by Brandon Cox: Sometimes God takes me back to kindergarten, spiritually speaking. I spend time reading theological treatises, but I sometimes forget the most basic and simple of truths. Here’s one of those basic truths I sometimes struggle with: We choose our attitudes.

We don’t choose our circumstances. We don’t choose the weather, the direction of the economy, what people around us will do, or the direction of world events. If we could choose our circumstances, we would avoid discomfort every time, and in doing so, we would miss out on some amazing opportunities for growth. So we don’t get to choose our situation, but we do get to choose our attitudes.

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

~ Philippians 4:8 NIV

In other words, focus your thinking on better alternatives. Here are at least four attitudes we get to choose:

I Can Choose Confidence In Spite of My Circumstances

My situation might stink, but God always alive, awake, actively working, and attentive to my situation. He saw it coming. He’s fully prepared. He wants to grow me through it and He’s on my side. Those are little truths to throw in the face of the enemy when he plants seeds of doubt. If God is for us (and we know He is) then who or what can possibly be against us?

I Can Choose to Be Positive In Spite of Criticism

Anyone who has ever had any influence on their surrounding culture has endured criticism. And often that criticism comes from the circles of people from whom we would least expect it. But criticism doesn’t have to defeat us. We should draw out of criticism anything that might be true and use it to our advantage. Everything else, we should throw at the feet of Jesus and turn our desire to be defensive over to Him (this is one of my biggest struggles). And we should be tenacious and stubborn enough to keep pressing toward God’s goal for us regardless of what others might say.

I Can Be Hopeful When Nothing Seems Certain

Some of the toughest times we go through aren’t necessarily times of deep loss, but rather are times of waiting, times of uncertainty and unrest. When our presumed reality seems to be threatened and the positive things we were counting on seem to fall through, we can still be hopeful. God’s goal for us doesn’t change. He still intends to shape us into the image of Christ. He’s still going to return in absolute victory someday. He’s still causing us to be more than conquerors through Christ.

I Can Choose to Be Content with Christ Alone

Of the four choices I’m mentioning, this one is by far the toughest. In fact, it really takes a lifetime for us to get this one down. Being content with Christ alone is a difficult attitude to gauge in our western culture because we have so much more than Jesus. I have a family, a home, two cars, food on the table, cable television, air conditioning, and gadgets galore. Will I ever know if I would truly be content with Christ alone? I’m not sure, but what I can do is walk in this attitude on a daily basis when deals fall through, when people let me down, when losses come. I can practice the discipline of saying “Jesus, You are enough. If all I have is You, I’m okay.” Contentment boils down to accepting with gratitude whatever God has in mind for us, surrendering our own idea of what is necessary in exchange for His idea of it.

These are tough. Adopting healthy attitudes is a daily discipline that requires our enjoying time with God in prayer, yielding to others, and cultivating thoughts of gratitude for God’s grace. Regardless of the size of the challenge, I know that all of these attitudes are possible because they are all commanded and exemplified in Scripture.

So choose wisely.

by Brandon Cox: My nine-year-old asked me the other day, “If I ask Santa for a laptop, he’ll get me one, right?” To which I simply replied, “Probably not.”

Some of us view God as a sort of genie in the sky, ready to shower down gifts and presents on us whenever we ask, even if what we’re asking for isn’t for our good or God’s glory.

At the same time, just as many of us believe an opposite error – that God isn’t much of a giver and isn’t interested in answering our prayers for the things we need.

But here’s what the Bible says to those who believe in him…

Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm has already been lavished upon us as a love gift from our wonderful heavenly Father, the Father of our Lord Jesus-all because he sees us wrapped into Christ. This is why we celebrate him with all our hearts!

Ephesians 1:3 TPT

Let’s just break this down…

Every… Not just a handful of the things you’ll need, but every blessing you will need.

Spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm… It’s possible you didn’t even know you needed some invisible, spiritual, supernatural resources. But God knows your needs better than you do.

Has already been lavished upon us… It’s past tense. In Christ, you’ve already been given everything you need at your deepest level. And that word, lavished, is such a beautiful word. It’s been poured out upon you in great measure.

Because he sees us wrapped into Christ… God doesn’t give you good things because you’re good. He gives you heavenly things because you trust in his Son, Jesus, and therefore you’re wrapped up in him. You are robed, entirely by grace, with the very righteousness of Christ.

So everything that you really need, on a spiritual, supernatural level, has already been lavished upon you because God is a giver, because God loves his Son, and because God loves you.

When you need hope, you’ll find it in the heavenly realm, which is accessible by prayer. When you need peace, or joy, or purpose, or security, or anything else, it’s already available in the throneroom of God.

So, what do you need today?

Our traditional definition of rest is simple enough: Do less.

A more fleshed-out, biblical understanding of rest, however, is a bit deeper than merely doing less.

It’s really doing less to allow time and space to become more.

And it’s that last part that we probably struggle with the most.

