Life and Mission

Doubt can be a gift, because it alerts us when something's amiss. Here's a way to engage doubt without getting burned.
We rarely see doubt as a good thing. It’s been called a dream-killer. Something to overcome or push through. And certainly, doubt can be destructive. But I propose we take another look at the gift of doubt.

Doubt can be hard to define but it plays out in indecision, hesitation, busywork, loss of enthusiasm, etc. When we encounter doubt, the first response is often fear.

How is doubt a gift?

I say doubt is a gift because it alerts us when something’s amiss. There’s an inconsistency somewhere. Something differs from our understanding. Doubt calls us to examine things more closely. It’s normal and okay to have doubts, especially when we're in unfamiliar territory, or when we’re doing something new.

In the Bible, the disciples didn’t believe the women who came back and reported Jesus was no longer in the grave. It was a new thing. “Doubting” Thomas, gets a bad rep for asking for proof of the resurrected Christ, but Jesus doesn’t rebuke him for it. Instead, he invites Thomas to test and see. He didn’t push Thomas away; Jesus invited Thomas to come closer.

How we respond to doubt is important.

If we fear doubt, we push it away or ignore it. We cover it with platitudes and affirmations. So there’s this big monster doubt over in the corner, and we start moving around it, avoiding it, tip-toeing past so we don’t wake it up. We leave larger and larger chunks of our lives unexplored and dangerous.

If we give it freedom to roam about unchecked, it steals from us. It nags and worries. It criticizes. Like a raging fire, destroying everything in its path.

Like fire, if we set boundaries and engage doubt with respect, it can work for us. It can be a good thing, when properly contained.

Think for a moment about a beef brisket. It’s tough. It comes from an unglamorous part of the cow. But if you apply a slow, gentle fire, that meat turns into something tender that melts in your mouth. It becomes memorable, rich, and flavorful. And what about sugar? It has one flavor. Sweet. Just sweet. Nothing but sweet. It has no aroma, it’s only one-dimensional. But when you apply heat, it browns and caramelizes and it develops over 100 flavor compounds. That process is permanent. Fire (heat) forever changes that food. You cook something, and it never goes back to the way it was.

If doubt is like fire, then it can help us engage our ideas at a deeper level. Look at things from different angles, check our assumptions. And that can lead to innovation, growth, breakthrough, and discovery.

How to engage doubt without getting burned:

Get the right people in the kitchen. Relationships help us see truth. Explore the doubt with people you can trust. Not the people who will tell you they never believed in your dream, anyway. They could’ve told you it would never work. That’s like throwing gasoline on the fire, and somebody will get burned.

But

If you struggle to tell stories, you’ll struggle to raise funds.
In the Mission Writers course:

• Learn the exact stories that every ministry, missionary, and nonprofit needs to tell.
• Master the fundraising story calendar.
• Develop and practice essential storytelling skills to increase funding for your mission.
• Build your story library and your confidence.

Details at MissionWriters.org
Support the show

Mission Writers is an online course and group coaching experience where you’ll develop and practice essential storytelling skills to help increase funding for your mission. Get started now, for a year of coaching at over 60% off the regular price.

We are in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, and my guest is therapist, and author KJ Ramsey. We’re taking about pain and suffering, our bodies and stress, grief, and our communion with Christ.
We tend to think that more effort should produce a blessing. When we suffer, we might question our faith, or we might question whether we have a strong enough prayer life, or wonder if there's more we could do to earn God's favor.

K.J. says, "I think that for me, finding hope and suffering and finding joy in suffering, being able to be resilient within vast amounts of uncertainty. That has largely come through dwelling in the scripture and seeing what the whole scripture says about what is the story that God is writing in our world and where does my life fall within it."

What becomes clear is that God chose to enter into our suffering.
Now, as we walk through the uncertainty of our times, in this coronavirus pandemic, we can know we are not alone. Still, we have lost much. Acknowledging that grief and allowing ourselves to grieve the losses is human and healthy. It's not a sign of a small faith, but rather, it's an invitation to draw close to God, who loves us.
"We cannot be unaffected by this grief. And so we have an invitation here to be honest about where we're at, but this is too heavy for us, and that we can set aside our striving and let our souls be where we're actually at...That's where we can experience the grace and rest of a God who loves us, not for what we do, but for existing because we're his children." - K.J. Ramsey
Links:
This Too Shall Last: Finding Grace When Suffering Lingers
kjramsey.com
@kjramseywrites
Disclosure: Links may be affiliate links. If you decide to purchase any of these resources, I earn a small commission at no additional cost to you.

