by Donya Dunlap | Jul 22, 2013 | The Spiritual Life
Does 1 + 1 always equal 2? Not in Jesus math!
In speaking with a friend this weekend, I was reminded of advice someone gave me once.
Start with what you have, where you are.
I was struggling at the time with a huge vision and burden the Lord had placed on my heart, and I was frustrated. It seemed every time I tried to pursue that vision I would run into a wall. I felt like my dream was a carrot at the end of a stick that was always out of reach. This confused me because I knew the vision was God ordained. I couldn’t understand why He would give me a vision and not allow me to pursue it.
My very wise friend shared that God often gives grand visions of plans He has for us at a later time, but with only a first step to take in the moment. That first step seems so small. It’s tempting to dismiss it as a waste of our time or energy. We want to jump into the thick of the dream, but Jesus wants to teach us to be faithful in the little things. Jesus wants us to take our little and do great things with it so that He can be glorified. Paul speaks of this in 1 Corinthians 1:26-31:
For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
Sometimes Jesus uses the rich, the powerful, the popular, the strong…but most of the time He doesn’t. Most of the time He takes the little bit of who we are and multiplies it through the power of the Holy Spirit.
- One former persecutor of the church writes half of the New Testament
- Two loaves and two fishes feed a multitude
- Five talents are doubled
- Twelve blue-collar guys cast out demons, heal the sick, and minister to multitudes
- One hundred and twenty followers of Jesus start a world-wide revolution and spread the gospel to the ends of the earth
What do you have that Jesus wants for His equation?
Do you like to knit? You can make baby booties and blankets for a local pregnancy shelter. Are you musical? You can sing or play in church, or join a community group for musicians and reach those people for Jesus. Do you love kids? You can volunteer to babysit for people that wouldn’t normally be able to afford a sitter so they can have a few hours to themselves. Do you have a crazy big dream that seems impossible for you to tackle? Good! Ask God where He wants you to begin and start in the power of the Holy Spirit. If you consistently surrender to the little promptings and seek the strength of the Holy Spirit, in time, He will take your little and multiply it to reap the harvest He planted in your heart.
Have you experienced Jesus math in your own life? If so, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below.
Photo credit: World Bank Photo Collection / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND
by Donya Dunlap | Jan 18, 2013 | The Spiritual Life
The most intimidating place for a writer to be is in front of a blank computer screen or empty sheet of paper. Inevitably one of two things happens. Either your mind races with ideas and you can’t seem to narrow them down enough to write, or (the more likely scenario) your thoughts mirror the emptyness in front of you. The blank slate can be terrifying both in writing and in life. We are all at the beginning of a new year full of possiblities. Our minds race with dreams and goals, but how do we begin? Where should we focus first? What if we fail at our resolutions again? Is goal setting even necessary? Is it better not to try at all?
Um…
I understand well the fear that accompanies a new beginning. 2013 for me is the beginning of a new year in a new city, a new church, a new ministry, (hopefully) a new job, new friends, a new home, and the release of a new book. It’s exciting, but with each new thing comes a mountain of doubt. What if I fail? What if I can’t find a job? What if my book release is a flop?
Does any of this sound familiar to you?
So how do you and I overcome the blank slate so we can begin chasing our dreams?
We begin by beginning.
Pastor Mark Baterson says in his book, The Circle Maker, (read my review of the book here) that the keys to seeing prayers answered and dreams come true is to “dream big, pray hard and think long.” He calls goals “dreams with deadlines” and recommends…
Ten Steps to Setting Goals for Your Life:
- Start with prayer. “If you set goals in the context of prayer, there is a much higher likelihood that your goals will glorify God, and if they don’t glorify God, then they aren’t worth setting in the first place.”
- Check your motives. “If you set selfish goals, you would be better off spiritually if you didn’t accomplish them.”
- Think in categories. “My goals are divided into five categories: family, influential, experiential, physical and travel. The obvious omission is a category for spiritual goals, but that is by intention. All of my goals have a spiritual dimension to them.”
