One of the things our brains are capable of is overthinking. Think of it as the ability to have persistent, repetitive thoughts. Overthinking is essentially when your brain spins on a thought or an idea for longer than you anticipated. Unfortunately, overthinking tends to lean toward the negative. Left to its own devices, it will naturally gravitate toward things you don’t want to dwell on. I’ll give you a few examples.

Have you ever had to work hard to remind yourself of something dumb you said a long time ago? Did you need a to-do list to overthink an embarrassing situation from the eighth grade, even though you’re now in your thirties? Did you need a note on your calendar to make sure you’d spend the whole weekend thinking about why your boss called a meeting with you on Monday morning?

“I’ve got a wave of dread scheduled for this Saturday at 2 p.m.!” Is that what you did, or did those thoughts just show up unexpectedly, not at all connected to anything else you were doing at the time?

Those are called broken soundtracks, negative stories you tell yourself about yourself and your world. They play automatically without any invitation or effort from you. Fear does not take work. Doubt does not take work. Insecurity does not take work.

I know all about broken soundtracks like that because they cost me seven years of opportunity. 

I started my first blog in 2001. I was sharing ridiculous, personal content online three years before Facebook existed, four years before YouTube, five years before Twitter, and sixteen years before TikTok. I wasn’t a tech pioneer, because I didn’t own enough hoodies, but I was way ahead of the curve. Record labels were reaching out, readers were finding the content organically, and the faintest hints of momentum were sprouting. Things were moving along, but then I started overthinking everything.

“What if someone finds out I don’t really know what I’m doing?” 

“Where is this even going?”

“What’s the point if I don’t have a perfect plan to grow it?”

Those three soundtracks and a thousand more knocked me off the internet for seven straight years. I didn’t start another blog until 2008. Who knows how much further I’d be if I’d spent those seven years growing my audience and content? 

The most frustrating thing is that all those broken soundtracks showed up in my life completely uninvited. 

Your brain builds on overthinking’s habit of negativity by doing three additional things:

1. Lying about your memories

2. Confusing fake trauma with real trauma

3. Believing what it already believes

Now that you know your brain can be a real jerk, do you want to leave your thoughts to chance? Where would successful people be if they hadn’t made a decision to choose new soundtracks to listen to? Think of all the opportunities and adventures you’ll miss out on if broken soundtracks are in charge of your actions.

Broken soundtracks are one of the most persuasive forms of fear because every time you listen to one it gets easier to believe it the next time. Have you ever judged an idea as too dumb to even write down? That’s a broken soundtrack. Have you ever told yourself the same story I do about why someone didn’t text back? That’s a broken soundtrack. Has it ever felt like you have a pocket jury with you, cross-examining each new opportunity until you dare not chase it? That’s a broken soundtrack.

The good news is that you’re bigger than your brain. It’s just one part of you, and it’s under your control in the same way an arm or leg is. We know this because you and I have the great fortune of living in the age of neuroplasticity. Your parents’ generation didn’t know they could change the shape and function of their brains. Their parents’ generation thought cigarettes were good for cyclists in the Tour de France because the nicotine opened the capillaries in their lungs. Maybe my kids’ generation will be the ones who figure out how to make vegan queso not taste like organic sand. Every generation learns something new. 

Neuroplasticity, which is the power to physically change our brains by changing our thoughts, means that the solution to overthinking isn’t to stop thinking. Why would we ever get rid of such a powerful, efficient tool? Wouldn’t it make more sense to just run our brains with different soundtracks instead of the broken ones? A plane can drop a bomb or food. A syringe can deliver poison or medicine. A stallion can start a stampede or win a race. The same is true of our thoughts.

If you can worry, you can wonder. If you can doubt, you can dominate. If you can spin, you can soar.

The same brain that told you for years that you couldn’t write a book can be taught to tell you just the opposite. “You can write a book! You must write a book! It’s time to do it!”  I should know. I published zero books the first thirty-three years of my life. I published seven over the next eleven years. How? I started listening to a new soundtrack.

I didn’t just give myself a boost of encouragement in 2008 when I chose to believe I could become a professional public speaker. I started changing my soundtracks in ways that changed the shape of my brain. Not just one day but every day, which was all the easier because of neurogenesis. With neurogenesis, “every morning when you wake up, new baby nerve cells have been born while you were sleeping that are there at your disposal to be used in tearing down toxic thoughts and rebuilding healthy thoughts.”9

Your brain is waiting for you each day. It’s waiting to be told what to think. It’s waiting to see what kind of soundtracks you’ll choose.

It’s waiting to see if you really want to build a different life.

Tapping Into the Power of Overthinking in Three Steps

My entire world started to change when I decided to choose what soundtracks I listen to.

The best part is that the process is a lot simpler than you’d expect. When I first started transforming my overthinking, I figured it would take approximately ninety-two different steps, fourteen techniques, and at least a few dozen acronyms. I was wrong. 

There are three actions to change your thoughts from a super problem into a superpower:

1. Retire your broken soundtracks.

2. Replace them with new ones.

3. Repeat them until they’re as automatic as the old ones.

Retire. Replace. Repeat.

That’s it.

I don’t know what your dream is; it’s probably different from mine. But I do know one thing: overthinking is getting in the way.

It’s time to do something about that.

Step one: Pick a time and a place to meet with God.

Before my wife, Taryn, and I moved to Washington D.C. to plant Metro Church, I felt drawn to this influential area for many years believing that if you can influence this area for Christ, you can influence the world. But the people here tend to have an obsession with schedules and appointments. On more than one occasion, I have heard someone say something to the effect of, “I have an opening three weeks from now for thirty minutes. Sorry, everything else is booked solid.”

I have heard these same people confess that they struggle to find time to meet with God. My thought in pastoring them has been simple, How is it that we prioritize meetings with people we don’t even like and neglect to meet with the God we love?

I don’t say this in a critical way, but rather as a wake-up call and a reminder that we prioritize what we value. I challenge you to pull out your smartphone out right now and schedule daily time with God.

This sounds simple, but it is so easy to let the appointment slip if you do not guard it. In my earlier years, I was more sporadic in my devotional times, but I found that missed appointments with God led to disappointments in life.

How can I expect to find the abundant life He offers if I am not seeking Him each day to guide me into His fullness?

The time:

I recommend that you choose the time when you are at your very best. I believe that God always gives us His very best, so I want to respond by spending time with Him when I am most alert and ready to receive. Some people like getting up early, like five a.m.—that’s great for them, but I am not at my best that early. I have found that God does not speak to me at that hour because, well, I am asleep (He can speak to me in my dreams if He wants to say anything to me before the sun rises). God is happy to meet with you any time of day, so what time works for you?

The place:

Next, find a place for you and God to meet. I recommend going somewhere that you love. When I take Taryn out on a date, I do not go to Burger King because I want it to be a place that we both love and enjoy going to together. My organic, gluten-free-loving wife’s love language is most certainly not super-sizing some greasy french fries or being in an environment with screaming kids and dirty booths. Instead, I try to choose a healthy restaurant that has an atmosphere where we are able to connect with each other. In a similar way, I recommend choosing a place for your time with God that you are excited to go to and a place that is conducive to connecting with Him.

There is a classic ‘80s flick called Field of Dreams. The movie is about an Iowa farmer that hears a voice telling him, “If you build it, he will come.” Although in the movie it is referring to building a baseball field for the Chicago Black Sox, I have found this same principle to be true in my relationship with God. If you prepare a place for Him and build in time to be with Him, He will show up. If you build it, He will come! Once you have picked a time and a place, what do you do next?

Step two: Be still and worship.

In Psalm 46:10, God instructs to “be still and know that I am God.”

Honestly, I am not always good at being still. I would definitely rather be moving, preferably at a very high speed. Fortunately, the Hebrew word is not necessarily reflective of a literal stillness but more of a stillness of the soul. Psalm 46:10 can be translated as, “Stop striving and know that I am God.”

The context of this passage was at a time when Israel was being threatened by other nations. In the midst of these threats, they could trust in the covenant that God made with them and know that He would be their very present help, refuge, and strength (see Psalm 46:1). There is something about being still before God that reminds us we are not in charge—He is.

Once we are still before Him, we can enter into true worship. I have found that when I worship, everything shifts. If my perspective was off, I see rightly once again. I am reminded of the bigness of God and of how much He loves me and how much I love Him. I am also reminded again of how much I need Him and how trustworthy He is.

I have not always begun my time with God in worship, but I highly recommend taking some time to worship before you jump into reading the Bible. Worship helps you release burdens you are carrying and shifts your perspective so you see rightly again. Sometimes I will put a song on repeat, so that the words wash over me again and again. Our hearts are tenderized in His presence.

Step three: Read and pray.

God has written down His opinions and wisdom regarding the most common problems we face, so I recommend spending time looking at what He says in His Word. There is an integral partnership between the Word and the Spirit when it comes to God speaking. As you open your Bible and read, you are hearing what God has already spoken and asking the Holy Spirit to make it come alive so you can discern what God is speaking to you.

I recommend you start by spending 10 to 15 minutes in study after you worship. As you get into the Word, that time will likely increase. Sometimes I study for hours looking up Greek and Hebrew words and cross-referencing passages in the Bible. Sometimes I default to a topical study, or even a character study. Other times I spend just a few minutes reading a few verses.

Sometimes I feel as though God is speaking directly to me through His Word, and I understand exactly what He is asking me to do next through something I read. Other times when I read, God feels abstract and I struggle to understand how the passage has any correlation to my life whatsoever. This is very normal. Keep reading. As you continue to read with your ears and heart open, He will speak to you.

After you finish reading, take a few minutes to respond in prayer to what you read. Pray about whatever is on your heart. This brings us to the next step in how we can practically position ourselves to hear the supernatural voice of God.

Step four: Listen and write.

I recently heard that the above average listener only listens for approximately 17 seconds without diverting the conversation back to themselves. It seems that we are just naturally egocentric unless we intentionally guard against it. To illustrate this point, when you see one of your group pictures, who is the person you look at first? Is it your friends?

I didn’t think so.

In our relationship with God and with others, most of us struggle with being good listeners, but we will miss many important promptings from God if we do not take the time to listen for “the still, small voice of God”1 (1 Kings 19:12). Do you pause to listen to God or do you spend most of your time rattling off prayer requests? Don’t worry I have problems with it, too.

The single most revolutionary step I have taken in the past several years to dramatically increase both the amount of time I spend listening and the frequency I hear from God is something I call two-way journaling.

This is where you get out a journal or notepad and write a letter to God by just telling Him how you feel, asking questions, etc. After pausing for a few moments and asking Him to speak to you, simply write back what you feel like God is saying to you through listening to His still small voice.

If this is a new exercise for you, as it was for me when I started, I believe you will enjoy this focused way of processing with the Lord and hearing what He says as you write! Just like anything else you download from God any other way, it is important to test the message and take it through the same filters of seeing if it lines up with Scripture, testing it through asking the godly counsel in your life if it resonates with them.

Step five: Share and obey.

Who can you share with what God spoke to you? If it is direction you received, it is wise to share this with the right people in your life. I am committed to always having these kinds of people in my life and have given them permission to speak into my life and hold me accountable. The people that hold this place in our lives should also have a role of accountability. As we agree to be authentic with them and give them permission to speak into our lives, they bring great affirmation for the road ahead. Those who play this role in my life are the ones I can openly share with when I am walking through a challenge.

Although sometimes a bit humbling and even embarrassing, I have found it to also be one of the most freeing disciplines in life and it gives me the confidence to move forward feeling affirmed in what God is saying to me. Colossians 3:15 reminds us to let God’s peace lead us when we feel challenged to obey or step out because His peace is a tangible reminder of Him being with us.

Just remember God wants to speak to you and these five steps are simply helping to position you to hear His Voice in your daily life.

David I. Stine is lead pastor of DC Metro Church in Washington. This article was adapted from Stine’s book, Hearing From God, Five Steps To Knowing His Will For Your Life (2017 Howard Books). 

If you’re a soon-to-be college grad, you’re likely equal parts excited and terrified. And no matter what, you’re bombarded with one question:

So, what are you going to do when you graduate? 

That’s a loaded question, chock full of purpose, significance, and direction; rife with tension and anxiety, full of your own expectations and the expectations of those who care about you the most.

Some of you may have your post-college plans firmly in place. Some of you have no clue what’s next. Regardless, you are entering a world which will bombard you with two very different and competing messages:

The first: “Live it up!” In other words, you can (and should) have it all. Wander, live a carefree life, and enjoy your post-college years before you’re tied down with a mortgage, a marriage, and a career.

The second message: “Figure it out!” Get your plans in place as quickly as possible, or you’re failing at adulthood. This brings a whole other variety of pressure: to get it right…right away.

Live it up, but figure it out. These messages cause post-college life to become an in-between land, an already-but-not-yet phase of adulthood. A neutral zone between a fun, carefree childhood and “boring” adulthood.

Both messages are false and confusing. To delay “real” adulthood for the sake of adventure is, let’s be honest, a stall tactic. It also assumes that adulthood is something to avoid (it’s not). But to sprint until we’ve checked all the boxes of a successful life is a recipe for disappointment. You simply can’t force your way into your future.

There’s a better way to thrive post college, a healthier approach than simply living it up or figuring it out right away. That better path is the way of vocation.

Post-college life: The Way of Vocation

Vocation, or God’s calling for your life, is a life lived faithfully with God in the many dimensions that make a good life. It includes our careers, but also our spirituality, our family, our church life, and our community. When we embark on the way of vocation, we live intentionally, even when we don’t have it all figured out. We also live our lives with hope, purpose, and meaning. Think of these three concepts as legs of a stool that support our post-college life.

Hope. English novelist George Meredith wrote, “To hope, and not be impatient, is really to believe.” These are wise words for your post-college life. Impatience can ruin some really good years.

The author of Hebrews (6:19) penned these words: “Hope [is] an anchor for the soul.” Hope provides moorings that steady you as you seek your direction in life. It also puts your desires and longings in their proper place. The post-college life is filled with ideas, questions, dreams, and expectations that often take time to unfold. Hope sustains you in the meantime.

Purpose. All your hopes and dreams may not be fulfilled in your timing after college. Patience will be required in abundance. However, this doesn’t mean this season of your life has no purpose. It is, in fact, intended to be a deeply purposeful time in which many important dimensions of the good life are developed. Your twenties aren’t just a holding room for a future “real.” They are real life.

Meaning. Annie Dillard once wrote, “How we spend our days is . . . how we spend our lives.” I think she’s right. Each of us is shaped by our habits and practices. The time and energy you devote to your post-college life is meaningful. It matters, and it’s much better to lean into it intentionally rather than simply letting your life happen.

Hope. Purpose. Meaning. Regardless of your plans, you can take these with that hard-earned diploma. They don’t eradicate fear or anxiety completely from your life, but they do provide the tools for you to take the next faithful step. The way of vocation is a process, not a destination. It’s a series of doing next right thing after next right thing, which Eugene Peterson calls a “long obedience” in the same direction. When you embark on the way of vocation, you can thrive. Here’s how:

1. Be fully present and fully prepared. In your twenties, it’s all too tempting to focus on one of these at the expense of the other. The best way to lean into your twenties is to embrace the tension of being fully present and fully prepared. In fact, being fully present to what matters now is often the best preparation for the future.
2. Actively participate. When things get hard, it’s easy to check out. Leaning into your twenties requires active participation in the many dimensions that make up a good life (spirituality, work, church, family, community).
3. Live implicated. To live implicated in your twenties requires having eyes that truly see what’s happening in and around your life, and a heart and mind that recognize your responsibility to be about God’s restorative and redemptive work in the world. Even in the smallest of ways.
4. Embrace freedom, not fear. Post-college life can be a scary place, and fear of getting it wrong can too easily dominate. The freedom of Christ extends to our vocation. Embrace it. He’s on your side.

If you’re in your twenties and single, the odds are people ask you all the time, “Are you dating anybody? Do you like anybody? Know anybody?” And people are well meaning, but the subliminal message is, “When are you going to get married and actually start life like the rest of us?”

But life doesn’t start when you get married. It starts the second you fold your story into the larger story of the Kingdom of God, and follow Jesus forward. And Jesus was single! So was Paul, the leading theologian in the New Testament. And both of these men saw singleness as a gift.

If you’re wrestling with whether you should (or should not) pursue marriage, you might want to know that there’s an entire chapter in the New Testament about singleness. It’s in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 7. And embedded in this chapter are a few questions that every person should ask before they even think about getting married:

1. Will Marriage Help Me or Hold Me Back From God’s Calling on My Life?

For followers of Jesus, the point to singleness isn’t freedom from responsibility; it’s freedom for more responsibility. To Paul, the point of singleness is to serve God in ways you can’t if you’re married.

Paul writes, “A married man is concerned about the affairs of this world—how he can please his wife—and his interests are divided … I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord.”

All healthy marriages are centered around a calling, a mission, a job, a task. The point of marriage isn’t marriage itself. There’s an urgency to life—to see the Kingdom come to bear on our world.

That’s why you need to ask these questions: What has God put in your heart? What are you called to? What’s your mission in life? And ideally you should ask these questions before you get married, because you have to be on the same page.

What has God put in front of you? And will marriage help you do that, or make it harder? If God’s calling you to live for the Gospel in Libya, where you could face torture and even death, then maybe marriage isn’t a smart idea. I’m not sure you should drag a family into that. But if God’s called you to, say, live for the Gospel in your city, then maybe marriage will fuel you. I couldn’t do what I do without my wife. I need her wisdom, her insight, her help.

If marriage pulls you away from God’s calling on your life, then slow down. You may be on the wrong trajectory.

2. Is Now the Right Time?

At one point in the chapter, Paul says, “Because of the present crisis, I think that is good for a man to remain as he is … those who marry will face many troubles in this life, and I want to spare you.”

This is really hard to interpret because we’re not sure what the “present crisis” is, but something in Paul’s world was unnerving.

There are times when it’s really not a good idea to get involved with someone, much less get married.

If you’re in the middle of a “crisis.” If you live in Syria right now.

If you’re in college. You can get married in college. I did. It’s not sin, it’s just hard. You will start off dirt poor and unsure of what’s coming.

If you’re new in your career and you’re working a hundred hours a week, just trying to keep your head above water. It’s probably not a smart time to plunge into marriage.

You’re free to get married at any time. But make sure it’s not the right thing at the wrong time.

3. Can You See Yourself With Him/Her For The Rest of Your Life?

Toward the end of the chapter, Paul writes, “A woman is bound to her husband as long as she lives …”

Not for the near future. Not for a decade. Not as “long as I’m happy” and not, “Well, we have the pre-nup …”

Marriage is “as long as you both shall live.” That’s a long time. Fifty or 60 years if all goes well. Can you see yourself together at 70, 80, 90 years old? When all the euphoria of young love has faded? When you can’t even see or hear each other anymore? And if so, does that idea excite you? Do you want to grow old together?

Marriage is for life.

4. Does He/She “Belong to the Lord”?

The last thing Paul says is, “If her husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, but he must belong to the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 7:39)

He must belong to the Lord.

This one isn’t hard to understand, but it is hard to swallow. God is at the center of every healthy marriage.

And remember, happiness in life or joy—or whatever we want to call it—is about so much more than romance. So many romantic movies end with marriage, and that’s fine, but marriage isn’t the end goal of life. The point of living is to do what you were made to do. Living in “undivided devotion to the Lord,” doing what God made us to do—that’s where it’s at.

This article is adapted with permission from Loveology.

Why do we start and stop diets? Why do we half-write books that we never publish? Why do we almost start businesses and then give up?

Those questions have always bothered me and recently, I decided to do something about it.

A year ago, I commissioned a research study with a researcher. Together we studied nearly 900 people over a six-month period as they worked on a goal. (This research would ultimately form the heart of my book, Finish.)

One of the things that kept coming up was the idea of perfectionism.

Though it looks like a character trait at first, over and over again, we saw people quit because their goals weren’t perfect.

One of perfectionism’s chief goals is to isolate you. It’s easier to get you to believe lies about yourself when you don’t have a community telling you the truth and calling you out.

In order to separate you from the herd, perfectionism will tell you a very popular myth: “You have to do it all on your own.”

This always reminds me of toddlers. They’d rather fall down a flight of stairs than hold your hand, because they want to do it “all by my big self!”

We become adult toddlers when we refuse help from people and believe the lie that seeking assistance is a sign of weakness.

Author Jessica Turner doesn’t feel that way though.

When she was going to do a webinar for a sales team I had done a webinar for, she called and interviewed me. I had learned a lot and made some mistakes. For instance, if you want people to show up at your webinar, you have to email them twice on the day of, three hours before and then five minutes before it starts. Did you know that? I sure didn’t, until I learned it from Lewis Howes. I tried it and it dramatically increased attendance at the next webinar I did. I passed that on to Jessica. If you don’t have any information of your own, someone else does and will give it to you if you ask the right way.

I call this “borrowing someone else’s diploma,” and it isn’t a particularly new technique. Actor Will Smith did it decades ago and he probably owes the IRS a thank you for that.

When he was 19 years old and touring the country as a rapper, they asked him for $2.8 million. I don’t know if that’s done via a phone call, letter or a reverse Ed McMahon big check with balloons, but that’s definitely a frightening day for a teenager.