If you struggle to tell stories, you’ll struggle to raise funds.
In the Mission Writers course:

• Learn the exact stories that every ministry, missionary, and nonprofit needs to tell.
• Master the fundraising story calendar.
• Develop and practice essential storytelling skills to increase funding for your mission.
• Build your story library and your confidence.

Details at MissionWriters.org
Support the show

Mission Writers is an online course and group coaching experience where you’ll develop and practice essential storytelling skills to help increase funding for your mission. Get started now, for a year of coaching at over 60% off the regular price.

Katie Hornor started her businesses with no savings, no loans, and no debt. She has overcome incredible odds in growing her business. Her latest book is Faith Like Flamingos - The Christian Business Guide to Walking Out Your Faith in Bold Color.
Don't let the big pink birds fool you, Katie is serious about helping us as Christian entrepreneurs to overcome imposter syndrome and take big, bold steps to be who God created us to be.
The seed for Faith Like Flamingos started on a family vacation to see flamingos in the wild, where Katie realized these beautiful creatures were just like us in many ways.

[00:09:09] Each one of them is unique and different and God has created each of us unique and different too. And when we don't step up and give the message that we've been given to give, someone on the other end is not receiving the help that God created us to give them so that they can fulfill their purpose.
In the book, she takes a different characteristic of the Flamingo in each chapter and draws from biblical principles to make a business application that mirrors that characteristic of the Flamingo. Things like:

• not hiding who you are
• being bold to be who you were created to be regardless of your surroundings
• not being afraid to live where God puts you
• standing together with others so we can all succeed

[22:05] When you sit there and say, I can't do that because I'm not like so-and-so. You're forgetting about the unique voice God has given you to call those people and to motivate them into action.
Resources:
Disclosure: Links may be affiliate links, which means I get a small percentage of any purchase you make at no extra cost to you. Thank you.
Buy the Book: https://amzn.to/2u6EjYa
Faith Like Flamingos Website: http://www.faithlikeflamingos.com/
BloggingSuccessfully.com
Katie’s podcast: https://bloggingsuccessfully.com/podcast
Book Trailer https://youtu.be/qFK6zzp2igc

Listen to my first interview with Katie (Episode 17)

If you struggle to tell stories, you’ll struggle to raise funds.
In the Mission Writers course:

• Learn the exact stories that every ministry, missionary, and nonprofit needs to tell.
• Master the fundraising story calendar.
• Develop and practice essential storytelling skills to increase funding for your mission.
• Build your story library and your confidence.

Details at MissionWriters.org
Support the show

Mission Writers is an online course and group coaching experience where you’ll develop and practice essential storytelling skills to help increase funding for your mission. Get started now, for a year of coaching at over 60% off the regular price.

Matt Ham left a 10 year career in insurance sales to start YouPrint, a faith and personal development organization, and its nonprofit initiative called the Life Center. In this interview, Matt offers perspective on how we can thrive without striving.
[Matt 00:00:58] "Unfortunately we place our own understanding and expectations on how things should work out and it never works out that way. One of the greatest mistakes that we make is limiting God by our own understanding."
YouPrint is positioned as executive coaching, mentoring, community, and discipleship between Sundays. The philanthropic side of The Life Center is about removing obstacles, with the message "God loves you and he cares about you and he desires genuine relationship with you. And He created you for such a time as this. And we're here to walk with you."
"The Life Center is actually going to be a campus style facility where it will literally be a launch pad for entrepreneurial kingdom minded endeavors. It's a vision from the Lord that we are faithfully following out."
The Desires of Your Heart
God gives to you from His Spirit, and your heart is where those desires dwell. "It's like seeds of his genius that he planted in your heart. And you feel them or perceive them through your desires...He says, I will give you the desires of your heart in exchange for your will. You give me your will. And I will give you the desires of your heart. That's it. That's the offer. That's the offer of faith. Delight yourself in the Lord. What does that mean? That means surrender your will. Yield to him. Trust in him. Abide in him. You know, it's all throughout scripture. Who did this the best? Jesus."
"What are you busy with doing in your life? Are you busy with protecting and building your own reputation, or are you more concerned and busy with living underneath the reputation of God and his provision and his literal desires to give you the desires of your heart so that you can change the world for his glory? That's why we do what we do."
Investing in People
"People are the best investment that you can make. Period. Investing in people is the best investment that you can make." Just as Jesus encountered each person in a different way, so must we. What are the gifts God has placed inside that person? Can we see the potential and not just the circumstance?
Being the Church
"The church is the body of believers. That is not confined to Sundays. It's not confined to buildings." That includes entrepreneurism. God has called people into business and into all kinds of roles in society. "We need a people who are infused into those cultures and become literally evangelists in those pockets...God will clarify the call as you yield and surrender to him...The process of discipleship is to get people to that place because that is the most effective way to spread the kingdom."
But How?
Matt says we come to that place of knowing who we really are, and fulfilling our purpose starts with a post

