Mike Taylor

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Category: Faith

  • Vision and provision

    There’s a delicate balance between vision and provision.

    Vision is the destination, and provision is the support needed to get there (“pro-” means to support or make a way for something).

    Vision tells us where to go, but provision keeps us going.

    The balance between the two is key because we don’t do well with long-term thinking without short term progress.

    In 2 Peter 3, the apostle Peter addresses this topic. 

    There were people in the Church who had decided that Jesus wasn’t coming back to get his people. 

    These people had trouble holding onto the long-term vision and decided that short-term satisfaction was more important. 

    You and I have the same short-sighted tendencies, by the way. 

    So what does Peter say about these people? He says they abandoned the vision because they had forgotten.

    They had failed to remember all the times that God delivered on his promises.

    He reminds his readers that all throughout history God has worked in his own timing and delivered in his own way. But God has always, always delivered. 

    He also reminds his readers that to God, a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day.

    Peter is begging for his reader to have perspective. And the key to having perspective is to remember.

    If we’ll deliberately remember what God has already done, we’ll see what Peter saw – that God delays his promises not because he’s mean or unfaithful, but because he’s patient. 

    He knows that you and I need time and space to work things out. 

    He’s patient because he loves us and doesn’t want anyone to perish. 

    Rushing God’s promise can tear us apart because we’re not ready.

    This is tough to remember when you’re looking at your immediate needs and wants.

    If you’re working on a project that you feel God has given you vision for, it’s tempting to look at other paths that offer immediate gains.

    But remember that wherever God has promised something, he has always provided, and he’ll continue to do so. 

    Stay the course, fight the distractions, and stay in step with the vision.

  • Giving Up

    The impact of your life is less dependent on what you’re willing to do and more dependent on what you’re willing to not do.

    To achieve something, it’s natural for us to first think of what we can do to make it happen.

    But when Jesus talked about the kingdom of God, he didn’t talk about what we needed to be willing to do.

    Instead, he talked about what we needed to be willing to not do.

    He challenged the disciples to leave everything they had to follow him. 

    When Jesus asked Peter, Andrew, James, and John to follow him, it was immediately after they had just caught so many fish it was sinking their boat. (Luke 5:7)

    Imagine having the best day of sales you’ve ever had at your business, and deciding to walk away from it altogether on the same day.

    If you consider the immediate requirements of discipleship, there wasn’t much for them to do.

    But being willing to stop pursuing their business was a much bigger deal.

    What Jesus was asking them to give up made no logical sense at the time. 

    Why would they give up the thing they had built – the thing he just blessed? Why give up their steady income?

    We like to think that maybe Jesus would’ve played it safer. 

    Our version of Jesus would’ve asked them to give their extra time to him when they weren’t fishing.

    He would’ve asked them to be part-time fishermen, maybe. 

    But he didn’t do that. He showed them what was possible, then he invited them to go all in.

    In Luke 14, Jesus is talking about the value of counting the cost before you do something.

    This parable has been used to justify playing it safe – to be as certain as you can before doing something. But that’s not exactly what Jesus was saying.

    He basically says, wouldn’t it be dumb to endeavor to build a house or go to war without first thinking about what you’re going to have to give up in order to be successful? 

    If you think you can go into either of those things without giving up a great deal, you’re not going to be prepared to see it through. 

    Jesus ended that conversation by saying, “those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.” (Luke 14:33)

    That’s not a paraphrase. Go read it.

    When a king decides to go to war, he’s also deciding to not focus on farming, harvesting, building towns, and improving infrastructure. 

    By deciding to go to war, he’s giving up everything else. 

    It’s a reckless endeavor, but one that must be committed to wholeheartedly. Anything short of that will end in failure.

    We all have things that God has given us to do that require our full commitment. 

    And it’s easy to say that you’re willing to do whatever it takes to make it happen. 

    But the more difficult question is:

    What are you willing to not do? 

    What are you willing to give up?

    Your number one barrier is not your ability or inability. Your number one barrier is distraction. 

    What’s so important in your life that it’s going to require the elimination of all distractions?

    Because in order to fulfill your purpose, you’ll find that you have to be willing to give up your potential.

  • Emotional doubt

    Doubt is a universal human experience.

    Most people have doubts about their abilities, their future, their relationships, and about God.

    Doubt gets a negative connotation, but it can actually be very constructive.

