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Map or Compass: A Season of Transition

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By nature, I am a planner and a strategic thinker. I love knowing where I am going, how I am going to get there, and how much time it will require. It’s a gift from God, although I recognize that not everyone is gifted this way.  How they ever make it through a day I don’t know.

For most of my life as a minister, I have laid out plans and strategies, mission statements, and goals for where I believe God wants my ministry and whatever church I was working with at the time. It’s my comfort zone for sure.

In this current time and space we find ourselves in, it seems to me that God has us in a season of transition. Many of my friends who are in leadership capacities in churches have felt the same thing.  Certainly, seasons of transition happen in our walk with God but this one has felt very different than past seasons of transition.

I believe that it started with Covid.  While I do not believe that God caused Covid, I do believe that he has used it to usher the Church (at least in America) into a season of change.

Revival or Reformation

I know that many Christians are crying out for revival and have been for years. I am not opposed to revival but I think we need something deeper than revival. I believe with all my heart that we need a reformation. The whole system needs an upgrade and a reboot.

What we’ve been doing is not working and the Church in America has lost its voice.  We are just another undistinguishable sound in a very noisy world.  I think that Covid helped us to see how broken we were. 

We need a reformation because we don’t love well. We are to be known for our love for one another, a love that is supposed to include those outside the church. Yet, we are more known for our judgmentalism and our inclusivity.  We are not known for our love but for our hate; hatred of everything that doesn’t look or act like us (or at least what we think we look like).

Season of Transition

Yes, we are in a season of transition away from gifted pulpit superstars where everything revolves around their charisma and gifting. We are in a season of transition away from ministry mafias where insecure, narcissistic ministers build their own little empires.

This season of transition and reformation has to happen if the Church is ever going to get its voice back and have an effect on our society.

The problem is that we have no map of where we are going.  From what I am hearing from across the body of Christ, God is not showing us much of what it will look like or how we will get there.

Like the first called disciples of Jesus, he is giving us the same instructions, “Follow Me.”

He is not telling us where he is going or how long it’s going to take to get there. He is not giving us the steps to achieve anything. 

His command is simple:  “Follow Me.”

Oh, he’s going somewhere, but he’s just not letting us know where and how.  He simply wants us to trust him enough to follow him. It’s about putting Jesus back as the focal point of what we are endeavoring to do.

As I said in the beginning, I am a planner that likes to know where I am going.  So, for me, this isn’t a comfortable transition.  Instead of God giving me a map with instructions, he is giving me a compass and telling me to chart the map as we go.

A Journey of Discovery

This transition is all about discovery.  I believe that there are three specific things we are to discover:

  1. How to know and relate to God as a father.
  2. How to know and relate to Jesus as the human being that he is.
  3. How to really know and relate to one another as the body of Christ.

I will write more about these three things in the next few blogs.

Like God’s call to Abram, his call to us is the same, “Go to a land that I will show you.” In Hebrews 11, we are told that Abram went out not knowing where he was going.  Oh, I feel that one!

Like God’s instructions to Joshua, “You’ve not been this way before” (Josh. 3:4). Joshua didn’t have a map of where he was going. He had to follow the instructions of the Lord.

Paul tells us in Romans that “those that are led by the Spirit are the sons of God.” Sons are led by the Spirit.  Why is that?  Because the Spirit knows Papa’s heart and sons are eager to follow the heart of Papa.

It really all comes down to trust. Do we trust that God has our back? Do we trust that God is really good?  Is he faithful to fulfill his promises to us?  Can our hearts trust him?

It’s not safe to follow God but it’s good.  As C.S. Lewis wrote in The Chronicles of Narnia,

“Aslan is a lion- the Lion, the great Lion.” “Ooh” said Susan. “I’d thought he was a man. Is he-quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion”…”Safe?” said Mr Beaver …”Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

In this season of transition get comfortable with the compass and just follow Jesus out of trust. It may not feel safe but it will be good.

Thinking Allowed: Map or Compass

The post Map or Compass: A Season of Transition appeared first on Michael Wilson.

818. Religious Bondage: Working to Become Who God Has Already Made You to Be

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Telling believers they need to change will not be nearly as effective as helping them to understand they have already been changed. Trying to become somebody that you think you are not will become a frustrating, lifelong endeavor which never seems to find the end of the rainbow. On the other hand, once we grow in the understanding of our identity, we can begin to live from who God says we already are as believers “in Christ.”

In this race, we get to start at the finish line, which is a place of rest. Under the Old Covenant, the Jewish people were working at pursuing what they could never attain. Unfortunately, many believers who abide in a new and better covenant are chasing after what has already been given to them.



