While he was still speaking to her, messengers arrived from the home of Jairus, the leader of the synagogue. They told him, “Your daughter is dead. There’s no use troubling the Teacher now.” [36] But Jesus overheard them and said to Jairus, “Don’t be afraid. Just have faith.”

Mark 5:35-36 NLT

Everybody has it—the quiet voice in our head that tells us there’s no use trying anymore.

You’ve tried before, it says.

Sure, there may be hope for other people, it acknowledges, but not for you.

Stop fighting. This is the best it’s going to get.

Too many of us believe that there are things about ourselves that will never change—that we have lost the battle too many times and that there are some things we just need to accept.

But Jesus tells us a different story.

Yes, at times things seem hopeless, but they’re not. Don’t be afraid, he says. Just have faith.

The psychology of walking with God is about how God changes our well-being from the inside out. Because of our faith, any paralyzing patterns and the frustrating pain can be healed and transformed—if we have the courage to take off our masks, let down our walls, and rely on God’s power rather than our own.

I begged the Lord three times to take this problem away from me. [9] But the Lord said, “My grace is all you need. Only when you are weak can everything be done completely by my power.” So I will gladly boast about my weaknesses. Then Christ’s power can stay in me.

2 Corinthians 12:8-9 ERV

God’s Spirit is powerful, and it produces limitless superpowers in our lives that we could never muster up on our own. In fact, sometimes the moments we feel most powerless, the moments we feel like we’re failing miserably, are exactly the moments that make us realize our need for God.

Which superpower do you need?

But the fruit of the Spirit [the result of His presence within us] is love [unselfish concern for others], joy, [inner] peace, patience [not the ability to wait, but how we act while waiting], kindness, goodness, faithfulness, [23] gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Galatians 5:22-23 AMP

In The Chemistry Lab, we recently discovered that Christians can have superpowers—supernatural abilities listed in Galatians 5:22-23 that transform us from the inside out and help us calm and conquer our storms rather than just trying to survive them. Each one is matched with one of the Avengers to give us a vision of the kind of power we can have when God’s Spirit supercharges our lives.

This is a vision that everyone needs—the belief that it’s not hopeless, that whatever internal storm or external obstacle we’re facing is not too hard for God.

So what superpower do you need in your life? Who will you become when you let your walls down and let God’s power in? What will you conquer? What will you overcome?

Take the quiz

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A king is not delivered by the might of his army. Even the strongest warrior is not saved by his own strength.

Psalm 33:16 Voice

Halloween was my opportunity to be a superhero with superpowers. I didn’t want to be scary. I wanted to be heroic and powerful. In fact, I think everyone wants superpowers. How else have the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Harry Potter, Star Wars, DC Extended Universe, X-Men, and so many more series all become multi-billion-dollar franchises?

We have a human hunger to transcend our human limits. We want superpowers—though most of us believe this is impossible. But what if I told you superpowers are available? What if our instincts are right, but our focus is wrong? What if I told you that our inclination to put up self-protective walls actually limits our power, but lowering our walls lets God in to deliver his power?

God’s power has given us everything we need to lead a godly life. All of this has come to us because we know the God who chose us. He chose us because of his own glory and goodness.

2 Peter 1:3 NIrV

God chose us out of love, and when that love connection is mutual, we experience God’s presence, power, and purpose. We no longer walk alone. We no longer walk in our own strength and power. We are super-powered by God:

He said, “This is the message from the LORD to Zerubbabel: ‘Your help will not come from your own strength and power. No, your help will come from my Spirit.’ This is what the LORD All-Powerful says.

Zechariah 4:6 ERV

We can live this super-powered life when we walk the way Jesus did (1 John 2:6). Jesus came to earth not to rely on his own divine power but to show us what it looks like for a human to live in complete dependence on God (see John 5:19 and Acts 10:38). He lowered his walls through humility so God’s power could flow through him:

In your lives you must think and act like Christ Jesus. [6] Christ himself was like God in everything. But he did not think that being equal with God was something to be used for his own benefit. [7] But he gave up his place with God and made himself nothing. He was born as a man and became like a servant. [8] And when he was living as a man, he humbled himself and was fully obedient to God, even when that caused his death-death on a cross.

Philippians 2:5-8 NCV

The superpower available to Jesus—and to us—isn’t humility itself. Humility is the gateway, like the spider bite that gave Peter Parker his powers. When Jesus lowered his walls through humility, the Holy Spirit had unlimited access to his life.

For he is sent by God. He speaks God’s words, for God gives him the Spirit without limit.

John 3:34 NLT

When we, too, lower our walls through humility, the Holy Spirit can flow into our lives—and that’s where the spiritual superpowers come from. These aren’t just religious qualities or character traits. They are literal superpowers that allow us to transcend our human limits. Jesus experienced unlimited access to the Holy Spirit because he never sinned. We do sin, so we can’t experience that same fullness, but we can still access real superpowers through the Holy Spirit when we practice humility.

“Be strong. Be brave. Don’t be afraid. Don’t lose hope. The king of Assyria has a huge army with him. But there’s a greater power with us than there is with him.”

2 Chronicles 32:7 NIrV

This is the truth we each need to believe: The storms we’re facing feel like the king of Assyria’s huge army. But there’s a greater power with us than there is with our storms. That power flows through humility—through admitting our weakness and letting God’s Spirit empower us.

But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, [23] gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!

Galatians 5:22-23 NLT

Consider what the Bible says about just one of these superpowers, patience:

Better to be patient than a warrior, and better to have self-control than to capture a city.

Proverbs 16:32 CEB

When we experience the superpower of patience through the Holy Spirit, we become more powerful than a warrior. When we have Spirit-given self-control, we can capture a city. These aren’t metaphors—they’re descriptions of actual power that exceeds human limits.

People marvel at the miraculous gifts mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12–14—speaking in tongues, prophecy, and healing. Paul says these were signs meant to authenticate the gospel.

Tongues, then, are a sign, not for believers but for unbelievers; prophecy, however, is not for unbelievers but for believers.

1 Corinthians 14:22 NIV

These sign gifts were meant to authenticate the gospel message in the early church, not to last forever. Paul explains their temporary nature:

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. [9] For we know in part and we prophesy in part, [10] but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. [11] When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. [12] For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

1 Corinthians 13:8-12 NIV

Paul teaches that prophecies will cease, tongues will be stilled, and knowledge will pass away—these gifts were temporary, but love and spiritual transformation are permanent.

The sign gifts were like training wheels—necessary for a season, but meant to give way to something greater and more permanent. The real superpowers the Holy Spirit gives us aren’t external signs meant to authenticate the message and prove God is real. They are internal transformations that change who we are and prove God is present. They give us the ability to end the evil we do, break the sins that enslave us, and become completely different people. The miracle of a transformed human being is more powerful and longer-lasting than any temporary sign gift. This miracle happens when we walk in the presence, power, and purpose of God.

Walking in God’s presence, power, and purpose

For with God nothing is ever impossible and no word from God shall be without power or impossible of fulfillment.

Luke 1:37 AMPC

The presence, power, and purpose of God will prevail regardless of what may happen in our circumstances. We must never doubt that God’s side is victorious, which is why we must patiently, with devotion, make every effort to walk in God’s presence, power, and purpose.

When Jesus returned from the Jordan River, the power of the Holy Spirit was with him, and the Spirit led him into the desert.

Luke 4:1 CEV

We cannot do what Jesus did, but we can be like Jesus in how we walk with God. Jesus walked in power—in the Holy Spirit’s presence, empowered by the Spirit’s strength, led by the Spirit’s purpose.

One day while Jesus was teaching, some Pharisees and teachers of religious law were sitting nearby. (It seemed that these men showed up from every village in all Galilee and Judea, as well as from Jerusalem.) And the Lord’s healing power was strongly with Jesus.

Luke 5:17 NLT

Just like the Force in Star Wars, God’s presence is with us when we are with him. God’s power flows through us. His purpose directs us. But here’s the critical truth: No matter how good our relationship connection is with people, developing and deepening a relationship of presence, power, and purpose with God is unique because it is entirely spiritual—not physical like relationships with people are. It is spiritual, and only when we are spiritual and sustaining the righteousness that keeps the spiritual connection will his power flow uninhibited through our lives.

The impact of walking in power

Everyone was trying to touch Jesus, because power was going out from him and healing them.

Luke 6:19 CEV

Just as Jesus impacted people because he was powerful, we should have the same type of impact on people as we become an expression of the superpowers of God listed in Galatians 5:22. When we walk in God’s presence, power, and purpose, people notice. Power goes out from us—not our power, but God’s.

The cost of NOT walking in power

Too many of us as Christians are stalled, defeated, discouraged, and afraid because we are not walking in his power.

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood [contending only with physical opponents], but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this [present] darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly [supernatural] places.

Ephesians 6:12 AMP

If we choose not to walk with God in his presence, power, and purpose, we have absolutely no chance of resisting—let alone defeating—the worldly and dark forces of this world in our lives individually or in the world collectively.

The purpose: empowering others

So we tell others about Christ, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all the wisdom God has given us. We want to present them to God, perfect in their relationship to Christ. [29] That’s why I work and struggle so hard, depending on Christ’s mighty power that works within me.

Colossians 1:28-29 NLT

The indefatigable presence, power, and purpose of God keep us working to help change the lives of others.

They were convinced by the power of miraculous signs and wonders and by the power of God’s Spirit. In this way, I have fully presented the Good News of Christ from Jerusalem all the way to Illyricum.

Romans 15:19 NLT

Unless entire churches and groups of Christians are experiencing this presence, power, and purpose, there is no way we can change the world. A weak and powerless church is a defeated church.

Walking in God’s presence, power, and purpose means staying so connected to God spiritually that his superpowers flow through us uninhibited. This is how we stop being stalled, defeated, discouraged, and afraid—and start being empowered by the Holy Spirit to change our lives and the world.

We can do this by breaking down our walls, admitting our weakness, and inviting the presence, power, and purpose of God to change us from the inside out.

