how do you view the future?

Have you ever considered how you think about the future? You might consider this question silly…you’re too busy doing things in the present to do something as introspective as considering how you approach the future. But everyone, whether you’re aware of it or not, has a way that they view the future. And while it might sound inconsequential, it’s anything but. Why? Because you how perceive the future dictates how you live today.

the first way

The default way of thinking about the future is that of an idealistic optimist. An idealistic optimist believes that the future will go well and that they shouldn’t expect to have any major problems in life. Almost every young person in the United States begins as an idealistic optimist, confident that if they are a good person, their life will go well and everything will turn out great.

Our culture bolsters the natural idealistic optimism of our youth through phrases like:

• You can be anything you want.

• If you can dream you can do it.

• The sky is your limit.

Idealistic optimists take these messages to heart; they look at the future and believe that life will work out perfectly. While they know that bad things can happen, they’re certain that a good person like them won’t ever experience a major struggle, setback, or difficulty.

So generation after generation of idealistic young people enter adult life, optimistic about their exciting plans for life, confident that the future will go according to their plan. They make bold promises to the older generation about how well life will go for them and how much good they will accomplish.

But sooner than later, these young people hit a wall: things aren’t working out as easily or as quickly as they thought. Instead of rapid success, they find that everything in life is much hard than they expected. They hit 25, and then 30, and are flustered by the fact that not only have they not achieved their “perfect life” yet, but they feel farther away from them than ever. Their college dreams seem like a romantic notion from some out-of-touch 22 year old.

On top of this, life starts to become scary. Bad things start happening to people around them, and sometimes even to them. People their age get divorced, laid off from work, lose a parent, experience a stock market crash, and even learn that they have cancer. As you leave your twenties behind and get closer and closer to forty, you begin to realize that the world is a scary, crazy, and broken place.

the second way

By this point, many people have shed their idealistic and optimistic view of the future and instead adopt a new way of seeing the future, that of a realistic pessimist. A realistic pessimist is a person who, after starting life as an idealistic optimist, realizes that life isn’t some Walt Disney-fueled dream where everyone is happy and everything goes your way. As they’ve sobered up to the difficulties and challenges of life, their idealistic future has popped, and they now see the future as a mysterious unknown, where chaos reigns and bad things can strike at any time.

Realistic pessimists are quick to remind you of all of the ways that things could go wrong. If you want to get married, they’ll tell you that 50% end in divorce. If you want to start a small business, they’ll tell you that 80% of them don’t make it five years. If you want to move to a big city or different country, they’ll point out every conceivable way for you to get murdered or robbed. They are always quick to remind you of the problems of any plan, the downsides of any new idea, and the reasons why being optimistic about the world is a fool’s errand.

Realistic pessimists shut down over time. They don’t take risks. They don’t start new things. They accept life as it is given to them and never push back. They rarely start new businesses or non-profits or friendships or initiatives. Why make life busier and harder and more stressful, especially when it’s unlikely to work anyways. It’s not that they’re trying to be an Eeyore, it’s just that they’ve learned enough about life to know that the world is unpredictable, risky, and dangerous, so they hunker down to protect themselves and the people they love from hurt and failure.

While the idealistic optimist believes that everything in the future that could go right will, the realistic pessimist is the opposite; they believe that everything in the future that could go wrong will. They no longer see the future as a golden brick road to their dream life, but rather are just trying to dodge the potholes of life. They’ve rejected the naïveté of the idealistic optimists and see big dreams and ideas to change the world as pointless. They just hope that as they get older they can hang on and keep from having anything bad happen to them.

the third way

While these first two approaches to the future are the most common, fortunately, there is a third way to view the future, from a perspective of a realistic optimist. A realistic optimist understands that life is full of challenges and difficulties but believes that with wisdom, character, and a reliance on God, things can turn out well.

The realistic optimist is different from the idealistic optimist and the realistic pessimist because they have a Christian view of the future. Unlike the idealistic optimist, the realistic optimist believes in the reality of sin and the brokenness of human nature. But unlike the realistic pessimist, they believe in the goodness of God, as evidenced by how the gift of His creation and the promises of His involvement. The realistic pessimist understands that the world is a broken place, but they also recognize that a good God is in control and is working for the good of His children.

Because of this, the realistic optimist can get married, start businesses, have and raise children, take risks, and do hard things, not because they are any more talented than the other two types, but rather because they know that God is with them every step of the way and is working for their good.

Realistic optimists look at the future knowing that:

• God created the world, which means that there is a rhyme and reason to how things work. The world and business and relationships aren’t some mysterious black box, but rather can be understood and improved by studying God’s creation and gaining wisdom on how it operates. God designed the world to work a certain way, and when we understand that, we can make all kinds of discoveries and advances and improvements in every area of life.

• God wants to give good things to his children, which means that they aren’t living in a cold and indifferent universe, but rather are continually cared for by their Father in heaven. They understand what Jesus said in Matthew 6: “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”

• God gives other people to help, which means they understand that God gives them resources, to understand how to grow in their ability to work together and accomplish more as a group than they could individually. They read books, consult history, go to conferences, and build relationships with others, knowing that other people have wisdom, skills, and gifts that they could benefit from.

• God works for their good, which means that they know that it’s not on them to make everything happen for themselves. Instead, they partner with God as they start businesses, plant churches, and break new ground, knowing that He wants to use them to love and serve others. They have the attitude of Jonathan in the Bible, who, when confronted by a squad of enemy soldiers, said to his armor-bearer, “Let’s go over to their outpost…perhaps the Lord will act on our behalf.” They know that God is up to something good in this world, and is working to accomplish it, even if they have setbacks, disappointments, and failures along the way.

But instead of being realistic optimists who trust in God and his promises, we are so often like the Israelites as they were about to enter the Promised Land. They were so excited about the prospect of this new land that they approached the future through the view of idealistic optimists: they could already taste the bread and wine and celebrations ahead of them.

But then 10 of the Israelite spies came back and gave them a realistic picture of the land: the people living there were big and tough and scary. In an instant, 99% of the Israelites become realistic pessimists. After they heard the report from the 10 spies, they cried out in fear: “How are we ever going to defeat these giants? We should get rid of Moses, give up this foolish journey, and go back to Egypt!”

Only two spies, Caleb and Joshua, believed that they should continue and encouraged the people that they could go up and take possession of the land. Caleb and Joshua didn’t deny the report of the other spies, but they also didn’t succumb to the pessimistic fears of certain failure.

Why were these two men able to have a realistic yet optimistic view of the future? Because they believed that the Lord was with them. You can hear it in Caleb’s speech:

The land we passed through and explored is exceedingly good. If the Lord is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and will give it to us. …And do not be afraid of the people of the land, because we will devour them. Their protection is gone, but the Lord is with us. Do not be afraid of them.”

They could take a realistic and optimistic view towards the future not because of their strength or numbers or cunning, but rather because God was with them and would deliver their new home to them.

Do you want to view the future through the lens of a realistic optimist? You can only see life this way if you believe the same thing that Caleb and Joshua did. That despite all of the ups and downs ahead of you, God promises to be with you through it all and to work on your behalf as you walk alongside Him.

When you understand that, you can be set free from your youthful idealism or your adult pessimism to attempt great things for God as you expect great things from God. As the Apostle Paul said in Ephesians 3:

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever!

This perspective will allow you to go forward into the future with faith, trusting that God has plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.

if you want to be a leader, start with this question

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There’s a misconception about leadership that’s causing so many problems in our culture. When people hear the word leadership, they think it refers to a position of authority. They believe that to be a leader you need to be in charge of other people and make all of the decisions. Because of this errant view, many people then assume that they can’t be a leader until they are “chosen” and put in a position of authority.