    Comfort zones rarely build anything. It’s only in the discomfort of doubt – self-doubt or doubts about others – where we can effectively grow.

    The key to healthy doubt is to understand its source. 

    Dr. Gary Habermas, a well known religious researcher and professor, identifies three types of doubt: 

    • Factual (lack of information)
    • Emotional (rooted in pain)
    • Volitional (unwillingness to trust) 

    What’s interesting is, most doubts aren’t factual or volitional – they’re emotional.

    Distrust and doubt stems from the heart, not the mind, and thus isn’t solved by information alone.

    This is why a husband who doesn’t trust his wife is never satisfied with knowing where his wife is or what she’s doing at all times. He’ll always wonder, and he’ll always want more information.

    It’s because the issue isn’t about information. It’s about the emotional damage of the person who’s unwilling to trust.

    Emotional doubt arises when feelings overshadow facts, leading to “what if” questions without evidence.

    Anxious or obsessive thinking often fuels emotional doubts and distrustful thinking. 

    This is what causes people to doubt their salvation or question God’s goodness even though they have the facts that reinforce those beliefs.

    There will always be facts to the contrary of what you believe. The question isn’t which side has more facts. The question is, which side are you willing to trust?

    To overcome emotional doubt, the brain has to be taught how to process information differently. 

    For example, instead of running with the first conclusion your mind produces, ask yourself why there’s resistance to trust. Does the idea of trusting hurt? If so, that’s a red flag that there’s pain beneath the surface to be dealt with.

    It’s amazing what processing information from a neutral perspective can do. If you can train your brain to simply be an observer of facts, then the pain of trusting can be dealt with separately from the act of choosing a path.

    You control your doubts and how you process them. 

    It isn’t the events in our lives that cause trauma – it’s our interpretation of events and our reaction to those events that causes the most impact.

    Faith in anyone or anything should always be grounded in facts. Trust should, in essence, be a conscious decision to stop chasing alternate conclusions and lean on the facts you have.

    It’s like the old chair that looks sturdy enough to hold your weight. You can’t know until you release your weight and try it.

    In the same way, you can train the habit of faith by learning enough and letting go.

    Self-confidence and relationships work the same way. Kick the tires, see if you think you can trust it, then let go and try it. If it holds weight, release more and see if it holds. Continue until trust is built.

    You’ll never out-learn distrust and doubt. The only way forward is to learn enough and let go.

  • Rethinking church

    Christianity, by the numbers, is fading fast in America.

    That might not be a bad thing.

    Because it’s probably not the real issue.

    Maybe what’s fading is the shiny replica of the Church that we created.

    The one built on polished sermons and impressive stages.

    The one more concerned with attendance than presence.

    The one more concerned with comfort than breakthrough.

    Maybe the world doesn’t hate Jesus. Maybe they just haven’t seen much of him lately.

    What they’ve seen most is a cheap replica – just close enough to fool the untrained eye.

    And they’re not wrong to feel let down.

    Jesus said we’d be known by our love. 

    Yet somehow we’re most known for our judgement.

    It’s no wonder people started walking away.

    Not from God, but from the off-brand version of him we’ve presented.

    Maybe the decline isn’t rejection. Maybe it’s actually a longing.

    Maybe the world is still hungry for Jesus, but they’re done settling for what we’ve been serving.

    Jesus never said to build churches. He said to make disciples.

    He said to take up your cross, not your platform.

    The early Church looked very different.

    They shared everything they had willingly.

    We get mad if anyone talks about money in church.

    They met together every single day.

    We show up twice a month when it’s convenient.

    They broke bread in their homes and centered their lives around communion.

    We go to a small group every couple weeks and sip juice from plastic cups once a quarter.

    They prayed constantly.

    We say formulaic, surface level prayers and only in the transitions in the service.

    They were known for their conviction and love for one another.

    We’re known for condemnation.

    They were united.

    We’re divided in every way imaginable.

    People noticed them and they grew.

    People are noticing us and we’re shrinking.

    The difference is stark.

    Maybe we need to stop asking how to get people back into church and start asking how to get the Church back into people.

    Because the world is tired of the show.

    And good for them.

    They want to be seen. To be healed. To be loved. To encounter something real.

    And if they can’t find that in us, then maybe we’re the ones who’ve gone missing.

  • DNA

    It took a lot to get you here.

    If you feel like a broken mess, you’re not.