- Be specific. “If a goal isn’t measurable, we have no way of knowing whether we’ve accomplished it.”
- Write it down. “If you haven’t written down your goals, you haven’t really set them.”
- Include others. “Nothing cements a relationship like a shared goal.”
- Celebrate along the way. “When God answers a prayer, throw a party. We should celebrate with the same intensity with which we pray.”
- Dream big. “Big goals turn us into big people.”
- Think long. “If you want to dream until the day you die, you need to set goals that take a lifetime to achieve. And it’s never too late to start.”
- Pray hard. “Goal setting begins and ends with prayer.”
He sums up his list with these two powerful paragraphs:
The sad truth is that most people spend more time planning their summer vacation than they do planning the rest of their life. That’s poor stewardship of right-brain imagination. Goal setting is good stewardship. Instead of letting things happen, goals help us make things happen. Instead of living by default goals help us live by design. Instead of living out of memory, goals help us live out of imagination.
Goal setting begins and ends with prayer. God-ordained goals are conceived in the context of prayer, and prayer is what brings them to full term. You need to keep circling your goals in prayer, like the Israelites circled Jericho. As you circle your goals, it not only creates God-ordained opportunities; it also helps us recognize God-ordained opportunities.
So as we finish up the first month of the year, I challenge you to dedicate your blank slate to Christ and His purposes for your life and then plan accordingly. Let’s determine to live for Christ out of our imaginations and accomplish great things for His glory in 2013!
Have you made a list of life goals? How has goal setting been beneficial to you? I’d love to read your thoughts in the comments below.
Photo credit: Carlos Fenollosa / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA
by Donya Dunlap | Sep 30, 2012 | Guest Posts
Do you struggle with being afraid?
I am guest posting today at JosephIregbu.com. I hope that you will drop by his site to read the post “Do It Afraid” but also stay awhile to be encouraged by Joseph’s writings and his story of hope. (Which is pretty incredible, I might add.) Sign up to receive his posts via e-mail and you will also get his free e-book, Lines of Impact. You might also want to check out his 90-day devotional called Selah: A 90-Day Journey of Grace and Peace. It’s a great encouragement and available on Amazon. Joseph has been a personal encouragement to me and his writings have blessed my heart. I plan to have him guest post here soon, but for now, please get to know him on his home turf.
Click Here to Read “Do It Afraid”
Photo Credit: Vorakorn on freedigitalphotos.net
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by Donya Dunlap | Sep 29, 2012 | The Spiritual Life
I said goodbye to a friend today. She is on her way to New York City with the hope of someday becoming a successful actress on Broadway. Some may scoff at such a dream. Dozens, if not hundreds, of people do the very same thing each year and fail. Why would she be any different? She may not be. That’s the key. There is no guarantee that she will meet the right people or get her headshot into the hands of the right directors. And yet, she feels strongly that God has given her talent and a passion for acting and she believes she can be a light for Him in a very dark place. So as I type, she drives north toward her future. I couldn’t be more excited for her or more proud of her.
Photo Credit: dcubillas
Some would call her actions a “leap of faith.”
But God doesn’t talk about leaps of faith in Scripture. He does, however, talk a lot about steps. Peter had to step out onto the waves. The priests in the Old Testament had to step into the rushing river. Proverbs tells us that the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. The thing about faith that is so scary is that we don’t know where those steps are going to take us.
God doesn’t give us a manual for life that we can follow point by point. He gives us just enough for the next step and asks us to trust Him for the one after that and the one after that. This sounds simple enough. We know that God is a good God and He desires the best for us. So why then is it so hard to trust Him? I think it is because He doesn’t have our whole hearts.
As you are getting to know a new person, you are continually evaluating whether or not you can trust them. You share a personal detail here and there and see if they keep it to themselves. You have a secret dream and you share a little to see how they handle that precious information. We do the same thing with God. Instead of believing that He is trustworthy and interpreting our circumstances through the lens of that truth, we have it backwards. We pray for something and see if He comes through like we want Him to. We ask Him to fulfill our dreams without considering what He might have for us and then get disappointed when it doesn’t happen.