But leadership isn’t fundamentally about a position in life, but rather a perspective towards life. While leaders often end up with a title and authority, those things are a result of showing leadership, not the cause. True leaders were leading long before they were ever recognized for it.

So if being a leader isn’t connected to a position or a role, then what is leadership? While there are many ways to describe a leader, at the core, a leader is someone who takes initiative for the benefit of others. That’s the heart of leadership, not having a fancy title or a certain number of people who report to you.

A real leader doesn’t wait for someone to ask them to do something or put them in a position of responsibility, but rather shows the courage and capacity to do what needs to be done to help other people. So if you want to be a leader, quit waiting around for someone to anoint you, and instead use this definition as a question. Wherever you go, ask yourself: How could I take initiative here for the benefit of others?

If you use this question as a perspective toward life, you’ll be blown away by all of the leadership opportunities that show up around you. Why is this question so powerful? Because it will get you to start doing two things.

The first is that asking this question will cause you to switch from a passive observer in life to an active participant with agency. It’s hard to complain about what other people are doing when you're looking around to see what needs to be done. When you start looking at the people and places around you, you’ll notice things that aren’t getting down and can now take the initiative to find a solution.

You’ll become someone who sees a problem or opportunity and acts as a catalyst, starting the conversation and moving yourself and the people around you from a state of apathy to planning, collaboration, and action. Being a leader requires you to see opportunities to serve and have the courage to act on them.

But leadership is about more than taking initiative. There are lots of people who are very good at taking initiative but yet are terrible leaders. To be a leader, you have to take initiative, but it has to be for the benefit of others. A great leader is someone who serves as a catalyst, not for their good, but the good of others. For your initiative to be healthy, it must be rooted in a desire to love and help other people.

When you use this simple leadership question as a lens through which you approach your life, your eyes will become open to all of the ways you could be a leader in this present moment, even if you don’t have a formal leadership role. Anytime you enter your home, your church, your neighborhood, your workplace, your friend circles, or your culture, you can uncover someone that needs to be done by asking: how can I take initiative for the benefit of others?

I try to ask myself this question as often as possible and it has created all sorts of little ways to serve and lead. Whether it’s helping an older lady unload her groceries, retrieving a trash can that’s blown into the street, or going up to a stranger and welcoming them to church, approaching your life through this perspective will open up untold opportunities to lead.

These might sound like simple and inconsequential things, but they will help you to become more and more aware of the opportunities to take initiative and ways that you could help the people around you. Because of the way God has gifted each of us, you will see things that everyone else will miss. Your heart will be burdened to help teach kids to read, refurbish homes for low-income housing, or use your gifts in several other ways.

And as you lead informally, eventually other people will recognize your leadership and put you in greater positions of responsibility. As Jesus said:

Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.

So many people wait around for someone to put them in a position of leadership before they will start to lead, and not surprisingly, no one ever does!

And if you’re already in positions of leadership, this question will help you to become even more effective. Why? Because it will keep you aware of the two reasons many leaders are either unhealthy or ineffective in their work:

1. Many leaders excel at taking initiative, yet only do things for the benefit of themselves. These leaders get a lot done, but since they only do things that satisfy their desire for ego, power, and status, they eventually leave everyone around them feeling manipulated, burnt out, and used.

2. Other leaders truly love and care for the people that they lead, but they fail the first part of the question: they never take any initiative. They are passive and apathetic towards stepping forward, due to fear of failure and being paralyzed from overthinking. Because of this, despite their good intentions, nothing ever gets done, and everything around them stalls.

A healthy and effective leader avoids both of these pitfalls, combining the ability to take initiative with a desire to love and serve other people. They are willing to risk failure and ridicule from their peers, but also don’t just use their gifts to secure more money, success, and power for themselves.

It should be clear that I’m not encouraging you to walk into a situation and take control or to assume all decision-making authority. People who do that just want power and aren’t out to help others. Instead, you are to become like Jesus, who perfectly modeled taking initiative for the benefit of others for us in the gospels, teaching his disciples that “whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant.”

I hope this simple definition of leadership shows you that anyone can be a leader, regardless of where you are at or even how you are gifted. In a world starving for healthy leadership, I hope you will look for ways to take initiative for the benefit of others.

who is the main character of life?

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Have you ever stopped and considered who is the main character of your life? That’s easy, we think: it’s me! Who else would be after all? And so we go through life assuming that we're the lead actor in our personal movie, with the people around us ranging from extras to supporting actors, there to advance our story and ensure we have a happy ending.

As the main character of our movie, we also serve as the director, since we believe we have the perfect vision for what our life movie should look like. This causes us to tell everyone around us how they should act and what roles they should play to make our movie perfect.

We then see God as the producer. He hovers somewhere off the set, in charge of securing the financing and making sure everything goes according to our schedule. We don’t want his hands-on help with our movie, though, since he doesn’t get our creative vision for what we’re trying to do with our lives, after all.

Whether it’s through social media or pop psychology, we’re told to confidently take charge of our personal narrative and make sure that we are following our passions and prioritizing our dreams, hopefully in a way that gets us more status, attention, and eyeballs on our lives.

And if our life movie goes well, we hopefully find the right supporting cast (spouse and close friends), who will help us look good and give us a perfect Hollywood ending, making us feel like Joseph Gordon Levitt when he dances down the sidewalk in 500 Days of Summer to Hall and Oates.

But while this is attractive at first, it’s a disastrous way to approach life. When everyone tries to be the main character of this movie called life, we get into power struggles and conflict with the people around us. We're upset that they want to be the hero of their movie and refuse to play a supporting role in ours. And they’re upset that we want to be the hero of our own movie and refuse to play a supporting role in theirs.

This approach also creates so much fear and pressure. Since our lives are unpredictable, we're always anxious about whether they will follow our script: "Is my perfect ending going to happen? Am I going to get the guy/girl? Am I going to be the hero?” And this makes us so afraid of the movie going "off script," that we spend more time thinking about how our movie is going than actually living life. 

But if we want to live well, we have to admit that we're not the lead actor in our lives and turn that role over to Jesus. Our lives are not about being the main character of our own story, but rather about participating in God's story: that through Jesus Christ, God has rescued us from our sin and is working to make all things new, culminating in the new heavens and new earth. 

We'll never flourish to the degree God intended until we recognize that our lives shouldn't revolve around our dreams, agenda, and desires, but rather God's will for our lives. When we do this, we're set free from a role we can't play, being the main character of the universe, and instead can use our lives the way we were meant to: to bring glory to God. 

You have to admit that you don't have what it takes to be the main character of the universe and instead be willing to become a supporting actor in God's great drama: the reconciliation of the universe to himself through his Son. While that sounds like death to our attention-seeking selves, it's the only way to be set free into the life that you were meant to live. 

And Jesus said to them, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel will save it. 

knowing what you know…

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There's a Steve Garber quote that always challenges me: "Knowing what you know about yourself and the world, what are you going to do?"

Why do I find this quote challenging? Because it's so easy in our world of nonstop news, constant social media, and never-ending data to know so much about what's wrong with the world, but yet never do anything to help. This quote forces me to recognize that the things I know and notice about the world aren't just abstract accidents, but rather are God's invitation for me to act.

Instead of acting, though, we usually deal with the problems of our world in two ways:

1. We criticize and condemn the other side for causing the problem and then wait for them to do something to fix it. We'd love to do something to help, we tell ourselves, but we can't because it's their problem and not ours.

2. We acknowledge the problems of the world, but all of our doing goes towards trying to insulate ourselves from them. If I can just make this much money, we tell ourselves, then I can create a personal bubble through savings, location, and class so that I won't be affected by our world’s problems.

