In this episode we sit down with author and pastor Steve Carter to talk about times of crisis and what it looks like to receive the good gifts of God in them.
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I wouldn’t wish what I went through on my worst enemy… but I also never had felt so close to God… the nearness of God was a surprising gift to me…
That season was bizarre because it created such cognitive dissonance… I’m a competitive person and it was hard to realize that I couldn’t make everyone happy…
I don’t know a meaningful human life where the deck hasn’t been cleared by God…
In ministry we often use our desire to influence as a substitute for paying attention to our elemental humanity… crisis taught me to tend to my foundations again…
For me, the gift in my crisis was that I started realizing that integrity and character is everything… as sad as it all was, God was building a new order in me through it…
In my 30s, I was so goals-driven… but the pace was unsustainable… I didn’t want to have to grieve or address my pain… I didn’t know how to wait, listen, or slow down well…
I was raised to channel my anger into competitiveness… my crisis taught me to realize that wasn’t working… I needed to learn to be driven by being in Christ…
My relationship with Jesus wasn’t affected by people’s behavior… my struggle was with a handful of people who had acted badly… but the crisis took me back to the Jesus way…
If you want to go through crisis well, you have to have a couple of values rise to the top to serve as a true north for the kind of person you want to be…
You also have to recognize that while it’s bad, it won’t always be bad…
Another thing I’d say is that you have to have mentors, counselors, pastors, and spiritual directors… you need voices who know you, can embody the ministry of presence for you, and can remind you of who you are…