While it is important to ensure that sinful people are careful with our trust, we don’t need to worry about how God is going to handle our hearts. He has promised that if we give everything to Him, He will give to us His desires, fulfill those desires, and grant us peace and contentment that we can’t even imagine.
The key is in the letting go.
As Bilbo Baggins says,
“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.” (J.R.R Tolkien Quotes)
There’s no telling where my friend might end up someday or where you and I will be a year from now. Just as Frodo didn’t realize the danger and struggle he faced as he stepped out on his grand adventure. But we have an advantage that Frodo didn’t have. We have the God that has orchestrated all things from before the beginning of time lighting our paths. Won’t you trust Him?
Do you have a grand adventure you feel God is calling you to, but you’ve been too afraid to take the next step? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below.
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by Donya Dunlap | Sep 28, 2012 | Guest Posts, Making a Difference
I have the privilege of sharing with you today a brief, but invaluable five question interview with author, blogger and speaker Jeff Goins. If you have been following my posts recently, you know that Jeff has written a book called Wrecked: When a Broken World Slams into Your Comfortable Life. The book was an Amazon bestseller for two weeks and went into a second printing the day after it was released in August. If you have yet to get a copy, I hope that this glimpse into Jeff’s heart and the core of Wrecked will encourage you to get it soon.
Jeff, thank you for taking the time to share with us today!
Jeff Goins, Writer
Wrecked talks a lot about finding your passion. What is your passion in a nutshell?
My passion is words. To communicate messages worth spreading. I’ve done that my whole life — with music, theater, art, and now writing — and I love helping others do the same.
For the longest time, I minimized this passion, because it felt too small. I had friends who were traveling the world, and here I was, writing about it. But recently, I’ve had a change of mind: I’ve come to grips with the power of words.
Words can bring life or death, and my hope is to live a life in which my words bring hope and wholeness to people. Some say talk is cheap; I no longer believe it.
When did God first start stirring your heart in this area?
About two years ago, a friend asked me what my dream was. When I hesitantly told him it was to be a writer, he looked at me funny. Then he said, “Jeff, you don’t have to WANT to be a writer… You ARE a writer; you just need to write.” So I did. And that changed everything.
Was there a catalyst to this stirring? (ie: personal prayer, fasting, sermon, song, event, trip, etc.)
I had been working with a ministry, helping other people find their passions and pursue their dreams, and I was wondering, “Do I have a dream?” It had been so long since I’d asked that question, I was afraid of the answer.
After attending several conferences, I had to come to grips with the scary realization that I did, in fact, have a dream.
Was this always a dream for you or did you have a different desire at one point that God redirected?
I think it always was, but I didn’t know it. My experience with dreams is we get them often before we need them. So we have to go through a season in which the dream dies, which is exactly what happened for me. For five years, I served somebody else’s dream. So when the dream came back, it felt selfish and like betrayal. But at that point, my motives were more pure and I was ready.
The dream was now bigger than me.
Did you respond immediately to God’s tug on your heart? If so, how? If not, why?
You know, it took me a long time to see the spiritual implications of dreams and passions. It all just felt kind of selfish to me. When I was in college, I had some pretty dramatic experiences that led me to believe my life was going to be about more than me. I was called to serve others.
And so when I had the chance to write a book and pursue a platform that attracted an audience, it felt a little weird. I was scared of that much influence. So I avoided it for awhile, but eventually I came to see it as an opportunity to serve others (as I had been called) with the gifts God had given me. I’m continually surprised by how much impact a few simple words can have on people. So I guess I’m still getting used to it.
As I share in the book, our callings often come to us as surprises, and that’s exactly what happened for me. Discomfort is what causes us to grow; this is a lesson I keep learning throughout life.
When I was 23, the most uncomfortable thing I could do was go downtown and hang out with homeless people, so I did. When I was 28, the most uncomfortable thing for me to do was sit down and write. So I did — albeit, begrudgingly.
The abundant life, it seems, is about making choices we’d rather not make, but understanding that there’s more at stake than our own comforts.
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