Every day and every moment, we have choices. We can choose to sleep in, or wake up to workout. We can choose to take control over the way we show up in the world, or we can let other people’s actions and words determine how we behave. We can choose to do what’s in our long-term best interest, or we can choose to enjoy short term gratification. Life is about choices. Even from the beginning of time, God told mankind in Genesis 2, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

Similarly, every moment of our lives is an opportunity for us to choose God’s way that will lead to “life”, or we can make choices that lead to “death”. Life in this sense has to do with fruitfulness and wellness, and death in this sense has to do with deterioration. This is the crossroad that we encounter every day: do my choices support fruitfulness in my life (wellness in every area - from health to spirituality to finances), or do my choices deteriorate the quality of my life.

Trust me, I get it, we all have the tendency to be lulled into a long series of choices that deteriorate our lives: Prayerlessness for weeks. Eating fast food regularly. Careless spending. Accepting toxic behaviors from ourselves or other people. I’ve been there, but I’m compelled to write today because we have another choice. You’re not stuck on the mental or spiritual tarmacs of life. Mankind received permission to takeoff in the beginning when God said “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden…”. While this came with exceptions, the point today is that it comes with options. You have the option to choose the way of life, and not the way of death.

It’s also important for me to tell you that choosing God is about making small choices instead of a single huge, heavy choice. In his book The Compound Effect, Darren Hardy gives this formula: Small, Smart Choice + Consistency + Time = RADICAL DIFFERENCE. In your walk with God, choosing God in moments that seem small consistently is going to change your life!

Choose to follow God’s voice.
Choose to obey God’s word.
Choose to surrender to God’s authority.
Choose to do the uncomfortable thing.
Choose to do the unpopular thing.
Choose to do your best to honor God.
Choose to do the thing that’s best for you.
Choose to get up from the sunken place.
Choose to listen to the Holy Spirit,
Choose to stop killing your self.
Choose to achieve what you were created for.
Choose to do the hard work.

Regardless to the choices that you’ve made before, right now you have an opportunity to make a better choice. This moment can be the moment that changes the direction of your whole life, and it all begins with what you choose.

Choose God.

For the last 3 weeks, and at least the next 3, our entire nation and much of the world has been staying home in an effort to flatten the curve and decrease the pandemic spread of COVID-19. If you’re like me, you’ve napped, binged on Netflix shows, made repeated unnecessary trips to the refrigerator, and done some projects at home that you might not have ever gotten to without this sort of shift in our lives. For most of us, we have time now that we didn’t have before.

Time is the kind of resource that has to be leveraged intentionally if success is going to be achieved. Many of us are working from home (and seemingly busier than otherwise), and we are spending far more time in our homes than we normally would. Taking full advantage of this time includes us giving attention to the areas in our lives that are fragmented.

I want to invite you to consider your own journey of wholeness – where are you and what progress are you making? A busy life can lull us into this sort of automated pattern that ignores the needs that our journey of wholeness requires. Here’s a sobering reality: wholeness is never accidental. If you’re going to be whole spiritually, physically, emotionally, financially, or relationally, it’s going to be because you’re intentional about working towards that wholeness.  

The journey to wholeness is nonlinear. It’s not going to be a perfect experience of constant betterment – but our consistency can help us to be sure that in the highs and lows of life, we’re generally growing by coming off the sidelines of our own wholeness process. Staying whole while staying home demands that we take an honest look at ourselves and become active participants in our own development.

We are all at a crossroad that is requiring us to act our choice – to either waste the time we have or to maximize it. Wasting the time will result in us being in the same positions or a worse after not investing time and energy into what will make us more knowledgeable, healthier, and better prepared for the future. Maximizing the time will take place if we invest energy into what will make us more knowledgeable, healthier, and better prepared for the future.  Staying whole while staying home will happen when we commit to remaining engaged in our personal well-being.

Some people will come out of this stay-at-home season with entrepreneurial ideas, new skills, new knowledge, or just rested minds. While all of those are good, I encourage you to include WHOLENESS in what you pursue during this time. While you’re staying home, resist the urge to waste the time with entertainment, napping, and snacking alone. Be whole.

My prayer for you is Paul’s words to the Thessalonians – “May God himself, the God who makes everything holy and whole, make you holy and whole, put you together - spirit, soul, and body - and keep you fit for the coming of our Master, Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:23 MSG).

Pacifiers are often used to satisfy babies’ natural sucking reflex, and to soothe and calm them. Imagine a baby crying because he or she is hungry, and instead of getting some sort of food, the baby is only offered a pacifier. In that case, the thing that once soothed and calmed the baby is now being put in a position to fulfill a roll that it doesn’t have the capacity to fulfill.  

Just like physical pacifiers for babies, there are some habits, relationships, and behaviors that act as pacifiers in our lives, not being intrinsically bad, but sometimes used to fulfill a purpose that they cannot. Too often, in hopes of gaining the sense of being soothed, or in pursuit of satisfying a natural reflex, we settle for things in life that cannot actually meet our needs.

