lot over those years. (Here’s a list that provides an overview of all the words I have selected since 2011.)

Posted on

Living With An Awakened Perspective

How A Kingdom Imagination Looks Beyond

A Kingdom imagination is a necessary ingredient for a fullness of life. I have come to believe that over the past few weeks. And I have been challenged to increase my Kingdom imagination to more and more awareness of what God may be doing around me.

Awakened

One of the first things I have learned about living with a Kingdom imagination has been to live with expectancy. God is doing a lot of things around me, within me, and through me, and I have been learning to look forward to those things with a sense of urgent expectancy, waiting to see what he’s doing as he reveals it.

As I have been waiting with that sense of expectancy, I have sense my heart being awakened in new and deeper ways.

God has given me gifts and talents and passions. He’s given you the same things, gifts and talents and passions. What I have seen in my life is that I have grown accustomed to the way I have been doing things, and have let my excitement for those things slip a little. Those things that used to excite me and make my pulse race have grown commonplace and mundane.

I didn’t intend for this to happen, but it did anyway. And to be honest, it bothers me. A lot.

Posted on

Take A Break

What I Learned From Taking A Vacation

Vacations are hard for me. As near as I can figure, I haven’t taken a real vacation, other than a day off here and there, in over twelve years. But I did this summer. And it was great.

Take A Break

I have lots of reasons for not taking a vacation regularly. I have a large family, and it can get expensive. There’s too much to do here, both in ministry and at home. It’s tough to find people to care for the pets, get the mail, and water the garden while we’re gone. I live by structured routines, and vacations mess that up. And I could go on and on.

But we decided that it was time to take a week away for a change this summer. We settled the details on all of my objections, found people to check the mail and feed the cat. Someone else watered the garden and checked the tomatoes. And we took a week and spent it with some friends on Table Rock Lake.

Because I am a structured person, and live by my routines and like to plan things out, I deliberately did not plan any details for this trip, other than the day we spent at Silver Dollar City, a theme park in Branson, Missouri. My ten-year-old son saved his money for almost two years to buy the family tickets to go there, which is an incredible story in itself. But that’s the only thing I planned.

Besides that one day, my goal was to get up when I wanted to, sit on the dock, or in the water at the end of the dock, and drink a few cups of coffee. That’s it. And for someone who loves a good routine to his day, that was a very difficult thing for me to do.

Posted on

The 3000 Foot View

Using A Life Plan To Maintain Perspective

Have you ever felt like life has thrown you a bunch of curve balls and you just don’t know how to handle it? That is how I have felt recently, and I have managed to rebound from that. Let me explain how I keep the proper perspective in view.

3000 Foot View

One of my bucket list items in life is to one day take a hot air balloon ride. I have flown in planes and looked out of the tiny windows to catch a glimpse of the ground far below, but a hot air balloon gives you a whole different view. You can see everything clearly. Hot air balloons typically fly at heights of 1500 to 3000 feet. This isn’t all that high, but it is high enough to get a good view of everything under you and see how it’s all laid out, and how all the different areas are connected to each other. Someday, I hope to experience a hot air balloon first hand.

You probably already know that we recently left a ministry in a community where we were fairly established and comfortable, to move to an entirely new town and a new church. With several kids in the mix, some of which are teens, that was enough drama to begin with. I am confident that God was highly involved in that whole process, and intentionally led us here, and is continuing to lead as we get settled and established in this new role.

I’m even more confident of that now, after being here for several months, even more so than I was during the transition process itself. Since we have moved in, our lives seem to have been plagued with one setback after another. With kids lamenting the move, grieving even – which is a normal process – we felt like it might take a while to get our feet under us. But when you throw a few other elements into the mix, such as a van accident, in which our van was totaled, though no one was hurt; a half dozen house issues, mostly plumbing; and a couple of other events that could have knocked the wind from our sails, we felt more than off balance. We felt defeated. I felt defeated.