Have you ever heard the old saying, “what doesn’t kill you just makes you stronger?” I’m not sure if it’s true all the time, but I do believe that we can choose to gain strength from the trials we face, or we can be sidelined by them. It’s up to us how we react. See yourself as a student and not a victim.
Check it this great video to see what I mean. (Thanks, Chris, for the link).
I remember when I was a little boy I had one of those plastic “Big Wheel” toys that I would ride around my house. We didn’t live in a subdivision, so our house sat on a regular city street, but it wasn’t too busy so I would try to ride my Big Wheel on the street while my parents supervised from the back porch. Our street had a gentle hill going up behind our house and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get that Big Wheel to go up that hill. It just wasn’t designed that way. Later on, I got a regular bicycle that had a set of gears that made hill climbing MUCH easier.
So why am I writing about my Big Wheel? Because it has been my experience that changing behavior patterns in our life is about as difficult as it was for me to ride that Big Wheel up the hill behind my house. Sometimes, it seems impossible! But I want to offer you some hope, because I know that change is possible. I see it happen all the time. But I rarely see it happen in someone who tries to do it alone. Here are a few points that will help you “ride up the hill of change.”
I used to teach high school physics. In particular, the study of motion. When you are doing calculations about how fast something will go from point A to point B, you have to factor in friction. It effects everything. When designers build a car, they have to factor in wind resistance. The highways we drive on have to create friction for our cars to move forward or we would be slipping around like we are driving on ice. You know the old law that “what goes up must go down?” That just means you have to always factor in gravity to your calculations. Without it, we would just fly out into space. Friction is everywhere and you just can’t ignore it.
It’s interesting though, how we tend to ignore friction when it comes to the goals we set. You may have a great goal but if you don’t factor in the obstacles that will cause resistance to that goal then you are setting yourself up to fail. For example, if you want to save money by eating out less, that’s a great goal, but have you considered the problems that may arise? Will you pack a lunch? Do you get up early enough to do that? If not, how do you need to adjust your schedule to accomodate the change? And are you willing to do that? You get the idea, I hope.
So here’s the challenge for your personal growth. Learn to set goals, but don’t become discouraged when you encounter friction. Expect to encounter friction and do your best to plan ahead for it. Ask the Lord to show you the challenging areas in your plan and give you wisdom to know how to deal with them. If you will take the time to do this, you will be a lot more likely to accomplish the goals you set out for yourself.
Transformation is a very personal thing. I have to focus on what I believe is God’s agenda for me right now. In my case, that has been in the area of losing weight. I had a significant amount of weight to lose, and although I have not finished the journey, I have now lost a total of 100 pounds. From my perspective, that is life changing!
To celebrate this point in my journey, I am launching a new initiative called Team 100. I am looking for 100 people this year who are motivated to truly change their life. I’m talking about someone who is ready to lay down what they need to lay down and pick up what they need to pick up to achieve their goal and start living life on a whole new level. These people are willing to go from “learning” how to be healthy to “living” healthy lives – spirit, soul, and body.
If you are one of those one hundred people, then I can’t wait to meet you. If you are ready to join up, then go the the Please Login or Register to see the link. page and find out more!
I was reading my Bible today about a little known king named Joram. He is mentioned in 2 Kings 3. The Bible says that he was almost as bad in the eyes of God as his father Ahab except “he at least tore down the sacred pillar of Baal that his father had set up.” Other than that he continued in the sins of his predecessors.
This jumped out at me and then I thought of a quote from motivational speaker Zig Ziglar. He said, “it’s not what you know, it’s what you don’t know you don’t know that’s stopping you.” That may sound a little strange but think about it. Joram took a few steps in the right direction but he didn’t go all the way with it. Why? Was it because he didn’t realize how deep the problem ran? Did he just fix a surface issue thinking that he had taken care of the whole problem? Why did the Bible declare him to be a bad king? It was not because of what he knew….it was because he didn’t know what he didn’t know.
Let me get a little more personal. There are patterns in our lives that we have inherited from our family of origin. I’m talking about things like how we understand our spirituality, how we view food, how we handle money, how we resolve conflict, or how we communicate. Unfortunately, those patterns are often flawed and need to be changed if we are going to experience lasting transformation in our lives. They are patterns that reveal our lack of knowledge about truth in some area. But what if we don’t know they need to be changed?
You may have made some progress in certain areas of your life already – maybe you’ve begun a regular devotional life, or lost a few pounds, or created a budget – but do you know that you have sufficiently dealt with all of those unhealthy patterns? Sometimes when we are in the process of making changes in our lives we run into roadblocks. We get frustrated because we think we have done everything that we could do, and there is a temptation to just give up and go back to old familiar patterns. But it has been my personal experience that it is during those times we need to go deeper. There is something that we haven’t dealt with yet. There is something more we need to learn, some obstacle to overcome with new information that leads to personal growth.
I challenge you today to be honest with yourself and realize there are still some patterns that are so deeply ingrained in you that you “don’t know you don’t know them.” Then begin the process of searching them out. Talk to people who have demonstrated a pattern of success in that area and find out their thought process, read books, take a class, or hire a coach. But, when you decide to go deep, be prepared to be challenged. Sometimes it will even make you mad! Just remember it is part of the process of becoming the person God created you to be. Change is difficult work, but it is worth the effort when you are able to live out your God-given dreams.
Keep moving forward.
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