Lab experiment: How to lower our walls and experience God’s power

In a previous Chemistry Lab edition, we introduced the “nine steps” to breaking down our walls and experiencing the psychological benefits of walking with God. Today’s lab experiment will put what we learned from that edition into action. These steps aren’t about managing our problems better. They’re about practicing humility as the gateway that allows God’s superpowers to flow through us.

Just as in our last two lab experiments, we’ll go through part of this process with a “discovery partner,” with whom we can grow and learn together. Let’s begin!

Reflection: What if the superpowers you’ve been looking for aren’t external miracles, but the internal transformation of becoming patient like a warrior, loving like Christ, peaceful in storms, and self-controlled in battles? What would change if you lowered your walls and let the Holy Spirit superpower your life?

Step 1: Do a heart check.

Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.

2 Corinthians 12:9 NLT

Humility isn’t self-hatred or thinking we’re worthless. Humility is admitting weakness— acknowledging that we need God to transcend our human limits. It’s recognizing that a powerful relationship with God begins when we admit we can’t do life on our own strength. The apostle Paul described this in 2 Corinthians 12, and David understood this same reality:

As for me, since I am poor and needy, let the Lord keep me in his thoughts. You are my helper and my savior. O my God, do not delay.

Psalm 40:17 NLT

Here’s the truth: God loves us regardless of whether we admit our weaknesses. But his power works best when we do. He makes himself available to us—that’s love. But we have to choose to love him back by admitting we need him. When we’re in a right relationship with God through humility, we become powerful—superpowered. His strength flows through our admitted weakness.

Where is your heart right now regarding admitting your weakness and letting God’s power superpower your life?

• Resistant — I don’t want to admit weakness right now. Admitting I need help feels like failure. I’d rather prove I can succeed on my own than be vulnerable about my limitations.

• Reflective — I’m not sure how I feel about admitting weakness. Part of me knows I need God’s help, but another part of me is afraid of what it means to stop relying on myself. I need help understanding what a relationship based on my weakness and God’s strength actually looks like.

• Receptive — I’m willing to admit I’m weak and I need God. I’m tired of trying to transcend my limits on my own. I want to experience what happens when God’s power works through my weakness instead of trying to be strong enough by myself.

• Ready — I’m done pretending I don’t need God. I’m ready to practice humility by admitting my weakness and entering into the kind of relationship where his power superpowers my life. I just need the framework to practice this when life gets hard.

Be courageous. Pray, write, or talk with your discovery partner about which box you checked and why. It takes courage to admit where we really are—whether we’re afraid to admit weakness, confused about what it means, tired of self-reliance, or ready to let God’s power work through our limitations. God already knows our weakness. This honesty is our first step toward a right relationship with God—where his power superpowers our lives.

Step 2: Self-evaluate and discover your “one thing.”

When we practice humility—admitting our weakness and letting God’s strength flow through us—we access superpowers that allow us to live a conquering lifestyle:

Loving God means obeying his commands. And God’s commands are not too hard for us, [4] because everyone who is a child of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world—our faith. [5] So the one who conquers the world is the person who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

1 John 5:3-5 NCV

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

Romans 8:37 NIV

We’re not meant to survive life—we’re meant to conquer it. But not through our own strength. We are meant to conquer it through the superpowers God gives us when we walk with him in humility.

But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, [23] gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!

Galatians 5:22-23 NLT

These are our superpowers that are a result of God’s presence within us. Here’s what each one does:

1. Love — This gives us the superpower of transformation. Love changes everything—it transforms enemies into friends, hatred into forgiveness, and brokenness into wholeness. This is the love that compelled God to send Jesus and compels us to lay down our lives for others.

2. Joy — This gives us the superpower of resilience. Joy is more than being happy. It’s the ability to adapt and endure so that no matter the obstacles or difficulties, we keep advancing and achieving the dreams God has laid on our hearts.

3. Peace — This gives us the superpower of thriving under pressure. We can stay cool, focused, and able to handle any and every situation without being overwhelmed. Even if our outside is chaotic, our inside stays calm.

4. Patience — This gives us the superpower of finishing. We can stay on task and focused until completion. We don’t wait with bitterness or complaining, but with assurance and determination. We can wait with the confidence that God is going to come through, and until he does, we will stay at it—methodical, deliberate, and confident of victory.

5. Kindness — This gives us the superpower of relationship-building. It empowers us to build friendships with anyone of any culture, race, or ethnicity, because we have the ability to bring out the best in people.

6. Goodness — This gives us the superpower of purpose and vision. Purpose is living our lives to make the world and people’s lives better. Vision is seeing the good and best in people.

7. Faithfulness — This gives us the superpower of confidence in God. Faith tells us that no matter what the scoreboard of life says, we will win if we stay the course. This is what makes everything that is humanly impossible possible with God.

8. Gentleness — This gives us the superpower of sensitivity. We can sense where people are at. It’s emotional intelligence at a level beyond what can be taught or learned through books. This allows us to see and heal hearts.

9. Self-control — This gives us the superpower of spiritual strength. It’s the ability to say no to ourselves, our destructive emotions, and the storms that seek to sink or distract us. This allows us to master ourselves and our sins so we grow even stronger, more full of the Spirit.

Question 1: Which superpowers am I currently trying—and failing—to produce through my own strength?

Look at the nine superpowers above. For each one, give an honest assessment of how you’re experiencing it:

Love (transformation):

• A. I struggle to love people unconditionally—especially those who hurt me.

• B. I love people based on what they do for me, not who they are.

• C. I’m experiencing Spirit-given divine love—loving people the way God loves them.

Joy (resilience):

• A. I’m trying to stay resilient through sheer willpower, and I’m exhausted.

• B. I avoid challenges and give up easily when obstacles come because I don’t have real resilience.

• C. I’m experiencing Spirit-given resilience—I keep advancing despite difficulties.

Peace (thriving under pressure):

• A. I’m constantly stressed and overwhelmed—I have no real peace.

• B. I fake calmness, but I’m panicking inside.

• C. I’m experiencing Spirit-given peace that keeps me focused under pressure.

Patience (finishing power):

• A. I quit things before finishing because I can’t wait for results.

• B. I’m impatient and frustrated with God’s timing.

• C. I’m experiencing Spirit-given patience—staying on task until completion.

Kindness (relationship-building):

• A. I struggle to build relationships or bring out the best in people.

• B. I use manipulation or performance instead of genuine kindness.

• C. I’m experiencing Spirit-given kindness that builds real connections.

Goodness (purpose and vision):

• A. I don’t know my purpose or how to make others’ lives better.

• B. I’m living for myself instead of making the world better.

• C. I’m experiencing Spirit-given purpose—seeing the best in people and situations.

Faithfulness (confidence in God):

• A. I don’t believe God can change my circumstances.

• B. I give up when things look impossible.

• C. I’m experiencing Spirit-given faith—confident God will come through.

Gentleness (sensitivity and emotional intelligence):

• A. I’m oblivious to what people are really feeling.

• B. I sense people’s pain but don’t know how to help them heal.

• C. I’m experiencing Spirit-given sensitivity—seeing and healing hearts.

Self-control (Spiritual strength and mastery over sin):

• A. I’m enslaved to my emotions, habits, and sins.

• B. I keep trying and failing to change the same struggles over and over.

• C. I’m experiencing Spirit-given self-control—mastering myself instead of being mastered.

Count how many boxes you checked in each category:

• A’s (“I’m trying on my own and failing”)

• B’s (“I’m faking it or avoiding it”):

• C’s (“I’m experiencing the Spirit’s power”):

Pray, write, or talk with your discovery partner: Looking at where you’re relying on your own strength, what’s it costing you? How is self-reliance leaving you conquered instead of a conqueror?

Question 2: Am I conquering or being conquered?

Being conquered looks like this:

• Living in survival mode instead of victory mode.

• Feeling defeated by the same struggles year after year.

• Trying to produce resilience, peace, patience, and self-control through willpower alone.

• Exhausted from trying to be good enough in our own strength.

• Giving up on dreams because obstacles feel too big.

• Allowing sin, emotions, and circumstances to control us.

Being a conqueror looks like this:

• Living in victory through God’s superpowers flowing through our weaknesses.

• Overcoming struggles we couldn’t beat in our own strength.

• Experiencing joy, peace, patience, and self-control as supernatural gifts.

• Resting in God’s strength instead of striving on our own.

• Advancing toward dreams despite obstacles.

• Mastering sin, emotions, and circumstances through the Spirit’s power.

Circle the lines that best describe your current life. How many do you have in each section?

When we ignore spirituality and walking with God, we allow ourselves to be conquered rather than doing the conquering.

Pray, write, or talk with your discovery partner: In what area of my life am I being conquered because I’m trying to fight in my own strength instead of accessing God’s superpowers?

Question 3: Which superpower do I need most right now?

Think about the biggest challenge, struggle, or dream you’re facing right now.

Which superpower would change everything if you had it?

• Love (transformation power)

• Joy (the resilience to keep going)

• Peace (the ability to thrive under pressure)

• Patience (the power to finish what we start)

• Kindness (the ability to build relationships)

• Goodness (clear purpose and vision)

• Faithfulness (confidence that God will come through)

• Gentleness (sensitivity to see and heal hearts)

• Self-control (spiritual strength to master ourselves)

Now answer honestly:

• On a scale of 1-10, how much have I been trying to produce this quality in my own strength?

• On a scale of 1-10, how much have I been practicing humility (admitting weakness) and asking God for this superpower?

• What would it look like to stop trying to generate this power myself and start accessing it through the Holy Spirit?

Pray, write, or talk with your discovery partner: What would change in my life if I actually had this superpower flowing through me? What’s keeping me from admitting I can’t produce it myself and asking God for it?

Question 4: What does it mean to live limitlessly?

Look again at Galatians 5:23: “Against such things there is no law.”

The superpowers God gives us aren’t capped; they go beyond rules, laws, or limits. They’re meant to be limitless—growing stronger and stronger as we walk with God in humility.

The honest question:

• Where have I put a limit on what God can do through me?