But neither of these answers is right. God has given each of us a context and a calling, and as we grow in our understanding of both, he invites us to act. Not to do everything, but to do something in service to the people and problems around us.

Yeah, I know that will make for a harder life, but if you're someone who considers themselves a Christian, the theme of your life shouldn't be, "What can I do to make myself happy?” but rather, "What can I do to bring God glory?”

So, knowing what you know about yourself and the world, what are you going to do?

five ways to become a better friend

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“Strive to be a good friend, and you will be surrounded by good friends.” — John Wooden

Are friendships an important part of your life? I hope we’d all say yes. But while we know that friendships are crucial to our health and wellbeing, we often don’t consider how we could become better friends. Everybody wants great friends, but we rarely think about how to be a great friend.

As I was reflecting on this recently, I came up with a simple list of five ways to be a better friend. None of these require any talent, skill, or money, but as is the case with most simple things, they can be quite hard. Why? Because they force us to love our friends more than we love ourselves.

This is not an exhaustive list, but hopefully, these five suggestions will help you become a better friend to the people around you!

1. show curiosity about their life:

It’s so easy to make our friendships all about us: our thoughts, our problems, our lives. But a great friend doesn’t primarily use their friends for their own needs, but rather are more interested in the other person than themselves. They ask good questions and are curious about the answers, whether it’s what their friend enjoys about their job, what they’d like to accomplish in the future, or what key moments have shaped their lives. They ask these questions not because they have to, but because they care about the other person and want to get to know them better, even after years of friendship.

Ephesians 2:4 “Each of you should look not only to your own interests but also to the interests of others.”

2. encourage them to be their best:

Encouragement is one of those things that we all benefit from receiving but rarely give it to others. A great friend, though, finds ways to encourage their friends, whether it’s by pointing out something that they do well or giving them hope when they experience a setback. Great friends create an atmosphere filled with positive encouragement and are always looking to give their friends a boost.

Thessalonians 5:11 “Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.”

Ecclesiastes 4:10 “If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.”

3. be available:

In a world where there are a million ways to occupy our time, great friends make time to be available to their close friends. It’s easy in our individualistic culture to only spend time with others when it’s convenient or enjoyable for us. And while this doesn’t mean you have to be available 24/7, great friends prioritize their close friends and create the time to invest in the relationship. They understand that you have to have quantity time before you can have quality time.

Proverbs 17:17 “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity.”

Proverbs 18:24 “One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.”

4. overlook small slights and flaws:

Everybody has quirks, weaknesses, and flaws in their personality, and the more time you spend around someone, the more you’ll get to experience all of their traits. Great friends overlook their friend’s weaknesses and problems as much as possible since they know that they have their unseen weaknesses and flaws. And when they do share something, they do so in a way that encourages and edifies their friend in a supportive way, rather than showing them up or tearing them down.

Proverbs 17:9 “Whoever would foster love covers an offense, but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends.”

5. hold their confidences:

Great friends are more loyal to your privacy than their popularity. As every friendship grows, each side learns sensitive details about the inner workings of the other friend’s life, including the good, the bad, and the ugly. Great friends protect that information and keep it safe, rather than using it to gossip, cut their friends down, or try to impress other people with their insider knowledge.

Proverbs 16:28 “A perverse person stirs up conflict, and a gossip separates close friends.”

conclusion

I wish it were as easy to do these five things as it is to write them down. I’ve made all of these mistakes, but with humility and grace, each of us can grow to become better friends with the people in our lives.

And if this list feels overwhelming, my suggestion is that you pick one of the five to focus on over the next few days. If you try to do all five you won’t do any, so choose one and remind yourself of it before every interaction with other people. While investing in becoming a better friend doesn’t seem like a very high priority to most people, it will pay dividends in every friendship you have for the rest of your life!

how c.s. lewis’ thumbs changed his life

While I was reading through C.S. Lewis’ spiritual memoir Surprised by Joy, he shared an anecdote about his childhood that struck me. As a young boy, Clive (as he was known then) had inherited a developmental defect from his dad: his thumb only had one joint, not two, like most of us.

This development difference wasn’t severe, but it did affect his life. He writes:

What drove me to write was the extreme manual clumsiness from which I have always suffered. I attribute it to a physical defect which my brother and I inherit from our father; we have only one joint in the thumb. The upper joint (that furthest from the nail) is visible, but it is a mere sham; we cannot bend it.

Because of this physical defect, he was terrible at most of the physical activities and games that his peers participated in. He said:

Nature laid on me from birth an utter incapacity to make anything. …I can still tie as good a bow as ever lay on a man’s collar, but with a tool or a bat or a gun, a sleeve link or a corkscrew, I have always been unteachable. I longed to make things, ships, houses, engines. Many sheets of cardboard and pairs of scissors I spoiled, only to turn from my hopeless failures in tears.

But while this physical defect seemed like a costly sacrifice to his social standing when he was young, it changed the trajectory of his entire life.

Because Lewis couldn’t do any of the physical things that other boys his age did, he would spend his free time up in his family’s attic, living in his imagination. During these hours alone, he dreamed up an imaginary world he called Animal-Land, full of little animals dressed like humans, going on adventures in a medieval world.

Because holding a pencil was one of the few things that Lewis could do, he spent his childhood writing and illustrating stories about “chivalrous mice and rabbits who rode out in complete mail to kill not giants but cats.” Without this physical defect, Lewis concludes, he would never have been interested in writing stories about imaginary worlds.

As I read that, I couldn’t help but marvel at how God created us each with such care, wisdom, and attention to detail. It seems likely that if Lewis hadn’t been born with this thumb problem, he never would have written The Chronicles of Narnia, one of the most popular children’s series of all time.

Why do I share this? Because it’s so easy for all of us to focus on what’s wrong with us, rather than using the gifts, strengths, and opportunities that we do have.

It’s so easy for me to grumble at God, questioning why I don’t have some ability or talent or strength that someone else has, instead of recognizing that I’ve been given everything that I need to fulfill my calling in this life. It’s easy to wonder:

• God, why can’t I do this?

• God, why didn’t this happen?

• God, why am I not good at that?

• God, why do I have this weakness?

• God, why did you make me this way?

But I want to encourage you to quit thinking about all of the things that are wrong with you and instead ask yourself, “What’s right with me?” Rather than questioning God for not making you like that person over there, spend some time asking yourself, “How has the way God made me uniquely equipped me to serve him?”

What a loss it would have been for all of us if Lewis had spent his childhood pouting about his thumbs, instead of running with the imagination and gifts that he did have.

Here’s my question for you: have you accepted your limitations? We all have them, places where we think God messed up. But it’s only when we let go of our anger and disappointment over our limitations that we are free to start using the gifts and abilities that we do have.

I hope that we’ll all become a little bit more like Lewis, who didn’t spend his life grumbling over his limitations but instead used the gifts that God did give to him to point others to Him in such incredible ways.

how do you stand firm during the storms of life?

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I see lots of people saying that 2020 was the worst year imaginable. For some people, it definitely was. For many of us, though, it wasn't really that bad, at least not objectively speaking.

It was inconvenient and uncomfortable and hard at times, but I doubt any of us went a day without food, ever slept on the ground, lacked suitable clothes, fought in a war, or any of a hundred other terrible things that billions and billions of other people throughout the history of the world have experienced. 

But at the same time, I have to admit, there were moments in 2020 that really shook me. That rattled me. That made me despair. Moments of panic and loneliness and anxiousness, when things felt increasingly bleak and dark. Losing my cleaning business, being forced out of the van without knowing where I was going to live, and spending most of April alone were all really hard. 

As I've sought to reconcile these two contrasting thoughts (my experiences admittedly may be very different than yours), I've tried to figure out what happened. Why did I struggle so much at times?