    You are a genetic masterpiece in every sense of the word.

    Consider this:

    When you were conceived, you beat 300 million other seeds to be born.

    You were 20-30x smaller than a grain of salt, yet you contained half of the genetic information that makes you who you are.

    Your mother’s egg was about the size of a period at the end of a sentence in an average book and it contained the other half of the genetic information that makes you who you are.

    When those two came together, a 100% new genetic human being was created. 

    From the moment of your conception, cells began multiplying at a rate of 4,000 cells per second. 

    Brain cells began multiplying at a rate of 100,000 cells per second. 

    Some cells became heart cells, some lung cells, some brain cells.

    Your body makes 2 million red blood cells per second, and you do it without ever thinking about it.

    How does this happen?

    Inside every cell in you is a three-billion-letter DNA structure that belongs only to you.

    It’s a digital code – like a computer program – that’s far more advanced than any we’ve ever created.

    The information in DNA directs the construction of proteins to do all the important functional jobs in the cell.

    The arrangement of amino acids has to be correct in order for a protein to accomplish its job inside the cell.

    And it does this all on its own because the instructions in DNA are directing the production.

    Dr. Francis Collins, director of the Human Genome Project (that mapped the human DNA structure) said that we can think of DNA as “an instructional script, a software program, sitting in the nucleus of the cell.”

    All this to say…

    You’re not hopeless.

    You’re not a waste of time.

    You’re not a mistake or broken beyond repair.

    You may feel like everything is going wrong. But there’s a LOT going right inside of you every moment of every day, and it’s been happening all on its own from the moment of your conception.

    So it’s okay to let go.

    It’s okay to let the One who made you keep doing what he does.

  • Environment

    One of the most interesting aspects of nature is the phenomenon of adaptation. 

    When we look at the universe, one fundamental truth is evident:

    Where you abide is what you become.

    For example, there are frogs in certain parts of the world who, because their environment is so cold, are able to actually freeze over half of their bodies to protect themselves from the frigid temperatures. 

    There are also fish like the cuttlefish who are able to adapt to their environment by camouflaging themselves to look like coral or other elements around them so they can survive.

    There are tons of examples in nature of plants and animals that have adapted to their environment, and there have also been study after study showing that humans behave in the same way.

    For example, studies have found that whenever an individual with mild opinions about a topic gets into a group where the opinions on that topic are more extreme than theirs, the individual is more likely to come out of that group with more extreme viewpoints.

    In another experiment, a national park had been using a sign to prevent theft that said, “Your heritage is being vandalized every day by theft losses of petrified wood of 14 tons a year, mostly a small piece at a time.”

    By removing the sign, theft actually decreased by one-third. 

    The implication is that the sign, which was intended to cause the visitor to feel aware and ashamed for the theft, actually served as social proof and made them feel as though it was an environment conducive to theft.

    Time and time again, observations of science and nature show that it’s your environment that has the greatest impact on your behavior. 

    Jesus taught this concept to his followers. 

    He had a peculiar way of “converting” people to his way of thinking. 

    Instead of trying to convince them, he simply invited them to be around him. 

    He had meals with them and taught them bite-size lessons in the midst of him traveling and healing and loving people.

    Then he said this to give us a clue as to what he was up to:

    “Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be.” (John 12:26)

    Catch that – wherever he IS, his servant will also be. 

    It wasn’t so much that his servants would try to mimic him; it was that they would be with him, in his environment.

    Then he spelled it out even clearer for us when he said, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)

    Notice what he asked of them: to simply be with him and abide in him.

    Not to do a list of things, become a better version of themselves, or become something they weren’t.

    Just abide – meaning to remain – in him, completely engulfed in the environment and culture he created.

    The implications are simple yet profound:

    Environment is everything.

    But that’s not how we usually think about it.

    When we have a problem, we look for the information that’s going to help us solve it. 

    We look for the solution, when most of the time, our solution has more to do with where we’re spending time – physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually – than anything we can do directly.

    But think about this:

    The quickest way to melt an ice cube isn’t to break it into a million pieces. The quickest way to melt an ice cube is to place it in hot water.

    Find a better environment before you look for answers.

    Sometimes just being in the right place with the right people is the right answer.

    And it’s not because you’re better at solving your problems. It’s because you’re finally in the right places focusing on the right things.

    Because where you abide is what you become.