• Where have I decided “This is just who I am” instead of believing God can empower me to change?

• Which superpower do I most doubt God can give me?

Pray, write, or talk with your discovery partner: What would my life look like if I actually believed these superpowers are meant to be limitless in me? What would I attempt that I’m not attempting now?

THE ONE THING:

Look at everything you’ve written in Step 2. Now complete this sentence:

The one superpower I need most—and have been trying to produce in my own strength instead of accessing through humility—is…

And if I stopped relying on myself and started practicing humility as the gateway to this superpower, everything would change because…

Before you meet with your discovery partner, spend 30 minutes connecting with God about the superpower you identified in Step 2.

Pray and journal:

• “God, I’ve been trying to produce (your superpower) in my own strength. I admit I can’t. I need your Spirit to empower me with this.”

• “What am I afraid will happen if I stop relying on myself and start depending on you for this superpower?”

• “How would my life change if I actually experienced this superpower flowing through me?”

Write what you sensed God saying to you:

Step 3: Make a relationship connection.

Superpowers don’t flow in isolation. They flow through relationships. When we connect with God and with others who walk with him, we gain access to power that changes everything:

You know God identified Jesus as the uniquely chosen One by pouring out the Holy Spirit on Him, by empowering Him. You know Jesus went through the land doing good for all and healing all who were suffering under the oppression of the evil one, for God was with Him.

Acts 10:38 Voice

And now, O Lord, hear their threats, and give us, your servants, great boldness in preaching your word. [30] Stretch out your hand with healing power; may miraculous signs and wonders be done through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” [31] After this prayer, the meeting place shook, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. Then they preached the word of God with boldness.

Acts 4:29-31 NLT

The church then had peace throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria, and it became stronger as the believers lived in the fear of the Lord. And with the encouragement of the Holy Spirit, it also grew in numbers.

Acts 9:31 NLT

1. Relationship with God empowers us.

But he did not doubt or waver in unbelief concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong and empowered by faith, giving glory to God.

Romans 4:20 AMP

But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to him at all.

Romans 8:9 NLT

We actually gain power through connection with God: Holy Spirit power, prayer power, the power that bears fruit in your life, the power of love and authentic relationships, the power of self-discovery, the power of forgiveness, the power of understanding. All these spiritual powers give us the ability to change the world.

2. Relationships with other Christians empower us.

But now that we have died to those chains that imprisoned us, we have been released from the law to serve in a new Spirit-empowered life, not the old written code.

Romans 7:6 Voice

For I long to visit you so I can bring you some spiritual gift that will help you grow strong in the Lord. [12] When we get together, I want to encourage you in your faith, but I also want to be encouraged by yours.

Romans 1:11-12 NLT

When believers connect, they help each other become empowered. They connect each other to the power, presence, and purpose of God rather than becoming overly reliant on one another to constantly recharge them. Prayer together multiplies power. Spiritual encouragement strengthens faith. Shared wisdom from the Bible brings breakthroughs. Walking together keeps us from being dominated by weakness.

3. Relationships with those who don’t yet know God allow us to empower them.

And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. [27] And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will.

Romans 8:26-27 NLT

We who are strong must be considerate of those who are sensitive about things like this. We must not just please ourselves. [2] We should help others do what is right and build them up in the Lord.

Romans 15:1-2 NLT

When we experience God’s superpowers, we become a conduit to bring others into that same power. Our transformation empowers others to believe transformation is possible.

Your assignment: Schedule a 60-minute conversation with someone who walks with God—someone who can pray with you, encourage you, and remind you that God’s superpowers are real.

Share:

Courageously open your heart by sharing these discoveries from Step 1 & 2:

1. Your Heart Check status and why you checked it.

2. The superpower you most need (from Step 2) and why.

3. What you’ve been trying to do in your own strength that isn’t working.

4. What you sensed God saying to you in your prayer time.

5. Your “One Thing” statement—the transformation you’re relying on God for.

Ask:

Take another courageous step by asking your discovery partner these questions:

• “Have you seen me trying to handle this in my own strength? What have you noticed?”

• “Do you believe God can actually give me this superpower? Why or why not?”

• “Will you pray with me right now for God to empower me with this?”

• “Will you walk with me for the next seven days as my storm-calming discovery partner—someone who reminds me of God’s power when I forget?”

Pray together for at least 10 minutes. This isn’t a quick prayer. This is asking God to empower you with a superpower you’ve never consistently experienced.

After the conversation and prayer time, pray about, talk through with them, or write down:

What they prayed for you:

What you felt during the prayer—did you sense God’s power?

What they said that gave you faith this transformation is possible:

Remember: Relationships superpower you. God empowers you directly through prayer and his Spirit. Other believers empower you to connect with God through prayer, encouragement, and accountability. And you empower others by sharing what God is doing in you. This isn’t about going it alone. This is about tapping into the power that flows through connection.

Focus

My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, [5] so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.

1 Corinthians 2:4-5 NIV

Our goal is not for people to think we are powerful (because we are weak). Our goal is to allow them to see the power of God and therefore turn to God—not follow us as human beings.

With your storm-calming discovery partner, complete this statement together:

“For the next seven days, I commit to walking in God’s presence, power, and purpose by practicing (your superpower from Step 2) when (specific storm/situation) hits. Instead of trying to produce this in my own strength, I will walk in the Spirit—staying connected to God’s presence by , accessing God’s power by , and following God’s purpose by .”

Example: “For the next seven days, I commit to walking in God’s presence, power, and purpose by practicing the superpower of patience when my teenage son’s behavior triggers my anger. Instead of reacting in my own strength, I will walk in the Spirit—pausing to pray (presence), asking for supernatural patience (power), and responding with love that brings transformation (purpose).”

Your statement:

If I walk in God’s presence, power, and purpose this week—even once—here’s the impact it would have:

Grow

Once you experience this superpower—even once, even partially—you’re going to share it with someone who doesn’t yet know God or is struggling to believe God’s power is real.

With your discovery partner, identify this:

Who is someone in my life who needs to know that God’s superpowers are real and available?

Name:

What storm are they facing that this superpower would help them conquer?

Within the next week, I commit to:

• Sharing my story of experiencing God’s superpower with them.

• Praying with them for God to empower them.

• Inviting them to start their own experiment of accessing God’s superpowers.

• Other:

My discovery partner will help me follow through by: (choose one)

• Daily text at (time) asking “Did you experience the superpower today?”

• Every other day phone call to pray together and celebrate victories.

• Three times this week to share what’s changing and remind me to share with [person’s name].

• Other:

Remember: Developing your superpower isn’t about becoming a better version of yourself through self-improvement. It’s about staying so connected to God spiritually that his superpowers flow through you uninhibited. This is implementation. This is execution. This being empowered by the Holy Spirit to change your life and change the world.

Step 4: Take action for a week—see what happens!

Pick Your Avenger

You’ve identified the superpower you need most (from Step 2). Now it’s time to become the spiritual version of the Avenger who embodies that superpower.

Match your superpower to your Avenger:

• Love as an unselfish concern for others = SCARLET WITCH / WANDA
  Your love transforms everything—enemies become friends, hatred becomes forgiveness, brokenness becomes wholeness.

• Joy (Resilience) = SPIDERMAN
  No matter how many times you get knocked down, you keep getting back up.

• Inner peace (Thriving under pressure) = CAPTAIN AMERICA
  You stay calm in chaos and subdue the storm by being steady.

• Patience (Finishing power) = HAWKEYE
  You wait confidently and finish what you start.

• Kindness (Relationship building) = CAPTAIN MARVEL
  You bring out the best in people and empower them.

• Goodness (Purpose/vision) = BLACK PANTHER
  You live to make the world better and see the best in people.

• Faithfulness (Confidence in victory) = THOR
  You believe you’re worthy and victory is coming, no matter the scoreboard.

• Gentleness (Sensitivity/emotional intelligence) = BLACK WIDOW
  You sense where people are hurting and bring healing.

• Self-control (Spiritual strength/mastery) = IRON MAN
  You master your weaknesses instead of being mastered by them.

My Avenger: My Superpower:

Your mission: Become the spiritual [Your Avenger]

You don’t need a complicated plan. You just need one simple practice repeated seven times.

Your daily practice (do the same thing every day for seven days):

Morning:

• Read Galatians 5:22-23 and focus on YOUR superpower and YOUR Avenger.

• Pray: “God, I can’t produce (your superpower) in my own strength, just like (your Avenger) couldn’t save the world without their power. Today I’m admitting my weakness and asking your Spirit to flow through me. Give me this superpower.“

Throughout the day:

When your storm hits (the situation you identified in step 3), think: “What would (your Avenger) do?” Then practice this three-step pattern:

1. Admit weakness: “This is too big for me in my own strength.”

2. Ask for the superpower: “God, I need (your superpower) right now.”

3. Act like your Avenger: Take one small action as if the superpower is already working through you—the way your Avenger would respond.

Evening:

Text or call your discovery partner. Answer one question: “Did I become the spiritual (my Avenger) today—even a little?”

Share what happened (or didn’t happen). Pray together for 2 minutes.

That’s it. Seven days. Same simple pattern. Watch what happens when you stop trying to be a hero in your own strength and start letting God’s Spirit superpower you like your Avenger.

Day 7: Sunday reflection

After seven days of practicing humility and asking for your superpower, answer these questions with your discovery partner:

• Did you experience the superpower? Even once? Even partially?

• What changed when you stopped trying to produce it yourself and started accessing it through God?

• On a scale of 1-10, how much more do you believe God’s superpowers are real and available to you?

• What storm are you ready to face as a conqueror instead of being conquered?

• Which Avenger do you feel like you became this week—even for a moment?

Final question: What changes now that you know what it feels like to access God’s superpowers instead of relying on your own strength?

Remember: You don’t become a conqueror by being perfect for seven days. You become a conqueror by practicing humility seven times—admitting weakness and accessing God’s strength—until it becomes your instinct. You’re not trying to prove you’re strong enough. You’re discovering that when you’re weak, God’s power makes you more than a conqueror. And your experiment is successful when you can tell others: “Here’s what happened when I stopped surviving in my own strength and started conquering through God’s superpowers—I became the spiritual [my Avenger].”