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From Ages 32-83, How Grace Transformed Their Lives

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Enjoy as you watch this 19 minute video of these 14 ladies talking about what their lives were like before grace and what their lives are like now. You’ll laugh and you’ll be encouraged! Here are some of the comments from others who have been inspired: “Thank you for taking the time to share this […]

Letting Go in a Transition

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In my last blog, I began to write about Thriving through Transitions. To transition successfully you must understand what you are transitioning from to what you are transitioning to.  You must understand what is ending.  Every transition involves an ending and a beginning.  Much like a birth, transitions involve contractions or birth pangs. When a

How to Thrive Through Transition

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Life is full of transitions and changes.  The only thing in life that you can count on is that things will change.  Where I live we have four seasons, a time when nature transitions from one period to another.  I believe that God created the earth to move forward in cycles.  We have twenty-four hours

Spiritual Stretch Marks

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Stretch marks are unsightly.  They occur on people who have either gained weight or on women during pregnancy because the body is gaining weight rapidly and the skin cannot keep up with the changes.  They happen because the skin gets stretched due to growth.  I don’t know anyone that likes them or even desires them.

Spiritual Stretch marks (1)

Stretch marks represent growth.  A body grows causing the skin to stretch and tug resulting in stretch marks. While it happens every day in the natural, it should be happening to us spiritually as well. If natural stretch marks represent growth, then spiritual stretch marks represent growth as well.

But in order to grow, we must be stretched.  And that’s not always easy nor pleasant.  But stretching is necessary if we are going to grow.  I deeply believe that God is more interested in our growth of character than he is our comfort.  And our growth of character is almost always painful.  But it is necessary.

I want spiritual stretch marks.  I want to have signs that I am being stretched and growing.  Paul talked about the marks that he bore in his body because of the Gospel.

Galatians 6:17 “From now on, let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.”

I know that he is not talking about spiritual stretch marks.  He is talking about being physically beaten and stoned.  While I doubt that I will ever be persecuted for my faith to the extent that I am physically beaten, I can bear on my body the marks of Jesus in becoming more like him.

We should always be growing.  But, there are seasons in our life where the growth is difficult.  We fight the changes that God wants to bring into our life.  We resist change.  We don’t want to give up things that He is asking us to give up.  We don’t want to deal with character issues or sins that we may not want to be getting rid of.  We fight His dealings with us over holding unforgiveness and bitterness towards another person.  As we go through these struggles our “spiritual skin” is stretched resulting in spiritual stretch marks.

While they are certainly unsightly in the natural, for me my spiritual stretch marks represent all the areas I have grown in.  They are a reminder of how hard change was, how I was stretched uncomfortably and how that I did manage to grow through the difficulty.

I wish that change was easy.  I admire bodybuilders that have worked with weights and exercise to form their bodies where their muscles are ripped and bulging.  That will never be me because I don’t want to put in the work and effort required to do that.  I want six pack abs but don’t have the desire, nor the motivation, to bring mine out of hiding.  But even body builders get stretch marks.  It’s because their muscles are growing faster than their skin.  It’s a sign of growth.

So, my point is try to not struggle with the growth that God wants to bring into your life.  The past couple of years has been a major season of growing for me.  It’s been a period of lots of stretching, tugging, challenging growth. Some days I fought it, falling into the muck and mire of self-pity.  Other days I was embracing the change and the growth.  I am glad that God has me where I am right now. There is no way that I would want to go through everything that I have been through, but I wouldn’t trade my stretch marks for anything.

The good news is that stretch marks can go away.  Naturally, you can use creams and lotions.  I believe that in the spiritual the Lord also helps us to get rid of spiritual stretch marks by rubbing in His healing balm.  They are simply a short term reminder of our growth.

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I know that the Bible doesn’t talk about spiritual stretch marks.  I have taken some dramatic license here to illustrate my point.  For me, the season that I have been in has resulted in some serious spiritual growth and I feel the marks.  In the natural, people tend to hide their stretch marks.  I think we do the same spiritually.  Sometimes when we are going through tests, trials and circumstances that God uses for our growth, we can feel shame and embarrassment because we don’t have it all together.  We feel “less than” because we are struggling with doubts and fears.  So, we tend to hide, isolating ourselves from others.

But we need each other.  We are called to bear one another’s burdens.  The spiritually strong are called to support the spiritually weak, without judgment or condemnation.  We all need someone to help us through our growth season.  We all need someone to be an encourager and a support.  The stretching time in our life is usually hard and we need the support of others.

What about you?  Has God been stretching you in your character, thinking, gifting or spiritual maturity?  Do you have any “spiritual stretch marks” to show?