If you struggle to tell stories, you’ll struggle to raise funds.
In the Mission Writers course:

• Learn the exact stories that every ministry, missionary, and nonprofit needs to tell.
• Master the fundraising story calendar.
• Develop and practice essential storytelling skills to increase funding for your mission.
• Build your story library and your confidence.

Details at MissionWriters.org
Support the show

Mission Writers is an online course and group coaching experience where you’ll develop and practice essential storytelling skills to help increase funding for your mission. Get started now, for a year of coaching at over 60% off the regular price.

While many other books will give you tactics and tools to discover your calling, or to focus your vision, I want to start with The Call, by Os Guinness, because it gives us a solid foundation.

What is Calling?
A quick trip to the dictionary offers these definitions:

1. the act of a person or thing that calls.
2. a call or summons
3. a strong impulse or inclination
4. a convocation (like a meeting)

The origin of our word for the vocal meaning of “calling” has its origins in the Old English “hildecalla” which means “battle cry.” Calling also shares roots with the Latin word for “glory” - ”gloria” - and this is associated with the vocational meaning of calling.

The idea of calling and vocation is important to us because it affects our personal identity, humanness, and significance.

The main idea for The Call is that there is no calling without a Caller. As Guinness says, “If there is no Caller, there are no callings—only work.”

Here is how the Guinness defines Calling:

“Calling is the truth that God calls us to himself so decisively that everything we are, everything we do, and everything we have is invested with a special devotion and dynamism lived out as a response to his summons and service.”

We are called by someone, to someone, and for someone. And that someone. The One who calls us is Christ. This is our primary calling. That which we see as a vocational or occupational calling - those things we do in response to the primary call, are the secondary callings.

Distortions of Calling

Guinness points out two distortions of calling, the “Catholic Distortion” which elevates the spiritual over the secular. Then there is the “Protestant distortion” which elevates secular over spiritual so that work becomes the thing we serve.

Then there is the term “vocational calling” which - remember our definitions - means “calling calling.” So what we mean by “vocational calling” is actually “occupation” or work, and before we know it we’ve separated that area of our lives from our primary calling.

Four Key Distinctions

The key to overcoming these distortions of calling, according to Guinness, is to balance giftedness with stewardship. How do we do that? He offers four areas where we must carefully watch the way in which we view calling:

1. the distinction between individual or particular calling and general or corporate calling
2. the distinction between a special calling and original or ordinary calling
3. the distinction between something being central to our calling and something being peripheral
4. the distinction between the clarity of calling and the mystery of calling

Invitation
Set aside some time over the next few days to sit alone and present yourself and your gifts, your talents and your tendencies to God.

There’s a song that says “Here’s my heart, Lord--speak what is true.” It makes a wonderful prayer.

Somewhere in that quiet place and in th

If you struggle to tell stories, you’ll struggle to raise funds.
In the Mission Writers course:

• Learn the exact stories that every ministry, missionary, and nonprofit needs to tell.
• Master the fundraising story calendar.
• Develop and practice essential storytelling skills to increase funding for your mission.
• Build your story library and your confidence.

Details at MissionWriters.org
Support the show

Mission Writers is an online course and group coaching experience where you’ll develop and practice essential storytelling skills to help increase funding for your mission. Get started now, for a year of coaching at over 60% off the regular price.