Share The Spiritual Frontier

For we know, brothers and sisters loved by God, that he has chosen you, [5] because our gospel came to you not simply with words but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and deep conviction. You know how we lived among you for your sake.

1 Thessalonians 1:4–5 NIV

In a recent podcast episode, I discussed something we believe in here at Deep Spirituality: biblical Christianity. Biblical Christianity is simple Christianity. It’s not about following our own traditions or denominations, but about the gospel, pure and powerful. It’s about following Jesus and his Word, undistracted by human preferences, opinions, or cultural baggage.

This is where God has been leading Deep Spirituality from the beginning. Recently, I’ve put a name to this mission: making God audible.

When God becomes audible, we develop deep conviction. Or, as Eugene Peterson translated the above verse, the Holy Spirit puts steel in our convictions:

When the Message we preached came to you, it wasn’t just words. Something happened in you. The Holy Spirit put steel in your convictions.

1 Thessalonians 1:4-5 MSG

Biblical Christianity is about removing the veils over our hearts caused by inherited interpretations of Scripture so we can hear God clearly. When God is audible through Scripture without hindrance, our faith grows. As our faith grows, we see real change in our lives.

You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did.

James 2:22 NIV

What happens when God is audible

“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. [35] Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.

John 4:34–35 NIV

I believe the harvest Jesus describes in John 4 is not about organized religion, but open hearts. It’s people responding to the voice of God as revealed in his Word.

The harvest is made up of people who want God, not religion. But if we trade truth for tradition, God will send the harvest somewhere else—wherever people can hear him clearly.

Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.

Matthew 21:43 NIV

If those of us in organized religion make God audible, then those open hearts will find us. But if we worship “golden calves”—our past, our preferences, or our pride—then we’ll end up valuing traditions more than truth.

And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”

Exodus 32:4 ESV

Like the Israelites in Exodus, we can easily replace God with cheaper, human-made gods. When that happens, God will send the open hearts elsewhere—wherever the unvarnished truth can be heard, where people can become followers of Jesus rather than tradition.

This is what the LORD Almighty says: “Do not listen to what the prophets are prophesying to you; they fill you with false hopes. They speak visions from their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD.”

Jeremiah 23:16 NIV

The goal isn’t to abandon church community, but to ensure that our churches remain places where God’s voice is clearest and most central. We should become places where Scripture shapes our practices, rather than places where traditions shape our interpretation of Scripture.

When a church community is spiritual, it actually amplifies God’s voice through collective study, accountability, and worship. But we must make sure to guard against elevating human leadership, preferences, or institutional maintenance above faithful engagement with God’s Word.

Spiritual but not religious

Most people in today’s world want God. They just don’t find him in religion.

Data shows the vast majority still believe in God—whether they call him “Father” or “a higher power.” But they are looking for him outside church buildings, because too often, church is no longer where people hear God.

But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them?

Romans 10:14 NLT

This doesn’t mean we need to make church more “relatable” at the expense of watering down God’s Word. It means we must become more spiritual—rekindling a deep, reverent devotion to Scripture. Making God audible begins when we exalt his Word in how we read it, respond to it, and teach it.

So faith comes from hearing, that is, hearing the Good News about Christ.

Romans 10:17 NLT

God’s Word is not chained

Everything we do at Deep Spirituality is about learning how to become these spiritual people who hear God, walk with him, and help others do the same.

… for that [gospel] I am suffering even to [the point of] wearing chains like a criminal; but the word of God is not chained or imprisoned!

2 Timothy 2:9 AMP

While we may not be in physical prison, we can allow God’s Word to be imprisoned by neglect, compromise, or the exaltation of human opinion. But God’s Word is powerful, and not meant to be weighed down by tradition.

Let us not chain God’s Word. Let us become spiritually powerful—not through self-promotion or religious conformity, but through the conviction, clarity, and happiness that come from living in an audible relationship with God.

This is where you come in

As I’ve expressed throughout The Chemistry Lab, I’m passionate about making God audible. I believe the Bible—from Genesis to Revelation—is meant to help us discover him. My dream is to create a community of people who believe in and live out biblical Christianity—the simplicity of living life by Scripture without the baggage of religious performance.

See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.

Colossians 2:8 NIV

New podcast episode: Making God audible

For our newsletter this week, I recorded a new podcast episode where I talk about this very idea—what it means to make God audible, and what’s next for Deep Spirituality.

I appreciate everyone who’s been on this journey—reading, sharing, reflecting, and asking for new tools. In this episode, I’ll share a few of those tools we’re working on to help you hear God more clearly.

Some of these tools will literally make our content audible, allowing you to grow spiritually even as you go about your day.

Tools for making God audible

Scripture Playlists

Curated scripture collections in podcast form with a theme, light commentary, and questions for application.

Our most recent episode is titled “Beyond the Surface,” and is an audible Bible study on superficiality vs. spiritual depth.

Deep Reads

Audio versions of Chemistry Lab newsletters. These are for when listening is easier than reading.

Past editions available:

• A new space for spiritual people in superficial times.

• Destiny, dreaming, and resisting the “reasonable.”

• We’re all a little stuck. But there’s a way out.

• Fire in the lab, flow in the spirit.

The Best Life series

Practical, relational devotionals designed to apply biblical insights to everyday life.

Try these with friends:

• Shake It Off, Talk It Out: A Spiritual Guide to Resolving Conflict

• Heart Over Hustle: How to Spiritually Handle Our Finances

• Love, Listen, Learn: Why Relationship Skills Matter

How you can help

Every time you subscribe, share, or respond, you’re helping make God audible to someone who needs to hear him.

As they listen, their secret thoughts will be exposed, and they will fall to their knees and worship God, declaring, “God is truly here among you.”

1 Corinthians 14:25 NLT

We’re building something together. A community. A movement. A rediscovery of what it really means to hear God.

Let’s keep going.

Listen to the podcast:

• Spotify

• Apple

• Website

Share The Spiritual Frontier

Do not despise these small beginnings, for the LORD rejoices to see the work begin …

Zechariah 4:10 NLT

I started Deep Spirituality nearly ten years ago with a simple vision to help my local church. I wanted to provide Bible studies that made deeper spirituality more accessible for the members of the church. Little did I know, God was using these small beginnings to create something bigger than I had ever imagined.

Thanks to the feedback we got from many of you, I soon realized that there is a great need and hunger for a space to explore the depths of the Bible. Deep Spirituality began to expand to many others beyond our local community.

Fast forward several years, and this is what also led me to create The Chemistry Lab newsletter on Deep Spirituality. We are continually working to make this newsletter the best it can be—not to gain more subscribers, but to lay the foundation of discovery.

I am under no assumption that I have all the right answers. Through this process, I’ve often gone back and disagreed with myself. We are not trying to know everything; we are trying to make God audible and read the Bible for what it is—a book of discovery.

The more we discover who God is in the Bible, the more depth we will have, which leads to an unshakeable life.

An unshakeable life begins with digging deep

I will show you what everyone is like who comes to me and hears my words and obeys. [48] That person is like a man building a house who dug deep and laid the foundation on rock. When the floods came, the water tried to wash the house away, but it could not shake it, because the house was built well.

Luke 6:47-48 NCV

Even when life, politics, emotions, and people threaten to shake us up, we can remain steady and unshakeable when we dig deep and build on the rock of Jesus’s words.

Depth and superficiality have been common themes so far in The Chemistry Lab. You may remember that in our first issue, we discovered that our human tendency toward superficiality is one of the root causes of unrest in the world.

“From the least to the greatest, their lives are ruled by greed. From prophets to priests, they are all frauds. [14] They offer superficial treatments for my people’s mortal wound. They give assurances of peace when there is no peace.

Jeremiah 6:13-14 NLT

Increasingly, the times in which we live are politically polarized, economically aggrieved, religiously disinterested, institutionally distrusting, and socially angry. From a biblical point of view, these problems are not new; they exist whenever God is replaced with the shallow solutions of this world.

For us to choose spirituality, we must learn from Jesus and resist the temptation to reduce life to the wisdom of a tweet or the opinion of an influencer. We must resist the urge to live by emotional reactions without reflection and human judgment absent the Word of God.

Real life, the life God has invited us to discover, is not superficial. It is multi-dimensional, deeply spiritual, and whole.

Beyond the surface: A scripture playlist to deepen your connection with God

Today, our team has developed a Scripture Playlist that dives deeper into the topic of, well, diving deeper. You can listen to it, read it, or read while you listen. It will walk you through key scriptures about superficiality and how to deepen your connection with God.

As you listen to this Scripture Playlist, this is a great opportunity to use our new “How to Have a Deep Quiet Time” downloadable guide. Write notes, verses, and reactions as you listen along to deepen your relationship with God even further.

Share The Spiritual Frontier

Leadership involves speaking and standing up for the truth, and truth produces conflict. Most of us prefer a life without conflict. Consequently, most of us avoid speaking, writing, or standing up for truth whenever possible. For years, I have searched for the answer to writing truth and managing the potential conflict that comes with it.

The answer came from David Brooks at a release event for his book The Road to Character. I submitted a question which the moderator chose to ask him: How do you handle criticism? His answer was personal as he described the negative emotional effects that reading comments had on him, and the lesson he learned that you should not read these comments for the sake of your own well-being. Going forward, I am going to take his advice, and perhaps you will as well.

Here is a truth that I am compelled to write today: In my many decades of life, I have never seen so many leaders who won’t lead. I understand why; the flow of criticism of leaders is 24/7 in all forms of media, and we have more forms of media than any other time in history. Yet when we take a closer look at society, it is the small minority who spew their vitriol with destructive intent.

This is of particular importance to me because something essential for the life of every organization I am involved with—especially the church—is the development of leaders. While I find a large number of people who are willing to be leaders, I find far fewer who will actually lead. I understand their fear because I feel it myself. And yet, if we believe in the causes for which we live and intend to live lives of purpose, then we must become leaders. But we must not just be leaders—we must become leaders who lead.