How to Overcome the Curse of Tomorrow

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Today will lead you into tomorrow but tomorrow will always lead you into today.

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The meaning of the above statement is that tomorrow never comes.  When you go to sleep at night thinking “I will do thus tomorrow” you wake up and it’s today.  So tomorrow never really comes.  It is always now.  It is always today.

The promise of tomorrow is a curse!  I don’t mean a curse in a really evil, demonic, evil-eye, a hex on you kind of curse.  I am talking about the curse of procrastination.

I tend to procrastinate.  I have the best of intentions and plans.  I have my goals and plans written down.  However, there are times when I know I need to do something today and I tell myself I will do it tomorrow. And then tomorrow becomes today and I use the same excuse again….tomorrow.

Procrastination is the enemy of getting things done.  Take this blog for example.  It’s my goal to write a post every week.  I have even been so bold to plan to write 500 words a day.  Putting 500 words on a page is not that difficult.  The editing is the consuming part but writing is easy, providing I don’t put it off. Which I tend to do because something else grabs my attention. Or, worse, I just get plain ‘ole lazy.

How does one overcome the curse of tomorrow?  One must learn to live in the now.  Now is all that you have.  This very moment is all I really have.  I am not promised tomorrow.  I am not promised a long life.  I am not promised anything.  All I have is the right now.

I wish I could go back in time and recapture certain moments that are precious to me.  I also wish I could go back and do redo some things I would like to change.  Mostly I wish I could recapture all the moments I wasted thinking that I would get it done tomorrow. Well, here it is  . . . my tomorrow but it’s Today and I can’t go back.

Enjoy the moment right now.  Embrace the time that you have.  Don’t allow the curse of tomorrow to affect your today.  Today is God’s gift to you; what you do with it is your gift to Him.

Recently a friend of mine and his wife welcomed their new daughter into the world.  She is a beautiful creation of God with her whole life in front of her.  Everyone’s dreams and well wishes for her future are grand and many.  As I walked out of the hospital from my visit my thoughts turned to my mother who has stage 4 COPD and is dying.  2

What a contrast . . . a life beginning and a life ending.  One has so many today’s ahead of her and the other is counting down her days.  That is my point.  Each of them only has today.  While the new baby can’t really appreciate life, at this moment, as you and I do, my mom understands that value and importance of today.  Each day for her is truly a gift.

Do not waste today.  Most of us do waste a lot of time.  I know I still do.  It’s something I am working to overcome.  Today counts, today matters, today is all you have.  Enjoy the moment!

Today will lead you into tomorrow but tomorrow will always lead you into today.
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What about you?  What is your biggest time waster?  What do you put off until tomorrow?

527. Is the Law An Expression of God’s Character?

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It has often been taught that the law that came through Moses is an expression of God's character. We frequently begin to assume such phrases are actually found in the Bible. If this is an accurate statement, we should ask the question as to whether God went through a change or if his character went through some sort of transformation. Of course, we know God doesn't change, but with the New Covenant replacing the first one, we find there was a change of priesthood (Jesus Christ) and therefore a change of law occurred. Although the law was a reflection of God's perfection, we should avoid comparing it with God himself and realize it was Jesus (grace) who was manifested as an expression of God's character.



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Life- The Missing Link

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Have you ever studied christianity as a way to live? If you’ve gone to church I’m sure you have. Often we hear ministers quote great educators and speak of social change. We have learned positive thinking techniques that are designed to lead us to health and wealth. Although all of these are interesting and have a degree of truth to them they are not really any different than any of the world religions. You can choose your philosophy or political view in the confines of your own head, but none of these are the gospel. Some of these are good news but they are NOT the gospel.

What sets the gospel a part from the religions of the world is that Jesus came to give us LIFE. He came to restore the missing part. No message of self improvement, social justice, or philosophy can put life into a human spirit. We stand as believers in possession of a treasure. A shining light of life to offer a world full of darkness yet we spend our time focused on self improvement, social justice and how to make and keep wealth. This leaves the believer without the basic understanding of the very treasure that now lives within them, LIFE. It also fails to offer the world the only cure for their darkness.

Life isn’t what you do, it isn’t how you live, it is Who lives within you. It is what makes this gospel unique. If the believing body knew what they actually possess now, which is the very life of Christ, their lives would be transformed from earthly minded bits and pieces of self improvement to a Heavenly rest within whatever social, political, financial situation they face. The indwelling Christ is the hope of glory. I feel like we haven’t even begun to touch on this Life that lies within and yet it is the greatest single revelation for social justice, self improvement and world change possible.


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