Even when pacifiers are used with babies, sometimes, the dependency on them becomes problematic when the child is too old to continue using it. Similarly, there are some things that might have been good for us in a previous season in life that we continue to rely on, resulting in us sustaining spiritual, emotional, mental, financial, and physical hungers that go unfilled.

In Luke 9, Jesus depicts a series of individuals who want to follow him, but the third individual Jesus references wants to tell his family goodbye before he follows Jesus, and Jesus says that “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.” 

Jesus’ reply to the man is a warning about life: Jesus feeds. Everything and everyone else simply pacify. 

Jesus says “I am the bread of life” and “I am the living water”. “Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty...” (Luke 6). The filling and satiation that Jesus can give to the soul cannot be substituted. 

Here’s a word of encouragement to you: Don’t substitute fullness for a feeling. A part of maturing in life is being willing to face the reality about something you enjoy; whether it actually satisfies a need, or simply pacifies a preference. 

The journey of personal growth and development is endless. It’s important to stop and reflect on this because it can be easy to settle into a level that is comfortable, not realizing that the expense of settling is to forfeit your potential to be more.

Here’s a good question to ask yourself regularly: Where is growth and development taking place in my life?

Are you spending money more wisely? Are you navigating relationships more successfully? Are you taking better care of yourself? Is your knowledge of a certain subject increasing? Are you closer to God?

These days, I’m working out 5 days a week; faithfully every morning. I’m learning so much about life and myself through consistency and faithfulness. I feel better and I’m reaching my fitness goals, but it’s taking time and commitment. One of my favorite reads has been a book by Darren Hardy called “The Compound Effect”. In it, he talks about how making small, smart choices consistently will set you up to reap huge rewards. If we’re honest, we snooze through so many pivotal choices in life, not realizing that the seemingly small, inconsequential choices can become major factors to our personal development if we would be more conscious about what we do.

What if you actually monitored how much you spend on non-essentials every week?

What if you paid attention to the kinds of food you put in your body?

What if you took 5 minutes every day to consider your goals in life?

What if you didn’t let your busyness get in the way of your purpose?

I’m really writing today to push you not to get too comfortable in life. So often, a measure of success in life becomes a source of complacency. Even with all you may have accomplished, you can get stuck on the level that you’re on if you’re not intentional about investing yourself into yourself.

Isn’t it interesting how we make it a point to invest ourselves into so many other things and people, and don’t invest enough of ourselves into ourselves? Somebody is benefiting from your energy, your intelligence, and your time; Are you? Instead of settling for your current best, why not strive for better in life? Investing time and commitment is yielding results on my fitness journey, and will yield results for you spiritually, financially, and in every way that you seek transformation.

You can achieve a better life by learning new things. You can learn new ways to manage life on the level that you’re on, and that alone will take you to another level. When you stop learning, you stop growing, and when you stop growing, you get stuck. Wherever you are in life, don’t get stuck on this level. Life has an endless road of growth and development that you can have, if you make the investment that is required.

The ending of 2018 brings to mind the potential that 2019 has. While they’re seldom maintained, New Year’s resolutions often reflect our desire to reach our potential, but wishful thinking is not the way to do that.

Faith affirmations alone are not the way to reach potential…

Spending all your time mourning past failures is not the way to reach potential…

You’ll reach your potential when you work towards it with focus and a strong work ethic.

In this social-media crazed culture that we live in, it’s so common to judge one’s successes based on what others publish about themselves, never mind the fact that you don’t know the failures they experienced to reach where they are, or if where they show they are is really where they are. Just like the kids who didn’t study for a pop quiz in grade school and they spent time looking around to see how others answered the questions, far too many of us are so busy looking around at what others are doing that our life’s work is being neglected.

One simple key to accomplishing the goals that are ahead of you is to keep your head down. This means to focus on what you desire to accomplish with a consistency that enables you to grow towards your goal(s) without being distracted.

When encouraging the Colossian church to put off worldliness and put on newness in Christ, Paul exhorted them to “set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth (Col. 3:2).” Not start believing and Abracadabra, you’re like Jesus. No! Paul says that spiritual growth requires intentional concentration.

Just like spiritual growth, all of the areas in your life that you acknowledge need growth will require intentional concentration.

Here’s something to consider as we approach the end of 2018:

How are you doing? Spiritually? Financially? Mentally? Emotionally?

In the areas that you desire to grow, which I hope are all of these and more, keep your head down.

For spiritual growth, concentrate on the things of God in place of spiritually malnourishing things.

For financial growth, create a budget and live by it. Trust God with the tithe. Be a saver, and not just a spender.

For mental growth, read; and not just social media statuses. Read books. Ask for referrals. I suggest kindle books because they can go everywhere with you (there’s an app for that).

For emotional growth, pay attention to yourself and what triggers negative emotions for you. When you identify negative triggers, premeditating responses really helps to re-shape your experiences.

None of us are perfect, and neither are our attention spans, but we will do a great service to ourselves when we intensify our focus by following Paul’s advice to “set your mind…”. May the end of 2018 and beginning of 2019 find you focusing on the goals that are ahead of you!