So, I went in exploration of an answer for why we become leaders or are placed in positions of leadership but refuse to lead. I found those answers in a man named Lot.

Lot saw courageous leadership firsthand in his uncle Abraham, who was a great spiritual leader. The Bible calls Lot a “righteous man,” (2 Peter 2:7-9 NIV). He was often distressed and even tormented by the evil he saw around him. Today, many of us feel the same.

But Lot was conflicted; even though he was a good man who held a position of leadership, he did not have the courage inside to lead. His story is instructive for any of us who want to stand up for the truth and lead others to do the same. It teaches us to strengthen ourselves internally by personally following God. As we follow him rather than people, we develop the conviction and courage necessary to truly lead.

The heart to follow: Why letting others lead is spiritual

And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went out together from Ur of the Chaldeans in order to go to the land of Canaan; and they came as far as Haran and settled there. [32] And the days of Terah were 205 years; and Terah died in Haran.

Genesis 11:31-32 LSB

Lot possessed the heart and talent for following. His story begins with him following his grandfather. He didn’t get a vote nor did he express a desire to march to the beat of his own drum.

The best leaders are always those who have learned to follow. Many leaders struggle, both privately and publicly, because they have spent too little time following, and I would include myself in that list. In my case, it took time. I would follow, then lead, fail, and the cycle would repeat. I spent my high school years on the bench, and a lot of the years after that following people when I wanted to lead. It has taken decades to see how much that saved me.

Once Lot’s grandfather, Terah, passed away, Lot kept following. This time he followed his uncle Abram (who would later be known as Abraham).

So Abram went forth as Yahweh had spoken to him; and Lot went with him. Now Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. [5] So Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions which they had accumulated, and the persons which they had acquired in Haran, and they departed to go forth to the land of Canaan; thus they came to the land of Canaan.

Genesis 12:4-5 LSB

So Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev, he and his wife and all that belonged to him, and Lot with him. [2] Now Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver and in gold.

Genesis 13:1-2 LSB

Abram had also learned to follow. He had followed his father, Terah, and eventually learned to follow God. Abram’s relationship with God was powerful; he walked with God wherever God told him to go. He was growing and going where God led him. Abram had a wife and an abundance of possessions. He also had a faithful follower in Lot, who without question was an asset to and relationship for Abram, which is why Abram brought him along.

When Abram went into an unfamiliar land called Egypt to get away from a famine and other troubles, Lot was right alongside him, participating in the abundant blessing God was giving Abram.

Abram heard from God. Abram had the calling. Abram had the destination. Lot went with him.

There is nothing wrong with following someone with spiritual conviction. We need people like that to grow. The danger comes when following someone else’s convictions becomes a substitute for developing our own.

And notice: following Abram was comfortable. It led to promise, protection, and prosperity. Lot had learned to follow men—in this case Abram, a man who followed God. The question is whether or not Lot had learned to follow God himself.

Most people who become leaders but fail to lead lack the interior life and personal relationship with God to lead others. They hold the position but lack the conviction necessary to produce courage, which is essential for any leader at any level.

The conviction to lead: Why following men is not the same as following God

Now Lot, who was going with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents. [6] And the land could not sustain them while living together, for their possessions were so abundant that they were not able to live together.

Genesis 13:5-6 LSB

Following was working out perfectly for Lot until he became as successful as Abram. At that point there was strife between their herdsmen (vs.7). Abram proposed that they split up, not out of animosity, but the realization that it was time for Lot to lead his own life.

For the first time, Lot would be on his own. He had wealth, servants, family, and freedom.

But did he have conviction?

Personal conviction is not personal convenience.

Then Lot lifted up his eyes and saw all the valley of the Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere … [11] So Lot chose for himself all the valley of the Jordan, and Lot journeyed eastward. Thus they separated from each other.

Genesis 13:10-11 LSB

Lot lifted up his eyes and chose what looked best to him. He made no attempt to ask God for guidance; he simply chose the most convenient path. While his choice was certainly understandable, it was not rooted in conviction that God would guide him in the best way to go. This is a conviction he would desperately need later on.

Personal conviction always starts with God.

And Yahweh said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, “Now lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; [15] for all the land which you see, I will give it to you and to your seed forever.”

Genesis 13:14-15 LSB

Lot looked, and chose what he saw. Abram waited, and God told him where to look. Abram’s conviction started with his trust in God. He relied on God’s words and God’s direction rather than what he saw. This is the crucial difference between following people and following God and the reason many of us fail to do it. Following God requires faith in something much greater than we could possibly imagine, while following people requires little faith.

Lot had learned to follow men. He had not learned to follow God.

Position is not conviction: Why having leadership doesn’t make you a leader

Lot was barely on his own before disaster struck. War broke out in the region he had chosen to live, and eventually the victorious invaders captured him:

They also took Lot, Abram’s nephew, and his possessions and departed …

Genesis 14:12 LSB

So Abram heard that his relative had been taken captive, and he led out his trained men, born in his house, 318 in number, and went in pursuit as far as Dan. [15] And he divided his men against them by night, he and his servants, and struck them and pursued them as far as Hobah, which is north of Damascus. [16] And he brought back all the possessions, and he also brought back his relative Lot with his possessions and also the women and the people.

Genesis 14:14-16 LSB

Abram didn’t hesitate. He took responsibility. He risked himself for someone else. He led. He compensated for the fact that Lot couldn’t protect himself and his family.

Lot was on his own as the leader of his family, servants, herdsman, and possessions, but he did not lead. We have no record of him attempting to fight back against being captured or lead his family out of danger.

Lot had now seen conviction-driven courage up close. He had had an opportunity to see his lack of leadership. The question is whether he would learn from it.

What happens when leaders won’t lead: Five lessons from the life of Lot

After his rescue, Lot continued living in the city of Sodom. The wickedness in that city grew to the point that two angels of the Lord came and disguised themselves as humans to see what was going on.

Then the two angels came to Sodom in the evening as Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. Lot saw them and rose to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground.

Genesis 19:1 LSB

In the ancient world, the city gate was where elders and officials sat. The Bible does not directly tell us whether Lot was either an elder or official, but he did step up and take leadership to protect strangers from the wickedness in his home city.

The problem is, despite taking some level of responsibility for righteousness and leadership, no one followed him. Lot would be faced with conflict and criticism, and his lack of conviction would become painfully clear at the moment he needed it most. We can learn five painful but valuable lessons from the next parts of his story about what happens when a leader won’t lead.

1. Compromise: A conscience without conviction negotiates.

Lot urged the angels to come stay in his house instead of spending the night in the town square for fear of their safety, but the men of the town still surrounded his house with the intent to attack his guests.

But Lot went out to them at the doorway and shut the door behind him, [7] and said, “Please, my brothers, do not act wickedly. [8] Now behold, I have two daughters who have not known a man; please let me bring them out to you, and do to them what is good in your eyes; only do nothing to these men, inasmuch as they have come under the shelter of my roof.”

Genesis 19:6-8 LSB

Lot called the intent of the men “wicked.” He knew what was right and what was wrong. But then his own response is horrifying: he offered his daughters to the mob. He did not lead. He negotiated; he compromised, at the expense of his own daughters. He possessed a conscience but not a conviction based on his walk with God, so he could not stand up against wickedness.

The response of the men of Sodom tells us what Lot’s leadership was worth. The moment he tried to use his conscience and leadership for righteousness, they dismissed him:

“…This fellow came to town as an outsider, and now he’s acting like our judge!”

Genesis 19:9 NLT

A seat at the gate doesn’t make a leader. Being disturbed by evil is not the same as having the conviction to stand against it. Why?

Lot had learned to follow men. He had not learned to follow God.

2. Lost influence: Our lives speak louder than our words.

The angels whom Lot attempted to protect actually protected him. They rescued him from the mob at his door and told him to get his family out of Sodom before it was destroyed. Lot followed.

And Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, and said, “Get up, get out of this place, for Yahweh will destroy the city.” But he appeared to his sons-in-law to be jesting.

Genesis 19:14 LSB

Lot with urgency spoke to his sons in-law, but they did not take him seriously. Why? Because when we have not lived a life of conviction, we have forfeited the influence that could have been ours. His sons-in-law did not listen. Instead, they laughed.

Leadership is not merely about being on stage, up front, or in charge. Our personal life, our walk with God and personal conviction resulting in courage is how influence is developed, through the weight of our life, not the emotional urgency of our words.

Lot had lived in Sodom long enough that when the crisis came, his words carried no weight.

Lot had learned to follow men. He had not learned to follow God.

3. Indecision: When God says ‘go,’ hesitating is resistance.

Now at the breaking of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Get up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city.” [16] But he hesitated. So the men seized his hand and the hand of his wife and the hands of his two daughters, for the compassion of Yahweh was upon him; and they brought him out and put him outside the city.

Genesis 19:15-16 LSB

One word describes leaders who lack a walk with God and the conviction that comes with it: Hesitation.

Where Abram took action, Lot hesitated, because Lot lacked the trust developed over a life of faithfulness. This is what Abram had, and why he could lead when Lot could not.

Lot had traveled with Abram all those years, learned to be successful, gotten married, and built a family. But he had missed the heartbeat of what made Abram flourish, which was his belief in, reliance on, and obedience to God.

Destruction in Sodom was certain. Lot’s family was in danger. God had spoken clearly. And yet, Lot lingered.

The angels had to take him by the hand.

After all these years, Lot was still being led.

Lot had learned to follow men. He had not learned to follow God.

4. Risk-aversion: We bargain with God when we don’t trust him.

For most of Lot’s life, following was comfortable. He followed Terah. He followed Abram. He benefited from Abram’s faith, protection, and convictions.

Then in a moment of crisis, God asked Lot to follow him somewhere he did not want to go. God asked Lot to trust him.

