Stepping Stones Intensive Coaching Class Week 6 February 14, 2012 The Desires of Your Heart Beth Jones

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1 Stepping Stones Intensive Coaching Class Week 6 February 14, 2012 The Desires of Your Heart Beth Jones Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. ~ Psalm 37:4 In chapter 9, Katie says that this stepping stone is a welcome relief, yet at the same time you may have conflicted feelings. I relate so much to this. You may want all the wonderful things God has planned for you (Jeremiah 29:11), but at the same time you are afraid of being disappointed. (If you feel like you have been dealt a bad hand by Life, I encourage you to read my blog I wrote tonight, When Life Deals You A Bad Hand, and watch the video by Kenny Rogers. You may feel excited, but may feel like God won t give you what you really want. Is this you?

2 Maybe you feel like this stepping stone isn t really from God and is just one of Satan s traps. Today a friend of mine wrote me and said that her sister had warned her that making a lot of money and material goods were just a trap from Satan. I believe money CAN be a trap for some people, but I don t believe wealth is evil. Many of God s greatest people in the Bible were very wealthy. What are your thoughts on this stepping stone being a trap (the stepping stone of God giving you the desires of your heart)? The key to God giving us the desires of our hearts is to make GOD our heart s chief desire. Read Psalm 37:4. If you make God the desire of your heart, He will give you your heart s desires. What are the desires of your heart? Journal about these & share. Katie gives examples of passions that we can have, such as hobbies (dollhouses, horses, computers); your career (law, sales, writing, speaking, coaching); volunteer work (pregnant women, animal rescue, orphans, poverty); or personal longings (marriage, traveling, living in the city). God will not fulfill the desires of your heart if they go against His word. What are some passions you have had from childhood that maybe you need to explore again? If you feel passionless, ask God to give you a passion for something. God doesn t want you to live a bored, passionless life! On page 153, Katie writes about women who are bikers for Jesus, having a motorcycle ministry for God. God can use anything. He doesn t always fit into our nice, neat, religious boxes. Is there anything that is stirring in your heart which might be a bit unusual or out of yours (or others!) comfort zone? Share about this in class.

3 If you are struggling with a sense of significance in your life, feeling like you are not important or that you are not doing anything important, read and re-read what Katie wrote on page 153: If you simply do what God designed you to do and to be, you will find significance beyond measure. How do you find what God designed you to do and to be? Here are a few tips: Simply pray and ask God! Wait and listen. Spend time in prayer, His word, and worship each day. God may not show you everything at once, but He will illuminate the next step on your life s path and reveal His will to you. You life purpose may evolve over time. Discover your natural talents and skills. What are you good at? If you re a good teacher, then your passion and purpose may be closely connected with teaching children or adults. If you are good at graphic art, your life purpose and passion may be tied to drawing, website design, etc. If you have strong counseling skills, God may be calling you to be a counselor, therapist, or psychologist. If others often comment on what a great writer you are, God may have designed you to be a writer. Find out what those talents are, and then use them for His glory. Don t be like the man who his talents in the ground! Find out what your spiritual gifts are. These are closely tied to your life purpose. I have two articles on my website about spiritual gifts. I also highly recommend Krista Dunk s book, Step out and Take Your Place ( and The Gifts and Ministries of the Holy Spirit by Lester Sumrall ( LESTER/dp/ X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid= &sr=8-1). ***You can also take spiritual gifts tests online to find out what your gifts are. Some churches also offer these to their members. Your personality plays a role in your calling, also. There are four types of personality: Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholy, and Phlegmatic. Florence and Marita Littauer have resources on the personalities, such as Personality Plus. Cholerics are often strong leaders. Melancholies are deep thinkers, sensitive, and creative, so they are often talented artists or writers. Find out what your

4 personality is, focus on your strengths and allow the Holy Spirit to shape you and refine you in the areas of your weaknesses in your personality. Tap into your passion. What do you LOVE to do? This is a huge key to your life calling! Katie writes, God wants your passion to be alive and well and available to Him whenever He wants to use it for His purposes. Katie writes about Sunday neurosis, what Dr. Viktor Frankl used to describe the type of depression that sets in when the busy rush of the work week is over and people feel the emptiness of their lives. Have you ever experienced this at the end of a week or at the end of a busy season in your life? The danger of our passion fizzling instead of sizzling is that we begin to develop unhealthy passions, such as overeating, overspending, drug or alcohol addictions, pornography, gambling, adultery, or even what some Christians consider more innocent things like gossiping (when in reality, all sin is level at the cross!). Have you seen unhealthy passions take place in your own life out of sheer boredom? I confess to overspending and overeating at times! Katie warns us to guard against unhealthy passions, especially when we re in a passionless time in our life, when we re bored, and/or feeling empty and like our lives are insignificant. Sometimes we can try to fill that empty hole. Our unhealthy passions can represent a need for control, instant gratification (think lots of chocolate or junk food!), recklessness, or putting self first. Ask God to fill you with His Spirit-filled passions instead of unhealthy ones. The way to identify and overcome unhealthy passions is through what we learned about last week yes, REPENTANCE!

5 Have you been practicing repentance this week? I don t know about you, but God is giving me opportunities this week to do so! I love Katie s suggestions, The Sojourner s Guide to Delighting Your Passions on pages Read over this and journal about them; share in class which one of these you will take action on THIS WEEK! Hang around passionate people. Ask family and friends what they ve noticed about your passions (or your lack of passion, apathy or boredom!) Write some entries in your journal about your times of greatest joy. Get out of your rut and do something different. Try a new restaurant, go out with a friend for a girls night out, travel to a new town, learn a new language, enroll in a class, use your spiritual gift in your small group Bible study or your talent helping a friend. My new goal is to enroll in a pottery wheel class asap! Once you recognize some of your new passions, dedicate them to God for Him to use for His Divine purposes. Surrender Your Daily Life to God Chapter 10 In the next chapter, Katie writes about surrendering our daily life to God. She surrendered nicotine, her home and children (Katie admitted her biggest struggle was not her kids, but her huge, beautiful 5-bedroom home; the result of her final surrender was more peace, energy, time to focus on writing and chores!), and sugar to God. I have never smoked, but I am currently struggling with drinking coca-cola. I have drank it my whole life and my health coach, Bess Blanco, is working with me to try to help me overcome this. What area of your life have you had difficulty surrendering to God? This can be our marriages, our children, our diets/exercise, our careers/ministry, or any number of things.

6 Katie shares the question that Kay Warren asked at a church conference. Would you still follow God even if He never did another thing for you? After Katie thought about this, she wondered if she would even LOVE God, much less follow Him. She realized how self-centered her answers would be: Quite honestly, I would go through the necessary Christian motions but I would be mad at God- real mad. I love Katie s honesty. Sometimes we have felt like God was not doing anything for us and we, too, have felt angry. Share about one of these times in your life. Mine would be when I felt surrounded by everyone in my life, regarding my stepdaughter when she and I were having a terrible time, not getting along. I felt all alone and that God was allowing arrows to be shot into my heart, left and right. Assignment: Do the 10 day or one day challenge that Katie writes about in chapter 10, to establish new habits as you move forward on your pathway to purpose. Share about this next week in class.