Looks Like A Wonderful Time For A Reset
Here in KC, summer isn't technically over, but school has started for the year. It's a natural time for a reset. What is it you need to reset in your life?
Summer is over.
Technically, summer is here for a few more weeks, but everyone is back to school in the KC area, which is the universal indication that summer is over. If you don’t have school-aged kids, you may not feel it. We still do, and the back-to-school season is more than just the return of fall and the start of a new school year.
It is a season of reset.
At my church, we are taking a week to do just that — reset. We are praying and seeking God for ourselves, our church, our city, our nation. It is also a season for reflection. New seasons are great times to make life resets. It’s why people make New Year’s resolutions. We should ask questions like:
Am I satisfied with what I have done to this point in the year?
What would I change?
This is why I’ve been taking this month to write about what I’ve learned from my Word of the Year (CONTENT). I have reflected on my year and shared the lessons I’m learning about finding contentment.
Here is what I’ve taken away (and written about) already:
A CONTENT life requires hard work.
A CONTENT life flows from a heart of gratitude.
I am CONTENT when I am generous.
Last week, I took a short break as I went with my son to California. He’s off in his new life as a full-time missionary with Circuit Riders (you can support him HERE). I shared a repost of lessons I gained from my first Word of the Year almost 15 years ago — FREEDOM. This post will be a continuation of what I’m learning in 2024, but here is my real goal for you:
Reflect on what you have learned in 2024.
My Battle
As I looked back on my notes from earlier this year, two jumped off the screen, and they are connected:
Culturally, the idea of the sin nature is unpopular. The world claims everyone is innately good, but the evidence doesn’t support this. Each of us is inherently selfish, which manifests differently in everyone.
The issue I struggle with is “more.”
I want more, need more, and crave more. A good label for this natural inclination is GREED. Greed has been recognized as one of the seven deadly sins since the 2nd century (which is not biblical but has credence practically and in the general thoughts within the New Testament).
To find contentment, I must battle greed. The obvious battle is accumulating stuff, but it goes beyond saying “No” to more things. I must fight the part of me that drives me to want a new trinket. And here it is…
I am a doer.
I have the most challenging time sitting or being physically quiet. My battle is against my constant need to achieve more. Even on my day off, I feel inadequate if I have not done something. Doing chores, taking a walk, running errands, or even going to the office for just a little work is my typical reaction to my need for more.
In a phrase, I am not content to be.
Here is what I do to battle this nature within myself.
1. Recognize
Author and Pastor Andy Stanley wrote in his book Enemies of the Heart that there are four primary negative emotions: greed, guilt, anger, and jealousy. Left unchecked, these emotions will destroy our hearts and lives. While we will all deal with these vices at some point in our lives, one will typically be a recurring issue.
In other words, I have a predisposition to greed.
To fight this enemy in my life, I first need to recognize and name it. What do you find yourself fighting against (or maybe not fighting at all but blindly giving in)? You can't win the battle in your heart if you don’t know the answer to this question.
What are you fighting in your heart?
Admitting your faults to the point where you are willing to change them is hard. The goal is to get to this point where you are eager to put in the work to grow beyond your natural negative emotions. You must want to kill the sin nature within you.
2. Practice
I am imperfect. It is easy for me to write this on a quiet morning when nothing is particularly wrong. But if I were in the heat of the moment, arguing with you over something I had done or said, I would struggle to admit my imperfections. I will always struggle with greed, so I fight it by practicing actions that counteract my natural inclinations.
What I do will be different from what you must do in your fight against your natural desires. These are examples from my life, so think and search for what you need to battle.
First, I practice generosity. I wrote more about this a couple of weeks ago, so I won’t go into detail here. Let me say this: If you also struggle with greed, generosity is the natural antidote. There is a natural antidote for each of the four enemies of the heart: Confession (Guilt), Forgiveness (Anger), Generosity (Greed), and Celebration (Jealousy).
Second, I practice rest. And I am not good at this. Maybe I should say I’m learning to practice rest. As a pastor, I work on Sundays and have Fridays and Saturdays off. I’ve begun to practice doing less on Fridays. Some people might call this a sabbath. I hesitate to categorize what I’m referring to as a sabbath because that word has lots of connotations I don’t mean.
I do mean rest.
Work must be done—washing the dishes, mowing the lawn, weeding the flower beds, cleaning the gutters, etc. If these aren’t done today, it will be okay. I don’t need to feel anxious. I can sit and rest.
I spent last weekend in Santa Monica with Kia. We had a beautiful room looking over Ocean Blvd, the main drag along the beach in downtown Santa Monica. It was alive from noon to midnight (and beyond) on Friday and Saturday nights. Over the few nights we spent there, I sat for hours on the balcony, watching life go by. I witnessed car wrecks, intense arguments, family vacations, first dates, and much more walking and driving by as I sat and rested.
During those interspersed hours over the weekend, I did nothing. I achieved nothing. I rested and prepared my heart, mind, and soul to return to my world in Kansas City. A vacation is an easy way to find a break from life to rest, but the trick is finding ways to continue resting and being. If you are fighting for contentment, maybe a vacation is a place to start.
To be content, I must rest.
This is not my nature. The thing you battle against will require doing things against your nature. As you reflect on your year so far, what must you do to break what has a hold on your life?
