Permission to change my way of thinking, PLEASE!

We all experience seasons when life hasn't worked out the way we planned it. This is usually the time when we are doing the most praying, and asking WHY.

The good news is you're not the first person to pass through this particular life season, and you won't be the last. So let's learn from those who have, as they say, been there and done that. Take ...

Abraham Lincoln

• Born into poverty.
• His family forced into homelessness at age 7. 
• His mom dies at age 9.
• His first business failed miserably.
• A year later he failed at running for the state legislature.
• Lost his job that same year.
• Failed at attempting to get into law school.
• He tried another business but failed.
• Filed for bankruptcy.
• Spent the next 17 years paying off the debt.
• Fell in love, got engaged, she died.
• Had a nervous breakdown, bedridden for six months.
• Tried politics again, failed miserably.
• Two years later, tried again and failed.
• Three years later, tried again and lost.
• Six years later ran for congress and won.
• Two years later ran for reelection and lost.
• Three years later he failed at landing his dream job.
• Five years later he ran for the senate. Lost again.
• Two years later he ran for the vice-presidential nomination, got less than 100 votes. Epic failure.
• Two years later he ran for the U.S. Senate and lost again.
• Two years later he ran for President of the United States and WON!
• Five years later he was assassinated.

 Just thinking about old Abe's rollercoaster life is exhausting. Stay with me, I'm going somewhere.

Moses

• Raised in Pharough's lavish courts, he was groomed for a remarkable political future.
• He became a murderer.
• He fled from home, married, spent the next forty years tending sheep.
• At eighty, he lands his great assignment from God.

David

• Anointed king over Israel as a teen.
• Assumed the throne at thirty.
• Spent thirteen years as a fugitive hiding from king Saul

Apostle Paul (formerly Saul)

• He grew up motherless from the age of nine.
• His father was a prominent Pharisee and entrepreneur.
• He was brilliant.
• He became a successful lawyer.
• His dream job was to become a member of the Jewish Supreme Court.
• He became the #1 persecutor of catching, torturing, and murdering Christians.
• He encounters God, becomes blind, gets saved, and healed.
• He begins his life of Christian ministry.
• He spends the next three years alone in the desert, living a literal desert season.
• He goes on to pen most of the New Testament. In prison.

And then there's Joseph, Elijah, and John the Baptist ... all spent great seasons in the wilderness. 

You don't have to look far to find modern-day examples of the same horrid experiences. Most entrepreneurs can tell endless tales from the treacherous entrepreneurial mountain climb. I know I can. Lots and lots of failures, figuring out what doesn't work!

Know this, before you can change your circumstances, you'll have to understand them.

We have all developed a way of thinking, good or bad. It produces a way of doing, good or bad. This doing produces results, good or bad.

I call this our TDR (Think. Do. Results.). Quite simply, if we don't like our results in life, we need to change our thinking. But to what? I say to God's way of thinking.

In 1 Corinthians 2:16, the Bible says we have the mind of Christ. 

If God has a way of TDR for me, that's what I want!

If you are pursuing The God Kind of Success, meaning Biblical success, you are likely to experience these three seasons. Hopefully not all at once.

How you respond will make you bitter or better.

Self-Inflicted Seasons

Have you ever met someone who keeps making the same mistakes over and over again, personifying that old saying, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results." It's as though they are blind to their own failures, and from their perspective, they are only victims of their circumstances and not intentional participants accountable for their results.

While people around them can clearly see what they're doing isn't working, they simply ignore what is obvious to everyone else ... their lack of results. To make matters worse, almost as if their lack of results weren't enough proof, they keep on repeating this cycle of failure. They are in a rut but always seem to have circumstantial excuses explaining their lack of progress.

God answers our prayers, not our excuses.

Sadly, their excuses are only bridges leading to nowhere where they've been busy erecting monuments of nothingness. For some, this lack of progress is a lifestyle, and for others, it's only a season where they have become stuck.

Bad Luck Seasons

In life, sh_t happens. Bad stuff happens to good people. All the time. Cancer. Divorce. Job loss. Business failure. Kids going off the deep end. Death of a family member. COVID-19.