It wasn’t a donation they were looking for, but back taxes. Smith didn’t come from money. His divorced parents were middle class, with his dad working seven days a week to run a refrigerator company and his mother employed by the school board. A run-in with the IRS would have crippled most people, but Smith started gathering new information in the midst of that season.

Two years later, as he got ready to move to L.A. from West Philadelphia born and raised for his first acting gig, his manager, James Lassiter, approached him. “Listen, if we’re going out to L.A., we probably should have a goal.” The transition from rapper to actor would not happen by accident. “I want to be the biggest movie star in the world,” Smith replied.

That sentence in and of itself isn’t that unique. A thousand people riding buses from the Midwest out to Hollywood say that every week. Smith also had very little evidence that it would work. He wasn’t a blockbuster actor yet. He was a 21-year-old rapper whose biggest hit at the time had been a PG-flavored song called “Parents Just Don’t Understand.” It’s not just the goal that separates Smith from other would-be superstars. It’s what happened next.

Lassiter did some research and came up with a list of the 10 top-grossing movies of all time. This was not difficult. Someone had already been the world’s biggest star. “We looked at them and said, ‘OK, what are the patterns?’” Smith said.

“We realized that 10 out of 10 had special effects. Nine out of 10 had special effects with creatures. Eight out of 10 had special effects with creatures and a love story.”

That seems too simple to work, right?

There’s no way you can plan a 25-year film career, in the most fickle industry in the world, with a top 10 list that everyone has access to. That’s not sophisticated enough. It needs to be more difficult than that. Or so we think, until we see the list of Will Smith’s six most successful movies.

1. Independence Day: Special effects, creatures, love story; $817 million worldwide lifetime gross.

2. Suicide Squad: Special effects, creatures, love story; $746 million worldwide lifetime gross.

3. Hancock: Special effects. $624 worldwide million lifetime gross.

4. Men in Black 3: Special effects, creatures, love story; $624 worldwide million lifetime gross.

5. Men in Black: Special effects, creatures, love story; $589 million lifetime gross.

6. I Am Legend: Special effects, creatures (love story if you count the dog); $585 million lifetime gross.

Why does Smith believe in the power of borrowing someone else’s diploma? He has 4 billion reasons.

Does doing this guarantee success? Nope. Wild Wild West was a wild wild bust. But in most goals it’s not about winning all the time, it’s about winning more than you lose. We’re not aiming for perfection. All you have to do is win more today than you did yesterday and repeat the whole thing tomorrow. If six of the 24 movies you star in make more than $4 billion, you get to make more movies for a very long time, even if some of them flop.

Don’t ever accept the myth that you have to go it alone. Don’t let perfectionism isolate you.

Find someone with an amazing diploma and then borrow it.

This is an excerpt from Jon Acuff’s new book, Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done. Used with permission.

Warren Buffet says, “When the tide goes out, you can see who was swimming naked.” Well, the tide flew out, exposing quite a few financial skinny dippers. If that was you, the pain is still fresh enough. Use that pain as a motivator. If you change these five things this year, you will be on track to make 2024’s financial situation better than 2023’s. 

When a quarter of U.S. jobs were disrupted during the COVID-19 pandemic, we were reminded that debt really is a millstone around our necks. Three years later, and many families are still struggling to recover from the financial loss, the trurn of student loans, and the rising cost of living.

Romans tells us we can’t conform to this world. This world is full of car payments that live longer than our pets; credit cards ensnare people with their ‘have it all and have it now!’ traps. And don’t forget student loans, where the average payment is nearing $400 bucks per month.

Conforming to the ways of the world guarantees financial stress. 

So how do we change our money by not conforming to this world? We have to renew our minds. That means we must get rid of the bad stuff and put in new, good stuff.  You have to change yourself in order to expect anything different to happen with your money. 

1. Where there is no vision, the people perish.

Winning with money begins with a vision, and that vision starts with your dream! 

No more going to work Monday planning to just make it through the week with no vision beyond Friday. That attitude was for 2024. Once you intentionally think about what your vision is for your future, you will have your “why.” This vision will fuel you to keep pressing on even when the disciplines behind personal finance get really tough. Habakkuk 2:2 says, “Write the vision, and make it plain.” Yours might be: “Save $10,000 this year toward my house down payment.”

2. Plan ahead, don’t just track transactions.

There is a bevy of apps promising that simply logging in and letting them track your expenses will get you on the path to accomplishing your vision. If you tried any of them you probably realized, nothing changed. Why?

Tracking what has already been spent without having a plan first is useless. You need to make a budget. The same can be said when we’re trying to lose those Christmas pounds – looking up the calories after we’ve eaten the pie is not going to help.  

It’s crucial that you implement the monthly habit of planning how you’re going to spend, save, and give away your money. To some people the word “budget” brings up terrifying visions of straight jackets and money fights, but that’s  a misunderstanding. Budgets give our dreams the guardrails and accountability necessary to make them happen. 

For example, if you want to save $10,000 this year toward a down payment for a house, you know to budget $833 into savings every month, $385 transfer every other week, or a $192 transfer on Fridays. You will not wake up one day and accidentally have saved $10,000, in the same way that you won’t wake up one day fit enough for a marathon, or ready to do surgery. It takes diligent, intentional preparation, and that’s what a budget is for our money. 

Even Jesus loved budgets. He said, “For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first calculate the cost, lest he get halfway up his tower and be unable to finish?” Don’t get halfway up your tower and be unable to finish. 

3. Consistently return to your goal.

Winning with personal finance is not “set it and forget it,” and people listening to Jesus would have understood that. Proverbs 16:3 says “Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.” Staying on track when lunchtime comes around is hard when all you can hear is hunger pain demanding Chick-Fil-A. The motivation necessary to denying yourself eating out every day instead of putting your hard-earned dollars toward your car will only come if you keep your goal front and center! Do you want go out for lunch, or move out of your roommate’s house and finally have your own place? 

Keep your financial goals in your mind, in your conversations, and on paper and return to them often. 

4. Get rid of distractions.

Most entertainment and social media are nothing more than distractions. On your Instagram feed, the people with the largest followings are called ’influencers’ for a reason – they wield an enormous sway over the people who follow them. Those influencers trying to get you to buy makeup products, and fishing gear, and the latest clothes – they are distracting you from your goal. 

You must make sure your feed is free of the influences that will drive you away from your financial goals. Start the year with an “unsubscribing and unfollowing” cleanse, where you silence the voices that distract from your vision. Unsubscribe from email lists, unfollow Twitter, Facebook and Instagram brands, and …

Certainly, the strongest way to fortify yourself against these ever-pulling distractions would be to go on a social media fast. The bottom line is any movement away from distraction is a good thing.

5. Surround yourself with good influences that will help you win. 

The Bible says there is safety in the company of wisdom, (Proverbs 11:14) so surround yourself with vision-oriented friends.  Immerse yourself in the feeds of people who are winning with money. Look into investing in a financial coach, books, or classes. These good influences for one will help center your mind on the things that will bring you good results. Michigan State University researchers demonstrated that peers were more important than teachers in a student’s attitude about school, showing that who we surround ourselves with is a determining factor of our own success. 

How do you renew your mind and stop conforming to the financially flawed ways of this world? Have a vision, and plan ahead by using a budget (Jesus loved budgets!) Return to goals often, get rid of distractions and immerse yourself in an environment of good influences. These tactics will reinforce diligence instead of derailing your goals. Putting them into practice will go a long way toward ensuring 2020’s bad financial habits don’t follow us into 2024. 

I’m going to teach you the same process Natalie and I taught other couples who have been burned by relationships in the past and want to try an approach that leads to finding their mates without trashing their hearts in the process. In a time when relationships become “Facebook official” overnight, you need to take time — without everybody else applying pressure or giving an opinion — to see if you’re really attracted to the other person, if your values line up and if you can help each other become who you’re meant to be. 

Wouldn’t you like a clear path to a healthy relationship? 

Take 90 days to get to know each other without pressure. Gasp! “90 days?!” Hey, it’s just three months, less than the length of a football season. That’s not such a long time to spend forming an intentional friendship, which might lead to intentional dating, which might lead to marriage, now is it? 

If you can, go through this process with advisers in the form of a trusted married couple who are wise in the ways of the Lord. The first time you meet with them, it’s like an on-ramp to a relationship. The last time you meet with them, at the end of 90 days, it’s like an off-ramp to get out of the relationship easily if it hasn’t worked out. Or else it’s like a green light to continue the journey and see where it goes. 

Discuss Your Relationship Fears

Write down your three greatest fears of being in relationship, and share them with each other. Maybe they include “getting pressured to be more physical than I want.” Or “telling my deep secrets and having you share them with your friends.” Or “not being treated like I’m important.” Or “having my hopes built up, only to have them ruined.” 

By doing this, you each know something about your expectations. You get a chance to be protective of each other’s hearts. And this vulnerability provides accountability later on. For example, if she said she wants to still be a virgin when she marries and he is pushing to have sex, that shows he doesn’t care about her values. 

Agree on Boundaries

No matter how old or how experienced you are, if you want to have a pure relationship and not create too strong of a physical tie before marriage, then you need to agree from the outset about what you will or will not do. You may be thinking, I don’t need boundaries. I’m grown. Well, so are your pain, disappointments and frustrations. Boundaries aren’t bad; they’re actually a blessing. 

These are a few rules for the road so you don’t get in an accident on the journey. 

• Set a curfew. Every date needs an ending time. Decide that one of you is always going to go home at midnight or whatever other time you agree on. 
• What’s a no go for touch? Maybe it’s hugs that last longer than thirty seconds. Or French kissing. Or whatever. Know the triggers that could take you all the way to sex. 
• What else would help? Maybe you’ll agree not to watch movies with sex scenes in them. Or not to send each other notes or texts that are too suggestive. A lot of couples agree to never chill in a horizontal position (lying down on a couch or bed), only in a vertical position. 

These kinds of boundaries may seem petty, and they’re not meant to be legalistic, but they have a way of helping people keep from succumbing to natural temptations. They create a safe place for you to learn about each other. They encourage less touching and more talking. 

Have Focused Conversations

It can be hard to make conversation when you don’t know each other well. So, read a book about relationship and discuss it. It will help you get to know each other and start sensing if you’re right for each other. 

For example, I encourage couples to read Gary Chapman’s The Five Love Languages. It will give you a peek into how the other person works and help you frame the relationship. For example, if one person loves gifts, the other one had better be prepared to open his wallet from time to time. It can also help you avoid mistakes. If somebody loves quality time and the other one loves physical touch, you’d better set strong physical boundaries because one is going to want to sit on the couch all the time and the other one is going to want to be touched — and that’s a recipe for a baby. 

After ninety days, have a conversation to see where you stand. Are you attracted to each other? Green light or red flag? 

I always encourage people to pay attention to patterns, not potential. All of us have the potential to do better in our weak areas, but can we live with each other’s patterns? For instance, she may seem flirtatious to you, but she says it’s just her personality — she’s bubbly and likes talking to everybody. Can you live with that? Transformation in this area may come eventually, but even if so, there’s no timetable on it. 

You may want to go ahead with more dating together, hopefully leading to engagement and marriage, or you may decide to call it quits. If you do decide to end it here, hopefully the breakup will happen without all the painful ripping apart that can happen when a dating couple is too tightly bonded. Instead of feeling like you lost, you can feel like you gained — you had some fun, you got to know somebody else and you picked up some relationship tools that you can use next time around. 

Your relationship goal of marriage is still alive and healthy.

At the time, that was the biggest question I was able to think of. By then, 19 years old, I had experienced some of what life is capable of throwing our way. I had summited many joyous mountaintops, not unlike my home state’s abundance of 14ers, which seem to only get harder to climb as life goes on, along with the deep ravines and crags that test all that I am and seem unbearable and completely overridden with obstacles. Still, there is only so much one can know of life when they are young; I know this because I am increasingly aware of how young I am and how the iceberg of life is only now being explored below the tossing waves that hide its substance.

“Who am I going to become?” can be an unproductive question as it removes us (or at least me) from now and transports us to the future. In the future, we are everything we’ve wanted to be or imagined we could be. Our dreams have been apprehended, and our problems are gone. We are with the ones we love, crushing our goals, doing and seeing all that there is to be done and seen, traveling the world, and eating all of the foods. In our fantasies, we are satisfied with our self-created, optimistic and imaginative version of ourselves.

However, we are never in the future; it is a place we know exists but can never find. It is a great white whale or the pot of gold beneath the rainbow’s end. We see it, understand it, feel it, but never lay hold of it. There comes a point where we look back and realize we’ve been chasing something that doesn’t exist, or at least not in the way we imagined. The present is the only place we can and will ever be. 

“Who am I going to become?” presents us with a buffet of all that is imaginable to eat from, stacking up every dream, goal and hope, high on our plate, knowing that we can go back for seconds and thirds and fourths, but it leaves out the truth of the bill and what it costs to have all that we have ever wanted. It forgets about how much is actually possible to consume before we puke ourselves to misery. Everything we have ever hoped for and wanted will cost everything we have ever hoped for or wanted.

It’s only now I realize how my life has been shaped by this question, and others like it. I am not a planner by nature, but I am someone who thinks about what will be, and then as it arrives, I decide how to proceed. Before my 20s, I had ideas of what will come next but no guidance other than adults and friends who loved me enough to spend time showing me the map. Throughout my 20s, I have made it my goal to be led by the Holy Spirit. At times I’ve heard His voice and calling, at others I’ve disregarded what I heard, and others still I was so immersed in the raucous noise from other things that it drowned out His gentle whispers, leaving me to find my way by means of lesser maps and advice.

Sometime around the age of 20 or so, I heard a worship song that led with the words, “Where you go, I go; what you say, I say,” and it captivated me. It was revelatory to think of living my life in complete unity and relationship with God, the Father, like Jesus. As a Christian, I knew that the goal was to be like Jesus and do what He did, but it always felt passive, that eventually one day I’ll just start to look and walk and talk like Christ; as if it was by osmosis alone apart from any action other than saying, “I’m a Christian.”

The part I missed at the time, and so often miss even now is the aspect of action: Where He goes, I also go; what He says, I also say. The poetic nature of these words doesn’t come to life through a passive thought process. What would it sound like if instead those words sang, “Where You go, I think about going; what you say, I contemplate saying.” The ambiguity and soft intention would inspire people to live a transformed life nearly as much as a rock, at the bottom of a stream, inspires the water to move around it. The words of Christ are not to take up our crosses at some convenient time in the future and follow Him when it fits within our life plan. The time is now for action.

Instead of asking ourselves the question of who will I become, a better question we should be asking ourselves, or at least the one I’ve been asking myself this past year is, “Who am I becoming by what I am doing?” I heard a pastor friend, Jon Tyson, say this during an all-day event this past March, and it has remained lodged in my mind like a splinter deep under the skin, resting quietly but always prodding and provoking.

“Who am I becoming, by what I am doing?” is a question that roots us in the present. It doesn’t rely on future hopes and dreams as much as it inspires action to achieve those dreams. Who am I becoming breaks down the first question that I asked myself at 19 and places it in front of me. It is a map that shows me where I want to be going and where I am actually going should I stay on the current path. The second part of the question “by what I am doing” forces us to confront decisions that either pull us closer toward that end goal or lead further astray to some undesirable place that can never come back from.

My desire is to be a good husband; hopefully, one day, a good father, as well. I want to be a hard worker and seen as a valuable asset and contributor to my employer. I hope to be in shape, healthy, looking good and feeling confident in my skin. At the end of my life, however, above all other things, I want those around me to be left better off because of my life, and when I stand before the Lord, my greatest desire is to hear the words, “Well done,” and, “I knew you.”

In wanting those things, I’m left with the question of, “Are the decisions I’m making now, presently, today, at this moment, pushing me closer to those goals, or are they pulling me in other directions?” Other directions may be excellent ways to go, and there are even instances where goals need to be amended, and routes need to be course-corrected, but intentionally so. One thing I am sure of is that life is unpredictable, circumstances will change and adaptation will need to happen. Still, I want to live in a way that can be set up well to tackle those when they arrive and not let them overwhelm me as the waves overwhelm and crush even the most structurally sound sandcastle. This question of who am I becoming by what I am doing allows us, me, to have the foresight to build the sandcastle in a place where the waves can’t sweep it away.

We have only one life, and I want to live it well.

But what I’ve come to discover is, many people don’t realize this cost. We still treat social media as if it is an exemption from being responsible for our words and actions.

We need to get over the power that makes us feel we can say whatever we want on social media, and instead embrace the power to say what only builds up. When we are doing this, we can use social media as a tool for change — something that would honor the life of Jesus rather than shame it.

It truly is possible to live and love like Jesus on social media. It is possible to glorify God with our social media activity. We just need a few guidelines to point us in the right direction:

1. Strive for connection, not attention.

There are two kinds of social media users: one who goes on with a “look at me!” perspective, and one who goes on with a “let’s connect” perspective. Social media was made for the latter.

This doesn’t mean you can’t share your work with others online. This just means you shouldn’t use likes and comments as validation for yourself. Aim to connect instead.

2. Be transparent, but not too transparent.

Jesus revealed personal information to His disciples, not to everyone. This means we should strive to be transparent with those who love us and gather around us in real life. While social media opens our lives to the entire world, the entire world doesn’t need to know about everything. Be transparent, but mostly with your close friends in real life.

3. Ask yourself: Could I say this same thing in front of someone?

Social media distances us from the impact of our words. We could say things and then walk away from our keyboard, being blind to how others react to them.

But just because we can’t see the impact of our words in real life doesn’t mean our words don’t make a splash. If we’re saying things that aren’t words we would say in front of someone’s face, then we shouldn’t say them at all.

4. Don’t buy into the “say what needs to be said” culture.

On social media, everyone is “saying what needs to be said.” But when everyone is doing this, it’s hard to filter what actually needs to be said. A better way to get across a message is to say what needs to be said, but also live it in real life. This is what Jesus did. He gave the Sermon on the Mount, and then immediately after began healing people. A message is better communicated when it is not only said, but lived as well.

5. Learn to listen better.

When people see a status they disagree with, they’re quick to state their opinions in the comments. But this disables us from listening. In real life, we have to wait our turn to speak, but with comments, we simply have to scroll down. This is how some articles and discussions online can get so out of control — people refuse to listen and instead turn the subject into something entirely different.

Rather than being quick to voice your opinion, digest the words you’re reading first. Offer a thoughtful response only after listening.

6. Avoid stirring the pot with the articles you share.

Many Christians like to stir the pot with the articles they share on hot-button issues. But I would urge you to monitor how many articles you share that simply agree with your ideology. When you do this, you can run into the danger of making your beliefs purely about arguing opinions rather than living for Christ, which is a bad message to send to unbelievers.

You don’t need to stir the pot to show people Christ; you just need to live and love like Him.

7. No racist comments.

This one is obvious, but apparently needs to be said. Just because your friends on social media share your same values doesn’t mean you can say whatever you want to them. The truth is, when you’re on social media, you’re not only speaking to your friends — you’re speaking to the world. And one thing the world needs less of is words to perpetuate stereotypes and racial hatred.

8. Avoid being mean to bloggers.

Social media is not an outlet where you can be mean to others because you don’t agree with them. If we don’t like a person’s art, we should be constructively sharpening them to think better, but we shouldn’t be tearing them down. Art is a personal thing, and you’re tearing at a person’s soul every time you choose to condemn their work instead of sharpen it. Instead, push them to be better in gentle ways.

Social media is a dangerous territory, but it’s possible to live like Jesus in midst of its complications. The key is to relinquish the false sense of power that fools us into thinking we can do whatever we want online, and instead pick up the love and character of Jesus Christ to shape our words. In the end, it’s those words that’ll make a difference.

To shed some light on how people can connect their religious life with their psychology, we spoke to Dr. Peace Amadi. As a mental health expert and psychology professor at Hope International University, her experience as a pastor’s kid shaped her view of how her faith and expertise could intersect. In her book, Why Do I Feel Like This?, Amadi helps us navigate through difficult emotions while giving ourselves grace.

We asked Amadi how to connect our faith and healing processes, and how the church can reshape their thoughts on psychology.

Can you tell me the origin stories of your new book, Why Do I Feel Like This?

I grew up in the church and I’ve also been studying psychology for the last two decades of my life. I have been a fan and a promoter of really looking at our mental health. Being a pastor’s kid, I saw that there was a lot more gaps between the two worlds and I felt that were doing us a disservice. Because I’m someone who loves God, loves Jesus and believes in his healing power, but also I’m someone who’s a behavioral scientist and seeing that there were actually tools that we we’re given to help us heal. I felt like there wasn’t enough resources that really bridged my two worlds.

And so I figured, you know what, I’m going to fill the gap. I’m going to write something where people of faith can rest assured that they can find something that isn’t going to diminish their faith or demonize their faith in any way, but really find that happy, middle, beautiful, empowering ground there is between God and his healing power and really, the behavioral science and mental health and so that was the beginning. In addition to me having my own story and feeling like I personally want to find more resources that speak to how to heal using both scripture, but also psychology.

What are some of those specific gaps you mentioned?

One example I think of is anxiety, which is something that I have struggled with personally. I have a pretty solid understanding of where it comes from and all the different places it’s come from, being a trained clinical psychologist myself. But the talk around my anxiety was like, “Well, just pray. If you prayed enough, God’ll take all that anxiety away.” And as ideal and beautiful as that sounds, the reality of the situation is, when you’re really struggling with anxiety, you need tools and support to come alongside you and help you through that journey and really unpack where that anxiety is coming from and how to relieve it.

