Guaranteeing Peace, Patience and Joy

I had a fascinating week of coaching. Three clients had significant breakthroughs. Read on to discover their secrets.   

Friend #1 is newer to his faith, earnestly wants to know God, and is motivated by God’s promise of peace.  I love this guy because he’s just like me when I was early in pursuing The Truth: intellectualizing and over-thinking everything!

His breakthrough came by realizing that subconsciously he was searching the scriptures to prove it wrong instead of proving it true. He had reduced faith to an academic exercise and squeezed out all the mystery. While he’ll never get intellectually lazy or “check his brain at the door”, he’s reading scripture and praying with a more trusting heart.

He also told me that his historical intolerance of horrible drivers is lessening because he realizes “in the big scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter.” I wonder:  Is he acting more patiently?  Or, is the Spirit of God making him more patient?   

Friend #2 retired last year after a successful career for which he thanks God. Having said that, there was something professionally that he still wanted to prove to himself and others. He was toying with jumping back into the game instead of doing what he says God planted in his heart long ago: helping troubled youth.  

He recently turned down a lucrative, high-profile job and is now bringing his skills to a great organization helping teens. I’ve never heard him as solid, confident, and joyful as he was this week.

Is it because he’s effortlessly using his talents on an issue he has a deep passion for?  Or, because God is blessing his heart and his self-sacrificial love for the disadvantaged?

I’ve been coaching Friend #3 for three years and his storyline was getting tiresome quite frankly: Fear-based paralysis. We’ve all been here:  We know exactly what God wants --- and our own hearts crave -- yet we fear the hypothetical financial implications.

I’ve never seen him as free as he was this week. When I asked him what happened, he said his fear has simply evaporated, his love for his family has sky rocketed, and his vision of what to do next for the glory of God has crystallized. My eyes filled with tears because I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt I was witnessing a movement of God. 

This is a smart, capable, godly man with strong spiritual disciplines who for three years couldn’t muscle himself into this posture of heart.  And now, out of the blue, the fruit of joy and peace have miraculously sprung up.

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What’s the one thing you can learn from these three stories to shape your heart and your spiritual journey?

What’s one scripture you see at play in any of these stories?