It is much easier to break something than it is to fix it. You drop your phone on the ground. The screen cracks. It didn’t take much to break it. To get it fixed will require much more effort and expense.

You can think of this principle in terms of relationships and many other aspects of life. You violate a trust with another person and fracture the relationship in an instant. It might take years to repair what is broken if it can be repaired at all.

Another example is debt. A momentary lapse in judgment and you make a purchase that puts you in debt. It only took a moment to put you in debt, but it might take you years to crawl out from underneath it.

Here is the point – healing, restoration, and repair are a process. It takes time. It takes effort. It takes discipline.

I remember a few years back going on a hike and getting lost. Once I was lost, it was not a simple matter of hopping back on the right trail. I needed to retrace all the previous steps to go back to where I had made the wrong turn. I had gone down the wrong path for a long time, and so it took me a long time to get back on the right path.

I have watched people miraculously healed or restored in the moment. More often I have witnessed healing taking place over time. That time is valuable. That time helps us to appreciate the restoration that God is working in our lives. The time helps us better live in the light of our healing. It is through the process that we learn from our mistakes and gain the wisdom not to go down that path again.

Consider these words from Proverbs.

My son, do not despise the LORD’s discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the LORD reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights. Proverbs 3:11–12 (ESV)

There are so many times where I wish God would have spared me from the consequences of my actions. But find it interesting how the Lord’s discipline is connected to wisdom. Read the next two verses:

Blessed is the one who finds wisdom, and the one who gets understanding, for the gain from her is better than gain from silver and her profit better than gold. Proverbs 3:13–14 (ESV)

We talk about how we learn from our mistakes. But the reason we learn from our mistakes is because we live through the consequences.

I want to leave you with this. When we commit ourselves to the long process of restoration and avoid the “quick fix” – miracles often happen! God rewards faithfulness. I have seen couples in debt who commit to wise financial stewardship. They make a budget and have a 5-year plan to get out of debt. Then an unexpected blessing comes along, and they can pay back their debts in half the time. It’s not a guarantee that such a miracle will happen, but God has a way of knowing when the lesson is learned. He is in the restoration business and is full of grace and mercy.

Questions for Reflection

1. Do you agree it is easier to break something than fix it? Why or why not?
2. What is the value of the process of restoration?
3. How have you witnessed the reward of faithfulness in your life?
4. Share your comments.

We have been talking about persistence over the last two weeks. One of the keys to persistence is our identity. Let me explain what I mean. There are many times where we have already given up before we have begun. The reason is that we did not give ourselves a chance. It goes back to our identity.

Most of us probably recognize the importance of daily Bible reading. Many people struggle with this discipline. They think they are not smart enough to understand everything or that they don’t have the discipline to follow through. That is the problem right there. It is what they believe about themselves. They don’t believe they can, and so they can’t.

If you struggle with the discipline, you need to change your identity. Recognize you are a Bible scholar. You may not be an accomplished Bible scholar, but you are a scholar even if it is at the beginner level.

This principle can be carried into many areas of life – blogging, running, prayer, saving, marriage, parenting, and more. Give yourself some more credit. Don’t let the shortcomings of the past define you. Give yourself a new identity to define your future.

You can see this in regards to other people. We have a way of putting labels on people. A teacher might put a label on one student as being a poor student. That label is reinforced in other ways. The student continues to perform poorly. Another student is labeled as a good student. The label is reinforced. The student continues to excel.

Mastery of any skill takes a lifetime. You will likely never be the most accomplished person in any given area. There will always be someone smarter, faster, more knowledgeable, and more informed than you. Just because someone is more accomplished in a given area, does not take away from your accomplishments.

If you are going to put in the hard work to master a skill, you are going to need to start out with the right identity. If you have already convinced yourself you will fail – you will. The first hardship will come along, and you will give up. You have already identified yourself as one who will fail. The opposite is if you identify yourself as someone who will succeed. When the first hardship comes along, you will push through because you know it is just a bump in the road. Your identity determines the way you look at things. What one person sees as a dead end, another person simply sees as a challenge to overcome.

There is this idea called imposter syndrome. It is when we are convinced that we don’t belong and that we are in over our head. Our confidence wavers. We think everyone will learn we are a phony. Here is a little secret you need to know. You are not alone with these feeling of insecurity. Every Sunday I get up to preach before my congregation, I think to myself, “who am I that anyone would come to listen to me?” I worry I don’t belong. But then I go back and remember it is not about me. It is about the ability of God to work through me.

God made you who he made you to be. See yourself as God sees you. He sees you as someone who is especially gifted and talented. He sees you as someone he put here for a reason. He does not see you as an imposter but as a valuable contributor to his mission.

We look at the disciples. He entrusted his mission to fishermen. It was not the people we would have expected to have been given such an important role. They were not accomplished theologians or preachers. But what they had was the gift of the Holy Spirit. Remember what Jesus said:

“Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Matthew 4:19 (ESV)

The first thing he did before anything else was give them a new identity. They were not just fishermen. They were fishers of men! It was through these men that Jesus changed the world forever. So give yourself credit. If God can use those guys, he can use you.

Questions for Reflection

1. Where do you need a new identity?
2. Do you believe your identity will influence your actions? Why or why not?
3. Who do you need to encourage to believe in themselves more?
4. Share your comments.

“They don’t make ‘em like they used to!” That would be true. In the last few years it seems my family has replaced every appliance in our house. We were not doing a kitchen remodel or anything. They simply wore out- one after the other. It became almost comical if it were not so sad.

