You are here: Home / Archives for accountability
09
Apr 2012

When Will I Get Married? (and 7 Other Questions that Plague Singles)

By 2 Comments

Become an email subscriber and get our free eBook immediately!

  • When Will I Get Married?
  • What If I Don’t Like the Singles Ministry at My Church?
  • Why Won’t You Ask Her Out?
  • What’s the Secret to Being Content with My Singleness?
  • Should I Tell My Girlfriend I Struggle with Pornography?
  • What’s the Single Most Destructive Thing You Can Do with Your Singleness?
  • What’s Debt Got to Do With It?
  • What If I Don’t Want to Get Married?

Chances are, if you’re single, you’ve struggled with several, if not all, of these questions. We have too. They’re not simple questions with one-paragraph answers. They’re the kind of questions that are recurring and nag against our contentment. Some keep us company in the dark nights when our minds begin to wander down the roads of “what if,” “what could’ve been,” and “why me.” [Read more...]

Categories: Church & Ministry, Relationships, Spiritual Growth, Stewardship Tags: , , , , , , ,
16
Jan 2012

The Fear of the Next Step

By 12 Comments

Taking a step of faith isn't so easy, even if you really want to do it.

Any of my close friends can tell you that the one dream I have for my life is to live abroad. I’ve talked about it since the summer I spent three weeks studying at Oxford with my seminary classmates.

I don’t trust myself or my heart enough to believe that just any dream that I have is God-given. But I do know that while this dream does seem a little self-satisfying, it also satisfies my God-given heart for missions and being a part of the work He is doing around the globe.

For years, I’ve participated in short-term mission trips within the United States, Mexico, and Canada, and I’ve traveled internationally for vacations, but my participation in international missions has been mainly in the form of finances and prayer support.

I’ve longed to go myself–and not just on a short-term trip–but to plant myself for an extended period of time in a culture that is different from the one I’ve always known. My career as a teacher was an easy ticket for international employment, but I was also a homeowner and, after several discussions with my realtor, I faced the fact that I wasn’t going anywhere for a while. I wasn’t unhappy teaching, but I felt like I was stuck in autopilot, and if I wasn’t careful I would eventually stifle my heart for the nations and forget that I ever had it.

And then everything changed. [Read more...]

Categories: Career & Adventure Tags: , , , ,
10
Jan 2012

The Fact and Fiction of Accountability

By 2 Comments

Ending the vicious cycle of self-help...

For years of my adult life, I found myself stumbling into the same traps over and over again. I could identify what was getting in the way with the progression of my relationship with the Lord, but despite good intentions, I would constantly find myself in weak moments returning to the same vices over and over.

…And year after year I would proclaim, “I am going to trust God, try EVEN harder, and never mess up again!”

A week would go by and I would mess up…again. This, in turn, embarrassed me in front of God as I felt like He must look at me as a big, fat liar that can’t even follow through with what I set out to do for more than a week or two.

The vicious cycle went on for years and, in spite of all the good intentions, I chased my tail endlessly, unable to figure out why I could not help myself. I was equally embarrassed to tell even some of my closest Christian friends of my struggles because I felt like they certainly never experienced the level of disappointments and weaknesses I had been through. [Read more...]

Categories: Relationships, Spiritual Growth Tags: , ,
22
Nov 2011

Airing My Dirty Laundry

By Leave a Comment

chairs © by davedehetre

“Relationships aren’t the best thing, if you ask me. People can be quite untrustworthy, and the more you get to know them—by that I mean the more you let somebody know who you really are—the more it feels as though something is at stake. And that makes me nervous. It takes me a million years to get to know anybody pretty well, and even then the slightest thing will set me off. I feel it in my chest, this desire to dissociate. I don’t mean to be a jerk about it, but that is how I am wired. I say this because it makes complete sense to me that we would rather have a formula religion than a relational religion. If I could, I probably would have formula friends because they would be safe.” Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller

I had an accountability partner in high school. We met at summer camp, and she lived in another town. Since we were far away, we wrote letters and prayed for each other. We reported our quiet times, worked on Scripture memory, and felt good about our special friendship that lasted about two months. [Read more...]

Categories: Church & Ministry, Relationships Tags: , ,