This has caused me to reflect on Jesus' teaching about the two houses in Matthew 7. When the sun was shining both houses looked strong, but then when the storms of life came, the house built on the sand collapsed, while the house built on the rock held strong. 

This year has forced me to ask the hard question, "What am I REALLY building my life on?" It's easy to say “My faith in Jesus” when the sun's shining and the skies are clear, but then when a storm came and the walls of my life began to shake, it seemed that there was more sand mixed into my foundation than I'd been willing to admit. 

Now I can see that I'd been building much of my life on my self-sufficiency, relatively easy life circumstances, and the belief that I'd be able to handle whatever came my way. But that's the beauty of grace: it allows us to admit when things in our life need to change and run to a God who wants to help us grow.

My hope for the coming year is that we would each learn to more completely surrender our lives to Christ and rest on the only foundation that will hold firm, no matter how strong the storms of life may get. 

how to answer the “what if?” questions of life

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One of the hardest parts of being young is not knowing how life will turn out. I see so many young people struggle with the "what if" questions of life:

• What if I never get married?

• What if I'm never successful?

• What if I never have kids?

• What if I never make enough money to retire?

Questions like these feed off the uncertainty of being young, creating all kinds of fear and anxiety around the future. The problem, though, is that most of them will take years and decades to answer. 

So, rather than struggling with fear and anxiety for the rest of your life, here's my suggestion: Go ahead and assume that you won't get the thing you're anxious about (marriage, kids, dream job, etc). Then, figure out how you could live a great life even in that situation. For example...

• If I never get married, then I'll move to a dangerous neighborhood and spend my life investing in the community. Or I'll create a home for special needs people and work to help them thrive. 

• If I never make it as a writer, then I'll become a high school history teacher and invest in young men by coaching basketball. Or I'll start another service business to employ people who need help rebuilding their lives.  

• If I never have kids, then I'll create an after-school reading program at an under-performing school. Or I'll start a ministry with college guys to help them build maturity and wisdom. 

• If I don't have enough money to retire in the US, then I'll move to Uganda and help disciple local pastors. Or I'll buy a small plot of wilderness in the PNW and build an off-grid cabin. 

I know I'm a little crazy, but all of these potential "failed" lives sound awesome to me! I’m not trying to avoid marriage, success, or wealth, but working through both sides of “what if” questions gives me a lot of peace: I can live a meaningful life regardless of how my life ends up.

If you're struggling with the uncertainties of life right now, you've got to let go of trying to force your plan for a "successful" life onto God, and instead, offer up every part of your life to Him as a living sacrifice. Peace and contentment aren’t found through getting everything you've ever dreamed of, but rather by walking with God and trusting His plan.

which mindset is driving your life?

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Do you ever wonder what drives your life and causes you to make the decisions that you do? We often think that the choices we make around how to spend our time, talents, and money are all one-off decisions. In reality, though, they all spring out of whatever mindset we take towards life.

Mindset? If you’ve never considered your mindset before, I hope you keep reading! A mindset is:

An underlying frame that you use to view life and make sense of the world around us.

It’s like a pair of contact lenses: they shape how you see everything around you, even though you’ve forgotten that you’re wearing them.

The mindset we use to frame our lives is crucial and impacts every decision that we make. That’s why I want to help you understand the two dominant mindsets in our culture and show how they impact your life.

the first mindset: living for the present

The first dominant mindset that exists in our culture is: to live for the present. If you have this mindset, everything you do revolves around whether and how it will help you in the present.

You can tell when someone is framing their life through living for the present because their primary value becomes the pursuit of pleasure. They are always asking themselves:

How can I use my time, talents, and money to experience the most pleasure right now?

Most young adults start their lives with this “live for the moment” mindset. They gear their lives around living in the present and enjoying life as much as possible. Sure, they might do things they don’t enjoy, like going to work or exercising, but only because it will help them get the things that allow them to maximize pleasure.

When you’re living for the present, you’ll follow your passions and use your resources to pursue what feels good right now, often binging on whatever gives you the most pleasure. You’ll spend your life on:

• Scrolling your phones and enjoying the high of getting likes.

• Watching TV for hours and hours on end.

• Using your money to eat out, buy new things, and feel the high of consumption.

• Drinking, partying, and casual sexual encounters, searching for a bigger buzz.

• Traveling as much as your money and vacation days will allow.

This present-oriented mindset rules youth culture today. And while you may not push this mindset to its extremes like some of your peers, we can all think of the many times we’ve lived to maximize our pleasure in the current moment.

As young people start to get older, though, and begin to feel the destructive side effects, like debt, unhealthiness, and exhaustion, they begin to see some problems with their all-out pursuit of pleasure. And so they age out of their present-oriented thinking and become captivated by a new mindset.

the second mindset: living for the future

The second mindset that can drive your life is: living for the future. If you have this mindset, you’ll always be thinking about how your current actions impact your future.

You can tell when someone is driven by a future-oriented mindset because their primary value is no longer pleasure, but rather the pursuit of discipline. They are always asking themselves:

How can I be more disciplined with my time, talents, and money to be better prepared for my future?

This future-oriented mindset encourages you to use discipline to delay gratification now so that you can ensure a safe and stable future for yourself. Most people adopt this mindset somewhere between their late 20s and mid-30s (usually when they get married), as they get tired of pleasure and start thinking about things like retirement and old age.

When you’re living for the future, you’re always trying to figure out ways to become more and more disciplined so that your future life is more stable, secure, and comfortable. And so you’ll spend a lot of time thinking about how to be more secure in your:

• Eating, so that you are only eating the best and healthiest foods.

• Exercising, so that you are staying in great shape.

• Work, so that you can make as much progress in your career as possible.

• Spending, so that you can cut back on silly purchases and save more.

• Investing, so that you can become as wealthy as possible for when you retire.

Discipline and delayed gratification become the themes of future-oriented lives, and they are always checking to make sure that they have adequately planned and prepared for the future. Retirement becomes the key concern for future-oriented people, and they are always trying to figure out if they are on track (read: disciplined enough) to hit their financial and lifestyle goals.

Many people live the rest of their lives in this future-oriented mindset, using their abilities to be disciplined to provide them with a comfortable and secure life. Future-oriented people aren’t against pleasure per se, but only if it comes after they max out their 401k.

At first glance, there are a lot of great things about the discipline of a future-oriented mindset. The problem, though, is when we allow the future-oriented mindset to frame our lives, we will become people who only care about our future selves: if it doesn’t help me and my future then I am not going to do anything to help out. It only accelerates the radical individualization that’s growing in our communities and culture.

On top of this, the future-oriented mindset won’t work anyway. Why? Because eventually every person’s future will be affected by uncertainty, loss, sickness, and ultimately death. No matter how much you save up or how healthy you are, you can’t escape the limits of humanity.

so what’s wrong here?

I hope you can see by now how neither of the two most popular mindsets in our culture will satisfy you. Your search for pleasure in the present or security for the future won’t ever fulfill what you’re looking for in life.

The answer, then, is not to double down and work harder at one of the first two mindsets, like most people, but rather to adopt a completely different mindset.

the third mindset: living for eternity

The mindset that the human heart is ultimately hungry for is: to live for eternity. If you’re following Jesus, this is the mindset that God calls you to have; not to live for the present or the future, but to instead form your life around what is best for eternity.

When you start to live for eternity, the chief motivation in your life will no longer be the pursuit of pleasure or discipline, but rather the pursuit of service. An eternal mindset will cause you to follow a radically different path in life, as the pursuit of pleasure or security fades away and you begin to think about how you can use your life to serve those around you for eternal good.

If you are living out of the eternity mindset, your key question now will become:

How can I use my time, gifts, and money to serve my neighbors, glorify God, and prepare myself for eternity?

