“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” – Matthew‬ ‭6:24‬ ‭NIV‬ https://www.bible.com/111/mat.6.24

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Money! The ultimate master for many, but definitely not the only one that can divert your energy from a life in and for Jesus Christ.

I definitely have my fair share of diversions. I regularly feel like I am failing to live the life God wants me to live because I allow too many things to control me unnecessarily.

I want to live up to my God given potential so that I can respond effectively to God’s vocational call(s) on my life…my purpose and corresponding goals.

I have decided I need to be more intentional by taking one week to uncover some of the masters that are hindering me from pursuing what God is calling me to do.

Don’t read this as, “All the fun and/or relaxing activities need to be removed from your life so that you can live a Godly purposeful life”.

We all need to relax so we can recharge.

But we all also need to be intentional so we can stay on track in the important areas of our life.

The first step, of course, is that you need to have a sense of what God is calling you to do.

First, and foremost, God wants you to be with God (through Jesus in my faith tradition) and for God! That is most important.

The second is that you need to understand your purpose/goals/areas of focus in your life…how you are best working for God. If that is where you need to start I would encourage you to work through my personal life strategy planning material or this resource from Desiring God Ministries…I think they can help.

I believe my purpose is to help people grow in their Christ likeness while growing myself. That manifests in three broad activity areas…

1. Get to know Jesus better so I can grow more like him and help others to do the same.

2. Partner with my wife to raise our boys to be Jesus followers and productive people…and to mentor other boys similarly through youth sports.

3. Deliver programming at work that helps people grow (I am blessed to work at a faith-based University).

Once I own my purpose, and the corresponding areas of focus, I can begin to notice what keeps me from pursuing it fully.

I propose a weeklong reflection that can be repeated periodically.

At the end of your day stop and ask God to:

1. Show you where in your day you were affirmed in your purpose/focus areas.

2. Show you where in your day you were hindered in working effectively in your areas of purpose/focus.

3. Show you the masters in your life that are not of God.

Ask God for help.

Journal what God reveals to you.

If you are like me it will be pretty easy to notice a few hindrances. As examples, I get wildly distracted by worrying about money and people pleasing. As I have worked on this blog I have been thinking about what people would want me to write vs. what God would want me to write. I have thought about how to best monetize this post over time. These are misleading masters if my desire is truly to serve God.

I think as we challenge ourselves to reflect over the course of a week we will find hindrances that are less obvious.

More importantly we will uncover the masters in our life that are keeping us from living our best life.

It might be helpful to do this with some journey partners and I plan to append this post and my the Facebook Community post as I learn about myself. I hope you will do the same via comments and I would love to interact!!!

Let’s get started!

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