God made you uniquely YOU! You have been made on purpose and for a purpose. I have lots of new content every week, which you can check out on my YouTube channel.
“The wise recognize before the fight that adversity will come and therefore are not surprised by it. The wise recognize in the fight that adversity is a formidable foe and thus steel themselves for a long, hard struggle to the death. The wise recognize after winning a fight that the war is not over and so never let down their guard nor release their weapons.” —Dick Brogden, in Proverbs: Amplified and Applied
Astronomers have discovered planet-sized objects that are puzzling the best minds. In fact, they have had to create a new category for these objects: Jupiter Mass Binary Objects (JuMBOs). What is baffling the brightest minds is that these planets don’t orbit a star but appear to be gravitationally bound to other JuMBOs. My favorite line is this one: “The new phenomenon challenges current frameworks explaining how stars and planets form within nebula, with astrophysicists claiming such objects should not exist.” There is at least one who isn’t baffled: The One who created JuMBOs along with everything else in our universe.
T.M. Moore is in the midst of a series of posts about the Christian and the government. They are excellent! Here is just a short sample—“The Christian understands that government is a servant of God for good, and that God, therefore, must define the terms of goodness by which a government fulfills its appointed task. As Paul reminds us, the Law of God is holy and righteous and good (Romans 7:12). It is important, therefore, that Christians understand the Law of God and consider the best ways of bringing its influence to bear in the arena of public policy. … Public policy is not about what governments can do, but what they should do, that is, if they are to fulfill their callings as God’s servants for good. When it comes to applying the Law of God to public policy, Christians must make this first principle foundational in the logic with which they approach the work of influencing and shaping public policy.”
“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong.” —Mahatma Gandhi
Leaders are naturally wired to be either confident or humble. Both kinds of leaders need to remain coachable. Greg and I unpacked this idea on this episode of The Craig And Greg Show, and I also discuss it in greater depth in my book Shepherd Leadership.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
Sometimes, as I look back on my life, I wonder how I ended up where I ended up. It certainly hasn’t been a journey that I could have mapped out.
Nor would I have wanted to try.
God has so perfectly and lovingly led me to positions and experiences that have taught me invaluable lessons. These are lessons I would have missed out on had I been the one in charge of my path.
As I was meeting with a group of pastors online, I shared a brief story about one of the unexpected paths God brought me to.
There are two places in the Bible that have really helped me. First is the wise words of King Solomon: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight” (Proverbs 3:5-6).
The other verse is this, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28). This promise assures me that not one experience in my life—pleasant or unpleasant—has been wasted. God is using all these things for my good and for His glory.
So, the next time you find yourself wondering how you ended up where you ended up, be assured that God has a plan and a purpose for your life and that He is overseeing every step of your journey.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
Leaders are wired to be either naturally confident or naturally humble. God designed each leader that way on purpose, but we still need to put intentional effort into bringing humility to our confidence or confidence to our humility.
When someone wants to “grow” an organization, what exactly does that look like? Is growth only numeric or is it something that’s perhaps a bit more difficult to count? The leader needs to have this clear in their mind, and they need to regularly communicate this metric to their team. I unpack this in greater detail in my book Shepherd Leadership. Check out more of this message here. And be sure to check out all of my videos on my YouTube channel.
It appears that creativity is largely fueled by two things: proper sleep and finding your “sweet spot” each day. If you are an early bird, protect that creative time. If you are a night owl, don’t try to become an early bird to emulate someone else, but lean into your productive time. Check out this full post.
I love reading, but even I have trouble finding time to sit down with my books. But this insight from John Piper totally rejuvenated my thinking about reading. “Suppose that you can read about 250 words a minute. Now, that’s not real fast; most of us can do that—250 words a minute. And suppose that you set aside fifteen minutes a day to read a great book—a classic or some book that you’d been longing to read that would help you grow in your wisdom, your understanding. Now, fifteen minutes a day for 365 days is 5,475 minutes a year. Now, you multiply 5,475 times 250, and you get 1,368,750 words that you could read in a year at fifteen minutes a day. Now, an average book has about 300 to 400 words on a page. So we’ll take 350, which is kind of in the middle, and divide that into 1,368,750. And you know what you get? You get 3,910—almost 4,000 pages a year. An average book has about 200 pages. You see the implication of that? You could read twenty books by this time next year by setting aside fifteen minutes a day.”
An ancient Hebrew inscription consisting of 48 letters was discovered on Mt. Ebal in Israel and is centuries older than any known Hebrew inscription from ancient Israel. This is yet another archeological discovery that speaks to the historicity of the Bible.
T.M. Moore wrote one of the endorsements of my book Shepherd Leadership. His thoughts here about the role of godly shepherds is right on the mark: “The work of shepherds consists of helping the people of God to connect with Him—to know, love, fear, and serve Him in every area of their lives. This work cannot be fulfilled by one who is merely a good speaker, an effective organizer, or an inspiring motivator. This work must be done by one who truly knows the Lord. For unless we know the Lord, the Lord will not know us, and He will not honor our labors.”