No verse makes this point more clear than Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount:

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Jesus is asking his followers: which mindset are you living out of? Are you trying to store up treasures on earth, whether through pleasurable experiences or abundant possessions or are you living to store up treasure in heaven? Pleasure will fade, possession will fall apart, and riches will go away, but treasure laid up in heaven will never be lost.

The Apostle Peter builds off of this theme in his first epistle, showing how a life lived for eternity both glorifies God in the present and bears eternal fruit:

Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day that he visits us.

Peter makes it clear: when you forgo living for yourself the people around you, your friends, family, and coworkers, will think you are strange.

• The pleasure-seekers won’t understand why you do things that don’t look fun, like spending time serving others or becoming friends with difficult people who won’t help your social status.

• The security-seekers won’t understand why you do things that make your future less secure, like giving your money away, moving to a struggling neighborhood, or taking a job because God called you to it and not because it pays well.

Remember, though, that you’re called not to follow the world, but Jesus. When Jesus came to earth and died on the cross he wasn’t asking himself, “What would be most pleasurable right now?” or “How will this help me get ready for a comfortable retirement?” Instead, when Jesus gave himself up so that we could be saved, his chief concern was: How do I serve these people so that they’ll be in eternity with me?

so which one are you?

As you consider these thoughts on mindset, I hope you’ll take some time to reflect on the mindset you’re using to approach life. Remember, like Peter mentioned, one day Jesus will come back to earth to judge and reward us based on what we’ve spent our lives working on.

None of us will ever get it perfect in this life, but we can rebel against the dominant mindsets of our culture as we seek to serve Jesus and follow him. After all, what good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?

four ways that you try to play God

Are you trying to play God in your life? If you’re used to giving the ‘right answer,’ you’ll probably say no. But playing God doesn’t mean you’re outwardly rebellious or immoral; it’s often much harder to see than that.

Playing God means slowly usurping his authority and role in your life, until you’re his de facto representative on earth. You begin to believe you have his characteristics, so you feel comfortable taking on his responsibilities. You slowly push God out, until you’ve taken his place, acting and ruling on his behalf. 

Here’s the tricky part: you are often most in danger of playing God when you’re serving, obeying, and worshiping him. Why? Because the closer you get to God, the greater the temptation will be to think that you’ve been anointed his spokesperson.

While few people ever set out to play God, it happens so much, usually in one or more of these four ways:

1. you act like you’re completely independent.

Ever since the Garden of Eden, we’ve all wanted to be self-sufficient. For many people, dependency is a bad word, and we often equate maturity with independence. Our culture’s taught us the lie that complete independence is the greatest sign of strength, so you go through your life trying to keep it all together yourself, never showing any weakness or need for anyone else. 

This creates a problem, though: God’s the only independent thing in the universe. The rest of us are created, made to be dependent first on him, and also on others. You were created to need God and other people, and when you act like you’re completely independent, never needing any help or emotional support from others, you’re trying to be like God. 

What this looks like: 

• You love listening to other people’s problems and helping them, but rarely share your problems or ask for help.

• You suppress or deny having needs, limits, or weaknesses to avoid the time and messiness that relationships require.

• You work hard to give off the appearance that you’re completely put together and never experience temptation or struggles in life. 

• When other people share their struggles or make mistakes, you inwardly look down on them, wondering why they can’t be more like you: disciplined, self-controlled, and able to handle life by yourself. 

• When you’re overwhelmed, you try to solve the situation by working longer and harder, and rarely by asking for help. 

What to do instead: grow in your dependence on God and others. 

Continually remind yourself: you were created to be dependent on God and others, specifically the Body of Christ. You’ll never outgrow the need for friendship, encouragement, and emotional support. Trying to appear completely independent doesn’t change this, it just cuts you off from the life-giving resources of relationships, both with God and other people. 

2. you act like you’re in control

In an uncertain world, you play God by trying to act like you’re in control of everything, both in your life and others. While you give intellectual assent to God’s control over all things, in reality, since he doesn’t seem to be working either fast enough or according to your plans, you take it upon yourself to make things happen. 

When you’re playing God in this way, you think it’s your responsibility to both control every situation in your life, as well as fix anyone you come in contact with, under the guise of “serving God.” But you’re not all-powerful, and to act like you are is to try to take on God’s role in the world. 

What this looks like:

• You think it’s your responsibility to fix everything, whether it’s a person or situation, so you can ensure that there’s never any uncertainty in your life. 

• You try to control what other people think and do since you know what’s best for them. 

• You only participate or support something when you get to be in control of it. 

• You quickly grow frustrated when life doesn’t go according to your plan.

• You grow deeply unsettled when your structure is threatened and any amount of “chaos” occurs.

• When you feel like you’ve lost control, you use either aggressive techniques (arguing, bulldozing, scoffing, threatening) or passive techniques (complaining, withholding, nagging, freezing out) to try to regain a sense of control over others.

• You don’t have time to pray about hard situations since that’ll take away time from you solving the problem.

What to do instead:

You have to trust that God’s in control and is working in all things. This doesn’t mean you become passive and indifferent to the challenges of life, but rather that you trust that God’s working in other people, too. When you believe this, you can stop trying to control everything, and instead focus on connecting with others and pointing them to Jesus. Remember, it’s God’s will, and not yours, that’s perfect. 

3. you act like you’ve created the rules

When you try to play God this way, you think you’re all-knowing and always know what’s best. This causes you to drift away from God’s rules for life and institute your own. Soon, you’re making up rules that aren’t even in the Bible, or over or under-applying the ones that are there, while expecting everyone around you to obey you. 

The problem with this approach is the same one from the Garden of Eden: “Did God really say?” You think you know better than God, so you create your own personal 10 Commandments, over-emphasizing the rules you find easy to obey, and under-emphasizing any rules you struggle with. 

What this looks like: 

• You know God’s rules, but if they inconvenience you then you ignore them, yet you expect to flourish anyways. 

• You have a few faults, but overall think you’re pretty close to perfect since you excel in keeping the rules you think are important. 

• You are always on the lookout for people who are breaking rules, whether it’s at the office, church, or society in general. 

• No matter what sphere of life you’re in, you believe you’re the expert, and that people should follow what you say. 

• You disguise your rules as unspoken expectations. ”If they were actually a good friend, they would know not to…”

• You’re grow obsessed with your pet rules, and take a small thing and make it the most important thing, both for you and others. 

What to do instead:

Instead of thinking that you get to decide what the rules are for life, remember that God has already written the rules, and your job isn’t to change them or enforce them, but rather to follow them. Trusting God’s rules as best isn’t easy, but it’s a crucial part of thriving in life. 

4. you act like you’re the judge

When you play God in this way, you place yourself above another person, evaluate them, and then condemn where they don’t measure up to your expectations. You’ve rewritten God’s rules to what suits you, and then decide who is good and who is bad, at least according to you. You no longer are equals to your peers, but rather their superior, put on earth to judge them and tell them when they’re wrong. 

The problem with acting like you’re the judge is that you don’t have all of the information, and you are partial to yourself. While everyone thinks they’re unbiased, everybody is, and thus becomes an unjust judge in some way. 

What this looks like:

• You have strong feelings about who you think is good and who is bad, whether in the church or society.

• You punish people, whether passively or actively, for ways you feel they’ve broken the rules. 

• People rarely open up and share with you because they’re afraid of what you’ll say. 

• Since you know best and are pretty close to perfect, you view yourself as God’s representative, in charge of letting people know what they’re doing wrong. 

• You never share your sins or faults, since that would cause you to lose the moral high ground you need to judge others. 