And so I was finding that the more that I leaned on my faith community, the less I really knew what to do besides get on my knees and ask God to take it away. And the more I leaned into my psychology side, especially as I became an expert myself, I realized it didn’t have to be this hard for so long. God isn’t insecure, I can lean into these resources, I can lean into the science, I can lean into people who look at this from different points of views and embrace all that and not take anything away from the fact that God is my healer. God is going to work through these methods as well. 

I think something that a lot of people of faith fear when they start to consider going to see some professional help to talk about their issues is that the professional may not understand their religious beliefs. In your experience, is that something that’s important? How relatively reassured can somebody who’s looking for help feel that when they go to talk to a counselor, therapist, psychologist, that that person will be sensitive to that part of their identity?

That’s a great question. And here’s what I’ll say, our faith is something to be incredibly proud of. It’s beautiful, it is our strength, it is our anchor. And that isn’t something that you ever need to feel that needs to be minimized or held back when you’re seeking any help or support. So I specifically say to people, when you’re looking for help, when you’re looking for a therapist and you’re consulting, tell them, “I am a person of faith, my faith is important to me. I see the world through these lenses. Is that something that’s going to be a problem? Or is that something we can explore?” And nine times out of 10, you’re going to get a therapist that is open to that and supportive of that and wIll know how to deal with that, because guess what? As a mental health professional, we’re also trained to take all of a person, all of their worldview, and explore how that intersects with their health and healing journey.

Sometimes mental health professionals get this bad rap that we’re just going to poopoo on people of faith, but actually, the research points to faith being one of the most protective factors that there is in a person’s life. We respect that as a field, whether the individual buys into that worldview or not. So it’s not something that needs to be as worried about as I think it is. It’s just a matter of awareness. 

You mentioned that so many of us, myself included, were taught growing up in the church that if you’re feeling any mental health issues, you pray. I think some of us are starting to learn a little bit better since that time. But I still think so many of us are unsure of how to pray about our mental health struggles. How do you, as a person of faith who thought a lot about this, pray about the things that you’re dealing with mentally and psychologically?

God helped me find my way, however you want to do that. If you want to pray, literally, “reach your big hand inside my soul and just take something away,” cool. But it can also be, “Help me find a therapist that can help me, help me find a community that can support me, help me find a word that I can anchor myself in, help me know who to keep in my life and who not to keep in my life. Give me hope.” These are prayers that I’ve prayed, where I acknowledge that God moves and works and heals us in so many different ways. And I think we can all resonate with that. 

I think we’ve all prayed, God, for example, God, financial breakthrough, God doesn’t drop dollar bills in your palm. God will maybe whisper in somebody else’s ear to give you a gift. Somebody will just call you the next day, “You were on my heart and I want to bless you.” It doesn’t have to be this mystical, magical, super supernatural thing all the time. Sometimes it’s just practical, but it’s God directing our footsteps. If you’re open to the different ways that God can move, God will answer that prayer.

Whenever Christians start talking about turning to any subject outside of the church for help, what you hear is, “Well, you don’t think the Bible is sufficient?” How would you answer somebody who says that?

I would ask them, “Yes, God is sufficient, but how does God work and move?” I always go back to physical health, for some reason, people understand that a little bit more. Your loved one has symptoms, you take them in and find out they have cancer. What do you do? You start looking for the best doctor and you pray. You start praying that God will show you to the best doctor. You know what I mean? You start researching, how can this person heal? “God, help me figure this out.” It all works together, it’s not either/or. 

God is our ultimate healer. God has also put us in this situation and designed it so that we can lean on each other’s support, expertise, schooling, everything. That’s just how he built it. He’s sufficient, because he’s so creative with how many things he’s given us to get the help and support we need. It’s really that simple for me.

Peace Amadi’s Why Do I Feel Like This? is available now.

As kids, we were told that we could all make a change, that each one of us would be president, astronaut, queen, whatever we desired. We received trophies for sitting on the bench.

Now, when the glory days of little league are over and life is hitting, fear begins to set in. “What if I end up like my mother?” “What if I never live up to my dad’s expectations?” “What do I even want to do with my life? Once I figure that out, what if I can’t do it?”

While friends level up in their dream job, start having kids and families of their own, we’re here wondering if there will ever be an opportunity for us besides our current jobs. Maybe the epidemic hasn’t hit you yet, but you’re beginning to feel the symptoms.

Maybe it’s caught you full-swing. Maybe you’re the one with the dream job who’s still wondering if you’re on the right track.

Whether you’re dreading it or fighting it, there are tools to conquer the quarterlife crisis before it takes over.

Take a Social Media Fast

It’s hard to hear Christ whisper His unique plan when a hundred other people are broadcasting their own.

We all by now have heard the adage “comparison kills joy.” In this day and age, social media is idealism’s H2O. With this bit of sustenance gone, food for discontentment will be limited, and more thoughtspace will be freed up.

While fasting from the feed, center on the now.

Check out the board-game night that record store you’ve been curious about. Read that book your dad recommended while you wait in line at the DMV. Volunteer at the local food bank.

Whatever it is that focuses your mind on the here and now instead of the “what if I nevers,” dive into that this week.

Wage War on Idleness

Rest is not idleness.

Self-care is not idleness. Idleness is unproductivity. It’s sitting on the couch wishing you had something to do, while never moving a finger. In 2 Thessalonians 3:6, we are warned to “keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness.”

Leading ultimately to discontentment, such supineness spins into a vicious cycle of mental wanderings to all you wish you were doing, leading then to discontentment so discouraging it draws you back to the cementitious idea that there’s nothing to be done, so why try?

If as you’re reading this you realize you’re caught in this spinning drum of epoxy, go back to what you did at first. What did you revel in as a child? If you painted, pick up a brush, even if it’s been a decade.

Invest in these organic joys.

Allow them to spark in you once more the same inspiration they did when you were little. There was a reason you loved them- find it again.

Fight Fear With Love

Recognize that the Master Creator knew what He was doing when He formed you. The dreams you have are there for a reason. Stripped down to the core, they were instilled by God for a purpose. Because the enemy has twisted so many areas which once were beautiful, we often forget that the Lord Almighty is the Author of satisfaction and pleasure.

According to James 1:17, “Every good and perfect gift comes from above, coming down from the Father of heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”

However, for those from broken backgrounds, the thought of a “good gift” can be somewhat intangible. So, we step in, try to help God out, make sure He doesn’t forget anything, or that what He has in mind is actually good. Fighting the lies of insecurity with the truth of who God is is one of the most important steps to conquering a quarterlife crisis.

Until we fully trust Him with our lives, we will not be able to understand that in the end, our lives will be beautiful only because of Him and His unfailing grace.

Recognize That It’s Not All on You

You will fail.

You will let the people around you down, at least once. It’s inevitable. And life will continue on. You are simply one element in His master plan for humanity, but you are an ingredient nonetheless.

Just like a craftsman, God will ensure that each piece of His puzzle is working as it should, given that we allow ourselves to be moldable. When you live your life in obedience, He promises to “make straight the paths before you” (Isaiah 45:2).

It’s not up to you to be perfect, just to keep your eyes on Him. He will guide and direct you. We get so caught up in the grand scheme of things sometimes that we forget our Father cares about our job situation, our home life, our relationships, everything. We forget He is Lord over those, too (or perhaps we try to become “lord” over them). As you come to terms with the fact that it’s not about you, the pressure will slowly lift.

As you realize that our Father is purely good, loves you infinitely more than you could fathom and is in control, anticipation begins to build. As you learn that your life calling, be it as an accountant, filmmaker, football coach, whatever, is for the good of the Kingdom,thus inherently blessing you as a child of the Kingdom, excitement begins to grow and the fear surrounding any life crises leaves.

You don’t have to be subject to this millennial epidemic. Following Him does not mean putting your head down and accepting a boring, mediocre life. Because He has so much more for us than this, the enemy will fight to steal that joy and adventure.

This is a massively effective derailing tactic of his right now, so it is imperative we know how to effectively fight back and strengthen our own guard rails as the rising generation.

• Doubt: Compared to how awesome everyone else is, what do I possibly have to offer? What difference can I make?
• Fear: Compared to how awesome everyone else is, what if I try to be awesome and fail?
• Acceptance: Compared to how awesome everyone else is, I will never be that awesome. That is my lot in life. 

The Bible is full of epic stories of thrilling victories and devastating defeats. One of those stories chronicles the release of the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt.

Their leader, Moses, leads them on an amazing, harrowing journey toward a new land flowing with milk and honey. Along the way, they got a front-row seat to the awesome power of God to deliver them and provide for their every need. He walked them directly out of institutional slavery after the plagues He released on the nation of Egypt. He defeated the entire Egyptian army hot on their heels by drowning them in a sea He had just split in half so the defenseless Hebrews could walk through untouched. He literally guided them along the way, appearing among them in the form of a pillar of fire at night and a cloud by day.

When they got hungry out in the desert, no problem. He dropped meat out of the sky in the form of delicious quail flying directly into their camp each and every day. I’ve hunted quail before, but this was different. The quail hunted them! What chef would provide meat without some mouthwatering bread? Manna bread would form on the ground each and every day ready to be paired and plated for a delightful presentation that would make the producers of the Food Network envious. The availability of water is paramount to any living organism surviving in the searing heat of the desert. God simply split a rock and out came cold, pure water flowing to His people and animals headed to the land He promised them.

If you don’t get the picture yet, it should start to become clear. God is awesome. He had chosen this group of people out of all the people in the world to be major characters in His redemptive story. The story starts at creation and the fall, moves toward the coming of Jesus Christ as Messiah and ends with a grand finale curtain call featuring Satan and his followers thrown into hell and the followers of Jesus living together in heaven forever.  

The chosen people of God should have been full of momentum and confidence in the awesomeness of God. He chose them! He had placed great value on them. Not because they were awesome, but because they were created in His image and He already loved them. He didn’t need them to be awesome. In contrast to their awesome God, every one of them was incredibly ordinary. There was great freedom in that fact. They didn’t have to be awesome; they simply needed to be obedient. Therein lay their value.

But that is not what happened. As soon as their toes got to the edge of the promised land and they sent their spies out to get a simple assessment of the land God had already given them, something curious occurred. The report came back describing large people and large fortified cities. With their recent experiences of the awesomeness of God fresh in their minds, you would think that they would have responded to the report with, “Yeah, so what?” and confidently marched into the land. But what should have been their natural movement was hindered.

You see, that is what a crippling disease does. It slows or removes the ability for natural movement. When they focused solely on the size of the people and fortifications, the crippling disease of comparison swept through the camp. They lost sight of how incredibly valuable they were because they were ordinary, and their God was extraordinary. This disease guided them back to their former slavery mindset, marked by seeing little to no value in themselves, destined to a life void of epic victory stories against overwhelming odds.      

The crippling disease of comparison will still allow you to be somewhat active, but not at the healthy level for which you were created. 

Jesus is no stranger to crippling diseases. He was famous for healing people to display His divine power and prove that He was indeed the son of God. He healed people who couldn’t walk, who couldn’t see, those who were sick and even dead! 

The key thing to understand here is that when Jesus intersected with people who were crippled by some form of disease or physical need and healed them, He did not make them into some awesome superhuman specimen, He simply restored their bodies back to their normal function. He made them ordinary. Once they became ordinary, many of them would immediately join the movement of God, helping it to become known as a movement that was “turning the world upside down.” The doubt of what they had to offer dissipated. The fear was gone, they were ordinary, and that was awesome! They no longer had to accept their limited lot in life; they were now whole, and they wanted to tell everyone who would listen all about it. 

Great movements that change things are not borne on the back of awesome; they are borne on the back of ordinary.

The good news if you have the symptoms of the crippling disease of comparison is this: there is a prescription. And it’s simple. Stop comparing.    

Excerpted with permission from Empower by Jeff Martin. Copyright 2021, B&H Publishing.

You get to spend all your free time (of which you have an ample supply) in coffee shops, hanging out with your best friends, joking about your misadventures and keeping an eye out for your next date. Life is unpredictable and romance is always just around the corner.

While we all know that TV portrayals are a far cry from reality, cultural influences like these—combined with the voices we pick up from church and our communities—all manage to creep into our expectations for what single life is really like.

But singleness is never as black and white as caricatures and stereotypes make it out to be. And the truth is, every person’s experience of singleness is going to look a little different. There are times when singleness provides freedom and flexibility that we know we’ll never experience in any other season, and it’s thrilling.

But there are also moments when singleness leads to feelings of disenchantment or disappointment, as men and women wonder how their individual story fits in with the bigger picture of God’s plan. So when society and those around us seem to have ingrained ideas about what singleness really means, it can add a fair amount of confusion and lead to a level of feeling misunderstood. In the spirit of clearing up some faulty perceptions of singleness, here are a few myths I’d like to bust:

1. If you’re single, then your dating life is public domain.

The married couple from church. Your mom’s co-worker. The elderly lady in the grocery store aisle. If you’re like me, you’ve probably lost count of the number of actual strangers who have inquired about your love life at some point in your twenties. While almost always well intentioned, probing questions about relationship status can feel like someone is shining a bright spotlight onto a very personal area of your life.

If you’ve just gone through a rocky breakup or are experiencing a season of drought on the dating front, relationship questions fired without warning can be downright awkward, even painful.

So let’s clear the air: Single men and women shouldn’t have to provide details of their romantic life to people who haven’t been vetted as safe and trustworthy. Strangers and acquaintances? Not vetted. Your dental hygienist? Not vetted. Friends and co-workers? Pick the ones whose wise words and counsel you trust, and then share openly and transparently with those few.

If the one doing the asking is looking to connect, there are plenty of more comfortable topics to help build that connection. And if they’re hoping to be entertained by someone else’s love life, they can head home and binge on the last season of The Bachelor.

2. If you’re single, then you’re selfish.

We’ve all heard it many times in various forms, sometimes stated outright and other times just insinuated. And, it’s an easy myth to latch onto. After all, when you’re single you can spend your money however you like, your free time is all your own and you don’t have to answer to a chorus of tiny voices calling you mom or dad when you walk through the door of your home. Being single is like an extended vacation where every day is all about me, right?

In reality, my single friends are living some of the most sacrificial and selfless lifestyles I know. They are the ones who are willing and able to work long hours at lower paying jobs, often serving people directly with very little recognition. They are the ones who will drop what they’re doing to babysit so their married friends can have a much-needed date night or pick up the phone at 2 a.m. when a friend is in crisis. They spend most of their vacation days celebrating the weddings, baby showers and celebrations of other people. Their days tend to be long and packed, because they are involved in so many aspects of work, church and their communities. This is the reality of single life that many people are living. And they are painting a beautiful picture of a life lived out of love and service.

3. If you’re single, then you’re not really an adult.

Throughout my early and mid-twenties, I frequently related to Pinocchio. He wanted to be a real boy—I wanted to be a real adult. But, in many instances I felt like I wouldn’t be able to earn the respect of a fully grown adult until I tied the knot. I’ve talked to many single men and women in the church who have felt the same way. Because marriage is the ultimate expression of commitment, it can be easy to assume that a lack of marriage must mean an unwillingness to commit, which is seen as an indicator of immaturity.

In reality, relationship status doesn’t necessarily indicate an aversion to commitment or responsibility. It’s more likely an indicator of not having found the right person to commit to just yet. And that’s OK.

Life events like marriage, owning a house or working a full-time job are all opportunities for personal growth and responsibility, but they are not benchmarks to earning adult status. It’s possible to have all of these things and still lack maturity. And it’s very possible to possess maturity and wisdom without these experiences.

If you’re single, surround yourself with people who challenge you and recognize your full potential. Work with people who will expect responsibility and commitment from you, invest deeply in your friendships and build a life worth sharing with the community that you have right now.

For the most part, we know this. Nobody expects to be in six-pack summer shape without a healthy diet and rigorous workout routine. And more and more people are waking up to the fact that getting into a mentally and emotionally healthy place means finding a counselor who has the resources to help you sort through your personal issues. Even solid financial health takes some real work: getting a budget, sorting through your expenses and making some changes.

But for some reason, people forget the importance of work when it comes to spiritual health. There is a popular idea in the American mindset that being spiritually healthy just means doing whatever comes naturally, along with some vaguely good intentions sprinkled on top, as if the key to lowering your cholesterol was just eating whatever you want.

Now, just like with mental or physical health, it’s important not to shame anyone here. But if you’re finding your spiritual life is in a rut and can’t quite figure out why your connection with God isn’t where you want it to be, it’s worth asking: What are you doing to improve it?

The Bible and several millennia of church history have plenty of suggestions for how to get into spiritual shape. Unfortunately, a lot of these practices have fallen out of fashion. Sometimes because they’re weird. Sometimes because they’re hard. Often because they’re both.

“I do feel like a lot of this is telling people stuff they already know,” says Tish Harrison Warren, author of Liturgy of the Ordinary. “If you want to know Jesus, then you have to read the Bible, go to church and pray. You knew that as a 3-year-old.”

Warren thinks it’s time for a return to older “unsexy” spiritual practices precisely because they’ve been around for so long. They’re tested.

“The Christian life is thousands of years old,” she says. “We’re not going to discover a new product that’s going to take it to a new level.”

Prayer

Let’s start with an easier one: daily prayer. Based on research, it’s fairly likely you’re already praying with some regularity. According to Pew Research, about 39% of millennials say they pray daily, and that number jumps up to about 61% if you’re talking about black millennials. So if you’re among them, congratulations, you’re already taking good care of your spiritual health. And if you’re not, don’t worry: It’s not too hard to implement it into your daily routine.

Praying daily looks different for different people, but one thing it probably doesn’t look like if you want to be serious is “praying on the go.” Yes, God is always there and ready to listen, and you should pray anytime you’ve got the inclination, but that’s not really the kind of prayer we’re talking about building into your daily routine here.

This prayer will take a chunk of time out of your day. It’ll involve intentionally setting aside at least a few minutes to really meditate on what’s on your heart, and listen to what God is speaking to you. It’s more than just a laundry list of today’s worries and wants. It’s a conversation in which you’re opening yourself up to God speaking to you.

Set a timer. Start with something manageable, like 10 minutes. If you find yourself getting easily distracted, get a notebook and write your prayers down. After a while, try upping the time in small increments. Like any good discipline, it’ll be difficult at first, but as you keep doing it, you’ll find it coming easier.

Bible Reading

Chances are, you’ve done this before—or at least tried to. Maybe you committed yourself to reading the entire Bible all the way through. You got through Genesis and Exodus, which are pretty good. Leviticus gets a little dry, but at least it’s interesting. And then Numbers and Deuteronomy just seem to slam the brakes on the entire plot, so you give up and turn on Stranger Things.

That’s understandable. People dedicate their entire lives and academic careers to making sense of the Bible. It’s an old collection of books written in a variety of genres and languages over the course of thousands of years. Nobody should be surprised if it’s not exactly easy reading. People have to take classes to learn to read Shakespeare and Sun Tzu. You can be gentle with yourself when it comes to reading the Bible, too.

Fortunately, there are thousands of easily accessible resources to help you navigate the Bible. Concordances, commentaries, studies and guidebooks abound, and you’ll be amazed at how many of them illuminate the Bible in ways you never thought possible. Even those dusty old passages in Leviticus and Numbers can come to life if you’re willing to put in a little extra work to understand some of the cultural context around them.

The value this will bring to your spiritual life is immense. The Bible spells out the character of God and the divine arc of the Gospel. And it’s a big and dense enough book that even if you feel like you’ve spent your whole life reading it, any reread can still offer new insights.

Find a good book about the Bible and spend about 20 minutes each day with it as supplemental reading to your actual Bible study. You’ll be shocked at how much you learn.

Fasting

Here we go. Fasting is an incredibly common teaching in the Bible. Everyone from David to Esther to Paul to Jesus Himself spent extended periods of time without food. But in today’s culture, fasting is very rarely taught as a spiritual discipline.

Somewhat ironically, fasting has become somewhat in vogue among holistic health nuts. “People are spiritually hungry,” says Warren. “People are questioning some old orthodoxies about the best way to live and what does it mean to be holistic. “

“The problem with a lot of this is that spirituality is so vague that it can’t ask anything of us. It can become another consumer project of something we use to make our life the way we want it.”

So, first, a few details about biblical fasting. It’s never just fasting. It’s a supplemental spiritual practice. The idea is that you abstain from food as a way of clearing space in your life to invest in other spiritual practices, like some of the other ones described in this article.

Second, fasting is often associated with specifically seeking God’s guidance. In Acts, the early Church fasts as a way of seeking God’s will for electing their very first leaders. In the book of Jonah, the entire city of Nineveh fasts while seeking forgiveness from God. In other words, fasting often has a specific goal in mind.

If you decide to fast, make sure to set some reasonable goals. Consider a simple 24-hour fast, to start. Try not to make a big deal about it. Drink plenty of water. And most importantly, spend whatever time you would have spent eating praying, reading the Bible and seeking God’s face.

Church Attendance

This one sounds a little “no duh,” but it’s worth bringing up here for a few reasons. The first one being that going to church looks very different for us in pandemic season, but that doesn’t mean we still can’t do it safely online. And we should. There are few spiritual practices more critically taught in the Bible than being an active part of the Church. The second one being, it’s not a particularly popular practice, even among American Christians. About 58% of white evangelical millennials say they attend church once a week, according to Pew. That number drops to about half among Black Protestants and 32% among mainline Protestants.

