About two years ago, I completed a personal evaluation exercise in my journal. I wanted to uncover the 3 main factors that keep me from moving forward and embracing new paradigms in my life and leadership. In other words: why do I stay stuck?

From my journal to your computer screen, here’s my short list. I blogged it in 2009, but felt like it may be appropriate to share as we begin this new year…to help somebody go forward in God.

1. Complacency
Change is hard. Positive change is just as hard as negative change. Sometimes it’s easier to stay stuck than to move forward. Often it’s more comfortable to stick with something that’s tolerable and familiar than to embrace something that’s preferable and unknown.

2. Regret
I really don’t know how to explain this, except to say that my regrets often overpower my ambitions, causing me to remain in a state of paralysis. But I’m learning that there’s nothing productive about what I wish I would have done then, unless I use it to inform what I’m doing now.

3. Distraction
It’s hard to tell how many major adjustments I’ve avoided making because I was busy tending to insignificant side items. It’s tempting to divert attention from the big thing that God wants me to change by obsessing over something that ultimately doesn’t matter at all.

I don’t want to stay stuck. I don’t want the storyline of my faith to be eclipsed by a shift I was unwilling to make.

If you’re feeling stuck, as I so often do, here’s a prayer to pray today…

God, help me move forward at the speed of your direction and intention,
no matter how painful the transition may be.

A woman was telling me the other day how she used to want to be Joyce Meyer. She fantasized about how exhilarating it would be to minister to all those people.
But since she said she used to want to be Joyce, I had to ask:
“Why don’t you want to be Joyce anymore?”
It was because she analyzed the story behind the glory, and realized:

1. Joyce has a gift that is supernatural, and an anointing that is irreproducible.
2. Therefore, attempting to do what Joyce does without having the divine empowerment Joyce has would be like hobbling around with the king’s XXL armor when you really need a shepherd’s sling. Other people’s armor doesn’t protect you, it paralyzes you.
3. Anointing oil is produced through pressure. Joyce Meyer’s ministry of worldwide compassion flows largely from her own personal pain of childhood sexual abuse, and the dysfunction that consumed the beginning of her adult life. To covet the oil but avoid the pressure is like mastering Guitar Hero, and signing your name Jimi Hendrix on all your correspondence. It’s called make believe, not Christ like ambition.
4. Joyce Meyer’s life is full of blessing. It’s also full of immense burden. It’s chock full of rewards. It’s even heavier laden with responsibilities. To want the blessing without considering the burden is shortsighted at best, and self destructive, ultimately. A blessing can be a burden if you’re not destined and prepared to receive it.

It’s refreshing when you have a conversation with someone who used to want to be what she was never meant to be, but left that illusion behind to become a bonafide best version of herself the world has ever seen.

As 2011 comes to an end, I’ve decided to revisit some of my top viewed blogs of this year. This post seemed to challenge and encourage people to act in faith. Check it out.

Shut Up and Get Moving

14 “The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.” 15 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on.”
Exodus 14:14-15

Exodus 14:14 is by far one of the most misinterpreted verses in the Bible.

Most of us, including myself, have looked at it as a faith infusing verse of what we should do when we need help or a breakthrough. When we’re looking for God to do something big. Or when we’re waiting to see God bring something into our lives.

Be still. Let the Lord fight the battle for you. Let go and let God.
In short, do nothing.

There’s just one problem with that: verse 15.

In verse 14 Moses tells the people that God will fight for them and to be still. But in verse 15 God comes in and immediately contradicts Moses. He doesn’t tell them to stand still. He tells them to shut up and get moving. Into the sea.

Moses was wrong. In isolation, verse 14 is wrong. Yes, God’s going to fight for them. But it won’t be while they’re standing there and doing nothing. It’s in the parted sea. It’s while they’re moving that God will be fighting.

Sometimes it can be easy to mistake patience for what’s really passivity.
Faith for what could be laziness. Or even faithlessness.

Sometimes it can be easy to think that we should stand still and cry out when God’s actually looking for us to shut up and get moving. Not to do everything on our own, obviously. But to realize that faith isn’t necessarily sitting and waiting for God to do everything on His own for you. God fights while you move.

For example, if you’re unemployed it isn’t faith for you to stay at home and watch the Price is Right while praying during commercial breaks and expecting God to throw a job into your lap. Faith is updating your resume. Getting your butt out the door. And applying for jobs. Let God fight for you in your job search.

You could apply this to pretty much every area of your life. Relationships. Finances. Major life decisions.

Faith isn’t passive. It’s active. If you don’t believe me, go read Hebrews 11. I defy you to find me one verse that says, “By faith, they watched.” It’s always by faith, they moved. By faith, they did.

That’s because faith is knowing who God is and acting accordingly.
And then watching Him act accordingly.

Looking back at 2011, I’ve decided to post some of my top viewed blog posts of the year that really seemed to make an impact in people’s lives. Check this out.

Stop the Hop

One of the things that really troubles me about the church today is the phenomenon of church hopping and church shopping. It’s a consumeristic mindset towards the body of Christ that grieves the heart of God.

It’s time for us to stop the hop. This isn’t Christianity. Jesus didn’t die so we could sample different churches like varieties of meat on a party platter. Jesus died to establish His church as the most powerful entity on the planet.

We are alive at the greatest time in history for the advance of the gospel. We have so much going for us.

We have the ability.
We have the resources.
We have the people.

What we don’t have is them committed to a place where they can actually be used for their God-ordained purpose.

If this generation doesn’t make the impact it should, it won’t be because it didn’t have the resources. Or even the passion. It will be because it was too busy hopping to different churches to stop and commit to one where its resources and passion could actually find an outlet.

The church is the change the world is waiting for. God help us if we keep the world waiting for us while we try to find the perfect church for us.

If you’ve fallen into the trap of church hopping, let me encourage you: embrace your place somewhere where God can use you. At the end of your life, God’s not going to be impressed or pleased that you saw what He was doing at ten different churches. He’s going be more pleased that you were a part of what He was doing at one church.

And you’re never going to find the perfect one, so give up looking. If the church you’re visiting doesn’t have what you’re looking for, it might be because God wants you to provide it.

Let’s all commit together to begin a campaign to stop the hop.
Find a place to get planted. Embrace it. And start changing the world.

The question of our day isn’t if God wants to do incredible things through the church. The question is will we be in place to experience it?