We looked into fixing some of our appliances, but it seemed that it was more cost effective to go and buy new ones. So one at a time, we kicked the old appliances to the curb. Hopefully, the new ones will last a long time, and we will not need to replace anything soon.

We take that mentality with many parts of life. If something is not working, we don’t look to fix it, but just get rid of it. It seems easier just to move on and not look back.

A few years back I saw a billboard that read: “Life is short, get a divorce.” That is the throwaway culture mentality. It tells us that it is not worth the effort to try and fix something. It is not worth the time or money to work towards a solution.

It is not just in marriage, but also in the church. A person gets upset at an issue in the church, and so they leave and go the church down the street. We don’t work through things. We just simply move on.

In all these situations, we simply exchange old problems for new problems. There is a reason that people who get a divorce and remarry, typically get divorced again. There is a reason that people who leave one church and go to another church will end up going to yet another church.

In life, there is always something shiny and new. But the what is shiny and new today will be old and rusty tomorrow. The grass on the other side of the fence might be greener. But if you treat the grass on the other side of the fence like you treat your grass, it will end up just as brown.

When you commit to something for the long-haul, recognize breakdowns will happen. It might get messy. There will be difficult days. But recognize that what you have, might be worth fixing and putting in the hard work.

There is one word that sums all this up: FAITHFULNESS. It is to stick with something when others would give up. It is one of the truest measures of spiritual depth and maturity. Because we are always hoping from one thing to another, we never go deep. We never experience true intimacy with other people or with God.

When we think the answer is to quit, we forget the real answer is God. We miss out on the opportunity to experience the full power of his salvation. While it may seem more appealing to give up and move on, we miss out on lasting satisfaction and intimacy with God.

We see no better example of FAITHFULNESS, than in God’s love for us. He didn’t give up on us. He didn’t just simply move on. He did the hard work to fix what was broken. It came at a tremendous cost. But God knew you were worth it.

Questions for Reflection

1. What are some areas in your life that need fixing?
2. How would you define spiritual depth?
3. What are the rewards of faithfulness?
4. Share your comments.

We live in a world of fast food, instant communication, and immediate results. Life moves at such a fast pace. We look to do everything more efficiently and effectively. We are so accustomed to seeing results NOW. It is so amazing what we can accomplish today with the advancements of technology.

This blog in itself is a modern miracle of technology. It offers me a platform that was unthinkable just ten years ago. I am a pastor of a tiny little church in New Jersey and yet have a global audience. We have a mailing list of 15,000 people and thousands of hits on the website every day. I stand in amazement at all of this. It brings me great joy to hear from so many of you from all over the United States and around the world about how these words have touched you. Thank you for being part of the Greater Things Community.

Because of the success of this blog, I have had the opportunity to speak several times about using technology in the church. The question that is almost always asked: "how did you do it?" When people ask that question, they are often looking for an easy answer that they can quickly implement. While the actual answer is rather simple, it is not quickly implemented.

The answer is one word: commitment. When I first became a senior pastor, I made a commitment to send a weekly email to the members of my church. I believed that it would be a way to help connect the church members with their faith during the middle of the week. I believed God was affording us an opportunity to make a deeper impact in the lives of his people beyond Sunday morning. So I began sending the emails, and I sent those emails for years.

I had a busy schedule, and it was not always easy to write those emails. There was the constant temptation to let other priorities take center stage. There were times when I questioned the value of sending the emails. I questioned if anyone was even reading them. I wondered if they were worth my time. But I kept writing.

A lot changed over the years. I changed how I sent the emails. I changed how I posted the emails. I changed how I shared the emails. Sometimes there were lessons to be learned about technology. Sometimes there were lessons to be learned about writing. Sometimes there were lessons to be learned about myself. I read books. I read blogs. I listen to podcasts. All this was an effort to improve at something I believed in (but not without doubt).

In the spring of 2014, one of the emails I wrote went viral on the Internet. Many of you are reading this because of that post called 20 Things to Give up for Lent. According to Google Analytics, we had more than a million people come to our church website in less than two days. What I recognize was God made that happen, but it was no accident. He was simply making use of the commitment that I had made years before.

Because of the years of preparation I knew what to do at that moment. I was able to put up a daily email list sign up that led to the creation of 40 Things to Give up for Lent. That in turn led to publishing the series in a book and having it sell as a #1 best-seller on Amazon in Christian Devotions. If the post would have gone viral years earlier, the moment would have come and went.

Success does not often happen overnight. And when it does happen overnight, it is rarely sustainable. There are many one-hit wonders in this world because they are not prepared for the success they find.

The lesson here is if you have a calling in your life from God, keep at it. Don’t give up. There will be bumps in the road along the way. There will be times of doubt. There will be lessons to learn. God is refining you through the process. Listen for his gentle voice.

I leave you with the words of Jesus. He says:

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Matthew 6:33 (ESV)

The sense of this verse in the original language is even stronger. The idea is “Keep on” seeking. God will certainly do amazing things miraculously in a moment. But the greatest miracles often happen over time. God does not call us to success, but to faithfulness. Many times faithfulness will take you through the desert before you arrive at the Promised Land. But know that for those who remain faithful, there is always a Promised Land that awaits.

Questions for Reflection

1. What commitment is God calling you to make?
2. What is the biggest challenge to that commitment?
3. What gives you the courage to remain faithful to your commitments?
4. Share your comments.