You might be a little over church. You might feel like it’s all a little “been there, done that.” After all, can’t just hanging out with friends be church?

Maybe so, but a solid church can provide all kinds of opportunities for spiritual growth you can’t get on your own: resources to serve others in the community. People who are different from you who can mentor or even be mentored by you. Connections to communities in other parts of the city that need your money, time and prayer. The Church is a lot more than just a Sunday morning service. At its best, it’s a transformational community.

Now, many people have valid reasons for being skeptical of going to church. You may have been hurt by a church or church leader in the past. You may have very real stories of wounds you’ve received from the Church, and hesitation about going back is completely understandable.

Just know that there are churches out there who will welcome you, take care of you and champion you. When you’re ready to give it another shot, they’ll be waiting for you.

“I’m under so much pressure …”

“I’m totally stressed …”

No wonder our conversations are peppered with these phrases given 40 million Americans will be affected by a diagnosable anxiety disorder during their lifetime. It seems that all generations — from teenagers to senior adults — feel heightened stress and tension today. Why is that? And what can you do to help yourself and the people you care about navigate our anxious world?

The Reasons for the Anxiety Surge

We don’t know conclusively why anxiety is rising, but we can make a few educated guesses. Around 2012, mental health challenges surged nationally. This was the same year that the US reached a landmark in our use of technology as the portion of Americans owning smart phones surpassed 50 percent. And things haven’t gotten much better since then.  

It’s an overstatement to say technology is “causing” our mental health struggles, but recent shifts in statistics around adolescent risk behaviors give a window into how the two are linked. Over a decade ago, when teenage anxiety, depression and suicide all rose, teen sexual activity, substance use and pregnancy all dropped. One way we can interpret this data is that risk behaviors generally involving two or more teenagers in the same room together have dipped while those that teenagers experience by themselves—possibly holed up alone in their room seeing online what everyone is doing without them—are escalating.

But technology is by no means the only culprit. Even when family members don’t intend to, Millennials and Gen Z often feel pressured by parents and caregivers to achieve. And an increase in “helicopter parenting” approaches has led parents to rescue young people when they struggle, instead of letting them work through their challenges and develop the grit they need to withstand today’s stressful reality.

Odds are good that our progression towards ambient busyness as a society is also making all of us more anxious. Concerned about the effects of busyness on young people’s mental health, well-respected adolescent researcher Lisa Damour recommends that 25 percent of a young person’s schedule should be unplanned and unscheduled. That’s a far cry from the all-day-rushing-from-activity-to-activity breathless pace most of us experience today. 

Three Questions to Ask Yourself and Others

We would likely experience greater freedom from anxiety if we could ask ourselves and others we care about three major questions. 

Without stress and anxiety, I likely wouldn’t be alive today. Neither would you. Physiologically, stress and anxiety have ensured our survival by alerting us to dangerous situations (e.g., a car is coming right at us) that activate our “flight-or-fight” response. In these times of alarm, our heart rate increases and oxygen rushes to our muscles as we prepare to either face the potential danger or run away. 

Anxiety is like a flashing light on our dashboard, warning us that something’s not right and we need to pay attention. So our first step when we or someone we care about feels anxious (and there is no car coming right at us) is to ask: What do I need to pay attention to? What is my body, mind, or soul trying to tell me? What warning do I need to heed? Underneath many of our strong emotional reactions is a kernel of insight about our psyche or emotions that is worth noticing. 

While anxiety is supposed to be an ally that prods our growth and learning, when that warning light on our dashboard flashes constantly, our essential alarm system is likely on overdrive—and we’re in danger of running ragged. In those seasons, we need a better second response to anxiety. So after we’ve asked what we need to pay attention to, it’s time to ask a second question: What healthy and productive step could I take now? 

The answer might be physical activity or engagement in a favorite hobby, a good conversation with a trusted friend, or a change in location. Perhaps it’s an extended time of prayer and worship—by yourself or with others. Or the best mental pivot may actually be to stop trying to suppress anxiety and instead experience the freedom of continuing to engage in all of life’s meaningful experiences and relationships, even while feeling anxious. 

Which brings us to the third question to help us and others battling anxiety: Who do we need more time with in this season? Which of our friends, family or colleagues is particularly nourishing and empathetic? How can we spend more time with them? Perhaps it might also be helpful to ask, who doesn’t understand our struggles with anxiety, and who might even aggravate them? How can we get greater distance from—and less time with—those toxic voices?

A therapist we consulted while developing our Faith in an Anxious World resources recommends asking a young person: On a scale of 1-10, how severe is your anxiety? If it’s in the 1-3 range, it’s likely no big deal; a 4 or 5 is handle-able; a 6 or above merits special help and likely time with a trained mental health professional. 

If your anxiety pegs at 6 or higher, some time with a caring professional therapist can help you answer these questions and explore additional interventions. 

Few of us will be able to completely eliminate anxiety. But through honest conversation with close friends, mentors, and family members about these three questions, we can each feel a little stressed and a little more supported.

This trend has been growing for decades, but accelerated in 2020 at the height of the pandemic when 49.5 percent of Americans ages 18 to 29 moved back in with their parents. In the three years since, 48 percent of Americans ages 18 to 29 are still living with their parents, according to a new report from Morgan Stanley.

While many young adults shared that saving money was the main reason for living at home, it isn’t just to build up their savings account. Many young adults living with their parents are able to free up their budgets from daily necessities, allowing them to have more fun with their income. Instead of spending it on rent and groceries, many spend their paychecks on discretionary items like travel, entertainment and luxury goods.

Saving money for fun items is only one of the reasons young adults haven’t left home yet. A team of analysts for Morgan Stanley found that rising rental costs were the top contributing factor in deciding whether or not to live with parents. While four out of 10 millennials living at home pay their parents rent, nearly half say they are charged less than $500 per month. For comparison, the national median monthly rent of $2,007, meaning adults living at home are able to save four times as much per month.

The films they have devoured through their lifetimes have given them a perspective of love that might sound good on screen but is actually quite shallow. In the long-term context of their marriages, their overly romanticized views can ultimately be destructive.

This is because the challenges of married life cannot be resolved in a two-hour narrative. And while a certain movie line might sound sweet on the screen, it may be a terrible foundation for deep, lasting, sacrificial love.

Here are five lines from popular movies that teach the wrong things about marriage. I’ve also tacked on one at the end that is pretty solid.

“You complete me.” – Jerry Maguire

Looking for someone else to “complete you” is a recipe for disaster in marriage. If you expect your partner to give you meaning and significance, you are going to be disappointed on every level.

This is because you are counting on a fallen, sinful person to do something that only God can do. A better alternative is to work on being “complete” in Christ and bring that whole person to the relationship. Anything short of that and you’re asking for trouble.

“LaFawnduh is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I’m 100 percent positive she’s my soul mate.” – Kip in Napoleon Dynamite

A close relative of “You complete me,” the concept of “soul mate” is just as silly. It presumes that God created a person out there who is the perfect fit for you.

Your “soul mate” will be easy to love and will love you perfectly in return. The result will be a carefree relationship void of conflict and hardship. It’s ridiculous.

The better alternative that God offers is to put two different people in a marriage so that their differences can be a part of the refining process in our lives.

As Gary Thomas says in Sacred Marriage, “God didn’t create marriage to make you happy, but to make you holy.”

“I love you. You’re my only reason to stay alive.” – Edward to Bella in New Moon

I’ve never been a fan of the Twilight saga. Maybe it’s because of how Stephen King compared the books to the Harry Potter series: “Harry Potter is about confronting fears, finding inner strength and doing what is right in the face of adversity. Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend.”

If your spouse is literally your only reason to live, then you need to consider your purpose in life.

A better alternative is to focus on living out God’s unique calling on your life and then invite your spouse along for the ride. As my wife, Jenifer, puts it, “God is everything … your spouse is just the extra stuff and fluff.”

“As you wish.” – Wesley to Buttercup in The Princess Bride

As much as I don’t like Twilight, I love me some Princess Bride.

However, the line that Wesley gives to Buttercup over and over is laced with just a tinge of dysfunction. If your spouse always gets their way and your life is totally submitted to their every whim, things can get out of balance pretty quickly.

If their desires are unhealthy, you might move into “enabler” status. Sometimes, your spouse needs you to say, “No. That’s not a good idea. We shouldn’t do that. Here’s why.” Your spouse probably says “no” occasionally because they love you. And that’s a good thing.

“But for now, let me say — without hope or agenda — to me, you are perfect, and my wasted heart will love you …” – Mark in Love Actually

When a guy expresses his affection for his friend’s bride a few days before their wedding, you know something is “off.” But my biggest problem in this scene was his sentiment: “You are perfect.” If he really thinks that, it’s because he doesn’t know her that well. Nobody is perfect.

Stop expecting your spouse to be perfect. You are a sinner married to a sinner. Get over it. A better alternative is to overlook your spouse’s imperfections and offer a little grace. I’m certain that’s what you want your spouse to give you.

Finally, here’s the movie quote that I think actually sums up marriage rather accurately. Granted, it comes from The Notebook, which most guys hate because Ryan Gosling raised the bar on romance to entirely unrealistic levels. (Ladies, we’re never going to be as romantic as Noah was in this movie, so stop expecting it. Curse you, Nicholas Sparks!)

“So it’s not gonna be easy. It’s gonna be really hard. We’re gonna have to work at this every day, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, forever, you and me, every day.” – Noah to Allie in The Notebook

This sums up marriage pretty well. To paraphrase: “I love you and I choose you. We’re going to face some challenges in our future, but I’m so committed to you that I’m willing to sacrificially work through the difficulties to build something great with you.”

This is not too different from a more traditional pledge: “… For better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, forsaking all others, until death do us part.” In the day-to-day challenges of married life, this line is helpful. In a significant marriage crisis, it’s absolutely invaluable.

In those moments, “you complete me” isn’t particularly helpful at all.

This post originally appeared on infoforfamilies.com. Used with permission.

This is great for breaking news and disposable thoughts, but unfortunately, our minds are becoming rewired to expect all information to be fast and convenient. We are trained to read 280-character tweets, watch short Snapchat stories and show someone we care by double-tapping their photo.

A recent study showed that people’s attention spans are now only about eight seconds. That is a second less than a goldfish can concentrate on a thought while swimming around a fish bowl. Let that sink in for a second (but probably not longer than eight seconds).

Our generation is apt to always be thinking about the next thing, and in turn, we become distracted easily. Even the San Francisco 49ers know that this is true: They implemented “cell phone” breaks into practices and meetings every half hour, because studies from Stanford show that millennials are too distracted and really aren’t learning anything after that threshold.

This way of thinking has seeped into the way we read the Bible. With our phones always in front of us, we can fall into viewing the Word of God as something to fit into a tweet or lay over a beautiful landscape on Instagram. We’ve shifted from reading the Bible for ourselves to reading short Bible verses or opinions shared by others.

As Christians today, it’s easier to repost a Bible verse for all of our followers to see than to spend half an hour reading the Bible and become a more effective follower of Jesus. And this is a problem. Jesus Himself told us in John 15:4, “Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.”

We are called to remain and abide in Jesus, and the way we remain in Him is through Scripture. This means the majority of our “quiet time” should not be spent with the words of social media in front of us. The Bible is not something we can just scroll through and double tap our favorite parts. It’s something we must read, study, meditate on and then let change our life.

Our daily dose of Scripture should come before we ever check our phone. But this is going to be a hard habit to create. So how do we do this?

First, find a reading plan that allows you to know where you are going and set goals to achieve along the way.

When I first started reading the Bible, I started by randomly opening it up, placing my finger on whatever passage I had opened to, and starting to read from there. That lasted about three days before I gave up. I was jumping from place to place and had no rhythm or reason as to what I was reading. But then a buddy and I decided to read through the entire New Testament and keep one another accountable. In about four months, we had both read it through it and were ready to set a new goal.

Each of us need to figure out what’s going to work for us. Maybe you find a plan to read the Bible in a year. If you don’t feel that’s doable, find a two- or three-year plan. If you don’t know where to start, look around the Internet or check on YouVersion. There are plenty of great plans out there. No matter what, plan it out and start reading.

Second, find a time and place that is consistent and allows you to have time to yourself and with the Lord. This might seem intuitive, but while we often plan out other aspects of our days, we often avoid doing so with Bible reading, instead just hoping we’ll get to it if we have time.

You have to be intentional about spending time with God. If you don’t carve out the time, other things will get in the way. You can even be creative about where and when. It could be at a local coffee shop in the afternoon, or it might just be your kitchen table every morning before everyone else gets up.

Third, find a way to journal your thoughts, prayers or reflections on what the text is saying. This will allow you to document the ways the Lord is working in your life and look back to remember His faithfulness. This also can help you understand yourself in comparison to God. As we write about what Scripture is saying, we are automatically going to relate it to our own lives and how it will impact the way we live.

Once again, tailor journaling to fit your lifestyle. This could mean handwriting in a journal, creating a journal on a computer or tablet, or even, if you are artistic, drawing what the Lord is teaching you. I find it helpful to write out three different things: what the author is saying in the text, how I need to apply it to my life, and then a prayer for God to bring about the change in my life.

Fourth, and lastly, find a way to take what you read with you. As Don Whitney wrote in his book, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, “When we meditate on Scripture, it colors our thinking about God, about God’s ways and His world, and about ourselves.”

We emulate the things we think about, so we need to find ways to always be thinking about Scripture. One way to do this would be by memorizing Bible verses with a friend. Another would be to pick out a verse or phrase you read and constantly be thinking about it throughout the day. One more would be to pray through the text over and over again as you go about your day.

Whatever your method ends up being, try to fill your mind with the things of God. What we read in the morning should impact our lives—not just our social media feeds.

I’m not sure who I expected to give it to me, but that was my expectation. Perhaps I envisioned a dream job unicorn galloping triumphantly through a sea of cubicles, its hooves pounding out a message of freedom and hope. I’d look up into its big, rainbow-colored eyes and know that my magical dream job had arrived. 

That is not how my life has gone.

It turns out there is no dream job unicorn. 

Realizing that, I decided to try a different approach to my career called, “Quit every job the minute you don’t like it.” Have you ever tried that? It’s very effective, at first.

Boss you don’t like? Quit that job! Projects not interesting? Quit that job! Blog about dreaming big inspires you? Quit that job!

It’s a lot of fun, but it doesn’t really solve anything. Quitting jobs the minute they get challenging or boring doesn’t lead anywhere. And here’s a sobering thought I waited to say until after I had wooed you with unicorn jokes: Every job has boring parts. 

It’s true. There’s no such thing as a perfect job where you just sit around all day watching entire seasons of shows on Netflix and eating bottomless bowls of queso. (That’s not your dream job? Fine, we’re different.)

What if, regardless of the job you have right this second, there was a way to enjoy it more? 

There is a way. And the first step is switching the questions you’re asking yourself. 

Am I Able to Adjust My Expectations? 

We all carry laundry lists of secret expectations, and when our jobs fail to meet them, we fail to enjoy our work. 

Take three minutes and write down your expectations for work. And then, take another three minutes and write down the real ones, because you probably just lied to yourself a little bit. 

Tom Magliozzi, the late co-host of NPR’s Car Talk show, theorized that “Happiness equals reality minus expectations,” but I disagree. To have an expectation is to have a hope, to have a dream, to have a desire about something you want to happen. 

God has given each of us unique hopes and dreams, and surely, deadening our ability to hope is not the solution to our frustration at work. The trick is not to eliminate your expectations, the trick is to adjust them.

Write them down and then find the right home for them. You may have some expectations that belong at your job. You may also have a lot of expectations that belong somewhere else, like a side job or a hobby. Starting the blog Stuff Christians Like helped me enjoy my corporate job more because I no longer expected that job to be my sole outlet of creativity. 

Is My Attitude Getting in the Way?

This isn’t about “Changing your attitude.” That could take years. No, this is about choosing your attitude. Choosing it takes a handful of seconds. Tomorrow at work, choose to have a good attitude. Choose to not be cynical. Choose to not complain. Choose to cheer for the accomplishments of coworkers. Choose to treat customers like superstars. 

Choose your attitude every day until, eventually, it chooses you right back. 

It’s not about feeling happy or committed to your work or like being a good employee. Feelings are the flightiest things in the world. Feelings will tell you the day is already ruined because you woke up on the wrong side of the bed or had a bad commute that morning. 

Don’t listen to feelings. Make choices. Today, choose a good attitude. This is the one thing you can do right this minute to actually shock your boss, improve your work relationships and dramatically increase your long-term odds of an awesome career.

Am I Hanging Out With Lobsters?

A few years ago, while walking around in Rockport, Massachusetts, I saw a pile of old lobster traps. There were stacks of them stuck behind a store next to the harbor. 

Inside each old cage, birds were building nests. Dozens of sparrows were flying in and out of the traps with pieces of straw. It was interesting to watch, like some sort of fowl construction site. Birds, the original hipsters, were using locally sourced materials to build their houses. They were gentrifying lobster cages. 

I started to think that if you asked a lobster if that was a good place to build a nest, they would probably tell you no. For a lobster, going inside that trap was the last decision they would ever make. Their entire lives were spent trying to avoid lobster cages. 

And yet, for the bird, that cage was perfect. It was open and airy, but completely protected from cats. What was a cage to a lobster was a home to a bird. 

Regardless though, the lobsters do not understand. And right now, you have some lobsters in your life, too. 

Every job has lobsters—that group of people who is determined to hate the entire experience of working somewhere. Misery loves company, and it also recruits it. You have a gossiping, cynical group of lobsters that all go to lunch together at the company you’re at right now. They’re fun to hang around with sometimes—negativity is more enjoyable than we like to admit at times, but it’s death to a career. 

Hanging out with lobsters never teaches you how to be a better bird. Give the lobsters at work what they really need: Distance. 

I hope you don’t need any of this advice because a dream job unicorn found you. I hope right now you’re watching your seventh straight episode of The Mandalorian and enjoying an ungodly amount of queso, laughing at my foolhardy advice.

If you’re not though, if there’s a part of you that thought about quitting your job because you don’t like it, I hope you’ll try these three things first. 

However, a few years into ministry and leadership roles, I learned that passion was not enough to accomplish the things that God was calling me to do. It’s only in recent years that I began to value discernment. 

This article is part of our Quarterlife series, produced in partnership with Unite Health Share Ministries.

Through this process, I have come to learn there are three stages of discerning the will of God: discerning His will, His timing and His ways. 

Discerning God’s Will

How can you know if something is from God or from your own imagination? Many people come up to me and ask, “Pastor Will, there is something on my heart that I feel like God wants me to do but how can I know if it’s from God or just my own desire?” To this I answer, there is a difference between a good thing and a God thing. A good thing comes and goes, a God thing comes and stays. A good thought is a momentary passion that fades in time. A God thought will grip your heart and as time goes on the desire continues to burn with a greater passion. A God thing will only grow as time goes on but a good thing will become a distant memory.

Some practical tips? First, pray. Pray and see how God speaks to you during your time in prayer. Second, seek confirmation by asking God. Third, seek counsel. Ask a mentor or pastor what their thoughts are on how you sense God is leading you.

Discerning God’s Timing

“Discerning the will of God is one thing, discerning God’s timing is something entirely else.”

Now just because you discern that God is telling you to do something, it does not mean God is telling you to do it now. Joseph had a dream that God was going to raise him up to be in a position of great influence and leadership. Little did he know that dream was to be fulfilled nearly 13 years later. David was anointed King but he did not step into power until roughly 20 years later. David was anointed king (God’s will), roughly 20 years later David was made king (God’s timing) then David led according to God’s heart (God’s way).

However, there were a few times David failed at leading God’s way. One example is when David counted his army. After a battle with the Philistines David decided that he would count his army. To which his servant Joab responded: “May the LORD add to his people a hundred times as many as they are! Are they not, my Lord the king, all of them my lord’s servants? Why then should my lord require this?”

The story unfolds with David forcing Joab to count the army and in doing so, David did it his way rather than God’s way. Instead of trusting in God’s power and sovereignty David trusted in his army. And as a result, God punished the Israelites because David did it his way.

Discerning the will of God is one thing, discerning God’s timing is something entirely else. Discerning God’s timing requires a more mature and surrendered heart. A heart that is not gripped by ambition but by the Holy Spirit. The one who desires to do God’s will must yield him or herself to God’s timing.

How can you discern when it’s God’s timing? It flows. When God’s time is right, it just happens. You don’t need to force it, you don’t need to make it happen; God makes it happen. When God makes it happen, He sustains it. When you make it happen, you have to sustain it.

Ask yourself, is it premature to move forward? Am I trying to force something to happen or are things flowing? Are the right resources and people around me to do what I sense God is calling me to do? 

Discerning God’s Way

Once you discern God’s will and God’s timing, then it’s time to do it His way. Doing things His way requires another step of maturity and dependence on the Holy Spirit. In order for you to do things God’s way, you must be walking with the Holy Spirit every day. Doing it God’s way is to seek His guidance and voice every single step. Many have heard from God but they no longer hear from God. One is past tense, one is present tense. Doing things God’s way requires a person to be completely yielded to hear His voice. This is so much harder than it sounds. 