These are seasons of setbacks. Seasons God allows in our lives. Seasons of really bad luck. Some of my favorite authors say it best:

"I'm sorry to break it to you, but you cannot pray away God-appointed seasons of struggle. You can claim every promise, quote every scripture, and pray against every obstacle, but if the season is God's idea, it will continue until He stops it". -Tommy Barnett

"If you've ever endured lengthy trials, or seen an important dream delayed, or felt forgotten by God, you already know how a Waste Land feels. Every dreamchaser eventually winds up having a desert experience". - Bruce Wilkerson

"Have you ever faced such a great crisis that left you with a question mark for a brain? There comes a time in everyone's life when you have to confront the unexplainable absences of God, a season in life when God gives no explanations, only promises from His Word. It's where we happen to be for a while, the place of waiting located somewhere between prophecy and destiny."  - Brian Zahn

"We experience the Pit Test when nothing in our lives seems to go right. It is when things that were going along smoothly suddenly seem to go very wrong all at once. And it is during the Pit Test that it is easy for us to get discouraged and depressed because when we are in the pit, it appears there is no way out."  - Robert Morris

There are times when God allows trouble. Make no mistake, satan is behind the trouble, but our sovereign God allows these "Job Seasons" to enter our life.

Benched Seasons

This season is a real beaut. You finally embrace God's plan and purpose for your life. The God-planted dream inside you is ignited. He, God, gives you your first assignment. A mission. 

Then nothing. You spend months or years not doing your big dream. You're on the bench. Sidelined. And worse, you watch others successfully live out their dreams, your dream.

No matter what season you are in, it's painful. What is God doing? What's going on?

Who's responsible for your lousy situation?

• Satan?
• God?
• You?
• Life?

Look, all three seasons can suck. I've experienced all three. They contain these three ingredients.

• Suffering
• Waiting
• Failure

Sound familiar. No matter what season you are in, God promises to advance you into your destiny. But it's going to happen His way. And in His timing. 

Don't miss this: When you ask God to change your TDR, whether your season is self-inflicted, the result of some very bad luck or you are stuck on the bench waiting for your turn to play in the game, a God-View of your season will shape your response.

Rest assured, God uses every life season to prepare us for His plans and purposes. These are seasons of preparation. God uses suffering, waiting and failure to mold us. But keep remembering, God has plans to prosper you. It is for this end.

To get on the same page with God, we have to allow Him to change our thinking. Once done, our doing (response) changes for the better.

In every season you can expect a personal transformation before you see the desired change. In my personal life, to understand and get through each season, it's required that I become a continuous learner. This is the root of humility, the opposite of pride. 

In my self-inflicted seasons (too many to list), God has exposed the roots of my self-inflicted behavior, educated me, and through His grace, eradicated the wrong thinking behind the wrong behavior.

In my Bad Luck and Benched seasons, the same thing. Once I understood the season, I stopped fighting them, my response shifted to allow God to shape and prepare me for my God-Planted dreams.

Sorta like getting a root canal, once you understand the process, it's not so bad. It's all for your good.

To be sure, the first step is to allow God to reshape our thinking. The Bible refers to this as the renewal of our mind. 

Romans 12:2 (NIV) Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Proverbs 3:5-6 (AMPC) Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind and do not rely on your own insight or understanding. In all your ways know, recognize, and acknowledge Him, and He will direct and make straight and plain your paths.

Ephesians 4:22-24  (AMPC) Strip yourselves of your former nature [put off and discard your old unrenewed self] which characterized your previous manner of life and becomes corrupt through lusts and desires that spring from delusion; And be constantly renewed in the spirit of your mind [having a fresh mental and spiritual attitude], And put on the new nature (the regenerate self) created in God’s image, [Godlike] in true righteousness and holiness.

So here's The Big Idea, or a simple rule. Anytime you're not getting the results you want, just stop. Ask God to change your thinking, that is your perception of your present circumstances, what's possible through them, and God's process. His process is the thing between your dream and your destiny. 

You might not always understand it in the heat of the moment, but we must trust Him. If we stop trusting, we stop hoping and believing.

With a renewed mind, you'll eventually soar across many valleys instead of walking through them. This season you are in, it's temporary. The necessary changes will happen in your mind and heart first. 

When your results stink — ask God to change the way you think.

-Gerald