In her book, Jump, Kim Perell talks about what to do with our fears and challenges in life. She says, \u201cInstead of letting it paralyze you, let it catalyze you.\u201d1 In other words whatever has the power to cause resistance in your life, use it to give you insight, wisdom, direction, passion, fire in your soul. Steven Pressfield nearly echoes this by saying, \u201cMost of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands resistance.\u201d2 To assure we don\u2019t have an unlived life, it\u2019s important to allow the things in life that cause resistance to catalyze us into a place where we may have never gone before. To help all of us to continue on this path, I would like to use quotes from the book, \u201cThe War of Art\u201d and our \u201cDLGP\u201d abbreviation as an acronym.<\/p>\n
D<\/span><\/strong>ecide to change our sphere of influence.<\/p>\n \u201cResistance is the most toxic force on the planet. It is the root of more unhappiness than poverty, disease, and erectile dysfunction. To yield to resistance deforms our spirit\u201d3 \u00a0Even though we all have an NPO, how often do we think about all those people who are unhappy because of poverty of soul, secret pain, unfulfilled dreams, anxiety-filled hearts due to future decisions, and so on. Maybe this is why God has called us to Decide to actual CHANGE what is dead, dying, or in need of repair. \u201cResistance cannot be seen, touched, heard, or smelled. But it can be felt.\u201d4 This is why our sphere of influence needs us…to help them change or be transformed into the image of Christ. \u201cIt is possible to possess a vital faith that prompts you to be at your best when things are at their worst.\u201d5 Let\u2019s Decide that the best version of ourselves will emerge from the challenges of life in order to change our sphere of influence.<\/p>\n L<\/span><\/strong>ead ourselves to the foot of the Cross.<\/p>\n No matter how much writing, reading, researching, and meeting with others we do, allowing ourselves to become one with our NPO and then living it out in our sphere of influence becomes the challenge. \u201cAs Resistance works to keep us from becoming who we were born to be, equal and opposite powers are counterpoised against it.\u201d6 Why? \u201cBecause we wrestle not against flesh and blood.\u201d7 Due to the weight and challenge of our calling, it is so crucial to intentionally spend moments in silence, solitude, fasting, and praying. What if we lovingly and consistently allowed the Holy Spirit to gracefully lead us to the foot of the cross to connect with the Father during one of the busiest times of the year. \u201cThe more important a call or action is to our soul\u2019s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.\u201d8 What if we all decided to do whatever it takes to assure our soul is connecting with the Father instead of resisting his loving advances. Maybe, the best place to impact our sphere of influence is from the bloodied feet of the Cross.<\/p>\n G<\/span><\/strong>ather stakeholders to help fight the resistance.<\/p>\n \u201cThe more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.\u201d9 God has sovereignly placed us at Portland Seminary to pursue influencing and changing our sphere of influence. Getting a degree is a nice side benefit of the calling. Since accomplishing our NPO can be scary at times, we need stakeholders. By stakeholders, I am not just referring to those wise people in our workshops. I\u2019m referring to those people whom we have chosen to walk with us. Those people we have invited in our lives. They walk with us through praying for us and encouraging us. These stakeholders assure that resistance does not win in our lives. \u201cResistance presents us with a series of plausible, rational justifications for why we shouldn\u2019t do our work.\u201d10 This is why having people we can be vulnerable with is so life-giving. They will walk with us through the tsunami of doubt, resistance, struggle, and fear. A stakeholder, holds that stake (Cross) in the ground curls up with us in the midst of resistance, points us to the stake and whispers, \u201cBecause of the Cross, we will get through this, together.\u201d<\/p>\n P<\/span><\/strong>ursue our NPO with Christ-like passion.<\/p>\n \u201cIf your dream doesn\u2019t scare you, it\u2019s too small.\u201d11 When the Holy Trinity decided on the Plan of Salvation, I don\u2019t think Jesus rejoiced about the excruciated pain he just agreed to. But yet, he chased the Cross with such deep, unwavering, and mind-boggling passion. Our NPO\u2019s scare us because it is big, challenging, and easy to resist. This is why Pressfield argues, \u201cThe artist committing himself to his calling has volunteered for hell.\u201d12<\/p>\n Yes, we are going to lose sleep, have family challenges, struggle to be honest about how we are really doing, feel inadequate, struggle in our jobs, get defeated at times, feel severe resistance BUT instead of allowing all of this and more to paralyze us emotionally, socially, mentally and spiritually, let\u2019s use it to catalyze our NPO\u2019s and calling. We tend to avoid situations where the odds are against us, but when we do, we rob God of the opportunity to do something sublime! Let\u2019s pursue our unique calling with a telescopic Christ-like passion.<\/p>\n 1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Kim Perell. \u00a0Jump: Dare to do What Scares You in Business and Life, 60. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In her book, Jump, Kim Perell talks about what to do with our fears and challenges in life. She says, \u201cInstead of letting it paralyze you, let it catalyze you.\u201d1 In other words whatever has the power to cause resistance in your life, use it to give you insight, wisdom, direction, passion, fire in your […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2310],"tags":[2940],"class_list":["post-34542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-doctor-of-leadership-3","tag-dlgp02-pressfield","cohort-dlgp02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34542"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34547,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34542\/revisions\/34547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Steven Pressfield. The War of Art: Breaking Through The Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles,X.
\n3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Ibid, XI.
\n4.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Ibid, 7.
\n5.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Jeff Manion. The Land Between: Finding God in Difficult Transitions, 20.
\n6.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Steven Pressfield. The War of Art, 107.
\n7.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Ephesians 6:12, NIV.
\n8.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Steven Pressfield. The War of Art, 12.
\n9.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Ibid, 40.
\n10.\u00a0 Ibid, 55.
\n11.\u00a0 Mark Batterson, Chase the Lion, 8.
\n12.\u00a0 Steven Pressfield, The War of Art, 68.<\/p>\n