Pastor Steven Furtick"/>

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.

I know 2012 is here in full force, and the time for 2011 reflections is long gone, but I just had to share this with you.

I sat down with our creative team a few weeks ago in a pretty special setting to share about my favorite ministry moments of 2011.

It was an exercise in gratitude for us, and hopefully it will be a shot of faith for you.

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.
-1 Corinthians 13:11

If you ask a little kid how babies are born, and then ask a mom of three kids the same question, the responses will differ considerably.

Your viewpoint of a process is based on your experience.

Before we started a church, I had preconceived notions about the creative process.
Now that I’ve seen my share of babies born, I think about that process much more realistically.

For example:

I used to think brilliant creative inspiration flowed in calm settings of tranquility.
Now I would tell you that my best creative ideas are hewn out of hard conversations, migraine level multi-tasking, and nearly neurotic obsession about details that seem silly and tedious.

I used to think that the most difficult part of the creative process was getting a good idea.
Ha!
Conception is the fun part!
Labor and delivery is the heroic stuff.
Lots of people can make a kid, or hatch a concept.
But to nurture, refine, and sustain that idea takes tenacity.

I used to think that when you had a killer idea, you’d just know it.
Now I think the better an idea is, the more prone you’ll be to second guessing, and the greater the temptation will be to quit before you get started good.

Growing in creativity means coming to terms with this reality:
The most beautiful ideas are often the product of an ugly, messy process.

The less time I spend waiting for the stork to bring me the next awesome vision, and the more I embrace the blood, tears, pain and joy of creativity, the better my babies turn out.

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.