Now it happened, as they brought them outside, one said, “Escape for your life! Do not look behind you, and do not stay anywhere in the valley; escape to the mountains, lest you be swept away.” [18] But Lot said to them, “Oh no, my lords! [19] Now behold, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have magnified your lovingkindness, which you have shown me by preserving my life; but I cannot escape to the mountains, lest calamity overtake me and I die; [20] now behold, this town is near enough to flee to, and it is small. Please, let me escape there (is it not small?) that my life may be preserved.”

Genesis 19:17-20 LSB

The man who spent his whole life following suddenly did not want to follow.

Why? Because following someone else’s convictions is easy when they are taking us somewhere we want to go. Eventually, God will lead us somewhere our comfort doesn’t want to go.

That is when borrowed convictions fail. Lot had lived off Abram’s convictions. He absorbed Abram’s morals, but he never learned from Abram how to walk with God for himself. Many people live this way, living off a parent’s faith, a minister’s convictions, or a church’s culture. It happens in the secular world too; many people live off the innovators’ success, the family connection, the inherited money, the reputation associated with our last name, or the school we attended.

It works until we are in the crucible of life—a place no one can live, own, or endure for us. In these places, we must rise to the occasion based on our own personal conviction and summon our own personal courage, something I believe is ultimately impossible in every aspect of life without a relationship with God. Some will succeed in certain areas, but not all. Only God empowers us to handle all of life, even the parts we are not naturally good at.

This moment, this crucible that God is calling us toward, is the mountain.

The mountain frightened Lot. It required him to trust God rather than his circumstances. So, he negotiated a compromise with God instead of building a relationship of trust where he would follow him.

Lot had learned to follow men. He had not learned to follow God.

5. Personal loss: The people who follow us pay the price.

Then his wife, from behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

Genesis 19:26 LSB

“Remember what happened to Lot’s wife! If you cling to your life, you will lose it, and if you let your life go, you will save it.”

Luke 17:32–33 NLT

The loss of his wife was the beginning of the price Lot paid for being a leader unwilling to lead. She made her own choice, but she was following a husband who left Sodom in compromise. She lacked a partner who inspired her to break free and look forward. In many ways, she did what he was doing in his heart rather than what he was doing with his feet. When a leader begrudgingly does God’s will, they will find that those who follow them look back and lose.

The angels led. Lot hesitated. His wife was lost.

We cannot follow God while clinging to the life God is calling us to leave.

Then comes one of the most ironic verses in Genesis.

Afterward Lot left Zoar because he was afraid of the people there, and he went to live in a cave in the mountains with his two daughters.

Genesis 19:30 NLT

Lot ended up on the mountain anyway.

The place he refused to go by faith, he ended up going by fear. Not to a calling, but to a cave.

What follows (Genesis 19:30–36) is the collapse of his family. His daughters would make painful and destructive choices. The responsibility is their own. But the trajectory is sobering.

Lot began surrounded by Abraham’s faith. He ended isolated in a cave with a shattered family.

We will all face the mountain. The only question is whether we climb it by conviction, or are driven up it by fear.

Lot had learned to follow men. He had not learned to follow God.

The mountain is where God grows us.

The small village Lot asked for was Zoar: small, close, familiar, manageable. Zoar was a smaller walk with God than the one God was offering.

Lot understood morals. He knew right from wrong, and that was good. But his walk with God never grew to the mountain level. He lived with a front seat to Abram’s faith his whole life without learning to walk in it.

Zoar is the culmination of that life: living, but not learning to walk with God.

Many people are satisfied with Zoar. They keep their morals, and they never climb to the mountain. But the mountain of discomfort is where God grows us into people who can fulfill his will.

Conviction produces courage.

Courage allows us to embrace discomfort.

Discomfort produces growth.

Growth prepares us to fulfill God’s will.

We cannot become leaders if we keep choosing Zoar whenever God calls us to the mountain.

Lot had learned to follow men. He had not learned to follow God.

Conclusion: When Abraham isn’t standing next to you

Lot stands as a warning to everyone about learning to live by faith in men instead of God. Let’s look at the progression of Lot’s life to learn how leaders end up not leading:

1. Followed convictions: Lot followed Terah, then Abram.

2. Borrowed convictions: Lot borrowed Abram’s convictions instead of building his own.

3. Position without conviction: Lot chose Sodom and still needed rescue.

4. Compromise: Lot negotiated instead of standing up.

5. Lost influence: No one took Lot seriously.

6. Indecision: Lot hesitated. Angels had to lead him out of Sodom.

7. Risk-aversion: Lot chose the small town of Zoar over the mountain.

8. Personal loss: Lot lost his wife and lived in a cave with a broken family.

And underneath this entire story is one haunting reality: Lot never really learned to lead.

Lot had learned to follow men. He had not learned to follow God. Without conviction, we will never have the courage to lead.

And without courage, we will keep choosing Zoar when God is calling us to the mountain.

What about you? Are you growing your own convictions? What mountain is God calling you toward? Let’s grow together to be the leaders God is calling us to become, and the world so desperately needs.

Share The Spiritual Frontier

The strongest and most pervasive temptation of our current generation is to settle for superficiality. This human instinct to stay on the surface is what got me to start The Chemistry Lab in the first place. By all accounts, it is easier to stay superficial than it is to go deep. But not everything that is easier is better.

This is what Andy Grammer addresses in his song, “The Good Parts.” In our efforts to protect ourselves from pain or potential rejection, our instinct is to ignore the things that hurt, feel heavy, or cause us shame. But this also leaves out “the good parts” —the real, whole, and full life that comes from a deep connection with God.

What Andy Grammer’s song communicates is the battle we face every day to choose between superficiality and depth.

But Jesus, for His part, did not entrust Himself to them, because He knew all people [and understood the superficiality and fickleness of human nature], [25] and He did not need anyone to testify concerning man [and human nature], for He Himself knew what was in man [in their hearts—in the very core of their being].

John 2:24-25 AMP

As Jesus communicated, it’s our natural human instinct to choose superficiality over depth. I wrote about this phenomenon in the very first Chemistry Lab newsletter:

Much of what’s going wrong in our culture—whether in politics, religion, or relationships—can be traced to how superficiality has displaced spirituality… For us to choose spirituality, we must learn from Jesus and resist the temptation to reduce life to the wisdom of a tweet or the opinion of an influencer. We must resist the urge to live by emotional reactions without reflection and human judgment absent the Word of God.

Maybe you, like me, have noticed the superficiality of the world. Maybe you’ve even noticed it in your own life. As I’ve written about in The Chemistry Lab, the world needs leaders who are willing to understand, discover, and look beyond what they can see. The world needs people who aren’t afraid to go deep, who recognize the futility of superficial solutions to their problems and search for spiritual ones instead.

How do we go deep in a superficial world?

But how do we overcome our human instinct to remain on the surface? How do we grow to live a life of depth and discovery?

Don’t you know that He who pursues and explores the human heart intimately knows the Spirit’s mind because He pleads to God for His saints to align their lives with the will of God? [28] We are confident that God is able to orchestrate everything to work toward something good and beautiful when we love Him and accept His invitation to live according to His plan.

Romans 8:27-28 Voice

God is not superficial. He understands and explores our hearts to an intimate depth that no human can reach. If we want to live this life of depth, we need to connect our hearts to his. This process of aligning our hearts with God’s and discovering what he is orchestrating in our lives begins in prayer.

One of my friends opened my eyes to this truth at a moment when I was struggling to have faith. Everything about Christianity seemed like a rule to me. I felt stuck and frustrated, but I didn’t know how to change. I asked my friend for help, and he told me that my faith would grow deeper when I learned how to pray (Luke 11:1).

My experience of Christianity felt shallow and superficial because my conversations with God were superficial. I couldn’t sustain a very long conversation with him. The more I learned how to pray deeply, the more connected to God I became. I discovered more and more things to talk about with him and our conversations grew not only in length but also in depth. My focus started to change from behaving right to believing in God’s purpose for my life.

This was a pivotal moment for me, and it was only the beginning. Building a deep connection with God is not a skill that can be mastered. It is a daily journey embarked on by those who are always willing to learn and discover something new.

And those [in the last group] are the ones on whom seed was sown on the good soil; and they hear the word [of God, the good news regarding the way of salvation] and accept it and bear fruit—thirty, sixty, and a hundred times as much [as was sown].” [25] For whoever has [a teachable heart], to him more [understanding] will be given; and whoever does not have [a yearning for truth], even what he has will be taken away from him.”

Mark 4:20, 24-25 AMP

Whether we are new to faith or a seasoned Christian, we need a teachable heart to build a deep connection with God. As we pray and embrace God’s Word each day with humility and curiosity, we will develop even more understanding and depth than we could ever have on our own.

Like a plant, God’s Word can grow deep into our hearts and shape us from the inside out. But we need to cultivate the soil of our hearts to make room for the Word to grow. The more we till the soil and water the seed of God’s Word, the more we will see its fruit in our lives—character, conviction, confidence, and courage (Galatians 5:22-23).

This is how we fight the superficiality of the world. This is how we discover the whole and full life that comes with a deep walk with God.

A guide to digging deep and having a fruitful quiet time with God

This week, my team and I have developed a guide to help us embark on a journey of deep discovery in our relationship with God. Using Jesus’s metaphor of planting a seed, we will break down the broad topic of spiritual depth into something we can experience every day. On the first page of the guide, you’ll find five steps:

• 👨‍🌾 Prep the soil: Soften the soil of your heart through awareness.

• 🧰 Pick your tools: Choose questions that will deepen your understanding of Scripture.

• 🌱 Plant the seeds: Write down your reactions and responses as you read the Bible.

• 💦 Water the plant: Deepen your connection with God by praying about what he revealed to you.

• 🍎 See the fruit: Bring the Word of God into your life and watch how it grows.

On the second page of the guide, we added a space called “The Parking Lot.” Sometimes, when we slow down enough to spend time with God, we also remember other things—anxious thoughts, items we need to do, or people we need to connect with. These things are often important but can distract us from digging deeper into our hearts. The Parking Lot is a place to write down any of these thoughts so that you can come back to them later and keep your focus on God while you read the Bible and pray.