You are one-of-a-kind! There has never, ever been anyone like you, and there never will be. God made you on purpose and for a purpose. And God wants to reveal the purpose He has for your life. You be you—that is how God is most glorified through you.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
Romans 8:28 has a small but extremely powerful word in it: ALL.
“And we know that ALL things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”
The verb tense here would probably be more accurate to say “are working.” God never wastes an experience, but He is using ALL those things to prepare you for the next assignment He has for you.
Check out this brief clip from a training time I was able to share with some young ministry interns.
Don’t dwell on the “what ifs” but let’s remind ourselves that God is sovereignly in control. Let’s learn to take God at His word—He ISWORKINGALLOFTHOSEEXPERIENCES together for your good and for His glory.
Every Monday I share a 1-minute thought to get your week started. It’s my weekly Monday Motivation series of videos. Check out this week’s video and subscribe on YouTube.
“The Lord Jesus Christ is always ready to take the most imperfect prayer and perfect it for us. If our prayers had to go up to heaven as they are, they would never succeed; but they find a Friend on the way, and therefore they prosper.” —Charles Spurgeon
I love this thought from T.M. Moore: “We sometimes use the word reflect to express what we want to see happen in our lives as Christians. We say we want to reflect Jesus to the world, like a mirror reflects an image. As agents of Jesus Christ and His Kingdom, believers are not so much like mirrors as they are like prisms. Mirrors reflect light. The light strikes them and bounces off, without bringing anything of the mirror with it. Prisms refract light.” Please take a couple of minutes to read Moore’s post Prisms of the Light.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
I read a report that said today the world’s population hit 8 billion people. Demographers estimate that in the history of our planet, 120 billion people have lived on Earth. Amazingly, every single one of these 120 billion people have been unique creations!
Let me state that more personally: There has never been anyone like you, nor is there anyone like you now, nor will there ever be anyone like you. God made you unique from all others.
And God made you uniquely unbalanced.
If you’ve ever taken a personality test or any other kind of assessment you probably noticed that there were areas that scored very high, and perhaps some areas that barely even registered. This is a part of your unique composition.
Your uniqueness was given to you by God on purpose—He knew exactly what He was doing when He made you you. I recently chatted with the pastoral staff of Faith Wesleyan Church as they are doing a book study on my book Shepherd Leadership: The Metrics That Really Matter. I joined them for their discussion of chapters 4 and 5, in which I talk about the way God has wired leaders to be naturally more confident or more humble. Check this out…
Shepherd leaders, you can best individualize your care of the sheep God has given you when you understand how God has wired you. Don’t make excuses for your unbalancedness, but don’t let your uniqueness hold you back either. Get around other healthy leaders who can speak firmly and lovingly to you. This will allow your uniqueness to be leveraged for God’s glory as you lead His flock that He has entrusted to you.
I’ll be sharing more clips from this training session soon, so please stay tuned. In the meantime, if you would like me to join your team in a similar discussion of Shepherd Leadership, please get in touch with me. Shepherd Leadership is available in print or ebook, and in audiobook through either Audible or Apple.
John Stonestreet wrote, “The moment Roe v. Wade was overturned last month, desperate activists began to dust off the oldest and oddest arguments for abortion. These “gotcha” scenarios are supposed to prove that pro-lifers don’t really value human life or consider preborn babies from the earliest stages of development to be human. Instead, these pretend scenarios demonstrate that pro-lifers are simply hypocrites.” Check out the rest of his post.
“When the facts are not clear [in a relationship issue] it is better to consider someone innocent until proven guilty. That is the law of mercy, which we all want applied to us as well.” —Dr. John Townsend, Who’s Pushing Your Buttons
Pornography is contributing to the over-sexualization of young people, which is reaping some painful consequences…
A good friend of mine, Pastor Kristi Rhodes, is in a battle with cancer and I’m fighting alongside her! If you want to join Team Kristi, join the team by clicking here.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
I had a great time teaching some emerging ministry interns. I shared with them part of my autobiography. There was a time when I heard God’s voice as clearly as I had ever heard it telling me to pursue a career in the medical field. Before I completed that degree, I just as clearly heard God’s voice telling me that medicine wasn’t going to be the career for me.
For a number of years, I struggled with this because I thought I had missed God’s voice the first time. “Perhaps,” I thought to myself, “I didn’t hear God clearly.”
But then the Holy Spirit opened my eyes to a story in the Book of Acts that I had completely missed before. The principles in this story helped me realize that God had put me on a particular path in order for my life to intersect with other people and places.
Here’s how I explained my story and the principles I learned from the life of Philip:
My friend, your journey may be different from mine, but we still share something so vital in common: God is using everything in your life to accomplish His plan. As you follow Jesus, you will intersect with the lives of others, and your life is making a difference in them.
Craig T. Owens 