How can you examine your heart to see if you are doing it God’s way? Search your heart. Rid yourself of ambition and selfish gain. Are you compromising your convictions and disobeying the Word of God? Are you grieving or quenching the Holy Spirit? 

However, purpose shouldn’t be a burden.

This article is part of our Quarterlife series, produced in partnership with Unite Health Share Ministries.

Too often, we succumb to cultural misconceptions about what success looks like and what it means to do big things for God. Here’s a look at six myths too many millennials hear about purpose, and how to overcome them.

1. Money and Notoriety Are True Measures of Success

One reason so many people feel like they can’t achieve the “success” they’re after is because they’ve narrowly defined what success looks like in the first place. For too many, success equates to financial wealth, notoriety or fame. But true success can’t be measured by how much you have in your bank account or how many social media followers you have.

The problem with viewing success in monetary terms is that the amount it takes to become “successful” (and therefore happy) is always the amount just beyond your reach.

There’s no price that could be put on fulfillment, personal satisfaction or the knowledge that you are obediently following the will of God for your life.

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

2. There’s Something Wrong with Being ‘Ordinary’

One of the major criticisms (whether accurate or not) lobbed at millennials is that many in the generation maintain a sense of entitlement.

The theory goes that after being raised to believe that they were “special” and “unique,” legions of millennials grew up with the belief that they were going to do extraordinary things, and they were entitled to success. Obviously, being driven to do big, notable (and noticeable) things can be a noble impulse. But that doesn’t make an “ordinary” life any less noble.

It’s an idea Jesus spoke about often when He taught that the “the last will be first, and the first will be last.” There’s nothing wrong with trying to achieve big things, but if our self-worth is tied to social status—instead of our identity in Christ—we’ll never get the satisfaction we’re looking for.

3. There’s an Age Limit to Achieving Your Goals

In the age of Mark Zuckerberg, Kardashians and twentysomething media moguls, it’s easy to feel pressure to have achieved all of your career and life goals by the time you’re in your mid-30s. But the reality is, God’s timing may work differently than we want it to. Just because you haven’t yet launched that successful tech startup, written that book or founded the next world-changing organization doesn’t mean you’re not going to.

Big dreams shouldn’t have a deadline.

4. We Don’t Get Second (or Third and Fourth) Chances

People that maintain major life regrets often refer to that “one big chance” that slipped through their fingers. Maybe it was a job interview they didn’t do well in. Maybe it was the scholarship they just missed. Maybe it was that one job offer they didn’t accept.

The reality is, truly successful people aren’t the ones who just happened to get a bunch of lucky breaks. They are the ones who never gave up when they missed their “big chance.” Failing—repeatedly—is part of achieving success. Beating yourself up over a missed opportunity only slows the process.

5. Helping Other People in Their Purposes Means We Aren’t Achieving Our Own

Behind every great CEO, there are managers and executives helping to run the business. Every best-selling author benefits from a great editor (or several). Every artist has a mentor. Every great thinker, pastor, leader or world-changer was once a student.

The point is, not everyone is called be the one in the spotlight. Some people are called to work behind the scenes and support and serve others, even if they don’t receive the outward recognition. Our goal shouldn’t be about how much we can achieve as individuals. It should be about expanding God’s Kingdom, even if that means helping someone else lead the way.

6. Success Is More about the Outcome Than the Process

Steve Jobs famously believed that “the journey is the reward.” For him, success wasn’t simply about achieving a desired outcome—wealth, a great product, a massive company, influence, etc. It was about the process itself. Every day, attempting to achieve success was part of the success.

As Christians, we know that “our reward in heaven is great” and that we are to “press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called [us] heavenward in Christ Jesus.” Ultimately, our reward is eternal, but there is still some truth in Jobs’ mantra.

If we become so consumed in our own career, social and personal goals that we never allow ourselves to be happy until we achieve them, then we miss out on the gift of everyday life. Purpose isn’t about a end goal. It’s about living the life we are meant to live.

The majority of Christian singles are NOT dating.

This article is part of our Quarterlife series, produced in partnership with Unite Health Share Ministries.

I had asked singles to tell me why Christian singles aren’t dating. Why has the common date become such a rare thing? The comments rolled in, and some fantastic conversations came of it. As I read through and interacted with the comments, five big-picture themes emerged as to why #TheDatingScene is on snooze for most single Christians:

They have unrealistic expectations.

One of the most common things that many singles reported experiencing from the opposite sex is the unrealistic standard of what they’re looking for in a relationship. Men are looking for a cross between Mother Teresa and America’s Next Top Model, while women are after the Jesus-loving-Brad-Pitt. There’s a false standard that we’ve perpetuated and let’s just put this out there: No one is measuring up.

I believe it’s important to have our standards of character, integrity and morals when it comes to a dating relationship—but could it be that in the name of “not settling” we’ve confused our preferences for our needs? Maybe it’s time to prioritize our needs from our wants, and consider pursuing someone that might typically be considered “outside of our usual type.”

They aren’t being asked.

There’s definitely a fear culture surrounding the topic of asking someone out on a date. We’re so paralyzed by fear, failure and rejection. It’s almost as though we’re so afraid to fail that we’d rather not even try. In fact, the majority of singles reported that when it comes to dating: They aren’t usually doing the asking.

If the majority is not asking, that also means the majority is not dating.

I think it’s time to exchange our fear for faith, and take the necessary steps to get healthy and then seek out a healthy relationship. If you’re at that point in life, here’s an article I wrote with some basic how-to’s of asking someone out on a date. If you want to get to that point, consider taking my 21 Days to JumpStart Your Love Life e-course.

They’re having a hard time meeting one another.

I think this is a really legitimate concern, and one in which I hope and pray the Church will listen and begin to fill the needs of this generation. Too many churches are not offering a way for their singles to meet—leaving them to fend for themselves with things like social media, online dating and everything in between in an attempt to meet.

We offer groups for every other category of life, but when it comes to singles—if you’re past college, there’s a good chance you’re out of luck when it comes to finding a group to connect with at your local church.

My hope and prayer is that by having and sharing these conversations, men and women in leadership will realize that the 25-plus singles are truly a neglected demographic within the Church—and then do something about it.

It’s time to make some noise, approach our leaders and do our part to build bridges and opportunities for singles to connect. Start a group, initiate a conversation, share your concern and do what you can to create a places for singles in the body of Christ to connect.

They’ve been taught that women shouldn’t initiate a relationship.

Part of the problem with the lack of interaction among sexes is that woman have been taught that their role is to simply do nothing. They’ve been told the lie that a “woman of God” lets the man initiate, pursue and make things happen. This leaves women feeling powerless—as though they have no control in their relationship status and no right to take initiative themselves. I’ve been pretty outspoken about how I feel about this subject.

They’re taking dating way too seriously.

Twenty years after the I Kissed Dating Goodbye movement, we’re finally learning to lighten up about dating. But I believe we still have a long way to go. I’m a firm believer that dating in high school is something that teenagers should do without—the problem is that too many people then take that mentality long into adulthood.

Christians tend to put the decision of who to date on the same level as the decision of who to marry. There’s so much pressure surrounding the topic, when at the end of the day, a first date is nothing more than getting to know someone better over a cup of coffee. Christians need to stop stressing so much about dating.

I believe that the more we talk about these things, the more we’ll know. And the more we know–the better we’ll do.

This article was adapted from an article on truelovedates.com. Used with permission.

This article is part of our Quarterlife series, produced in partnership with Unite Health Share Ministries.

How far we’ve come from the days of the dictionary. Kids today are one google search away from violent, sexually explicit video content online.

I recently made a documentary about pornography, and something a porn director said in his interview caught my attention: “No one has ever died from an overdose of pornography.” These words reflect a belief many of us quietly ascribe to: that our personal porn habits aren’t that harmful.

When someone throws a hand grenade, it’s impossible to know where every single piece of shrapnel will fall. After hearing countless stories of how pornography has affected the lives of others, I’ve come to realize that the consequences of porn use are akin to flying bits of shrapnel: painful, unpredictable, and in some ways, fatal to our lives. Women and girls often pay the highest price when it comes to this clandestine form of entertainment.

Porn changes expectations.

I’ve had several young women tell me about the vile and violent things boyfriends and husbands, both Christian and non-Christian, have requested or demanded of them. Their preferences mirror what they’ve seen in porn. Junior high girls are asking the question, “can I still be popular if I refuse to have porn-star sex?” One mom, in tears, told us her 14-year-old daughter had been asked by several guys in her class for naked pictures of herself (which then get traded between boys during recess). As porn becomes more violent and degrading, so do the real-life requests of boys and men. These expectations carry into healthy relationships and into marriage, requiring us to unlearn what porn has taught us about intimacy.

Porn leaves a painful legacy.

When we use pornography, the last thing we’re thinking about is what the future holds for the people on screen. Ex-pornstar Brittni Ruiz told us, “A lot of people who make bad decisions don’t do it on camera. Pornography is made for the world to see forever…forever.” Brittni has left the industry behind and is now married to a pastor at her church, but the contracts she signed when she was younger give porn companies the legal right to profit from her images and videos indefinitely. Another ex-porn star mourns the fact when she has children someday, they’ll be able to search her name online and find her former life. Porn affects the dignity and humanity of others by transforming them from a fully dimensional person to someone we just consume for our own pleasure.

Porn can result in addiction.

There’s a false assumption that porn use and addiction is “a men’s issue,” leaving women to struggle in silence. While accountability and recovery groups for men abound, safe spaces for women to talk about their porn addictions are essentially non-existent. The fact is that the sexual templates of both boys and girls are increasingly based on porn. Girls are being turned on by sexual violence. Colette, a 23-year-old wife and mom of two kids who is overcoming a porn addiction, told me that her addiction began with romantic, soft core porn, but gradually morphed into a desire for violent, degrading acts. In her words:

I craved my next porn fix all day long. I hid from my family and loved ones in order to feed my increasingly disturbing appetite. I taught my body to respond only to very specific stimulation, and this carried over into my marriage. I taught myself that I deserved to be hurt, like the women in porn are hurt. I taught myself that I deserved only domination, pain, disrespect and abuse…I taught myself that I had to let men do what they wanted to me. That was all I was worth. I could have no preference. It has taken years of counseling, communication, and redemptive healing to work through those issues. My porn addiction became a central tenet of who I was, my core identity. It was confusing, traumatizing, and devastating. What hurt most of all was the belief that I was the only one.

Equality, dignity and identity are key markers of our humanity. They enable us to develop a healthy sense of self-worth, and in turn, to extend that value to those around us. This is what porn kills. It turns people into faceless entertainment and makes us forget that we have all been made in the image of God.

Mismatched expectations are inevitable. We believe others can be more than they can actually be. And if we hold tightly to unrealistic expectations—or even realistic expectations that the other person doesn’t align with—our frustration and disappointment accumulate like a thick layer of dust, obscuring the original beauty and intent of the relationship.

Mismatched expectations are why your friends sit you down and say, “He’s just not that into you.”

Mismatched expectations are why you keep trying to impress your boss even though she never delivers the direction or support you really need.

Mismatched expectations are why you feel like you are always trying to reignite the connection between you and your spouse and then don’t understand why he isn’t responding.

This article is part of our Quarterlife series, produced in partnership with Unite Health Share Ministries.

When we have mismatched expectations, we’re operating from a belief system about how specific relationships should look and feel—the rock-bottom thoughts and feelings we believe to be true. We may not even be conscious of them. Many of us are unaware of those underlying assumptions until we experience a relational disappointment or failure. Sometimes that frustration is related to a boundary violation, but more often, people have not met our expectations in the way they behave or think. Belief systems reveal themselves in an inner narrative that goes something like this: Husbands who really love their wives are romantic or Women aren’t supposed to be that assertive or Best friends don’t wait a day to respond to texts. Most of the time, we have neither communicated our expectations to the other person nor done the deeper work of identifying and examining our belief systems to consider whether they are helpful, healthy, and accurate. We operate from belief systems about food, sex, money, gender roles, parenting, marriage, faith, our worth, and our impact. All of our behaviors, whether good or bad, generally stem from one of these rock-bottom beliefs.

While some beliefs are relatively innocuous and fairly easy to adjust (Only guys take out the garbage!), many are rooted in the inevitable wounds of childhood (regardless of how healthy our family is) or our life stories. When we haven’t done the work necessary to heal from those wounds or better understand our stories, life can begin to feel dark and confusing. We find ourselves working out our issues with our father’s authority by trying to be rigid with our boss. We attempt to work out issues related to our mother’s manipulation by distancing ourselves from our wife’s needs. We keep trying to prove our worth to our gorgeous, gregarious coworker just as we once did to our big brother, our first boyfriend, or our middle school frenemy. Even though those dynamics are rooted in what happened long ago, we keep living out the same patterns in our present relationships. Perhaps this is why the prophet Jeremiah said, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9, niv).

If we started with that truth, we would all give up trying before we even begin! And it’s true: The reaction of our hearts often feels beyond our own understanding. But it’s not beyond God’s understanding, and He offers us a way forward in the promise that we are His children, that His love is poured out on us, and that we can be made new.¹ If you keep failing at relationships, powerful belief systems from your past may be impacting your present and future.

Just as it’s not always easy to know your own expectations in a relationship, it’s even harder to know another person’s. Two simple questions can help you understand and evaluate your mindset in any relationship:

Given the length of time or commitment level of this relationship, do I have reasonable expectations, both for myself and the other person?

Given the circumstances of this conflict, do I have reasonable expectations for myself and the other person?

Conversely, you can reflect on these questions on behalf of the other person. Are the expectations of your friend, spouse, or boss reasonable for both the relationship and the circumstance? If you sense that they aren’t, you can work through the say what you mean process to try to uncover where you are not aligned. Relating to someone with mismatched expectations is like trying to balance on a seesaw. If both parties aren’t willing to compromise, the relationship will remain unbalanced. Disappointment and resentment will creep in, undermining the vulnerability and strength of their connection.

In addition to mismatched or unrealistic expectations, we may not follow through on doing what we say because we want to protect ourselves. We may lie about what we’ve done (or not done), go back on our word, or respond poorly due to fear or shame.

Because we’d rather avoid the truth or we lack the courage to speak it, we may compromise our integrity by choosing to tell a slippery lie rather than face a difficult conversation. We are hurt by an in-law at Thanksgiving dinner, but we don’t want to make a big deal of it. So when that person asks if something is wrong during a break in the football game, we say “I’m fine” even though we’ve been ruminating about their comment for hours.

Lying is a great short-term solution but a terrible long-term legacy. Usually underneath our lies is a deep fear of being rejected, a lack of courage around sticking to our boundaries, or a fear about engaging in conflict. But even when done out of kindness, lying is ultimately damaging because it erodes trust in those around us, who don’t know when we are saying what we really mean. And it erodes our trust in ourselves because it makes us more disconnected from what we like, want, and need. If either party in a relationship habitually lies—to the other person or to themselves—the relationship cannot grow to the levels of vulnerability and intimacy that our hearts crave.

I think that Christians in particular find it easy to hold on to a sense that if we “act like Christians,” we can work it out. But sometimes love does look like separation, especially when we acknowledge the reasons the relationship failed. If someone is not committed to honesty and growth, or is too tired, distracted, or selfish to work on the relationship, the best way to love them may be to create healthy distance and let it be. Some people move from being one of our closest friends to a more distant place in our relational circles. Sometimes it’s because of them. Sometimes it’s because of us. Most of the time we both contribute to the change. And when we come to grips with the reality of the relationship, regardless of what we wish were true, we must learn from and release the failure before we can move forward.

Adapted from The Miracle Moment: How Tough Conversations Can Actually Transform Your Most Important Relationships, by Nicole Unice. Copyright © 2021. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a Division of Tyndale House Ministries.  All rights reserved.

This article is part of our Quarterlife series, produced in partnership with Unite Health Share Ministries.

The beauty—yes, beauty—of anxiety is that there is wisdom in it. Anxiety itself counsels and directs. It points back to our families and how we may have learned our fears and anxiety. It points back to our traumas and unhealed wounds. It points back to losses we still need to deal with, whether it be lost life, lost love, or lost time. It points back to values that may have shifted for the culture that just won’t work for us. And how could they? These values aren’t ones that God made important for our lives.

Anxiety bubbles at the surface with a message from deep down. We should remain curious about it. We should listen. Here are at least three questions you can ask yourself as you listen to your anxiety.

Are you in danger? Because fear and anxiety are ultimately supposed to protect us, we most certainly should take the time to assess if we’re in any real danger. If your anxiety suggests that you might be, you must pay attention and take action. I think about the case of someone who just left a relationship characterized by poor boundaries, intimidation, and other signs of abuse. This person may be anxious that their ex could return to their life unexpectedly and somehow hurt them. There’s a legitimate threat here that should be worked out with a therapist who specializes in partner violence, and possibly the legal system. 

The same goes for danger that isn’t physical but rather emotional or psychological. Maybe there are friends in your life who are causing more harm than good. Maybe your significant other’s drinking is getting a little bit out of control. Maybe the class you’re about to do a presentation for is full of sophisticated bullies and you would prefer not to be terrorized just to get a grade. All of these scenarios warrant a bit of your attention, a ton of emotional support, and a reasonable plan for how you want to move forward.

What are my current thoughts? Anxiety typically points to some specific worries. Oftentimes, those worries take the form of “what if?”

• What if they don’t like me?
• What if I put myself out there and they reject me?
• What if this ruins our friendship?
• What if she doesn’t forgive me?
• What if I fail at this and have to start over again?
• What if this doesn’t work out for me?
• What if I take my shot and miss?
• What if, what if, what if?

When anxiety points back to a problem with a bunch of “what ifs,” try answering back with the equally powerful question, “So what?” This is a method I picked up from anxiety expert psychologist Dr. Angela Neal-Barnett, who shared about it in her book Soothe Your Nerves. “So what” questioning helps anxious individuals realize that what they are fearing could happen is far worse than what might actually happen. Look at some examples for how this works:

• What if they don’t like me? (So what?)
• What if I put myself out there and they reject me? (So what?)
• What if this strains our friendship? (So what?)
• What if I fail at this and have to start over again? (So what?)

See, once “what ifs” are met with “so whats,” worries begin to shrink in size and significance. Perhaps what’s most helpful is the fact that the solutions to our worries become more clear, focused, and executable.

For example, if you “so what” your fear about failing and having to start over again, you could work on a plan of action should that actually happen. You would likely also gain some confidence that if this were the outcome, you would survive it.

Is there something unresolved in me? Anxiety acts as a defense mechanism. It often works to protect us from deeper, harder, more uncomfortable emotions until we have the time, space, and support to really deal with them. 

That being said, your growing anxiety may be a sign that it’s time to finally dig in. As you reflect on your recent history, what other feelings keep coming up for you? Is it sadness, bitterness, frustration, shame? Where might these feelings be coming from? Does any current frustration resemble frustration from your past? Are core beliefs being triggered?

The wisdom of your anxiety may allude to the fact that anxiety isn’t your problem at all. It may be old memories, long-standing insecurities, or deep doubts. These types of issues are best worked out in therapy.

It behooves us to remain curious about our anxiety, to listen to it, and to see the path it might want to take us down. However, sometimes anxiety rises, and we just need to relieve it. Sometimes we just need something to get us through the day. Research emphatically supports the use of deep breathing (sometimes called diaphragmatic breathing, belly breathing, or paced breathing), imagery, and meditation to relieve rising levels of anxiety. I’ve also found it comforting to learn that faithful Christians have practiced things like deep breathing and breath prayer, contemplative prayer, and meditation for centuries!

I encourage you to develop your own anxiety regimen or meditation practice that you can fall back on. One you can use alone in your room or together with your church small group or circle of friends. Do more research if you need to (there are tons of books, articles, and practice exercises out there), but keep it pure, keep it simple, and make it work for you. No matter how hard it gets, keep at least one thing in mind: you’re not in this alone.

Adapted from Why Do I Feel Like This by Peace Amadi. Copyright (c) 2021 by Chynyere Peace Amadi. Published by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. www.ivpress.com

But what if the deal could be sweetened a little? What if there’s an even better alternative than the old normal?

This article is part of our Quarterlife series, produced in partnership with Unite Health Share Ministries.

That’s Jennifer Dukes Lee’s question. She’s the author of Growing Slow:Lessons on Un-Hurrying Your Heart from an Accidental Farm Girl, and she says that what’s next for all of us doesn’t have to be a full return to the frantic hustle of pre-COVID-19. Instead, we can take some time to establish a reset, in which we abandon the culture of multi-tasking productivity drains for a healthier way of looking at the world.

She sat down with RELEVANT to tell us what this could look like. She conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Tyler: So it seems like your premise here is that as much as we want to get back to normal, maybe this is actually an opportunity to craft something better.

Jennifer: A lot of people right now feel like they have to make up for lost time. I know that some of my friends who are in their 20s are like, “Jennifer, I can’t afford to go slow because I just lost a whole year of my dating life.” Businesses were languishing. We’re going to have to work double time and double hard to make up for lost time. 

But we were already living under that kind of hurried, “I’m falling behind mentality” before COVID hit. So I think it’s critically important that we look back and think, what parts of business as usual do we not want to go back to?

Maybe we can talk about your own experience in learning to take life slower. 

I’m an Enneagram 3. An achiever. You would never expect a success-oriented, ambitious person to write something called Growing Slow. The book that I could have more easily written is one called Growing Fast — a real kick in the pants book to help you move it to the next level and hustle. 

