Category Archives: Self-evaluation

Seriously? Another Sermon On That?

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You ever have one of those rebellious thoughts followed by a “Get thee behind me” moment? Maybe it’s God posing the question and not Satan.

Once I was in church, singing a song I’ve warbled a ton of times, then listening to a sermon which sounded like a Summer repeat. And the thought came, “Is this all?”

I think the message that morning was about Joseph. I have heard the text preached scores of times, why I’ve preached that text myself. I may have read it 100 times.

What’s the point of listening to another sermon on Joseph? Did I have to repeat first grade in school five times when I already knew that 2 + 2 usually equals 4? Didn’t I already know all this?

But as I listened to what the pastor said, I compared my life to the story once again. Was I living up to that? How should I change? My interior “gyro system” began to check to see if I was still on course.

Though I knew the Word, and sometimes I could finish the preacher’s sentence for him, listening and applying that Word … once again … helps me make corrections to stay on course.

Otherwise I could miss my destination.

Korean Air Lines Flight 007 

Several years ago Korean Air Lines flight 007 took off after refueling in Alaska carrying 269 passengers and crew, headed to Seoul, Korea. It never arrived.
Authorities speculated the plane’s autopilot wasn’t set correctly and it caused the plane to deviate slightly from it’s intended course.

It was just a small error but the further it flew, the further it inched off course. The unfortunate airplane ended up in Soviet airspace. The year was 1983 and Cold War burned between the Soviet Union and the West. Suddenly this civilian airliner was tracked then targeted by deadly warplanes. Soviet fighter jets shot it down, killing all 269 people aboard. Many were children under twelve.

Modern autopilot and flight-management systems show the pilots where the airplane is, where it’s supposed to be, and how far it’s drifting from the planned route. When it gets off course the automatic systems prod it back onto the right course.

Little corrections for an airplane only a tiny bit off course at the start would have saved a lot of lives on flight 007.

Course Corrections

So back to the Joseph story. Though I had read it many times, as the young pastor spoke, I tried to connect it to my life and see if I needed to make corrections. I constantly do that when I hear a message, when I read the Bible and when I pray.

And I don’t always agree with 100% of what others think. I constantly compare it with what God’s Word says. If I simply swallow everything a leader says, at the least I’m being lazy and at the worst I might get brainwashed.

My spiritual gyro is active when I’m with someone else who knows the Lord. Just seeing him live right helps me see if I’m on course. And I learn to avoid other obstacles if I see him stub his toe somewhere.

I learned from listening to “at home church” during COVID that I really need my brothers and sisters who love the Lord. TV is helpful but I need personal interaction with others who love the Lord.

I need church. It helps me stay on course. I do believe God manifests Himself in a unique and necessary way when His people get together in His name.

There really is a point to listening to another message on Joseph, or David, or John 3:16. Something good does happen as I’m singing that worship song again and praying with my brothers and sisters for the umpteen time. 

It’s easier to stay on course when I constantly make the needed corrections in my life. 

Five Essentials Questions To Jumpstart 2026

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So here we are starting another year and going through our first of the year rituals—making goals for change that we keep about a week, peering into the obscurity of the future seeing if we can make out what’s ahead, and hopefully, looking back on the past year to praise God for His goodness and to remember what we learned so we won’t make the same mistakes. 

I don’t know about you but I want to be a better servant of the Lord Jesus this year. I want a joyful, abundant life. I think we can move towards these goals by asking ourselves some piercing questions. 

  1. What area of your internal life would you like to change? 

For me it’s fear and the resulting doubt. That’s been a whole-life battle. Where’s your battle? 

Here is an action plan that you can carry out, however you answered the question. 1/Find what God’s Word says about your struggle. 2/Pray and think about the way out. 3/Begin with one action step. How am I going to conquer this? One step. 4/Pray and trust God for His strength and wisdom. Spiritual battles have spiritual solutions. 

  1. How am I going to grow in the Lord this year? 

Think it through. Just saying, “I’m going to read the Bible more and pray more,” isn’t enough, though it’s great to start if you don’t do this already. Why do you feel weak in your relationship with God? Think of examples in the Bible of how someone grew in God. Find someone further along the road of relationship with the Lord and see if you can spend some time with them. Get hungry to know Him more and more. 

  1. How am I going to deepen my most important relationships this year? 

Decide to do one practical thing and put it into practice regularly. Think! Relationships with others are gold and if you don’t work on them, they die. 

  1. What do you think God wants you to do this year? 

What practical step will you take in that direction? 

  1. If I could have a dream come true this year, what would it be? 

Write it down. Pray about it. What is one thing you could do to move towards seeing it happen? 

Write your answers and look at them once a week. Then at the end of the year tell me what happened. 

“Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established.” Proverbs 16:3 (ESV) 

“The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.” Proverbs 16:9 (ESV) 

Cows All Around? Maybe You’re Lost

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Have you ever got where you wanted to go accidentally?

You drove around and around the town, then suddenly you found yourself exactly where you wanted to be.

It happens”but not often. More often we end up in a pasture, being contemplated by curious cows.

