True inner peace seems to be at a premium these days. So many leaders possess a subtle, but nonetheless present low-grade anxiousness, and for some, fear lurks not far behind.
Take heart, you are not alone.
Perhaps it’s the rapidly changing culture, or the soon coming presidential election, or maybe some personal unrest, insecurity, or problems that leave so many leaders lacking inner peace.
Some leaders tell me there is no big deal to their lack of inner peace, they are simply running at break-neck speeds, loving what they do, but it’s just too much. They hope it will pass in time. Vacation is the longed-for elixir! If this sounds a little like you, I suggest that you at least raise a yellow caution flag.
In whatever way they might get there, any leader for whom inner peace consistently eludes them, eventually that becomes a significant problem.
This is a picture (a common pattern) of the progression away from peace.
- Stage 1: Mild inner unrest, but everything on the surface seems fine.
- Stage 2: Energy begins to run low, and ministry effectiveness becomes more difficult.
- Stage 3: Joy is consistently depleted. You fake it in public, but you are privately discouraged.
- Stage 4: Perspective goes askew. Your thinking becomes colored in negative ways.
- Stage 5: Resentment sets in, which often turns to anger. The absence of peace is now a dominant, and at times a debilitating theme.
So what can you do about it?
First:
Recognize the peace only God can bring. Click & Tweet!
“And through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”
Colossians 1:20
“And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 4:7
Second, acknowledge your part in personal inner peace.
1) Regain a healthy perspective through wise counsel and prayer.
This is a great place to start. Talk with someone you trust and respect. Tell them what’s going on. Focus on regaining an accurate perspective through clear thinking. If you are like me, you may occasionally overthink things. That will rob you of peace! When you see things more clearly, your heart will be more at rest.
Focus on gaining a healthy perspective. Overthinking things can rob you of peace.
2) Acknowledge God’s nearness through prayer.
You are not captive to anyone’s desires or demands. There is no one you need to fear. You don’t need to please everyone. In fact, you can’t. Tell God you deeply desire the peace that escapes you. Quiet yourself before Him and rest in His presence.
3) Tend to personal rest and play.
What does your Sabbath look like? It’s different for all of us, but there needs to be some regular rhythm where you break from work. My day off is usually busy, but unstructured and at the pace I want to go! Patti and I get time together and it’s a great day! How about you, what does your day off look like?
4) Express genuine gratitude for all that you have.
Genuine gratitude is a huge gateway to peace. Click & Tweet! Lack of gratitude robs you of both peace and joy! You may carry major burdens in your life, but it’s nearly certain that there are many things for which you can be genuinely grateful.
5) Focus your thinking on that which is positive and productive.
It’s amazing how powerful Philippians 4:8 truly is. When you reflect about whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent or praiseworthy; it’s amazing how your heart leans toward peace. This is not a pie in the sky. This is the Word of God. For example, when you are working on the biggest problem you face in your church, if you tackle it with this mindset, you are literally tapping into the presence, power and therefore peace of God!
Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. 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. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.
Philippians 4:4-9
Dan, as always you hit it on the head.
Reflecting back on my life with the moments that take me away from inner peace, the 5 stages remind me where the “ugly” can come from. An overarching word that keeps me in line with leadership (countless examples) and my exciting new learns of inner peace, is “Mindset”. It just seems that when we backtrack, look-back, reflect or any word that we use to take a moment and learn, we tend to say “Man what was i thinking” or “Where was my head?” or the best one, “I was lost”. If we would have focused on God, or were deep in his word; our mindset would stop us from moving beyond Stage 1 or prevent it to from getting to Stage 3.
Truly, our mindset will bleed into our friends, environment, views on issues, stances and evolve our instant habits.
As Paul urged Timothy, “Practice these things. Devote your life to them so that everyone can see your progress.”
Once we habitually create a mindset that has checks and balances, we then see growth, willingness to retain our joy and refrain from unrest. We become Christlike character. These are so important. As John Maxwell has said, [paraphrasing] “..show me your passion and i will show you your purpose.” If we do not have a passion to change our mindset to be more Christlike, then our purpose takes a wrong turn and our discipline is weak and penetrable for satan. Essentially, we lose ourselves {mindset} because our secular purpose comes first.
I learned that when you put together that our mindset must be Christlike and our repetitions birth our character & skill;we find out that the person in the mirror has to make a choice [mindset].
Thanks like always!
Thoughtful insights Frankie! Thanks for sharing your experience with me and others!
I like the helpful information you provide in your articles.
I will bookmark your weblog and check again here regularly.
I’m quite sure I’ll learn many new stuff right here! Best of luck for the next!
great post, very informative. I ponder why the opposite specialists of this
sector don’t realize this. You must proceed your writing.
I’m sure, you have a huge readers’ base already!
I was recommended this website by my cousin. I am not sure whether this post is written by him as
no one else know such detailed about my trouble. You are amazing!
Thanks!
Hello to every one, the contents present at this site
are actually amazing for people knowledge, well, keep up the good
work fellows.
Thanks for the auspicious writeup. It in fact used to be a entertainment account it.
Glance advanced to far brought agreeable from you!
However, how could we keep up a correspondence?
Heya are using WordPress for your blog platform?
I’m new to the blog world but I’m trying to get started and set
up my own. Do you require any coding knowledge to make your own blog?
Any help would be really appreciated!
I believe this is among the such a lot significant information for me.
And i’m happy reading your article. But should observation on some basic things, The website style is ideal,
the articles is truly nice : D. Just right activity, cheers
Außerdem sollte die Website auch im Offlinemodus funktionieren, sobald die Papier-Wallet eingerichtet ist.
Dies bedeutet, dass der höchste Kurs für den Tausch von 1 BTC
in Euro auf 65287.
Hello, I enjoy reading through your article. I wanted to write a
little comment to support you.
Hi there! I just wanted to ask if you ever have any issues with hackers?
My last blog (wordpress) was hacked and I ended up losing several
weeks of hard work due to no data backup. Do you have any solutions
to prevent hackers?
I’d like to find out more? I’d like to find out some additional information.
Good day! I could have sworn I’ve been to this blog before but after looking at many of the posts I realized it’s new to me.
Anyhow, I’m definitely delighted I stumbled upon it and
I’ll be bookmarking it and checking back frequently!
My brother recommended I may like this blog.
He was totally right. This publish truly made my
day. You can not consider just how much time I had spent for this info!
Thanks!
Article writing is also a excitement, if you be familiar with after
that you can write or else it is difficult to write.
Hi there! This post could not be written any better!
Reading through this post reminds me of my old room mate!
He always kept talking about this. I will forward this write-up to him.
Fairly certain he will have a good read. Thank you for sharing!
Thanks for some other wonderful post. Where
else may just anybody get that type of info in such
a perfect method of writing? I have a presentation next week, and I am at the
look for such info.