• You always know what’s best, and are quick to condemn other people, even if you never say it out loud. 

what to do instead:

Remind yourself that God is the only completely just judge. While there will be times you need to confront someone who is breaking God’s rules, do it graciously, remembering that you fall short of God’s rules as well, but are forgiven through the grace of Christ. 

conclusion:

I’ll admit, I see so many of these four ways of playing God in my life. Fighting these tendencies will be a lifelong battle for each of us, as we are renewed by the Holy Spirit and made to be more and more like Christ.

the two things that make a life truly successful

The need to be successful drives our culture. Nobody ever openly says that, but this invisible pressure causes us all to work longer, push harder, and worry about our greatest fear: am I going to be successful in my life?

But what does it even mean to be successful? There isn’t anything wrong with being successful, but we should be careful with how we’re defining success because this definition will drive so much of our lives.

so what is success?

Success is an intentionally vague word: it can mean any type of achievement. Unfortunately though, for most of us in our culture, success becomes an inherently comparative term as we evaluate our achievements against our friends and peers’.

We compare ourselves to others in four main achievement categories:

1. Do I have more money, nicer possessions, and more interesting experiences than my peers?

2. Do I have more power, recognition, and status than my peers?

3. Am I welcomed into the most popular circles available to me, both in marriage and friendship?

4. Am I setting up my children or potential children to be better than their peers at all three of these previous things?

There are many more things we pine after, but these four capture most of the unspoken definition of what a “successful” life is in our culture.

what’s the problem with this?

The problem with our culture’s comparative definitions of success is that it makes success relative, which causes you to constantly compare yourself to others. This creates radically insecure people who are always dissatisfied with their lives, regardless of their accomplishments, because there’s always someone out there ahead of them.

I live in New York City, the capital of young people who have made it professionally, financially, and socially. So you’d think they’d be incredibly happy, content, and satisfied with their lives, right? But they’re not, at least whenever there isn’t a camera around, and so many are filled with emptiness and discontentment that they don’t know how to solve.

redefine your view of success

If you want to live a successful life, then you need to redefine your view of success. Chasing after more, more, more of what our culture calls success will never satisfy you but only leave you eventually feeling empty and disappointed.

But as I’ve watched lots of people around me, both in small towns and big cities, as well as reading countless biographies of both “successful” and ordinary people, I’ve realized that truly successful lives aren’t built around getting more money, status, or insider recognition, but instead two very simple things that anyone can do.

Here are the two things that people who live a truly successful life do:

1. Build and invest in meaningful relationships.

2. Develop and use your gifts to help others in important ways.

That’s it. There’s no need to launch a million-dollar start-up, get 100,000 followers, or raise three kids who are all quarterback/prom queen/valedictorian types. If you want to live a successful life focus on doing these two things to the best of your ability.

Why do I have to point this out? Because chasing our culture’s view of success will crowd out your ability to do these two much more important things!

• People don’t have time for meaningful relationships because they’re too busy advancing their career and trying to “win” in life.

• And so many ignore their natural giftings and interests to pursue work that has higher pay or is more prestigious.

You can make all of the money in the world and be the most popular person around, but if you aren’t doing these two things, you won’t be happy. At the same time, if you’re doing these two things, you can be barely scraping by financially and be on the edges and have a great life.

who lived the most successful life ever?

If you’re like me, you feel some amount of pressure to be successful according to the standards of the world. But I hope you take a moment to think about what goals you’re orienting your life around and what you’re spending your time pursuing.

If we look at Jesus’ life, He didn’t get any of what our world calls success, yet He lived the most successful life ever, spending His life building meaningful relationships with God and His followers while using His gifts to obey God’s purpose for His life.

I believe these two principles of a successful life work, not because they’re popular or trendy, but because they’re how God has created us: to pursue meaningful relationships with Him and others and to use our gifts to serve others and glorify Him.

So, when you’re trying to figure out how to use your money, spend your free time, or which job to pursue, run your decisions by these two simple rules of success, and not through our culture’s definition if you want to live a truly successful life.

take a moment to reflect:

• Where do I see parts of my life built around possessing these four comparative markers of success?

• Where do I need to re-orient my life so that I’m spending my time investing in meaningful relationships and using my gifts to help people?

how do you fight self-obsession?

At the root of our self-obsession is a belief in our self-importance. We all naturally want the universe to revolve around us, so we spend our lives trying to get other people to value us and make us feel important. Whether it’s through our work, our clothes, our personality, our use of money, or our Instagram profile, we often use the particulars of our lives to show others that we’re important.

Deep down, most of our problems, complaints, and frustrations with life stem from when other people don't recognize our self-importance. We believe the universe should exist for our pleasure, comfort, and happiness, so when it doesn't, we get angry, grouchy, and frustrated: who are you (boss, ex, friend, random stranger) to not recognize that I’m a very important person?

Because of this, you’ll never solve your self-obsession if you don’t first address your hunger for self-importance. Unfortunately, if you try to fill this hole for importance through human means, you might feel better for a moment, but the emptiness will always come back.

The only lasting foundation for self-importance is the Gospel. You have to build your life on and find your value in the fact that:

• You are important because you were personally created by God in His image. You are His masterpiece.

• You are important because even though you've rejected God, He considered a relationship with you so important that He sent His Son to die on the cross so that He could spend eternity with you. 

When you fill your desire for importance through these two things, your life will no longer have to be a constant struggle to get other people to think you're important. Because let's be honest, most of our behavior as humans is an attempt to get other people as obsessed about us as we are about ourselves. That's why we fantasize about things like fame, power, achievement, power, sexual love, or pleasure.

But when I am filled up by the importance that Jesus gives me, and see His example of sacrificing His importance for the good of others, it allows me to do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than myself. 

I try to use this little phrase as a constant reminder to help squelch my self-obsession. Whenever I think of it, I ask myself, “How can I consider others better than myself here?”:

• Before a date: how can I act so that this person has a great time, rather than using them to make me feel good about myself?

• Before your commute: how can I help other people get to where they're going, rather than seeing them as obstacles to where I want to go. 

• Before a work meeting: how can I encourage, uplift, and strengthen the other members of the people in this meeting, rather than trying to get my way or making myself look as good as possible?

• Before you hang out with friends: how can I put my friends in a position so that they can shine, rather than using them so that I shine? 

Fighting self-obsession isn't easy, and it won't come naturally, but as we put off our sinful desires for self-importance and put on Christ, He promises to work in us so that we become more and more like Him: focused on loving and serving others to glorify our Father in Heaven.

what makes Jesus so unique?

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There’s no shortage of self-help and improvement systems that people are trying to follow today. Get on Instagram and you’ll be bombarded by all kinds of ideas and beliefs about how to turn your life around and get to where you want to go, whether you’re trying to be successful, skinny, or at peace with your past.

Our culture looks at Jesus and Christianity through this same framework: He’s just another inspiring teacher try to help you cope with the questions and stresses of life as you try to be a better person.

But that’s not who Jesus was at all! Jesus was completely different from every other religious founder, philosophical thinker, or Instagram influencer who has ever lived. How?

Because Jesus didn’t just point the way to God, He BECAME the way to God.

Every other movement leader in the history of the world, whether religious or secular, tells you what the good life is, but the onus for getting there is on you!

• Muhammad taught his followers that they need to follow the five pillars of Islam to be admitted into paradise.

• The Buddha taught his followers that they need to follow the four noble truths to become at one with themselves and reach true enlightenment.

• Karl Marx taught his followers that they needed to overthrow the bourgeoisie to create an earthly utopia.

• Every fitness guru teaches their followers that need to follow a strict exercise and nutrition regimen so that they can try to live forever.

• Every Instagram spiritualist teaches their followers to love themselves, meditate daily, and pursue their truth to reach a state of inner peace.