What to read with this guide

You can use this quiet time guide as a companion to anything you are reading in the Bible. You can print it out, use it digitally, or write notes in a notebook. To start off, try using it while reading or listening to one of our Scripture Playlists that dives into a specific topic in the Bible. A great way to get started in building more depth is studying this set of scriptures about God’s deep understanding of us:

Share The Spiritual Frontier

I sat down with a man who almost died proving he was enough — and what he found on the other side changed how I see my heart, my leadership, and honestly, my own life. This is what to do when your life stalls, and how that stall might set you free.

My guest is Dale Sellers, author of Stalled, and his story starts with a quadruple bypass at 53. He had no family history and no warning. He shared with me that he had spent his life running toward a “there” that never arrived. What we uncover together at the root of this story goes beyond burnout. Dale shares about the father wound that quietly shaped his whole relationship with God, the moment a confession to a friend lifted what felt like a thousand pounds off his chest, and why “destination disease” — believing we will finally be whole once we arrive somewhere — keeps so many of us stuck.

We also get honest about comparison and how we can poison churches, careers, and friendships when we measure our lives against everyone else’s. If you’ve ever felt like you should be further along by now, this conversation is for you. You’re not behind. You’re not a failure. You are already approved — and freedom comes the moment you embrace where you actually are.

Who is Dale Sellers?

Dale Sellers is a veteran pastor and Executive Director of 95Network with 40 years of experience in leadership burnout recovery. Author of Stalled: Hope and Help for Pastors Who Are Weary, Why-less, and Wandering, he helps leaders move from survival to mission-driven vision.

Dale’s links

• Dale’s book: Stalled: Hope and Help for Pastors Who Thought They’d Be There by Now

• Dale’s website: The Renewed Pastor

In the past few newsletters, we’ve been tackling a very important question: What’s going on with our world?

Though technology is advancing, our human connections are deteriorating. Though scientific breakthroughs are at our fingertips, our mental and emotional health is declining. Though we are more digitally interconnected than we have ever been, we are also more divided. We have access to so much knowledge, and yet are left with so many questions.

What’s going on with our world is not an issue of external behavior but of internal motives, which only God can help us uncover:

All the ways of a man are clean and innocent in his own eyes [and he may see nothing wrong with his actions], but the LORD weighs and examines the motives and intents [of the heart and knows the truth].

Proverbs 16:2 AMP

As we looked deeply at ourselves and the Bible, we made an observation: our world is currently being broken by selfish ambition. The apostle Paul identified the warning signs of selfish ambition in this passage:

For I fear that perhaps when I come I will not find you to be what I want, and you may not find me to be what you want. Perhaps there will be quarreling, jealousy, angry outbursts, selfish ambitions, slander, gossip, arrogance, and disorder.

2 Corinthians 12:20 CSB

The signs of disorder in our culture are clear; selfish ambition is the destructive force behind it, but it’s not just in the world. It’s in our churches, too:

Some, it is true, are [actually] preaching Christ out of envy and rivalry [toward me—for no better reason than a competitive spirit or misguided ambition], but others out of goodwill and a loyal spirit [toward me]. [16] The latter [preach Christ] out of love, because they know that I have been put here [by God on purpose] for the defense of the gospel; [17] but the former preach Christ [insincerely] out of selfish ambition [just self-promotion], thinking that they are causing me distress in my imprisonment.

Philippians 1:15-17 AMP

Over the last few weeks, we have been testing a working hypothesis: selfish ambition produces spiritual disorder and social decay, but spiritual ambition rooted in God’s love creates peace, humility, and healing.

To test our hypothesis, we conducted an experiment, categorizing human ambition into six distinct types, each with its own potential catalyst to become spiritual. We learned how to transform destructive ambitions (selfish, dormant, and passive) into constructive ambitions (quiet, noble, and spiritual).

We learned that the greatest ambition we can have is to please God and make him known:

“Therefore, whether we are at home [on earth] or away from home [and with Him], it is our [constant] ambition to be pleasing to Him.”

2 Corinthians 5:9 AMP

Where do we go from here?

As we close this series, it’s now time to analyze our results and come to a conclusion. What do our hypothesis and experiment tell us about how to move forward? What can we learn so we can become catalysts for change?

As we ask ourselves whether transforming our ambitions can transform the world, remember that Jesus didn’t demand blind faith. He invited people into an experiment:

“Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.”

John 7:17 NIV

He also said this:

“By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.”

Matthew 7:16-20 NIV

In other words: Follow the data. Observe the outcomes. Judge by transformation.

Notebooks open. Let’s see what we can learn today.

The Analysis

Making sense of our answers by looking at data and the Scriptures.

Our experiment in part two of this series revealed six types of ambition:

• Selfish ambition

• Dormant ambition

• Passive ambition

• Quiet ambition

• Noble ambition

• Spiritual ambition

We learned what each of these ambitions looked like both in the Bible and our own lives. Now, let’s examine the result of these ambitions when they influence not just our personal lives, but our cultures and societies.

Destructive ambition creates disorder

Selfish, dormant, and passive ambition are all ultimately self-serving and self-preserving. Rather than developing an intimate, trusting, and powerful relationship with God, we use these ambitions to protect ourselves from our fears of rejection, risk, and failure. The result is a disordered life (James 3:16). The cultural data confirms our hypothesis that selfish ambition produces spiritual disorder and social decay:

• Rising narcissism. Studies show a 30% increase in measures of narcissism in American college students over the last two decades.

• Declining intimacy. People once reported having four or five close friends; now it’s two to three, and the number with no confidants has doubled.

• Eroding trust. In the early 1960s, a majority of the U.S. population believed most people could be trusted. By the 1990s, distrusters had a 20-point margin over trusters, and that gap continues to widen.

• Collapsing empathy. Today’s college students score 40% lower than 1970s students in their ability to understand what another person is feeling, with the biggest drop occurring after 2000.

• The death of character language. Words like “bravery” (down 66%), “gratitude” (down 49%), “humbleness” (down 52%), and “kindness” (down 56%) have drastically declined in usage, while individualistic phrases like “I come first” have surged.

The destructive effects of selfish ambition in the world are clear. But how do we address this? How do we become catalysts for change to turn selfish ambition into constructive spiritual ambition?

Churches are in a unique position to bring this issue to light and provide transformation, but the topic has been missing from most churches. Modern churches mention sin-related terms in less than 10% of sermons. At the same time, church attendance and membership have declined:

• Weekly church attendance has declined across all US religious groups.

• Church membership dropped from 70% of Americans in 1999 to 47% of Americans in 2020.

• The share of practicing Christians in the US has declined from 45% to 25% since 2000.

The correlation is clear: As churches stopped addressing the root cause (selfish ambition), both spiritual and social health deteriorated. It’s time to shift our focus.

The world desperately needs leadership guided by quiet, noble, and most of all, spiritual ambition. The church should possess the spiritual ambition to fulfill God’s will of being a light to the world. Darkness prevails when there are no spiritual people with the faith and courage to make God known.

His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, [11] according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Ephesians 3:10-11 NIV

Constructive ambition creates healing

When we transform destructive ambition into constructive ambition, the results are clear:

• Increased longevity. Seventh-Day Adventists are frequently studied in medicine because they have a higher life expectancy than perhaps any other population. They live 7-10 years longer than others in their demographic because their spiritual discipline improves their physical health. Their quiet ambition leads them to value rest, physical exercise, abstinence from harmful substances, and living a purposeful life.

• Increased intimacy. Religious couples report higher marital satisfaction and lower divorce rates.

• Improved emotional health. Church attendance correlates with lower depression, decreased substance abuse, and lower risk of suicide.

• Improved physical health. Prayer is known to improve health outcomes.

Each of these statistics reveals the tremendous opportunity before us; the church can be a catalyst for change. Our potential for impact in the world cannot be overstated.

The roadmap for right ambition

Now that we have established the constructive and destructive effects of different types of ambition, let’s learn how to develop spiritual ambition.

Replace selfish ambition with humility.

There’s little room for selfish ambition when we are genuinely invested in helping other people succeed.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or empty pride, but in humility consider others more important than yourselves. [4] Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Philippians 2:3-4 BSB

Embrace quiet ambition that builds character.

Character is built by doing quiet things that won’t necessarily get us praise or attention.

For indeed you already do practice it toward all the believers throughout Macedonia [by actively displaying your love and concern for them]. But we urge you, brothers and sisters, that you excel [in this matter] more and more, [11] and to make it your ambition to live quietly and peacefully, and to mind your own affairs and work with your hands, just as we directed you, [12] so that you will behave properly toward outsiders [exhibiting good character, personal integrity, and moral courage worthy of the respect of the outside world], and be dependent on no one and in need of nothing [be self-supporting].

1 Thessalonians 4:10-12 AMP

Pursue noble ambition in leadership.

Leadership in the church is a noble ambition. We can make a great impact by directing our ambitions toward God’s church rather than ourselves.

If any of you aspires to be an overseer in the church; you have set your heart toward a noble ambition, for the word is true!

1 Timothy 3:1 TPT

Flee destructive patterns.

We can choose what we pursue. This verse, written to a young leader in the church, urges us to run away from destructive ambitions and run toward the things that build our faith and love.

Run as fast as you can from all the ambitions and lusts of youth; and chase after all that is pure. Whatever builds up your faith and deepens your love must become your holy pursuit. And live in peace with all those who worship our Lord Jesus with pure hearts.

2 Timothy 2:22 TPT

Remember what truly lasts.

Our relationship with God is the only thing in life that truly lasts. All our other ambitions will fade away, leaving us empty and unsatisfied. Remembering what truly lasts will help us say no to destructive ambitions and choose constructive ones.

Stop loving this evil world and all that it offers you, for when you love these things you show that you do not really love God; [16] for all these worldly things, these evil desires—the craze for sex, the ambition to buy everything that appeals to you, and the pride that comes from wealth and importance—these are not from God. They are from this evil world itself. [17] And this world is fading away, and these evil, forbidden things will go with it, but whoever keeps doing the will of God will live forever.