That’s exactly what I did for so much of my life. I ended up in a doctor’s office and I had all kinds of physical symptoms going on, insomnia, anxiety, aches and pains. I’m like, “Am I just getting old or do I have some weird disease?” And he’s like, “Jennifer, this is an internal issue. You have a hurried heart. You are stressed out.” And I’m like, “I’m not stressed out. I know stressed out people. This is just the way I operate.”

But it was taking a toll on my physical body and on my emotional self. My cortisol and adrenaline levels were so high that I was constantly in fight or flight mode. I couldn’t function like that anymore. I look back on my life and I think so much of it was a blur because I was pushing all that time and it had to stop.

What did stopping look like for you? Because I think a lot of people dream about slowing down but frankly just can’t figure out how to do it. 

It used to annoy the crap out of me when people would say, “Jennifer, you need to just slow down.” I was like, “I can’t afford to slow down. Don’t you know all the things that I’m responsible for?”  But it got to the point where I realized that I can’t afford not to slow down. 

We have this idea that in order to get the life we want, we have to chase it down. But honestly, hand to the sky, the way to get the life you want is not to chase it down, but to slow it down. It does really take a reversal of philosophy, adopting a whole new mindset. 

For me, growing slow has become my super power. It’s become the way that I am more productive. I am hitting goals and targets in a better way because I’m more focused. I’ve slowed it all down.

What kind of habits?

Most of them are pretty simple things that you could do today. Sitting down while you eat. A lot of people, especially at breakfast and dinner, are standing up, taking bites, eating so quickly that they can’t even taste the food. If God gave us something as beautiful as food, let’s sit down and enjoy and taste it. 

Another thing is not to look at your phone at the stoplight, or in the line at Target, because what happens is you end up with a hurried heart. Something urgent comes in on your phone, that you really can’t in any practical way answer or resolve at that moment. So that urgent thing is hanging around the edge of your heart in the form of hurry. It creates an anxiety that you can’t fix until you get back home. 

Another thing is to wake up 10 minutes earlier to set the tone for your day, welcome the day. These are simple things, but it’s a way of saying, I’m going to take charge of this day and set a tone for it that is less hurried. 

Why do you think we default to a position of hurry?

Our culture is a very output-oriented, metrics-based culture that rewards overnight successes. We buy into this idea that there are milestones that you have to hit at some certain point in your life. At almost every stage and decade of life, you could buy into the idea that you’re falling behind. 

I have friends who are in high school and they feel like they’re falling behind because they don’t know what they’re going to do with the rest of their life. As if a 16-year-old should know what she should do at age 30.

And then if they go to college, they feel like they’ve got to get a spouse before all the good ones are taken there’s that milestone. And then it becomes about milestones related to having kids. And a house, and now a bigger house and it needs this much of a garage. And then you’ve got to get your lake house. There’s always something next level. 

But there really are no milestones for these things. That’s where the pressure comes from. It has less to do with what’s on the to-do list and more about how we approach what’s happening in our life right now, and the expectations that we set on ourselves for what should be coming in the next year or five years or whatever that benchmark is for you.

I’m sure you’ve heard this but let me ask: what about people who feel like they legitimately can’t slow down? Single moms working several jobs to make ends meet, that sort of thing?

I am a very busy person. I have a full calendar. I am an author and I am a mother, I am a farm wife and I am a part-time acquisitions editor for Baker Publishing Group. But what I have is margin and what I have are practices, even in my work, that help me stay more laser focused on what I’m doing. 

If you can begin to single task, if you can begin to enjoy your food, if you can stop looking at your phone at the stoplight, if you can look people in the eye when they’re talking with you and when you were having a conversation with them, these are all little things that start to strip away all of the hurry from the heart so that you can embrace the life that you’re living. It really is a mindset shift.

Some people will say, “I just can’t do it. I can’t afford to slow down.” I just want to say, “how is that life of hustle treating you? Because eventually it will come up and bite you and it will impact your physical self and your emotional self.” So do your future self a favor and employ some of these grow slow techniques and tactics into your life now.

It sounds to me like you’re not necessarily talking about carving out three or four hours a day to watch all of Mare of Easttown. If you can find a few minutes for margin on the edges, even that can be transformational.

Absolutely. I get more done and am more productive now than I was before. I am more productive as a growing slow woman than I was as a growing fast woman, because I’m not making as many mistakes, I’m waking up energized to my work. I have time built in for fun and for play. I no longer look at boredom as a sign of laziness, but I see that as a moment of creativity. 

What has the impact been on your spiritual life as you’ve started to get better at this?

The biggest thing for me is seeing that God is tending the field that makes me, me. I am less concerned and consumed with what people think of the growth in my fields and of the things that I’m doing with my life, because they didn’t plant the field that makes me, me. God did. God tends things slowly, and He has nurtured and grown me all along into the woman that I am becoming. It’s given me grace to accept wherever I am at any given moment, knowing that if God wanted to, he could snap his fingers and I’d be fully matured and have it all figured out.

Jennifer Dukes Lee’s Growing Slow: Lessons on Un-Hurrying Your Heart from an Accidental Farm Girl releases on May 25. You can pre-order it here.

This article is part of our Quarterlife series, produced in partnership with Unite Health Share Ministries.

The table is this case is a metaphor, and the enemy in question is not flesh and blood. Giglio has written a book about our thoughts, and the way we often surrender them to our worst, most negative impulses. He calls that getting into conversation with the enemy, and it’s the source of a great deal of our own pain and struggle.

We talked to Giglio a little about the process behind the book, and his own emotional health crisis that led to new revelations about how to let God reshape his mind.

This conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Can you give us sort of the origin story of the book?

The title was a game-changing moment for me. I had a petty moment and I wanted pity for my petty. So I reached out to a friend and said, “Hey, you’re not going to believe what I just heard.” This was a person who’d walked right through the whole thing with me. I was looking for a big, long commiseration response… and the text came back and it was one phrase: “Don’t give the enemy a seat at your table.” It froze me and broke me and freed me all at the same time. 

I realized I’ve just let the enemy come and sit down at my table, and I needed to take control of my table. This is the enemy putting these thoughts in my head, and I’m not going to give him a seat at my table.

What do you mean by “the enemy” specifically? How do we know what thoughts are from the enemy versus what aren’t?

We’re talking about the capital E “Enemy” in this book.The text I got connected to was Psalm 23: “I prepare a table for you in the presence of your enemies.” God is offering me the opportunity to have this intimacy with Him in the middle of the conflict, but the enemy can get into our minds so quickly. 

And how do you know the thoughts are from the enemy? The ones that aren’t what Paul writes about in Philippians 4 are not from God. The thing that struck me when I got into this [book] was when you start hosting those thoughts, you’re actually in a conversation. You’ve let him sit down at your table. Psalm 23 says for us to be at that table with our shepherd. 

The way I was raised to think about the devil was like he’s always in the shadows, plotting, making bad things happen to me. You’re talking about something different.

Scripture is interesting when Jesus is talking about the enemy. He said that he’s a murderer from the beginning and the father of all lies. The enemy works the same way now as he did at the beginning with Adam and Eve. The conversation was subtle at first.  “Maybe God doesn’t want you to get what He’s got. Can you really trust Him?” And what he was doing on day one was lying and twisting God’s truth. 

I think that’s the way he operates right now. He’s still saying, “Surely God didn’t say that.” Or he’s taking a natural fear and ultimately turns it into a mental stronghold. I believe choices come out of our thoughts and whoever controls the thought narrative ultimately controls the story. 

We don’t want to be negative people. Why is it so hard for us to say no to that?

I think, deep in our fallen nature, we are not prone to the positive. I’m a new creation in Christ, but that new creation is residing in flesh. If given the chance to either speak positively or negatively about something, more often than not, we choose the negative route. That’s when the enemy slides in. 

He’s not going to say, “Hey, I’m going to wreck your life.” He just says, “Man, things at work are tough.” Before you know it, you’ve spent about a half an hour in your mind thinking about how hard things at work are.

Are there ever causes where we might need to turn to things like medication and therapy instead of just willing yourself out of these mental states?

Yes. Broaden that question to all things in life. When your car doesn’t work, you don’t say you don’t have enough faith; you go get your car fixed. If you have a mental meltdown, like I did, you reach out to people to help you. 

When I fell into that hole, I didn’t even know it existed. I prayed and I had people pray for me and I asked God daily to heal me. I was stuck in a tough spot and I had no choice but to ask people to help me. I sought professional help.

A friend of mine sent me a video link to a pastor who had been through something similar. In it, he said, “if you need help, get help.” And that’s what I say to people, knowing that whoever it is that’s helping you is an agent of God. It’s not turning away from God to get help somewhere else. It’s knowing that God is using people that He’s gifted to help you. 

It’s one thing to realize I’m setting a table for my enemies and I need to stop doing that. But on a practical level, what does that look like?

One of the things that we have to do is examine the thoughts that enter our minds. I can’t control what thought comes into my mind, but I can examine that thought and decide whether I want to host it or not. That’s what Scripture asks us to do. It says, “take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.” 

As the thought comes in, see it, identify it and ask a question about it. Is this thought from God, and does it match His character and purpose? If it’s not, take the next step and reject that thought. 

It’s a lot of work, a lot of retraining the way we think. What’s on the other side of all of this?

Doing what God created us to do. The average human being spends an inordinate amount of life wasting mental energy on negative thoughts when they were created to use that same mental energy to create something positive for the world. On the other side of getting the enemy away from your table is sleep, peace, rest and the creativity that God put you on planet earth to be a part of.

Louie Giglio’s Don’t Give Your Enemy a Seat at the Table is available now.

That’s because a new paper from a team at Stockholm University found that people are actually capable of maintaining way more than 150 friendships …if they put in the effort. It turns out, friendship is a skill, not an inherent trait. You’ve got to teach yourself how to be a good friend. It’s like working out, baking or bowling. As you get better at it, you become more and more capable of handling more and more friendships.

As Johan Lind, an author of the study and associate professor at Stockholm told the New York Times, “we can learn thousands of digits of pi, and if we engage with lots of people, then we will become better at having relationships with lots of people.” Lind and his team found no real limit to the actual number of friendships one person can have.

But their work is being criticized by at least one person — Dr. Dunbar himself. He called the new paper “bonkers” and said Lind and his team didn’t account for the practical nuances of human friendship. He says a “meaningful relationship” — a term he defines as someone you wouldn’t feel awkward about greeting at an airport lounge — has a necessary limitation, just given how much time and energy we all have. For most people, Dunbar says, the number is somewhere between 100 and 250, with 150 being the average.

Dunbar agrees that people’s number expands over time. When you’re a little kid, it’s usually pretty low. It tends to peak around your late teens and early twenties, and then settles at around 150 in your thirties and stays that way until your 60s and 70s, when it starts to decline again.

But Dunbar’s number may also not withstand the era of social media. Researchers point out that many people’s online circles go well beyond 150, and sometimes those relationships end up being meaningful even if the people involved don’t live in the same place or even, theoretically, see each other’s real face. And then there are networking sites like LinkedIn, in which distant connections sometimes become catalysts for major career opportunities or professional advancements. Aren’t those relationships meaningful, in a kind of way?

The New York Times also spoke to Louise Barrett, a psychology professor at the University of Lethbridge in Canada. She said the new research was interesting, but cautioned against trying to put math on relationships. “Human life is really complicated,” she said. Some people are naturally extroverted and thrive with lots of friends. Some people are content with just a few close relationships. You don’t need to judge yourself.

But one thing all researchers agree on: friendships are more important than society tends to think. While we tend to put great value on marriage and family, many experts say we undervalue just how important friendships are as a real building block of society. However many friendships you have, cultivating them is a key part of being a healthy adult.

But what are we stepping into? COVID took a lot from us, and many of our plans for growth — both personal, professional and otherwise — have been waylaid. Why is it so hard to start moving forward?

This article is part of our Quarterlife series, produced in partnership with Unite Health Share Ministries.

That’s a question Mike Foster wants to answer. He’s a counselor, speaker and author who’s passionate about helping people navigate the dreams they have for their lives. He talked a little about the recurring things he’s seeing in people on the other side of a pandemic and how we can get going.

This conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Have you noticed any recurring themes in how people are feeling post-COVID? 

I think one of the things that’s been universal in this pandemic is just loss. All kinds of loss. A loss of choice, loss of jobs, loss of life. We’ve lost loved ones and people that we care about. So if there’s a common theme of the last year, it is grief. Grief manifesting itself in all kinds of different ways, from anger to anxiety. People thought they were in control and now they’re not in control.

Do you think this is going to change us in ways that might end up lasting longer than the pandemic itself?

Absolutely. It’s a traumatic moment in our global history, in our country, in our families, in our marriages. This will have a long-lasting impact. 

My work is all about: “Let’s deal with the realities and the facts.” But the facts don’t have to cripple us for our future. They just need to be managed, leveraged, looked at, reframed. But without question, we’re different people today than we were before the pandemic.

Where do we tend to go wrong when it comes to dealing with the facts? Seems like a pretty common ailment.

My mission in life is to blow up environments of denial. Whether that’s institutional denial, workplace denial or personal denial. Whether it’s denial in a relationship, we, as human beings, we love it. It’s our most favorite go-to in terms of-

Why though? Why is it so tempting to deny these things?

I think it speaks to the power of a story in our lives. A story can really help us get through difficult things. Stories can alleviate pain. So if I could tell myself a really great story about myself and live in a fantasy of what’s real, not facing the facts, then I’m going to be pretty happy for a while. 

It works. Denial works for a period of time. But then, unfortunately, true facts and reality will set in at some point.

That’s a tough balance because we all want to tell a good story about our own lives and believe the best about ourselves, but it’s really easy to do that at the expense of reality.

It ultimately comes down to your beliefs about life. Can you live in the tension of pain and joy? It’s possible to have fulfillment and meaning and purpose in the middle of suffering and grief. Learning how is the work that we have to do as human beings. We have to believe both of those things, even though they seem like they’re opposites, but that both of those things can be welcomed into our life. When we do that, we actually have a really beautiful, interesting life.

What does “welcoming those things into our life” look like, practically?

Part of welcoming grief is welcoming the different stages of grief. It’s OK for me to feel sad. I don’t have to power through that emotion. I don’t have to pretend that I’m not depressed. 

I think sometimes in religious circles, we feel this pressure to not feel certain emotions in our life. But that’s all part of the beautiful process that we’re all in and part of becoming a human beings is to experience these “negative” emotions. I don’t think any emotion is a negative emotion. Is it appropriate to be angry when you lose a loved one? Absolutely. So when we deny those pieces of us or deny those emotions, we really are stunting and limiting the potential to experience life at its fullest.

Why is it so easy for us to get stuck in ruts?

The dirty little secret about growth and change is that ultimately we don’t want to. The reason why we don’t want to grow or change is because it requires something. It requires a sacrifice, a cost. We love the idea of change. We love the idea of growth. We love the idea of personal growth, but we don’t love the idea that it’s going to cost us something.

There was a lot of talk during the pandemic about being kind to yourself if you’re not being as productive or effective as usual. Do you think it’s possible to go overboard in being too nice to yourself, to the point where you don’t push yourself to grow?

Simple answer: yes. I describe myself as a combination of Mr. Rogers and a Navy Seal. Either extreme is not helpful. Having no expectations and no challenge, that’s not necessarily helpful to our growth. Neither is just beating ourselves up, all performance, all maximization. We have got to love ourselves. We have to practice self-care. But part of practicing self-care is holding ourselves accountable to our values and our dreams and our passions. 

I was beating myself up when Taylor Swift released not one, but two albums, in the middle of the pandemic. I’m like, what am I doing with my life?

Two good albums, no less.

Two really good Grammy-nominated albums! I’m like, what am I doing with my life? 

But I also was able to find a couple areas in my life over the past year where I was very disciplined, where I added some new things to my life. Now, did I write a new album? No. Did I write a new book? No. But I was able to produce something because I did have some standards and some expectations to use this time wisely.

So what about the people who do want to hold themselves to a higher standard but feel like they just don’t have any margin or gas in the tank? What do you say to them?

I would say to that person what I say to myself when I think those same thoughts, and it’s simply this: you are ridiculously in charge of your own life. Because of my past, because of past trauma, because of my childhood, I lived my life from this powerless frame. It wasn’t until I said, hey, the clock is ticking. There is so much opportunity in front of me. There’s so many things in my hand. I have a duty and a responsibility to take ownership of my story and my life, because no one else is going to do that. 

I have great compassion for those who struggle, who feel so overwhelmed and so burned out and so tired. I have nothing but compassion for that. But I also say it’s like that doesn’t excuse us from making small steps, small movements.

The hardest part of growth is getting that initial momentum going. But one of the things I do is with my clients is bump people. I know that if I can just bump them and get them in motion towards healthy things, the momentum will keep them moving and they can take it from there. But getting started is tough. 

We’ve talked a lot about people who go too easy on themselves. But my hunch is that, at least in this country, most people have the opposite problem. We’re way too hard on ourselves to be productive and maximize our potential or whatever.

I agree.

How do we learn to forgive ourselves for stuff like that?

We have this inner troll living in our head rent-free. The inner critic is always giving us one star reviews on everything that we do. It’s impossible to have a fulfilling, meaningful, purposeful life if we don’t do something about the inner troll. We do have to be very aware of the internal language. There’s not a whole lot to be gained from kicking yourself when you’re down. We think we’re motivating ourselves. It really doesn’t. It actually undermines peace, joy, love. 

A couple of tools that I use: I think about my thoughts, and especially negative thoughts. I go, does this thought help me become the person that I want to become? Usually, if it’s an inner critic, inner troll, that thought is not helpful for me becoming who I want to become. Then the second question I always put out there for people who are struggling in this area is just simply ask, is this negative thought accurate and complete? So often we just assume because we’re thinking it, that it must be true, that it must be factual. But we actually have a thin slice of the thought or the data set. It’s like, “oh yeah, look how I screwed that up at work today. I’m an idiot. I’m a horrible employee.” OK, well, that’s a piece of the story. It’s not a complete part. So bring in the other pieces of data to have a more rich and robust discussion with yourself about who you are.

You can follow Mike Foster at @mikefoster on Twitter.

This article is part of our Quarterlife series, produced in partnership with Unite Health Share Ministries.

But Eldredge is also very into self care, play and treating yourself with tenderness. He’s concerned about the trauma being faced by a generation coming out of a year in crisis, and believes we’re setting ourselves up for failure if we don’t address that trauma with a season of pouring into ourselves. He talked to RELEVANT’s senior editor Tyler Huckabee about what that might look like, and his thoughts about the state of Christian masculinity.

This conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

This is sort of a weird way to start but let’s go for it: How are you, John?

Colorado has been pretty good. We’ve been open for a while. So we can go to a restaurant and get dinner out and go to a movie. But to press a little deeper into your question, we’ve all just passed through global trauma, and I don’t think most folks know that. You can feel the effects in your brain. Forgetting stuff easily. Can’t remember what day it is. Lost sense of time. Those are trauma symptoms.

I think the world’s pretty clobbered. We’re a little beat up. What does it look like now to take care of ourselves? As we’re coming out of this thing, how do we heal from the effects of it and what it’s been like to live in a global crisis for a year?

Let’s define some terms here, because trauma is one of those words that gets thrown around a lot but I still think we operate with different definitions. 

Let me give an example. For the past year and in very heightened moments of it, we’ve all had our normal taken away from us. Normal life got taken away. We were kept in a state of constant uncertainty. Navigating new terrain that never turned normal. We were bombarded with the fear of death. “Hey, this pandemic’s real. Everybody, come on. Let’s partner together, be responsible, because you could die or you could make somebody else die.” Then there was never a clear finish line. There was never a, “If we can just get to October 15th, we’re going to be great.” But then it moved to Christmas, and then it moved into ’21.

Those are the same techniques that you use when interrogating prisoners that you’re trying to break down. You take away their normal. You keep them in constant suspense. You bombard them with negative information. They have no idea when it’s going to end. That breaks down humanity. 

So when I say trauma, what I mean is a human experience that you have been required to live through that is so disruptive to the normal rhythms of your soul that it leaves you with lasting effects upon your brain.

But prisoners know they’re in jail. They can steel themselves for an interrogation. Most of us are undergoing a traumatic experience and we’re barely aware of it. 

Exactly. That’s why conversations like this one are so important. As we come out of it, I have been encouraging people to think of this as being in rehab. We’re in recovery. We need to take care of our souls. 

What’s your plan to take care of your soul? Most of the people I know, we rallied. We did our best. We made it work. We got online. We saw our friends on Zoom or FaceTime or all that. Kids were at home. We figured out online learning. Both spouses are at home, working. We tried, right? 

But what we had to do was to tap into our reserves. What would be your reaction today, Tyler, if I told you that a new pandemic is going to roll through next month and we are starting all over?

Despair, probably.

That’s it. There’s nothing in the reserve tank. So think about, “How am I going to renew my reserves?” Basically, you need to have a period of time where more is coming in than is going out. That’s how you replenish your reserves, right? You can’t keep burning 100%. You’ve got to throttle back a little bit.

Find some of those things that pour into your soul. If it’s beauty or if it’s getting out for a run or if it’s a certain group of people that you just love being with. What is going to pour back in now to replenish our very depleted reserves?

What about for folks who are younger — who may not feel like they have the time or even financial resources to really invest in things that bring them joy?

