A 4-question quiz for determining this year's direction

Scratching 2015 across the top of the page was about all I could muster. Goals? Resolutions? I’m so done. Anyone else?

This is the first year I haven’t had a burst of fresh self-improvement energy around Dec 31st. Why?

It’s all my church’s fault. (smile)

All year long we’ve been looking at the EPIC story of God, seeing the gospel woven throughout all of scripture and seeing that in every story and in every situation, Jesus is the hero.

So yeah. I don’t need to be a hero anymore.

This is also the year I quit the measuring madness. Of course some measuring is still inevitable in life. But this endless quantifying can just kill the joy right out of life. Enough with it! They say goals are only goals if they are measurable, and next thing you know we are measuring everything and forgetting to live. And wouldn’t you know it, when I eased up on the measuring, there was so much more space for joy to flow right in.

Lastly, I began seeing that everything I put down on that list of goals and commitments was essentially a “straw” stuck into my life. How many straws can one milkshake really handle? 

So then, do you see my reluctance to make hasty resolutions? Sure, I want to pray more, read aloud to my kids more, go on more dates with my man, and maybe even clean the back porch. (Well, and write a book that helps women worldwide see the sacred in the mundane and find true transformation and life-change from the inside out. I suppose there’s that little item too!)

Anyway … in perhaps my favorite read from 2014, The Voice of Jesus, Gordon Smith presents a 4-Question process of determining where you most need to grow and how to take personal responsibility for your part of the growth. Here are the 4 questions. Instead of stabbing in the dark for direction, these questions helped me determine where I need to focus for 2015 in order to successfully partner with God, growing in wholeness and spiritual maturity. Here they are:

1. What do you tend to complain about? What tends to be on your lips when you are frustrated, particularly when you are let down by or disappointed by others? 

2. What fundamental commitment lies behind the point of frustration? Your complaint usually reflects a fundamental commitment. It speaks of what you value and highlights your priorities. It tells you something about you. 

3. Is there anything that you are doing or not doing that undermines your capacity to fulfill this fundamental commitment? In an honest review of your own behavior, we usually know about what we do, or the things we fail to do, that are inconsistent with our values, priorities, and commitments. In other words, rather than complaining about others, what is it that we are doing or failing to do that undermines our commitments? We move forward by taking personal responsibility for our own behavior. When we do, what do we see?

4. What lies behind this pattern of behavior? This is the most difficult question. As you look at that pattern of behavior, as what this behavior means. Here are are honestly identifying our own inner contradictions, where we do not live consistently with our confessed values. Why? Usually this is because of fears that lie behind our behavior.

This is a simple exercise, but it is helpful for sifting through the endless possibilities for self-improvement and goal-setting, in order to get to the essence of where we really need to change.

In short, what is it that I do or don’t do that most hinders my health, spiritually, emotionally, mentally, physically? And, what fear or false assumption lies behind that behavior. When we deal with the root we can effectively take steps of obedience to overcome that fear.

These small obedience steps of faith are what bring change. 

And no matter how ambivalent I may feel toward resolutions, I never want to stop growing, stop changing, stop letting God conform me into His image.

Let’s let Him show us how.

{May 2015 be a year of unprecedented growth and transformation, spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically. Thank you for letting Sacred Mundane be part of that journey this year. Until next year, thanks for reading.}