Every teacher in the history of the world has tried to show their followers how to reach eternal life, but Jesus is the only person who became the way to eternal life. He didn’t just give you a new set of commands or a lifestyle system to work harder at, but rather did what we could never do.

That’s what makes Jesus so unique: He didn’t come to earth primarily to be an example to us, but rather a substitute for us!

Jesus didn’t come to earth just as a teacher so that you could know how to get to God, but rather He came as a savior so that you could be with God. With every other religion or movement, the burden is on you. You have to:

• Figure out which way among all of the options is your best bet to perfection.

• Muster up the self-will to work hard and hold yourself accountable.

• Constantly observe and obsess over how you’re performing.

• Maintain perseverance to keep going even when you are constantly falling short of your standards.

But that’s what’s so different about Christianity: your acceptability doesn’t come through your ability to follow a system, but rather because Jesus lived the perfect life you and I couldn’t. Jesus is the only one who comes to you and says: you can’t ever do enough, so I had to do it for you.

He’s the only spiritual teacher who’s ever lived who took the burden on Himself. That’s why He can tell His followers to “Trust in me and rest,” while every other inspirational teacher says “Learn from me but get to work!”

It’s great to grow and get better, but don’t ever forget that Jesus and Christianity isn’t just another way for you to work to prove that you’re good enough for God, but rather the story of how Jesus the savior you need to get to God.

I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

the word that changed everything

We’re often so familiar with Jesus’ words that we miss the moments that made His life such a turning point in the world. Most people, even those who never go to church, are so familiar with the Lord’s Prayer that we fly by one of Jesus’ most profound teachings: When you pray to God, Jesus told His followers, start by addressing Him as Father!

When we hear that we shrug our shoulders and say ok. But to Jesus’ audience, this would have been a radical statement. They would have looked at each other with shock:

Father? He wants us to call God our Father? We aren’t even supposed to mention His name out of fear of taking it in vain, and now we’re supposed to approach God by calling Him dad?

Keep in mind, that one of the main reasons the Pharisees wanted to kill Jesus was because He referred to God as His Father, and now He was teaching His followers to do the same thing!

Jesus’ ground-breaking claim

While the idea of God being a Father has become cliche through centuries of repetition, to Jesus’ audience it would have been unheard of. One theologian puts it this way:

Referring to God as Father is the bravest, most dazzling word Jesus could have put upon human lips. We have become so accustomed to it that we are not aware of the tremendous impact it must have had upon Jesus’ original hearers.

Jesus could have told us to address God as creator or king or even Lord. But instead, He chose father. And through this one word Jesus completely redefined the relationship between humanity and God. But how?

what was Jesus trying to do?

Throughout every era of history, human beings have always seen the universe and any god as impersonal. Whether it’s:

• A Muslim trying to please a distant Allah

• A secular person trusting in materialism (only matter exists) and Rationalism (science can explain everything).

• Or, an Instagram influencer talking about the universe,

Every god or god-like system that humans create is always cold, distant, and indifferent towards us. People might try to force personality onto an impersonal thing (saying like “the universe always has a plan” etc.), but that’s just wishful thinking.

So when Jesus tells you to address God as your Father, He’s challenging every religion, philosophy, and worldview in human history with three unheard of claims:

1. That you can know God: When Jesus tells you to call God Father, He’s proclaiming that you can have a personal relationship with God! You can personally know the God of the universe! Take a moment and reflect on that!

2. That God cares about you: Having God as your father means that He doesn’t just put up with you, He loves you and cares for you! Your relationship with Him is one of love, warmth, and tenderness. God doesn’t use you like a servant or boss you around like an employee, but rather is always working in your life out of love.

3. That you have divine value: Because you can be God’s child, it shows your incredible worth as a human being; you’re worthy of being invited into the intimacy of the family of God! You aren’t some cosmic accident or a random collection of cells, you’re created in God’s image and of infinite value to Him.

Every human being wants these claims to be true, but only Christianity has the theological foundation to say these things are possible. While to our modern ears they seem unimpressive, in the scope of human thought they are each radical ideas.

so who gets to call God Father?

Some people don’t like the idea of God being a father, but that’s because they project their definition of a father onto God, rather than letting Him define Himself. In the parable of the prodigal son, we see Jesus show what God’s like as a father. He:

• Sees us in our rebellion and has compassion on us.

• Runs to us and lavishes His love on us.

• Celebrates our return and welcomes us back into His family.

When Jesus tells us to call God our Father, these are the characteristics He’s trying to get across to us. It’s when we start to grasp that this is how the God of the universe feels towards us that we can understand what made John so wowed by this truth: Behold, what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!

Is this how you see God? As a warm, caring, and personal Father? Kind, compassionate, and forgiving towards you, even at your worst?

I hope you take a few minutes to think about what this incredible word means for your life: that the God of the universe has adopted you into His family and is lavishing His love on you!

which way are you approaching God?

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Last week, we looked at how Jesus’ teaching us to call God our Father was revolutionary. That leads us to the next question, though: how are you approaching God?

In general, you can either approach God like you’re in a business relationship with Him (God is my boss) or a family relationship (God is my Father). While these two sound somewhat similar, they lead to entirely different kinds of relationships.

when God is your boss

When you approach God like a boss, you’ll come to Him:

• Based on your performance: You’ll like me because I’m great at my job!

• In a transactional mindset: I did what you asked, so what’s in it for me?

• Obeying out of duty: I didn’t want to show up for work today but I had to.

• Anxious and insecure when you’re together: I hate spending time in his office…I’m always worried I’m going to slip up and he’ll find out what I did.

• Competing with others: He should like me more than everyone else…I do so much more for Him!

• Either feeling angry: I’ve done so much…I deserve more money and a promotion!

• Or guilty: I’ve messed up so often I know I’m going to get fired this time!

We’ve all had these experiences and thoughts with our human bosses, but we take the same attitude towards God, all because we’re trying to approach Him based on our merit: I perform for you, so you need to give me the good life I deserve!

when God is your father

But when you’re adopted into God’s family and see Him as your Father, the relationship is different from a boss/employee. Instead, you’ll come to Him:

• Based on Jesus’ performance: I’m good at obeying you, but I know the reason I’m accepted is that you see me through Jesus’ performance and not my own.

• Focused on His grace: I’m here because of your love for me, not because I deserve it.

• In a relational mindset: I’ve made lots of mistakes but I know that my Father will never get rid of me.

• Safe and secure when you’re together: I like spending time with my Father, because even if something comes up, I know He’s just trying to help me grow.

• Obeying out of love: I’m so thankful God has adopted me into His family that I want to give my life to Him in gratitude!

• Feeling both grateful: I can’t believe the God of the universe chose me to be a part of His family!

• And hopeful: Life isn’t perfect at the moment, but if God has done this much for me already, I trust what He’s going to do in the future.

I hope you see how much of a difference there is between these two approaches toward God. We all naturally want to approach God as a boss, since it allows us to control Him through our performance.

Grace is a hard pill to swallow, but it’s so necessary if you want to ever experience real peace and intimacy with your Heavenly Father.

In love He predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. — Ephesians 1:5-6

If you’d like to think more about this topic, I’ve always found this chart so thought-provoking and helpful. It uses slightly different categories but it’s really good!

why i don’t have bad days

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I don’t allow myself to have bad days, and I don’t think you should, either. I can have hard, sad, difficult, or discouraging days, but not bad days. And it’s not because I live a charmed life, never have any problems, or am naively optimistic.

I don’t believe in bad days because I don’t know enough of my story yet to say what’s bad or good. Looking back at my life, I see so many times where God used what I thought were my worst days to work for my good and save me from myself.

I’m so thankful that:

• All those girls broke up with me, otherwise, I’d be in marriages that’d be a terrible fit for me.

