I'm in the midst of several transformational "upgrades" in my approach to life that I'm ABSOLUTELY THRILLED about.
God has been guiding me away from overstriding and on towards abundant striding. It's all Spirit led and focuses on implementing healthy wise biblically based daily disciplines in order to become more fruitful and live at full potential for God's glory.
I've been striving after these life changing principles for 4 1/2 months and the breakthroughs and fruitfulness have been profound.
I'm taking a comprehensive approach to abundant living, but the gist of it is that I'm approaching life like I'm an athlete striving to become a championship caliber player in a team sport called LIFE. My year is comprised of 2 "six month seasons" (Jan-June & July-Dec). Each day I'm striving to have a winning day (It's a biblical definition of what a "win" looks like to God... I'll explain more in the future). I try to string daily wins together day after day to have a winning week. If I stay consistent those winning streaks translate into winning weeks and winning months. Since my "season" lasts 6 months I'm striving to have a "championship season" each season (hopefully 2 championship seasons each year) and put together repeats, three-peats, four-peats, and so on to build a dynasty (aka legacy) that glorifies God while inspiring & impacting others.
(This may all sound very cheesy to some people, but I find it very motivational and it helps me translate eternal priorities into daily objectives in an athletic, competitive, and fun approach which is how I tick... sometimes you have to construct an approach to life that is custom made for how God designed you. That's what I'm doing and it highly motivates me. There's a strategy to winning and defeating an opponent and this approach helps me adapt daily to my oppositions attempt to defeat me.)
So, like with any highly competitive sport, there has to be an off season to prevent burnout, injuries, boredom, etc, etc. So I've been praying about an off season and asking God what that looks like for me. My prayer time has been so sweet with God as He has been teaching me so much and leading me to solution after solution to each challenge.
I know I have to have an "off season", but my concern is that I don't want to take steps backwards from all the gains and victories God has been blessing me with. I'm aware that rest can easily become retirement if we're not vigilant to fight off complacency, apathy, and the lure of ease & comfort.
God immediately answered my prayers. He impressed on my heart and mind that He already invented an "off season" that infuses rest & recovery while protecting against backsliding. It's called a sabbatical. And it's designed to be a type of rest that continues to propel you forward.
In my terms, it will be the 6th month of each "season" (the months of June & Dec). During that time I will take a break from the daily grind of heavy disciplines and transition to a month of less striving.
For example, instead of lifting weights 3x per week I may go bike riding or kayaking while I give my muscles a few weeks off from heavy lifting.
Obviously I still have priorities and a ministry to run so I'm not saying that I'm not taking care of my responsibilities during this time frame, but more that the mental approach to the striving is more relaxed as well as the actual workload is less heavy.
I'm not sure if that makes sense, but as long as I understand it and implement it into my season is all that counts.
I've always known I was going to have to tackle the "off season" since I started this new life strategy so I've been thinking about it and praying about it for several months.
Now I'm at the point of starting my "off season" for the next 3 weeks and I'm excited about how God continues to guide me each step of the way.
Today I kicked off my 3 weeks of RADICAL SABBATICAL and I don't have it all figured out yet, but I've got the main structure in place. Part of the fun is learning and adjusting each day.
So my goal is propel forward while backing off of the daily grind for 3 weeks. It's a different kind of striving... but it still leads to thriving!
STRiVE to THRiVE!