Usually we get where we want to go by planning the route. Sure there are unexpected detours and we get confused, but I’ve found that between Google on my computer and Google on my IPhone, I can generally get where I want to go.

Now I’ve got a question for you. If we work so hard to get to a physical destination, why do we think it’s any different for the other, more important goals of our life?

You’ve Got To Plan It

To have a great relationship with your spouse or your kids, do you just muddle through, hoping for the best? Careful, you may end up in a cow pasture with an enraged bull.

How about work? You want to advance, to do excellent work, and get paid more don’t you? Do you think that merely showing up and piddling around will get you where you want to go?

Do you want to grow in intimacy and effectiveness in your relationship with God? Are you waiting for the Lord to knock you over with a lightning bolt, after which you will be the Twenty-first century equivalent of the Apostle Paul?

Hope on sweetheart. Those things usually don’t happen accidentally.

Sure God’s hand has to be on us in grace and blessing but we’ve got to treat those things as important, even vital for our life if we want to see them happen. We win life’s lottery by accident sometimes, but it’s rare. Very rare.

And usually when we get something so easily we haven’t developed the skills or the patience to keep it. How many professional sports millionaires are broke a few years after their career finishes?

Intentional

I’ve learned a word the last couple of years that I love. The word is “intentional.” It means you do it on purpose. You make up your mind to go after something.

When we were kids we loved to bop one of our friends and say, “Oh, I’m sorry. It was an accident.” He knew very well it wasn’t. We did it on purpose. Most positive things we accomplish in life are done on purpose. They are intentional.

So how do we go about this? You need to make a plan in all the major areas of your life and work towards that.  Your blueprint isn’t set in concrete and you’ll have to make adjustments as you go forward, but very few people are happy if they don’t feel they have a mission in life.

Decide what God has for you and start working towards that.

What kind of marriage does you want ? What would you have to do to get there? Do you really want to get there? Maybe if you’d do some of the things you did to get her (or him), you’d have a much better relationship with them now.

Why are you on this earth? Come on now. Way down deep you know. What will it take to accomplish your life’s mission? Make a plan and start in that direction.

Here Is How

How can you know God better? How can you move into that place of intimacy with Him? How can you appropriate the gifts and strength that He has promised?

-Stop.

-Think prayerfully about your life.

-See where you want to go in all major areas.

-Make a plan to get there (count on God’s help. Make your goal big enough that it  take faith to get there. Don’t just do what you can do. When you do it big you get to see what God can do).

-Adjust your plan and even your goals when necessary. Its rare that we see the end perfectly when we begin.

-Keep at it. Don’t quit.

-Rejoice when you get there, but kick up your heels in celebration when you win little victories on the way to achieving the big goal. Let yourself enjoy the process as much as the ultimate achievement.

The places you get to accidentally may not be the places you want to be in life. If you’re hearing a lot of “mooos” and see yourself surrounded by cows, you better back up and make a plan.

“It won’t be long before this generous God who has great pans for us in Christ”eternal and glorious plans they are!”will have you put together and on your feet for good. He gets the last word; yes, he does.” (1 Peter 5, The Message)

Hmmm ….

“Even failure can be redemptive if you learn something from it. It doesn’t have to be career-ending. In fact, it can be career-building”if you take the time to wring all the juice out of the lemon.” Michael Hyatt

Image:Janbaby, pixabay.com, efeutatum

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“That Deep Intimate Voice Speaks Inside You”

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voice2

Normally, if we tell someone that we hear voices speaking inside of us, friends start looking in the telephone book for the address of the funny farm.

I used to have a friend who told me that God was going to use him to do all kind of things. I was a little wary of him.

The Blues Brothers thought they had hear God’s voice, too. “We’re on a mission from God,” they proclaimed.

“Hearing voices can be a very disturbing experience, both for the person who hears voices and family and friends,” according to the Mental Health Foundation (http://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/)

I guess so.

You know what, though? I think we all have a voice that speaks in the depths of our soul. It’s not like, “Hello up there. I’m the evil genie who lives in your liver.” Actually this voice is usually ours. Sometimes it says things like,

“You’re nothing.”
“I’m angry, angry, angry.” Continue reading →

The Gentle Art of Goofing off

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When I was a kid, I was a champion goof-off. (Still am, sometimes, for things I don’t want to do).

Daddy’s garden stood as the summit of things that the little boy that I was tried to stay far away from. If he wanted a garden, that was okay, but why drag me into it? My parents and grandparents abused me. They MADE me work in that garden.

“You’ll want to eat those vegetables when it all grows up, so you’ve got to work now.” Hah! Onions! Green beans! Tomatoes! Who would want to eat stuff like that? Now if gardens grew Snickers candy bars …

All the same, when people are bigger than you are, you do what you’re told, though you don’t have to like it and you don’t have to do it whole-heartedly. So you’d find me scowling under the hot sun,  pulling on stubborn weeds and wishing with all my heart for a baseball game. That was something worth exerting all your energy for.

But tomatoes? Get serious! Only an adult could dream that a tomato would be worth working for. Continue reading →