• I struggled at several jobs and had tough meetings with my bosses, otherwise I would have never admitted I was on the wrong career trajectory for my gifts.

• Those hard conversations happened with friends and roommates, otherwise, I’d still be blind to and stuck in my flaws and brokenness.

• I had frustrating and boring days where I made no progress because it showed me I was finding my identity in things other than Christ.

I’m not saying I sit around hoping for hard days, but when they happen, I try to remind myself of Tim Keller’s paraphrase of Romans 8:28: “God will only give you what you would have asked for if you knew everything he knows.”

Hard days aren’t bad days, but rather opportunities for you to trust that God is working for your good even when it doesn’t look like it. I know this sounds crazy, but it’s so crucial to growing in your faith.

Jonathan Edwards said it best: That through Christ, “Our bad things turn out for good, our good things can never be lost, and the best is yet to come.”

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what actually is faith?

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When I was a younger Christian, I misunderstood what faith was. I thought faith was a FEELING, which meant the main evidence of faith was PASSION. And so I was always trying to feel more passion towards God, thinking that would prove I was a “strong Christian.”

But as I got older, I realized that faith isn't a feeling, it's actually a DECISION TO TRUST God. A Christian isn't saved by the strength of their faith, but rather by the object of it: Jesus. That means the evidence of faith in your life shouldn't be measured by passion, but SURRENDER.

That's why Abraham is called a man of great faith. When God asked him to leave his homeland, Abraham didn't analyze his feelings to figure out how much passion he felt about the idea. Instead, he packed up his stuff and started to walk, because he had completely surrendered his life to God.

So if you want to become a person of great faith, don't spend your life fixated with spiritual highs, trying to get all the right feelings towards God. Rather, ask God to help you surrender more and more of your life to Him.

Real faith isn't about how excited you are with where your life's going, but rather deciding to trust God and surrendering your life to Him, regardless of where He's leading you.

from setback to first step

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During the last economic downturn, I'd just graduated from college and couldn't find a job anywhere. So with no other options, I walked into a Culver's (think midwestern fast food) and landed the coveted role of cashier at the whopping wage of $8/hour.

So while my friends from college were getting married, starting real jobs, and moving into nice apartments with all their wedding gifts, I lived with my parents and asked several hundred people a day what they'd like on their cheeseburger. Every night I'd drive home, with my mustard yellow uniform smelling like french fries and meat, wondering where my life was headed.

But while working at Culver's seemed like a major setback at the time, it was actually the first step to where I am today. I saved enough money during my four months working there to move to Pittsburgh and try out seminary. And it was during that first semester that God transformed my life, calling me into ministry, which eventually led to South Sudan, New York City, and to who I am today.

Many of you are going to be tempted to see this summer as wasted time, as a giant setback to your plans, your career, and your life. But I hope instead of wallowing in frustration, you'll use these months to build a step. A successful life doesn't happen through huge jumps, but by faithfully building little steps year after year after year.

Every time I'm home and drive by a Culver's, I'm thankful for that first step. I never could have imagined all of the things God had planned for me over these last 11 years, and I'm so glad I didn't give up before I'd even gotten started. That job wasn't fun or glamorous, but it was the catalyst that got my career started.

I hope you'll look around this summer and see where you can build a step, even if it's just a small one. You're called to walk by faith, not by sight, and to trust that God is going to use your faithfulness in the little things to direct you to better things. I know you’re on your way!

Jesus wants you to focus on one thing

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If you spend time around Jesus one thing is sure: it won’t be long until He challenges your priorities! In Luke 10, two sisters, Mary and Martha, had Jesus and His crew over for dinner. Martha spent the whole visit frantically preparing for the meal, while Mary did nothing but sit at Jesus' feet and hang out with Him. Frustrated, Martha went to Jesus and complained: "Mary isn't doing her share of the work!”

But Jesus responded surprisingly: "Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."

Jesus wanted Martha to see the problem wasn't her sister, but her priorities: she had such grand plans to impress Him and her friends that she forgot she had the Son of God sitting in her living room. Her obsession with meeting her culture's expectations distracted her from what was important: being friends with Jesus.

It's so easy to be like Martha: we spend our lives frantically trying to meet our peers’ expectations for what is cool, trendy, and popular, and never have any time to just sit at Jesus' feet and hang out. We prioritize knowing the latest trends in clothes, restaurants, home decor, music, TV shows, travel, Instagram, or whatever else your subculture is obsessed with, and are always too busy and distracted to invest in what will last: a relationship with Jesus.

So much of our Martha-like busyness is caused by trying to do everything to impress everyone. But Jesus calls you to quit worrying about whether your life meets all your peers’ expectations, and instead asks you to believe in one simple idea, that Jesus + nothing = everything!

how should you use the enneagram?

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“We’re all rough drafts of the people we’re becoming.” — Bob Goff

The Enneagram is everywhere right now, showing up during conversations, at conferences, and in coffee shops. While I enjoy the Enneagram and the insights it reveals about human nature, I have to be careful not to misuse it.

How? By primarily seeing it as a way to study, obsess over, and act out of my type. Deep down, I think many of us love the Enneagram not so much because it helps us grow, but more because it lets us talk about our favorite thing: me!

Most Enneagram resources harness that self-focus and make it their goal for you to become the healthiest version of your type. That's not a bad goal, but I don't think it's the best one. Why? Because if you only respond as your type, it'll limit you socially and relationally, and unknowingly damage the people around you. So often even the healthiest version of your type is an unwise response to a situation.

The Enneagram isn't a divine directive to act a certain way (*shrug* "But I'm a ___, that's just who I am...), but should serve as a personality toolbox, giving you nine ways to approach any situation. I naturally approach life like a 7, but as I've grown, I've learned that knowing you have a strength is not enough; you have to learn when to use it and when to turn it off.

The Enneagram is most useful when you understand that your natural type has limitations, and bounce to a different type and act through those strengths. So, as I go through the events of life I try to ask myself:

What type would be the wisest response here?

Maybe a 2? Or a 6? Or a 9? Then I think about a friend or two who is that type: how could using their personality strengths lead to a better outcome for everyone involved here? That's not being fake, it's being wise.

This may sound crazy to some, but it models who Jesus was. Jesus didn't have an Enneagram type because He embodied all of them. In His perfect wisdom, Jesus always knew how to approach every situation and what type to be. Jesus was:

• The reforming 1, who pushed the Jewish people out of their law-based performance into this crazy thing called grace.

• The helping 2, who extended love, acceptance, and mercy to the outcasts, isolated, and “sinners” in His culture.

• The achieving 3, who persevered through long days of teaching, healing, and caring for hundreds and thousands of people.

• The individualist 4, who used parables, similes, and subtle sarcasm to transform the ordinary moments of life into teachings with soul-searching beauty.

• The investigating 5, who spend so much time in solitude, studying the Scriptures and communing with His Father.

• The loyal 6, who built deep relationships with his disciples, never giving up on them, even when they constantly let Him down.

• The enthusiastic 7, who never turned down a party, and loved meeting and interacting with new people every day.

• The challenging 8, who kept confronting the Pharisee’s legalism and abuses of power until it eventually cost Him His life.

• The peacemaking 9, who befriended people from all over the social, ethnic, and political spectrum, and brought them together in one harmonious group.

Jesus responded to every situation He faced with incredible wisdom and tact. He didn't push His pre-selected strengths onto the people around Him but loved His neighbors so much that He became what they each needed. Jesus was the culmination of all of the Enneagram types, and He used His gifts to glorify God and serve His community.

Here’s the takeaway: the goal of personal growth isn't to become the healthiest version of your Enneagram type, but rather to grow up into the fullness of Christ, knowing how to respond to every situation in life with wisdom and grace.