To And Fro

May 15, 2023

If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.

- James 1:5-6

We are one month removed from our Men’s Retreat where the theme was Mindset: transform your mind, transform your life.

It was an amazing weekend (no man should have missed it), where Brett Rypien, back-up quarterback for the Denver Broncos, and Paul Groenewal, Sports Psychologist for the Brooklyn Nets and Navy Seals, amongst others, shared their insights about how to change your mindset.

There were so many takeaways from the weekend, but two that stood out to me from each of them, respectively, were:

From Brett: Focus on the rhythms (the process), not on the scoreboard. We can be so caught up in what the scoreboard says about us, that we can become easily distracted from the processes that are critical to our success.
From Paul: Where do I place my value? Is my value determined by my performance? Our value and self-worth are based on who we are in Christ, not on our performance or what others say about us.

Both of those lessons caused me to think about James’ words in James 1:5-6, where he tells us that wisdom (and everything else) comes from a generous God, who gives us the ability to not be tossed to and fro by the wind and waves of this world.

When we put our faith and trust in God, and believe that He is a generous God, we are better able to focus on the rhythms of life, and not the scoreboard, for we know that, in Him, we have already won.

And when we put our faith and trust in a generous God, we know we are valuable, and our worth is no longer determined by our performance, or by what others think, for as James writes, God does not find fault in us.