I’ve been a pastor, non-stop, since I was nineteen years old. I love it. I don’t plan to do anything else in my adult life – at least nothing that replaces pastoring as my primary calling.

I’m forty years old as I write this, so I’ve now spent more than half of my life preaching and leading the church. And for the first time ever, I’m currently on sabbatical.

My wife and I, along with our Worship Pastor, are all “off” for the month of August. At the beginning of the month, I had several goals in mind:

• Write a proposal for a new book.
• Plan out my preaching for the next year.
• Read a lot about leadership.
• Visit a couple of other churches (and take notes).
• Catch a fresh vision for the next season of ministry.

Then I came across some material written about pastoral sabbaticals that said something like…

• A sabbatical isn’t for writing a book.
• It’s not for planning sermons.
• It’s not for reading a bunch of books on leadership.
• It’s not a time to visit other churches to take notes.
• It’s not a time to cultivate a vision for your ministry.

Obviously, I kept reading.

My clicking around led me to John Ortberg’s article about his very first sabbatical, during which he met with Dallas Willard, who changed John’s priorities with a simple statement…

You must arrange to live with deep contentment, joy, and confidence in your everyday experience of life with God.

Source

I realized about nine days into my thirty that this month “off” isn’t about doing more things or doing different things than what I normally do. It’s far more about:

• Doing nothing, and
• Becoming something.

Nothing is hard, but as far as the church is concerned, we have leaders and volunteers who are absolutely amazing. I’ve done practically nothing and yet pretty much everything is being done, and done well.

I decided not to write any book proposals. Yet. And other than preaching at a friend’s church in another state one Sunday, I’ve really been able to unplug fairly well.

It’s the becoming something that has been challenging.

I realize that, as a pastor, I spend most of my time performing. I don’t mean that I’m pretending to be something that I’m not. I simply mean that, when I wake up on Sunday, I’m preparing to go and interact with people, love people, answer questions, preach the sermon before a gathered crowd on the stage, greet a few more people, answer a few more questions, and then finally head home.

And during the week, I’m preparing for Sunday, answering emails, having lots of coffee with people, directing people to other staff members or volunteers for answers, thinking through upcoming events and sermon series’, etc.

In other words, pastors are pretty much always “ON.” And my wife is even more ON than I am in terms of the number of people who connect with her for friendship and for help.

And when you’re always on and you’re always doing, it’s very easy to forget who you really are – deep down, in the dark, when no one is looking or expecting anything of you. And it’s certainly hard to live in a state of becoming what God intends for you to become.

In short, you lose sight of “deep contentment, joy, and confidence in your everyday experience of life with God,” as Willard put it.

After realizing my missteps, I decided to start this sabbatical over and do it a little differently.

I’ve been waking up in the mornings and doing nothing. Or at least, as little as possible. But I’ve been spending that time very intentionally listening for the Holy Spirit to remind me about who he is, who I am, and what I should be becoming.

I’m writing down whatever he tells me and whatever insights I gain from reading the scriptures, and I’m talking to my wife about what I’m hearing, and what she’s hearing, too.

Has it been easy? Fun? Relaxing? Not exactly.

It’s been painful.

I’m seeing, in the mirror of God’s word, subtle flaws in my character that need to be scrubbed and chiseled away. I’m facing the little pieces of myself that don’t resemble Jesus and I’m asking him to break me of those things, to melt and re-mold me into the likeness of his Son, Jesus.

I started this part of my sabbatical by meditating on a verse from Hosea.

Plant the good seeds of righteousness, and you will harvest a crop of love. Plow up the hard ground of your hearts, for now is the time to seek the Lord, that he may come and shower righteousness upon you.

Hosea 10:12 NLT

While I know that the context is ancient Israel, there’s definitely an outline for my own moment of rest…

1. Plant seeds of righteousness deep within as I hear God through his word.
2. As Bob Goff says, “become love.”
3. Plow through the hardness of my heart and throw light on all of my blind spots.
4. Seek the Lord – get to know him all over again as the real me.
5. Live under his blessing.

In doing so, I’m asking myself a very important question… Why don’t I do this every single day? Why do I focus so much on doing more that I lose touch with the man I’m supposed to be becoming in my relationship with Christ?

I’m coming to think of this sabbatical as, not a mere moment of rest, but a re-learning of the very art of rest. I’m learning to “arrange to live with deep contentment, joy, and confidence in (my) everyday experience of life with God.”

Thanks the late Dr. Willard for pointing that out, and for Dr. Ortberg for writing about it, and to my sweet wife, Angie, for gently questioning my original sabbatical plan and urging me toward actual rest and renovation in my heart.

So, what does real rest look like for a pastor?

First of all, follow Rick Warren’s genius plan:

• Divert daily (have a quiet time).
• Withdraw weekly (take a day off).
• Abandon annually (get away every year).

And second, intentionally take a break from projecting to everyone (including God) the you that you want them to see so that you can really become the you that God intends for you to become in him…