Real Talk

by | Nov 20, 2017 | Pastor's Corner

Good Morning Everyone!!

After over seven years as Lead Pastor of NEChurch, it’s well documented that I journal and that I strongly encourage everyone to do the same. I journal my thoughts and many times my prayers. But I also journal lessons learned and life-giving questions along the way. I was going through my journals from 2013 and ran across various entries starting in September of that year. I was in the middle of a lot of reflection from the past 27 years of full-time ministry.

Within those entries I had penned many lessons learned and life-giving questions. I want to share just a small portion of those entries with you this morning.

Lessons Learned 

  1. If God is finished with something in your life, let it go.
  2. Look at the new thing with joy and allow it to come to pass entirely.
  3. Don’t live in the past when God has something new for you.
  4. What do you have? Celebrate it!
  5. Celebrate what God is doing in your life and ministry, don’t compare it to other people or churches.
  6. Satan is always trying to get us to look at what we don’t have.
  7. Remember, it’s not always about being in the right place at the right time, it’s all about being the right person all the time (even if you find yourself in a situation in the wrong place at the wrong time).
  8. Do the best you can with what you have where you are at. God will take care of the rest of what is needed.
  9. Success has nothing to do with the world’s view of what it is. Success is simply obeying God’s Word and what He specifically instructs you to do.

Life-Giving Questions

  1. Have you ever given any thought that God may have helped you by allowing you to make mistakes in a smaller room so He can open the bigger door to a more substantial room of opportunity?
  2. Who or what do we love more – the dreams God gave us or the God who gave us the dreams?
  3. Is the dream a means to glorify God or is it so I can be recognized and validated? Answer the question!
  4. Do you find your identity in your gifts, talents, education, no education, or do you see your identity in the one who created you?

Here’s 4 of the 10 reasons why I believe every Christian should Journal

  1. It Will Help You Hear From God: Journaling forces you to slow down so you can hear from and respond to God. It also helps you process what is going on inside you.
  2. Journaling Helps You Process Your Prayers More Clearly: As you begin to write your prayer to God, you often get to the truth behind the prayer. Knowing your true motivation for the prayer will help in better defining and redefining the request to God.
  3. Journaling Records Growth: Journaling becomes written evidence of the things that we are learning from God and His Word.
  4. Journaling Helps Me Track Answered Prayer: When you look back through your journals, you see the prayers God has answered. Truth is, we complain too much that God isn’t answering our prayers. He may have answered it just like you asked. We may have forgotten what we asked, thinking we asked it another way.

Here Are My Two Personal Tips When Journaling:

  • Just be yourself – don’t hold back from God.
  • Be absolutely honest with your thoughts, questions, and emotions.