They need soul care just as much as the people that maybe got hospitalized or the people that lost their jobs during 2020. It would be easy to say, “Well, I’m young, and I’m going to rebound.” But you’re not good. You passed through the global trauma, just like everybody else, and you had your series of disappointments. The problem is, you’re now looking at a future that’s pretty uncertain. 

There is a kind of resilience that youth will give you, but it’s not the same thing as recovery. Taking care of your body and your soul does not take a lot of money. One of the cool things about walking is that it does good things for your brain. The brain loves it when it feels like you are making progress. So that’s why when you kill it on a test or you do great on an interview, you come out of there and you’re like, “Oh, man, I’m stoked. We killed it. The brain loves that. When you’re walking, you’re continually feeding that in your brain, because you’re moving forward. That’s free. 

Now we’re talking about “self-care” — another word we all have a lot of different definitions of. 

When Paul is praying for us, he says, “I pray that the God of peace Himself would sanctify you through and through, that your whole spirit, soul, body would be kept blameless for the coming of Christ.” 

We’re spirit. We’re soul. We’re body. You’ve got to take care of all three things. When we talk about self-care, some people think about their bodies, and you should. You’ve got to think about your body. But we’re also talking about soul care. Your soul is beautiful, but the soul is remarkable, because it’s very resilient while being very vulnerable. The soul needs care as well. 

In the last 12 months, we have all lived through chronic disappointment. You lost that trip. You didn’t go to that wedding. You didn’t get to have the wedding. You didn’t get a graduation. You finished online. You lost your job. You can’t go to the club. You can’t go out to dinner, all of it, just large and small. Then, my goodness, we lost people. We lost loved ones. We have friends who have lost loved ones. So there’s a series of chronic disappointments. Have you grieved what you have lost?

I think something that can happen is that people look inside themselves to ask what things make them come alive and they realize they have no idea. They’re completely disconnected.

You go backwards. There were things that used to bring you life, things that you loved. You can go back five years. There were things that you used to do or enjoy that brought you life. You used to play the guitar. Why did you stop? You used to love listening to classic rock. Why’d you stop listening to that? There were things that used to bring you life. Go get them back. Pick a couple of those things. 

If you can’t figure out what’s ahead of you, like, “I can’t really dream towards the future right now. I’m not really sure what that looks like,” go, “Oh, I used to love that park that’s several blocks down in the city. I love that park. I haven’t been there for a year.” Exactly. Go back to that park. Go back and find the things that used to bring you life, and start there.

Is there any reason for people to view any of these things with suspicion? Some things, they feel trivial like, say, Netflix or video games. And they can even be destructive, like spending money I don’t have or addiction issues.

Here’s a really helpful little tool. We call it the cost-joy ratio. Right now, people will get back from their vacation and say, “Oh, man, I need a vacation to recover from my vacation.” They got the cost-joy ratio totally out of whack.

You need to get more joy than what it’s costing you. So blowing a ton of money on something you can’t afford is going to give you some joy, but three days later, you’re going to be so filled with regret and panic, and now you’re facing these payments you can’t make. You got the cost-joy ratio totally out of whack. 

The pornography thing is another classic example. Yeah, there’s a few minutes of joy, but then the guilt, the shame, the regret, that cycle. That stuff just tears you up. You look at the cost-joy thing, and you go, “Oh, man, this thing is way high-cost for the amount of joy I’m getting out of this.”

I also wanted to ask you about a subject you’ve become identified with: Christian masculinity. There has been an enormous reckoning centered around young men — particularly young, white Christian men — whose anger drives them to online radicalization. It can be QAnon and storming the Capitol, but sometimes it’s just a very toxic online presence. What’s going on?

This is huge right now. Men desperately want to feel competent. We want to feel effective. We want to feel like, “In my world, I am helping. I can fix the sink that’s leaking right now, and I can enter into that tough relationship and bring life. In my teaching job, I’m bringing life. I am helping. I am a powerful presence.” Men need to feel like their presence matters, that we are competent and effective in our worlds. 

The bottom line is we love to fix stuff and we just have come through a period of history where we couldn’t fix much of anything at all. Couldn’t fix the economy. Couldn’t fix the politics. Couldn’t fix the broken education system. Couldn’t fix the pandemic.

There is anger in there. We go “I need to fix something. I need to set something right.” Then that gets into, “I need to set something straight.” That becomes “I need to set someone straight.” 

The bottom line desire was good. That’s a good desire. That’s why firefighters will run into a burning building and rescue people. That’s why the EMTs will show up in a car accident like, “I’m here. I’m here to help. I want to set things right.” But you’ve got to name the anger, guys. Name it. Write it down. Shout it out to yourself, not online. Where’s the anger coming from? What is that rooted in?

This is going to be a very surprising soul care thing: there needs to be a couple places in your life where you are making things right. Paint a room. Plant a garden. Fix your bike that’s been broken for six months. Get it working again. You need to do simple things.

There’s a reason that that famous line in the FRIENDS theme struck a chord. When you’re in your 20s, especially your early 20s, life feels like it’s playing a joke on you for the most part. Chances are you’re stuck on the bottom rung at a company where your superiors are probably inefficient at their jobs, you’re still bitter about how expensive the basics like health care and car insurance are, and you wonder if you’re going to have to resort to Tinder for true love. It’s rough out there, man. Particularly in today’s job market.

This article is part of our Quarterlife series, produced in partnership with Unite Health Share Ministries.

My first “real” job was at a multi-million dollar nonprofit. I was a Foster Care Specialist organizing the care for kids across three different counties in Central Florida and meanwhile, I had to show one of the executive directors that you did not, in fact, have to close your browser to “start the Internet over.” He would open a new window each time he wanted to go back to his Google homepage. This is still one of my favorite first-job stories to tell because I can’t make this stuff up.

Since then, I’ve navigated my way from nonprofit limbo to a job in the editorial world that I take pride in. When I was 23 and still working the nonprofit world, I knew I wanted to change industries but had no idea how to do it. The editorial world felt intimidating and untouchable. As tempting as quitting my job to serve tables while I figured it out or traveled across Europe in hopes that it would make me more interesting was, I didn’t do either of those things. Instead, I began mapping my steps out piece-by-piece with no idea where it would land but optimistic that it would be closer to where I eventually hoped to be. And it worked.

Here are a few ways I found that you can make your next move without putting your next paycheck in jeopardy.

Take An Audit of Your Own Career

Whether you’re in your very first job or you’ve hopped around for six years, take a moment to look back. What have you liked about the responsibilities you’ve had? Do you like roles in leadership? Do you prefer to work behind the scenes? Are you an independent worker or do you prefer to collaborate closely with a team?

In my own experience, I found myself gravitating to the communications aspect of each position I held. I loved creating newsletters for the nonprofit, I enjoyed running their social media and I spent most of my day scouring the depths of the internet when I was supposed to be doing things my job actually required of me. At the time, my writing wasn’t a vessel for my career, it was just something that was of natural ease to me. I never thought about it monetarily.

Ask yourself: What are you most passionate about? What skills come most naturally to you? What interests are you most naturally invested in? Are any of these passions industry-driven? If you can’t think of any interests or talents that come easily to you, ask other people if they identify them in you. They probably see more gifts in you than you realize.

Do Your Research

Once I knew I wanted to go into editorial, I began looking up writers and editors who I respected to better understand their day-to-day responsibilities. I familiarized myself with their work, I looked up their profiles on LinkedIn to see what kind of skills they had in their wheelhouse, and sought to gain insight from their own career paths.

Once you identify what roles sound interesting to you, begin sending emails for coffee dates to people in the industry you’re interested in growing your career in. When I was first trying to break in, I would send 10 emails a week and usually end up with one coffee meeting that would get accepted. A rejection or hard “no” means you’re trying. That’s better than what the scores of people who are talking themselves out of that entirely. And trying assumes you’re improving on your effort each time, whether you’re refining your pitch, how you communicate your goals to others or just exercising your courage to try again.

During these coffee meetings, I prepared questions, made sure I made an impression and kept it natural by showing interest in the people I was meeting as individuals to begin building trust. This idea isn’t new and it’s not original. It’s just networking and building social capital without putting these words (which can often be unnecessarily intimidating). Most veterans of their industry want an opportunity to give back and bring meaning to the work they do. Giving a newbie some advice might just be the way they can do it.

After all, many of them remember all too well where they started.

Make Moves

Perhaps your first step just updating your resume or cover letter for the first time in a while. If you’re overwhelmed by the idea, take a deep breath. Start by listing out everything you’ve done in your roles and organizing them into buckets that reflect the skill sets you want to showcase in your next gig.

Ask your friends or family members for some support. Do you know someone with a lot of experience hiring other people? Ask them what they look for in candidates.

Before I made it to the editorial world, I made a pitstop between nonprofit and editorial to recruiting. I went into recruiting at a trendy company that specialized in agencies and media companies. My logic was that whether or not I remained in recruiting, at least I’d meet more people in the media and agency worlds which have a lot of overlap.

Sometimes, a move towards your dream job doesn’t look like it makes sense on the outside but at the end of the day, that pitstops prove invaluable. While I was recruiting, I wasn’t burned out from nonprofit work so I could do my 9-5 effectively without compromising the efforts I wanted to take to advance in another direction.

Maybe you don’t end up at the exact job you want in your next step but is there another job, whether at your company or outside of it, that would add to your skill set and make you more competitive as a candidate? The opportunities to get creative with your next move are out there. If you need more ideas, check out one of my favorite books on the subject by Meg Jay, The Defining Decade. She would agree that quitting your job to bartend on a cruise ship sounds tempting but maybe your are supposed to build something much more lasting than a Mai Tai.

Philosophers are not the only ones who ask these kinds of questions about how humans are to live well. Historically, most Christian thinkers have understood the moral life to be the pursuit of happiness. We are going to consider some of the contributions made by biblical scholars and theologians to the question of human flourishing and begin to sketch out what a Christian positive psychology might look like when constructed on a foundation of biblically informed ideas about the human condition.

Happiness in the Bible

Some people have the impression that the Bible teaches “pie in the sky” while ignoring the present life. “Fast on bread and water now, feast on steak and lobster in the life to come”. The reality is, though, that the Good Book has quite a lot to say about the good life in the here and now. In contrast with the Stoic doctrine that the only thing required for happiness is virtue, and also in contrast with the heretical Gnostic doctrine that the material world is entirely evil (making happiness a matter of escaping the material world), a biblical understanding of happiness is grounded in the goodness of creation and in the belief that humans are meant to participate in God’s joy in creation.

A well-lived life as described in the Bible includes family and friends, a peaceful and well-ordered community, a joyful and prosperous home life, and lots of good food and drink. Christians “don’t have to differentiate between spiritual and sensual happiness. They belong together. We were created to live the shalom of flourishing and delight, and the fact that we do not all enjoy such a life is a consequence of the fall, not of any inherent evil in material existence.

In the Old Testament, much of what we find on living well involves the Hebrew word asher, which may be translated as “happy,” “blessed,” or “fortunate.” None of these English words, however, precisely capture what is meant by asher. Rendering asher as “happy” puts us back into the problem we covered earlier: our tendency to equate the word happy with positive emotional gratification. “Blessed” reminds us that the good life is a gift from God, but it does not adequately capture the human effort that also goes into living well.

“Fortunate” makes it sound too much like the good life is a matter of luck, which lines up with Aristotle but not with the Bible. When the Psalms tell us that “blessed is [somebody]” (e.g., Psalm 1:1), we are being given guidance about what we can do to contribute to a life well lived. Ellen Charry refers to her theology of happiness as “asherist,” arguing that most of God’s commands for us “outline an obedient, rewarding and wise life that can be lived now despite grief from sin and life’s contingencies.”

The Greek word makarios functions in the New Testament similarly to how asher does in the Old Testament. Makarios has also been translated as “blessed” or “happy,” and the same English-language difficulties apply (Holladay, 2012). One key passage relevant to this project is the Sermon on the Mount, specifically the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12). The Beatitudes is a list of eight “blessed are those who . . . ” statements, and the word “blessed” here is a translation of makarios (for this reason, the statements are called “makarisms”).

Those who cultivate the characteristics described in these makarisms are living the kind of life that points toward the kingdom of God, which will be rewarded when the kingdom arrives in its fullest. These characteristics also help us toward true happiness in the present life. “To put it more simply, Aristotle’s ‘secular’ eudaimonia becomes Christianity’s spiritual makarios.”. We may therefore, as we attempt to construct a Christian positive psychology, look to the Beatitudes as one source of our ideas about living well.

A Joyful Heart Is Good Medicine

Generally speaking, positive emotion is good for us. Lyubomirsky, King, and Diener reviewed the research literature and concluded that experiencing more frequent positive affect predicted better outcomes across a number of domains, including career success, relationship satisfaction, medical health, social engagement and coping ability. One of the classic studies in this area is the famous “Nun Study.” As part of an ongoing longitudinal study, 678 members of the School Sisters of Notre Dame have undergone annual physical and mental assessments, allowing researchers access to their records and agreeing to donate their brains for study after their deaths.

Of those, around two hundred joined the order during a time in which sisters were being asked to write their autobiographies. Danner and colleagues coded these narratives, recording the amount of positive emotion expressed in each. When compared against outcomes six decades later, autobiographical happiness predicted a longer lifespan. The most cheerful nuns tended to live around a full decade longer than the least cheerful nuns. This finding is of great scientific interest, since members of a religious order tend to have so much in common (same gender and marital status, same occupation and income, similar diets, similar activities, similar access to medical care, and so on) that many possible explanations for the relationship between emotion and wellbeing are controlled for.

Lefcourt, Davidson-Katz, and Kueneman found the expression of positive emotion to be associated with improved immune system functioning. Laughing resulted in increased production of antibodies, with greater effects seen in those with better senses of humor. Fredrickson et al. (2000) argue that another possible pathway by which positive emotion improves physical health is by “undoing” the deleterious effects of negative emotions. It is well-known that long-term experience of negative emotions increases the risk of medical conditions, ranging from heart disease to the common cold to longer wound-healing time.

Fredrickson and colleagues first created anxiety in their participants by requiring them to prepare a speech in a very short time, then followed that by showing them one of several possible film clips designed to elicit specific emotions (contentment, amusement, sadness and neutral emotion). Compared to the sadness group and the neutral control group, the heart rates of the participants in the two positive-emotion groups returned to baseline more quickly, supporting the authors’ claim that positive emotions help to undo the physiological strain put on our systems by negative emotions.

Can There Be Too Much Happiness?

In the Elizabethan epic The Faerie Queene, heroic knights serve as personifications of virtues (one character represents faith, another represents justice, and so on). Book Two involves the virtue of temperance (moderation and self-control) embodied in the character of Guyon.

At one point Guyon attends a dinner hosted by three sisters. One sister, Perissa, represents excess, stuffing herself with meat and wine, laughing without control, and cheating on one lover with another. The other sister, Elissa, represents deficient happiness. She finds no joy in food or drink, refuses love and faces the world with frowns and scowls. Between the two is Medina, striking the virtuous balance between the two extremes. Consider the message that too much laughter and merriment is just as bad as not enough laughter and merriment. Is that right? Is there an optimal level of positive emotion?

Fredrickson and Losada had their participants report on their experiences of positive and negative emotion over a twenty-eight-day period. They calculated the ratio of positive to negative emotions and compared that ratio against measures of psychological and social functioning. They found that optimal flourishing tended to occur around a ratio of 2.9 (almost three positive emotions for every negative emotion). Dropping below three positive emotions for every one negative emotion was associated with worse outcomes. Fredrickson and Losada also found an upper limit, though. Above 11.6, the relationship between positive emotion and flourishing breaks down. So experiencing more than eleven positive emotions for every negative emotion could also be a problem. Medina (the virtuous middle sister) may be on to something. 

Or maybe not. Fredrickson’s work has come under heavy attack. Brown, Sokal, and Friedman criticized Fredrickson and Losada on multiple levels, accusing them of using inappropriate equations and using them poorly. Fredrickson countered that, while there might be problems with the mathematics involved, the evidence for an optimal positivity ratio remains solid. A partial retraction was given, in which the authors stated that perhaps the thresholds were not exactly 2.9 and 11.6, but the evidence still supported the central claim of an optimal range of positivity.

More arguing ensued, which can be found in the September 2014 issue of American Psychologist. While the answer to “how much happiness is the right amount” might not range exactly from 2.9 to 11.6, there is evidence that flourishing is found in that median range between excess and deficiency.

Adapted from Positive Psychology in Christian Perspective: Foundations, Concepts, and Applications by Charles Hackney. Copyright © 2021 by Charles Hackney. Published by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. www.ivpress.com 

2020 was the year we were all glad to leave behind. For most, it began with high hopes and expectations for plans and goals for a fresh, new decade. We were excited and ready to make our Plan A hopes and dreams a reality. But things went sideways as the novel coronavirus invaded our country and started spreading like wildfire. Many of us resorted to Plan B. After months of the virus spreading, thousands dying, civil unrest and continued lockdowns, Plan B proved insufficient. We needed Plan C.

What is Plan C? 

I think everyone is familiar with the concept of Plan A, our plans with ideal circumstances and outcomes, and Plan B, typically the next best alternative. Plan A is built on sheer optimism. Plan B is still optimistic, but factors in a little bit of realism. The problem with Plan B? No one wants to settle for that.  

Instead, you develop a Plan C. Plan C puts the things that are out of our control into context. Plan C says we are going to courageously be committed to controlling what we can control and letting go of what we can’t control with contentment.

Plan A allows you to envision the very best and do your very best, while Plan C empowers you to let go of the outcome. The key to success as we plan for our goals and dreams is to run hard after plan A with great self-discipline — by design, not by default — all the while keeping your Plan C commitment in keen view.

As the managing partner of a large, dynamic financial services firm, our Plan A for 2020 was to continue doing what we do well —face-to-face planning and strategy meetings with our 50,000 clients. When coronavirus hit in March, those meetings came to a screeching halt. We were forced to consider Plan B.

Plan B was to accept a horrible outcome that would reduce our client impact at a time when our clients needed us most. Their hope was already greatly diminished, financially and otherwise, and reducing our impact on their behalf was not an option we were willing to consider.

So on to Plan C. We transitioned to Zoom meetings, tweaked a couple of technology opportunities and doubled down on more meetings than ever. This plan led to the greatest year of both client impact and new client acquisition for our firm. By letting go of the things we couldn’t control and pivoting to the things that we could, we not only salvaged 2020, but we surpassed our original expectations. 

Generally speaking, 2020 was perhaps the most Plan C year ever. Everything that could go wrong did. With Plan A in our sights, we had to pivot. And nearly at every turn. So many things beyond our control threw a wrench into our Plan A.

Lives were lost.

Livelihoods were lost.

Division intensified.

Schools were closed.

Plans were cancelled.

But do you know what? Even if you didn’t have a Plan C at the ready, some good can still come out of 2020. (I know it’s hard to fathom, but stick with me here.)

With a little intention and self-reflection, we can use what we’ve learned in 2020 to make strategic decisions for positive life change in 2021. 

Think about it. What did you learn about yourself last year? Your likes? Dislikes? Take some time to jot them down. Put pen to paper here and really give your answers some thoughts.

Next to those things, write down the reasons for your likes and dislikes. Avoid judging your answers; this isn’t a right-or-wrong exercise. Itemize what is weighing you down and what you’re not enjoying about your current life, and then write down why, one by one.

As the last step, grab another sheet of paper and do some brainstorming. The sky’s the limit. Don’t edit yourself or evaluate what’s realistic in your situation. Just dream a little. Look one more time at your lists and then, on this fresh sheet of paper — this clean slate — brainstorm ways to take the favorites from your “likes” list and turn them into something you love. What would enhance your life, making your “likes” even more appealing? What don’t you like that you’re ready to let go of? 

It’s time to identify what living your best life looks like for you. That’s the first step in making an action plan to get there — to becoming the best version of your authentic self.  Map out a plan and take one small step at a time. Use what you’ve learned about yourself to fuel growth and change. 

Life does give us opportunities to “trade up” in our pursuits. Having the vision to make that transition is an important element for both success and actually reaching our goals of significance. 

With a little effort, and by squinting real hard, I think we can see 2020 a little differently — as one of life’s opportunities to trade up.

Let’s not let that opportunity go to waste. Let’s trade up in 2021.

We go through college, often spending a small fortune for an education, and leave feeling completely unprepared.

Maybe we need a new kind of education once we hit our twenties. A strategic, big-picture plan on how to succeed truly and authentically in a decade that feels ripe with un-success.

After 10 years of writing, researching, speaking at universities and having two books published all on what it truly means to be successful in your twenties, here are some truths I believe will help us all get on the right track—even if we’ve ungracefully fallen off of it.

And while yes, this advice can apply to anyone, our twenties are setting the direction for the rest of our lives, so it’s crucial we point our boat in the right direction now, or risk sailing around in circles in some New Jersey harbor.

1. Learn When to Say Yes or No

Successful people have mastered self-control in the small—the skill of saying no and yes at the right time to the right or wrong things.

It’s not complex. It’s simply trusting your gut and having the strength to follow its lead.

It could be as simple as consistently saying yes to going to bed at the right time. Saying no to that next round of drinks. Saying yes to the lunch with a friend of your parents, even though it’s bound to be awkward. Saying no to the relationship that’s about as healthy as sipping motor oil. Saying yes to reading and exercise. Saying no to office birthday cake.

