28 March, 2024

Growing Like Jesus: Hearing God Through People

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by | 1 September, 2010 | 0 comments

By Glen Elliott

(Glen Elliott was among eight Christian leaders asked to share what helps them mature just as Jesus did. Elliott serves as lead pastor with Pantano Christian Church, Tucson, Arizona and as a CHRISTIAN STANDARD contributing editor.)

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Years ago I was working as the dean of students at Pacific Christian College (now Hope International University). At the same time, I had the joy of leading the junior high ministry at my church. (It was natural. Both junior high kids and college students are just crazy enough to be fun!)

I poured my life into my work and ministry. I had been married just a couple years, and our marriage was, shall I say, a bit rocky. OK, it was just plain bad. There was no consideration of divorce because we were committed to “until death do us part.” So it actually felt like I was stuck in a long-term struggle with no escape. I really wanted to be a good husband””at least in my head.

My good friend and minister Dick Alexander invited me out to lunch for Chinese food. I never turn down a lunch invitation. Little did I know I was General Custer entering the Little Bighorn. We ordered, and he looked at me and said (I think I”m quoting him word for word), “You love your work more than you love your wife.”

I knew he was right. I think my only response was something like, “Yes, but what do I do?” I was working six days a week, 10-12 hours a day. I wanted to create the best Christian college campus environment possible. I took my job as seriously as one could.

As I walked out of the restaurant I had this thought: I have to change. But it won”t work just to say, “Self, you have to go home at 5 pm every day and work only 40 hours a week.” I knew I would drift right back into the old pattern. I had to discover the reason I was investing in work and not my wife. I had to change whatever was motivating my behavior. God”s transforming work is always an inside job.

My Inside Job

I spent several months praying and reading books like Making All Things New: An Invitation to the Spiritual Life by Henri J. M. Nouwen, Ordering Your Private World by Gordon MacDonald, and a few Larry Crabb books that were classic in those days. I journaled some of my discoveries.

After about six months of introspection, I finally came to clarity. I was addicted to affirmation. I needed the recognition and praise of people. Ouch! I was working so hard because hard work brought more accomplishments, and people noticed the good results. The more I got done, the more the administration, faculty, board, and students gave me affirmation. I was in reality working for human praise. And the more I got, the harder I worked. It was a vicious cycle, and there was no natural end.

So it wasn”t about working less or loving my wife more. It was changing the basis of what gave me significance. What was the source of my significance? I had to move from the need for human recognition to a satisfaction with God”s already given favor. I needed to live in the grace of God that is far more satisfying than the favor of men.

It took six months to figure out this awful motivation (I”m a slow learner). It took another year to determine how to live in a different place. It was a journey, but one that led to a deeper level of security and significance in God. Over time I did find I was going home earlier and spending less time at the college. My marriage began to improve. It was a deep, lifelong transformation.

My Lifelong Experience

This story illustrates my lifelong experience. God almost always uses a person or a group of people to challenge or confront me. No one can grow to be more like Jesus on his or her own. There are no spiritually healthy “lone rangers.” It is critical we have relationships where folks can speak the hard truth we need to hear sometimes. In isolation, we just won”t grow.

Then when it is clear there needs to be a change, and with a willingness to grow, I find God speaks to me through a variety of sources. It is rarely one thing that helps me, but multiple sources of new input. God has unlimited ways to get our attention and to transform us. He has used secular movies, books, and songs to rock me to new spiritual levels. God moves me toward Christlikeness through the tried and true spiritual disciplines of prayer, fasting, Bible reading and study, journaling, retreat and silence, and meditation.

If we are open to God”s transforming influence, he”s faithful to gently lead us to a new place on the journey of spiritual growth that results in finding and living in the favor of God and others.

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