It’s not just praying for wisdom and direction in the big, life-altering events. It’s living a life of prayer, letting God’s Spirit speak within the daily doses of “groan” up life, and then honing your ability to hear what He’s actually saying. It’s not just stopping your day to pray. Its living your day in honest conversation with Him.

2. Practice Self-Awareness

Self-awareness is a crucial, underrated skill. Not an obsession of self, but a daily, deepening understanding of who you are and who you’re not.

God is a master chef, using specific ingredients, with strategic amounts, to create in you a flavor that no one else can bring. You have a unique Signature Sauce and the more you define, refine, own and hone what it is, the more you’ll be living intentionally with passion, purpose and meaning.

You have a Signature Sauce that God wants you to serve to the world. It just takes some honest, hard, intentional reflection and countless failed experiments to find out what it is.

3. Use Social Media Responsibly

Drinking responsibly is life-savingly important. Doing social media responsibly is reputation-savingly important.

Are you presenting an authentic, positive image of yourself online? Or are you the purveyor of these Facebook updates that need to stop happening?

4. Mentor and be Mentored

Twentysomethings should continually be learning to learn and learning to teach.

As I write in 101 Secrets for your Twenties:

“[We can’t] be smothered in Twentysomething. We need to sweeten our lives with some Generational Potpourri–a collection of age ranges with different backgrounds and experiences to spice up our lives.”

I don’t think there are a lack of mentors for twentysomethings. I think there are a lack of twentysomethings who are actively seeking mentors.

Maybe it’s pride or a lack of time that’s holding us back from seeking help, but I think the real obstacle is fear.

Maybe it’s a fear of being rejected. Or a fear of commitment. I think most likely, it’s a fear of someone shining a light on all the stuff we’ve been hiding and challenging us to do something about it.

Don’t hide your crap. It will just keep smelling up your house.

5. Invest Your Time with Purpose

One of the biggest advantages twentysomethings have is time. And every day, you have a choice: Will I invest my time in things that build or things that destroy?

How wisely do you invest your time, energy and creativity in things that will produce high returns?

Do you deposit your time in things that will produce value? Or continually make withdrawals of time and spend it on things that will never pay it back? (For example: taking career classes vs. spiraling down the Netflix vortex of no return.)

How you leverage your time now will be the key to your success later.

6. Learn to Work a Lousy Job

Lousy jobs are a twentysomething rite of passage.

But sometimes we can learn the most in the jobs we like the least. Don’t worry so much about working in the wrong job. Worry about your job getting the wrong you.

Every job, no matter how terrible, has something to teach. What skills can be gained now that you can leverage later?

7. Figure Out How to Fail Well

Many twentysomethings have experienced an epidemic of success growing up. We received awards, accolades, and most importantly, immediate feedback on how we we’re doing (most of which was overwhelmingly positive).

After college, immediate feedback is gone, trophies are packed away in your parent’s attic and tangible success becomes a fairy tale of the past.

Twentysomethings must learn to fail well—to fail without calling yourself a failure.

To fail is human. To become a failure is deadly.

8. Know When to Stay and When to Leave

Knowing when one season is over and one is ready to begin is a crucial skill many of us spend years perfecting.

There are miserable thirty and fortysomethings in jobs they stopped caring about a decade ago—and it shows all over their work.

Then you have twentysomethings jumping from ship to ship before it even heads out to sea.

As I write in my book All Groan Up: Searching For Self, Faith, and a Freaking Job!, “Life is lived in overlapping seasons and cycles for us to recognize and act accordingly. Instead of dreading the season we’re in, we should be thankful for it. We should sink deep into it and ask ourselves and God what we should be doing in this season.”

Read the signs, ask for advice and know when it’s time to go, time to stay, time to work in a cubicle, and maybe time to light it on fire (metaphorically, of course).

This article first appeared at AllGroanUp.com and is used here with permission.

Psychologists speak of irrational fears, and it is true that some fears are categorically irrational. Statistical chances of falling elevators, lightning strikes or shark bites make lottery odds seem common by comparison. However, suffering, pain and death really will have their way with everyone at some level or the other. And, in the wake of natural and human disaster of the kind collectively witnessed over the last few weeks, it’s very obvious that certain fears can be very well founded in reality. In times like these, it is those who appear to be without fear that seem oddly irrational.

But there is a calm that can be possessed in any crisis, and it comes from God. It is the peace that Bible translators have framed as “passing all understanding.” And, to the natural eye, this peace seems foolishly irrational. But this lack of fear isn’t the foolhardiness of the blind and brainwashed, it’s a gift from someplace else; someplace where eternity has the last word.

Jesus Christ was not stupidly naive. He knew the truth of life on earth: that it was full of all kinds of distress and difficulty. He knew that death was always right around the corner. But it was not the truth of earth’s order that Jesus pointed to when He said things like, “Fear not, for I have overcome the world.” It was the truth of the order of heaven.

The old Hebrew seer Isaiah saw a glimpse of this order thousands of years ago when he was, by his own account, filled up with the Spirit of God one day. What the man saw certainly was amazing: unending water for the thirsty and free food for the hungry. Understandably, Isaiah couldn’t keep from talking about the kind of good things that God had planned out for everyone who really loved Him. No more ashes, despair or devastation; Isaiah realized that God wanted to bless the brokenhearted, the poor and the prisoner.

Jesus saw all this blessing on the horizon during His time on earth, and saw that it was reserved for His friends. Jesus made a point of telling them all about it. “Don’t worry about tomorrow,” or “Have no fear,” He would say, knowing full well that “the kingdom of heaven” was at hand, able to loosen the death knot of anxiety.

During these times of cultural, economic and natural tremors, it will do no good to choke on the tangles of fear or give your heart over to the never-ending babble of cautionary experts and profit-margin-minded journalists. Look, instead, for the signs of the order of heaven and the blessing that it brings. Jesus said plainly: “Do not worry … but seek first God’s kingdom and His righteousness, then all these things will be given to you as well.”

But if we could take a step back and look at our lives, we’d see that every decision we make matters—even the seemingly small ones.

Those little decisions have big consequences.

Every day, all day, we make one small choice after another. And these choices just keep accumulating, each one woven into the rest, forming the tapestry that evolves into our life’s story.

If you want to create the story you want to tell, you have to make small, life-changing choices and then actually act on them daily. The best decision you can make is always the next one.

When you start by making one divine decision after another, you’ll see your story emerge, the story that God wants to tell through you. And with His help, you’ll use the powerful freedom He’s given you to transform your life in divine ways.

Here are four keys to making deliberate, godly decisions will lead you through a life full of joy and purpose.

1. Start something that changes your story

Behind every great story there’s always another one. Successful people often joke that they spent years becoming an overnight success. What many don’t realize is that it’s the choices no one sees that result in the things everyone wants. It’s the faithfulness to do mundane things well, to develop productive habits and to remain faithful that eventually leads to success.

Old Testament prophet Daniel is a great example of this. Whether you know a lot or a little about Daniel, when you hear his name, you probably think, “Oh, yeah, Daniel in the lions’ den.”

But people overlook the part about Daniel consistently serving the king with an excellent spirit. That caused him to stand out among all the other leaders. Eventually, the king decided to place Daniel in charge of the entire kingdom. Why was Daniel successful? Why was he favored above others? Why did the king respect him so much? Why did God close the mouths of the meat-eating lions?

We find our answers in a part of Daniel’s story that many people skim over. His divine favor was the result of the decision he made at some point in his life to serve faithfully. We don’t know when Daniel made this decision or why. All we know is that Daniel made one decision, starting one habit that changed his story.

2. Stop letting things get in your way

Determining whether our choices will take us in the right direction is important. But sometimes we are already headed in a direction we know is the wrong one. When this happens, we need to pause not only to consider the consequences but also to stop traveling in the wrong direction. The word repentance literally means to change course and return to God and His path for us.

Moses is a great example of stopping to reconsider a better course of action. After successfully leading the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, he became responsible for hearing all of the Israelites’ problems and handing down judgments. He did this every day, until he was spent.

Finally, Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, offered him some tough love: “What you are doing is not good. You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone.” (Exodus 18:17–18)

Can you relate? Are you juggling so many chainsaws that it feels impossible to keep going and impossible to stop? What are you doing today that’s not good for your story? Do you have some habit, mindset, addiction, attitude or something in your life that’s hijacking it?

Sometimes, the best decision we can make when feeling overwhelmed or facing a high-stakes dilemma is simply to stop. Sleep on it. Think it over. Get some godly wisdom from people you trust.

3. Stay where God planted you

You’ll find yourself at a point where you ask, “Should I stay the course when it would be easier to go another way?” Maybe a better question to ask is “What does God want me to want?”

One of my favorite stories about staying comes from one of my best friends, Bobby Gruenewald. Bobby started and sold two technology companies before he ever graduated from college. He started volunteering for our church in his mid-20s, and we eventually hired him. Although his contribution to Life.Church was extraordinary, he didn’t feel like he was making a difference, so he considered quitting and going back into business.

Truthfully, it would have been easier for him. As a pastor, he still had a lot to learn. Business is second nature to him. But by the grace of God, he decided to stay. And among his many important contributions as a leader for Life.Church, Bobby came up with the YouVersion Bible App, an idea that has done more for Bible distribution than any idea since the printing press. If you are tempted to walk away, seek God because you don’t know what He can do if you have the courage to stay.

4. Go where God leads

Where is God leading you to go? What is He calling you to do? I know what it feels like to start asking yourself questions. “God, I’m afraid. I need details! What you’re asking me to do sounds hard.” And God may answer: He doesn’t give His children a spirit of fear, so that’s not coming from Him.

He may remind you that you don’t need the details—you need faith. He may tell you it will be hard because we aren’t called to easy lives. We’re called to faith-filled ones.

If God calls you to go, you have to leave where you are. You don’t want to miss what He’s doing.

Ultimately, we know that our stories don’t have to end when we leave this life. When we experience the grace of God through Christ, we can live forever serving and enjoying God in heaven. And while I don’t know for sure, I think that’s when the stories our lives tell will be taken to a whole new level.

Because our stories are not just our stories. Our stories are part of an even bigger story. When you stand at the fork in the road, have the faith and courage to choose the hard path over the easy one when the hard one is right.

The choice is yours. The time is now.

It’s one of the downsides of a youth-obsessed culture. We tend to think if we haven’t published our first book, planted our first church or gotten married by the time we’re 30, then we’re on the fast track for a lonely, penniless death which will be mourned by none. Sure, some people get famous when they turn 25. Some people also swim across the English Channel.

Your twenties are a prime time to explore and grow, without all the baggage that comes with settling down and making your mark. (Jesus Himself was an unknown carpenter in a reviled corner of Israel until He was 30.)

That said, there are a few things every twentysomething should know how to do.

1. Make a Great Breakfast

Ideally, you should be able to craft a great meal for any occasion, but this is the most important meal of the day and so, it’s the one you should have down. Use real butter, large eggs, fresh mushrooms, cheese, whatever, but know the ins and outs and invite a lot of people over to eat it with you regularly.

2. Argue Kindly

An increasingly rare trait, but you’ll be better for it. Learn how to have your own opinions (and make sure they’re actually yours—not just something you “heard somewhere”) and how to put them firmly and politely, in a way that invites spirited conversation. It’s a rare and wonderful thing.

3. Hold a Conversation With Someone of Any Age

Whether the person you’re talking to is eight or 80, you should be able to hold a meaningful, intentional conversation with them. Remember to ask a lot of questions, be more interested in who they are than in who you are, and strive to make their day.

4. Parallel Park

Nothing menial about it, and not nearly as hard as it looks. Practice a little. Become an expert. Dazzle your friends.

5. Defend Your Media Choices

Whether you love Sufjan, SZA or Selena Gomez, you should be able to articulate why. The media we consume affects us, and you should be able to explain to yourself why you’re listening, watching and reading the things that you are.

6. Limit Your Online Life

This cannot be over-emphasized. The inability to manage an online presence has toppled promising careers and made fools out of otherwise competent individuals. You should have a good grip on how often you use social media and what you’re using it for. If you find most of your free time spent on the Internet, it’s time to make some choices. If you’re checking your phone at every awkward pause, delete that Facebook app.

7. Approach a Stranger

Whether it’s for directions, a favor or even just to pass the time on an airplane, knowing how to strike up a conversation out of the blue is a marvelous skill. Ask them questions (don’t lead with information about yourself), be approachable (not aggressive) and look for clues that they’d rather be left alone.

8. Stand Up for Yourself and Others

Whether it’s your boss shooting down an idea before you’ve explained it or a person dismissing the lived experience of someone of a different race or gender, you should know how firmly take a stand for both yourself and the people around you.

9. Say “I Was Wrong”

A relationship squabble. A political tiff. A theological debate. Whatever it is, you should always be looking for where you might have messed up. “I was wrong” is a magical little sentence that diffuses conflict and brings peace to any situation. You should have it at the top of your go-to phrases.

10. See Things From a Different Point of View

By now, it should be obvious to you that life looks very different for people who grew up with a different set of circumstances — be it a different socioeconomic bracket, religion, skin color or even immigration status. These people’s experiences are just as valid as your own and it can’t be overstated just how much richer your life will be if you can learn to see the world through their eyes.

11. Tip Generously

What’s just an extra buck or two to you can completely make your server’s day. Make it a habit to tip generously and, if you’re really feeling daring, write a brief thank-you note on your check.

12. Maintain a Mentor

Your twenties are a great time to invest in a mentor. Find someone you want to be like—be it your pastor, a friend or even a peer—and commit to meeting with them regularly. It takes a little humility and a lot of dedication, but there is no ceiling to the value it will add to your life.

13. Bite Your Tongue

Know how to pick your battles. It’s OK for you to be right without getting everyone to admit you’re right. It’s OK not to have an opinion on something — especially if it’s something you haven’t taken the time to educate yourself on. Understand when you should go to bat for what you’re thinking and when you can let it go.

14. Stay Well Rested

Late nights will come (if you’ve got kids, they’ll come pretty frequently) but our generation has forgotten the value in a good night’s sleep. Push yourself to go to bed earlier. Utilize your downtime wisely. Resting is just as important as being productive. In fact, you’ll be more productive if you are resting well and often.

15. Respond to Criticism

Defending yourself against criticism is easy. Graciously accepting it is harder, but the improvements it can make to your life and work are wild. Remember that criticism usually isn’t meant to be a personal attack and, if you can learn to take it in the spirit it’s offered, people will have fewer things to criticize you about in the future.

16. Write a Cover Letter

Filling out an application is a pretty simple process but, in all likelihood, the job you really want is going to take more than a list of references and previous employers. Cover letters require some effort, but it can be the difference between “don’t call us, we’ll call you” and “when can you start?”

17. Be Alone

The millennial generation prizes community, which is very good, but it tends to come at the cost of fearing loneliness. The truth is, being alone can do you a lot of good. Be able to sit quietly—reading, writing, praying or just listening to the silence—and use that time to truly evaluate how your spirit is. Loneliness is exercise for your heart. Do it regularly.

18. Recommend a Book, Movie or Album

It’s harder than it sounds. It’s easy to sound like a pretentious snob or a gushing fan when you’re telling someone to check out something you love. Be able to explain not only why you love something, but why you think someone else would love it.

19. Prioritize the Important Over the Urgent

There are two types of demands on your life. The first and easiest to focus on are the urgent: paying your rent, getting ahead in work, etc. The second and much harder to tackle are the important: your spiritual life, your relationship with your family and looking after the health of your soul. Know the difference between what’s urgent and what’s important, and know which one matters more.

20. Hold on to a Good Friend

There’s going to be a lot of transition in your twenties as both you and your friends float from job to job and location to location. You’ll have to say a lot of good bye’s in the midst of it all, but you should know when you’ve found the rare friend who you don’t want to lose, and you should be able to prioritize staying in touch with them beyond the occasional text message.

The author thanks Liz Riggs and Jeff Rojas for helping him come up with these ideas—and giving him a few to work on himself.

And if you aren’t prepared, you can quickly find yourself with an empty bank account.

How Much?

Well, it depends.

A job-loss emergency fund should have enough in it to cover three to six months of living expenses.

But where do you fall in that range?

To determine what this number is for you, take a look at your monthly bills. Identify your essential bills. How much do you pay for housing (monthly payment, utilities and insurance), food, health (including insurance) and necessary transportation? Certainly, items like cable television and your children’s sports are nice, but I would not classify them as essential. Identify what is essential. Of course, you can always include more bills if you desire. But at least include what is absolutely necessary.

Here is the “it depends” part. Whether you save three, four, five or six months worth of living expenses depends on your financial responsibility for others and how many wage-earners you have in the house. A single person can be more agile if they lose a job. So for a single person, my recommendation leans toward the three-month end of the spectrum.

But if you aren’t single, if you are financially responsible for your spouse and maybe children, I lean more toward the six-month end of the spectrum. If both you and your spouse work, you may be able to reduce this amount slightly.

And be sure to get your teammate’s thoughts on it. An emergency account can be surprisingly personal. My wife tends to like more in our emergency fund that I do. For her, it is more about a way to take care of our children. So we set aside whatever amount makes her feel comfortable. It is a simple sacrifice of preference on my part.

Remember, you and your teammate have different money personalities. Determining the amount you save for a job loss emergency is just one of the many places where your personalities will show up.

Determine how much you need to save together. Because if a job is lost, both will feel the impact.

Where?

Your minor emergency fund should be in a place where you can access it quickly, probably a checking or savings account. For your job-loss emergency fund, the options broaden.

Certainly, a checking or savings account will work. But you probably will not need three to six months of living expenses immediately if you lose a job. Usually, you have some time to transfer from a place that might not be as easily accessed to a checking or savings account.

Why is this important to consider? You get little to no financial gain when keeping money in a checking or savings account. Which is a shame if you have three to six months of living expenses—usually a good chunk of money—set aside.

Some options you and your teammate may want to consider are a money market account, online bank savings account or no-penalty certificate of deposit (CD). All of these options usually provide a higher interest rate than a traditional checking or savings account. You won’t get ridiculously wealthy using any of them, but, of course, that is not the point of an emergency fund.

Leveraging Abundance

Proverbs 30:24-25 says, “Four things on earth are small, yet they are extremely wise: ants are not a strong people, yet they store up their food in the summer.”

Ants leverage seasons of abundance for seasons of scarcity. We can learn a lot from this little bug.

Setting aside three to six months of living expenses is not a goal that’s easily accomplished. Like all financial goals, it takes time and persistence. The good news for those pursuing this milestone is that you have already rid yourself of all debt except a mortgage. So now you can shift the money you were spending on debt to your job-loss emergency fund.

Here are some thoughts on how to save money for this fund:

1. Monthly transfers.

Set up automatic transfers from your checking account to wherever you decide to put your emergency fund. Make sure you don’t forget to set aside money by making the transfers automatic. You can do this through your online bank account. Note, automatic transfers cannot go into a CD.

2. Occasional excess.

There will be times when you find yourself with excess money. And I am not referring to large sums of money. There will be times when you will find yourself with an extra $20 or $50. Don’t spend it. Instead, get it out of your hands and into your emergency fund. These small deposits will add up over time.

3. Tax returns.

If you get a tax return, don’t waste it. Many use their tax return as an excuse to splurge. Don’t do that. Use your tax return in a way that you won’t regret. Use the money to build up your emergency savings.

4. Bonuses.

You work hard. And sometimes because of your excellent work, you receive a bonus. This probably means you won’t lose your job because of poor performance, but you can still lose your job for other reasons. Put work bonuses toward your emergency fund in case your company has to layoff even good employees.

You can set aside enough for your job loss emergency fund. Leverage seasons of abundance. Be persistent and you can have three to six months of living expenses saved.

Protect those who rely on you. And protect your ability to live with open hands.

A year later, I am now looking for a second career.

What is wrong? I want meaning, I want passion, I want to do something that MEANS something, and I want to get paid to do it. I am in my early 20s and part of Generation X. I grew up with two hard-working parents and worked part-time jobs all through high school and college that I really enjoyed (whether it was taking orders and making cappuccino or driving my university’s drunk bus).

Now, I have a bachelor’s degree and the world should be mine. I have this innate sense there is a larger meaning to my life, that I am meant to do something great. And this is somehow leading me to the conclusion what I am doing right now (and getting paid quite well to do it) is not of great meaning and gives me no passion. Instead, I go through the same motions each day to do just enough to make my supervisor happy and get a paycheck.

Is this what I was meant to do? Is this what my parents and their parents strived their life to do? Work in a seemingly dead-end job, work up the ladder, and look forward to the 5 o’clock bell?

What I wonder is: Is there a way to be happy in a traditional 9-5 job? And if there is such a thing, does it require looking past minor faults in the job? The people? The pay? Everyday, in an endless struggle, twentysomethings wonder the same things. What is it about our generation that has given us such lofty aspirations? Why can we not be content?

To offer one solution (not to be confused with the absolute answer or even the correct answer) I feel like I grew up being told that no matter what I wanted to do in life, I should be happy doing it. Our parents were so concerned with putting bread on the table that happiness took a back seat. That is why we saw so many people in mid-life crisis with a red Corvette or the second, younger wife. Instead, our generation has seen the mistakes of those prior to ours and decided that no matter how long and hard the struggle, our happiness will be our top priority.

The question is, will we achieve it?