1 John 2:15-17 TLB

Conclusion

Our scientific method has confirmed our hypothesis: Selfish ambition produces spiritual disorder and social decay, but spiritual ambition rooted in God’s love creates peace, humility, and healing.

Cease striving, start living

The answer to our cultural crisis begins with a simple command from God:

“Cease striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

Psalm 46:10 LSB

We must cease the empty striving of the world—the endless pursuit of status, recognition, and personal advancement that leaves us exhausted and unfulfilled. Instead, we must seek the satisfaction that comes only from God’s will, purpose, and love. Moses understood this when he prayed this prayer:

So teach us to number our days, that we may present to You a heart of wisdom. [13] Do return, O LORD; how long will it be? And be sorry for Your servants. [14] O satisfy us in the morning with Your lovingkindness, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. [15] Make us glad according to the days You have afflicted us, and the years we have seen evil. [16] Let Your work appear to Your servants and Your majesty to their children. [17] Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us; and confirm for us the work of our hands; yes, confirm the work of our hands.”

Psalm 90:12-17 NASB

True satisfaction comes not from our striving, but from being filled with God’s lovingkindness and seeing his work confirmed through our hands when we align with his purposes.

The call to transformation

We have learned from our study that selfish ambition is causing the spiritual and social decline in our culture. The church should provide answers and inspiration, but too often it has become complicit when it imitates rather than changes the world.

The Chemistry Lab has revealed the formula for change: When we cease our empty striving and embrace God’s purposes, when the church operates with spiritual rather than selfish ambition, we become the catalyst God intended—transforming not just ourselves, but our communities and culture.

As you move forward to become a catalyst for change, consider these questions:

• How have you seen the destructive effects of selfish ambition, either in your own life or in the world around you?

• How might you contribute to bettering the church’s influence on the world?

• How will you embrace quiet, noble, or spiritual ambition in your life?

• What would being satisfied with God’s will, purpose, and love look like for you?

Soli Deo Gloria – Live only for the glory of God.

I think a lot about people who see little to no connection between God and the church. Some believe in a higher power, but are not convinced this is the God of the Bible. Some are confused and disillusioned by religious arguments and accusations, doctrinal debates, and self-righteous judgmentalism aimed at them. Finally, some weaponize this religious noise to block, dismiss, and undermine any effort to communicate faith in the public square.

But making God audible is my ambition.

My ambition has always been to preach the Good News where the name of Christ has never been heard, rather than where a church has already been started by someone else.

Romans 15:20 NLT

Yes, ambition can be good. In the last edition of The Chemistry Lab, we started to understand the dangerous progression of selfish ambition. We observed that it is at the root of the spiritual disorder and social decay in our world today. I told you that I am an expert in selfish ambition and the pain it causes. But years of personal struggle have taught me that God can transform our ambitions. That’s why we also hypothesized that spiritual ambition rooted in God’s love creates peace, humility, and healing.

Today, we will run an experiment to test this hypothesis and learn to turn selfish ambition into spiritual ambition. As a reminder, we are following the scientific method to tackle this issue:

• Observation: Noticing things about ourselves that cause us to question the patterns we see in the world.

• Hypothesis: Proposing an explanation of what’s going on in the world using the Scriptures.

• Experiment: Testing our hypothesis by looking at the Bible and asking ourselves deep questions.

• Analysis: Making sense of our answers by looking at data and at the life of Jesus.

• Conclusion: Going forward with new clarity about what’s going on in the world and what we can do about it.

My ambition to make God audible is an uphill climb, but worth the effort. The truth about God is so much simpler, clearer, and more powerful than most people think. Inside of me, there is a faith and optimism that if people can just have the opportunity to engage the Scriptures—unfiltered by the behavioral religiosity that obscures the truth about God—they will discover God for themselves.

This is the purpose I would not be fulfilling if I had allowed selfish ambition to determine my destiny.

Before we start our experiment on how to change our ambition from selfish to spiritual, let’s discover what spiritual ambition is.

What is spiritual ambition?

My eyes were first opened to the possibility of changing my ambitions through conversations with my best friend, Scott, when we were in college. He had been a Christian longer than I had, and we were both young leaders in the ministry. He helped me understand that we each must choose between being what we called “prophets or presidents.” Prophets in the Bible played an essential role in God’s plan, but they were not often lauded by the people around them. Their ambition was to make God known, whether they were praised or penalized, loved or hated.

Choosing to be a “prophet” rather than a “president” meant an end to being driven by roles, positions, and competitions—all things I had relied on to demonstrate my worth and earn attention. Without them, I felt lost. These discussions began my process of reprioritizing my motivations.

Decades since those conversations with Scott, I have made many discoveries. The most important of these is that on too many occasions, selfish ambition is used to motivate people like me who are in the ministry. This same ambition often motivates politicians, business leaders, students, and a host of other people without consideration for the culture it creates.

Ambition is good, but it must be unselfish, and humans can’t sustain unselfish ambition for very long without God. That’s why our ambition must be not just unselfish but spiritual, generated from a relationship with the God of love. Jesus exemplified how that life of ambition should be lived.

Jesus defines spiritual ambition for us.

Jesus was the most ambitious person to ever walk the earth. His ambition? To save the entire world. Regardless of your beliefs, consider the scope of what he set out to accomplish—rescuing all of humanity from spiritual death and giving them a full life:

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

John 10:10 NIV

He described this ultimate ambition in John 12, before he died on the cross:

Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. [24] Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”

John 12:23-24 NIV

Many people don’t see Jesus as ambitious. They see the Jesus of religious tradition—a lifeless symbol. But Jesus had plenty of spiritual ambition, as described in the lyrics of the song “Secret Ambition” by Michael W. Smith. Jesus broke old traditional rules and questioned those in powerful positions, and his “secret ambition” was to give his life away.

Jesus’s ambition was free of the corroding influence of selfishness, and later we will learn how he developed and maintained his pure motives. He shows us that a true relationship with God frees us from the destructive and limiting effects of selfish ambition and allows us to experience our limitless spiritual nature:

But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, [23] gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!

Galatians 5:22-23 NLT

The apostle Paul understood this spiritual ambition, writing about it in the book of Philippians:

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.

Philippians 3:12 NIV

Spiritual ambition drives us to pursue a purpose greater than ourselves. In the Psalms, David reminds us that this purpose begins at conception:

Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

Psalm 139:16 NIV

Whether we’re young and hopeful or old and seasoned, God’s invitation remains the same:

For you have been my hope, Sovereign LORD, my confidence since my youth. [6] From birth I have relied on you; you brought me forth from my mother’s womb. I will ever praise you. [7] I have become a sign to many; you are my strong refuge. [8] My mouth is filled with your praise, declaring your splendor all day long. [9] Do not cast me away when I am old; do not forsake me when my strength is gone.

Psalm 71:5-9 NIV

Let’s run our experiment: What if we could categorize human ambition into six distinct types, each with its own potential catalyst to become spiritual? What would we discover about which ambitions build and which ones destroy? What would we discover about our hypothesis that selfish ambition produces spiritual disorder and social decay, but spiritual ambition rooted in God’s love creates peace, humility, and healing?

In this experiment, we will look at six people in the Bible who experienced various types of ambition. Some changed their ambition from selfish to spiritual, some remained the same and faced consequences, while others set an inspiring example for us who strive for purposeful ambition. Within each example, I’ll provide the person’s motivation for their ambition, a scripture highlight, and questions to reflect on, along with the personal decisions we can make to experience transformation ourselves.

Notebooks open. Let’s see what we can learn today.

The Experiment

Testing our hypothesis by looking at the Bible and asking ourselves deep questions.

Selfish ambition: How Saul’s insecurity led him away from God

Motivation:

Saul began his journey to becoming king humbly. But once he was in that position, Saul’s fear of rejection led him to use selfish ambition as a way to gain security instead of developing an intimate, trusting, and powerful relationship with God.

Scripture:

Then [Samuel] brought each family of the tribe of Benjamin before the LORD, and the family of the Matrites was chosen. And finally Saul son of Kish was chosen from among them. But when they looked for him, he had disappeared! [22] So they asked the LORD, “Where is he?” And the LORD replied, “He is hiding among the baggage.” [23] So they found him and brought him out, and he stood head and shoulders above anyone else. [24] Then Samuel said to all the people, “This is the man the LORD has chosen as your king. No one in all Israel is like him!” And all the people shouted, “Long live the king!”

1 Samuel 10:21-24 NLT

In these verses, the prophet Samuel was announcing to Israel who their first king would be. But once they got to Saul, the chosen one, they couldn’t find him. Saul’s decision to “hide among the baggage” revealed his insecurity, which reigned in his heart throughout his kingship and ultimately led to his downfall. Saul’s insecurity made him afraid of rejection, and he became self-consumed in his efforts to protect himself (1 Sam 15:12, 1 Sam 15:24, 1 Sam 18:6-12).

My personal lab results:

1. What are your insecurities—those things which cause you to think no one will ever love, respect, or want to be with you?

2. What situations, opportunities, or relationships surface those insecurities most consistently?

3. How do these insecurities and fears cause you to forget or ignore God, leading into the selfish ambition cycle we discussed in the last edition?

4. What role do you think God can play in helping you make peace with your insecurities to conquer the corrupting influence of selfish ambition?

My next steps: King Saul was replaced by David. Saul was consumed by his selfish ambition and never recovered. David was different, and he can help us discover the path to overcoming selfish ambition by relying on God.

And when He had removed him, He raised up David to be their king: of him He testified and said, ‘I HAVE FOUND DAVID the son of Jesse, A MAN AFTER MY OWN HEART [conforming to My will and purposes], who will do all My will.’

Acts 13:22 AMP

David provides us with a roadmap for overcoming the selfish ambition that consumed and destroyed King Saul and his family. The solution is a devotion to God so complete that our hearts become inspired by knowing and pleasing him. We conform to his will and purpose because we know that life with him is beautiful (Romans 8:28 VOICE).

Dormant ambition: How Nehemiah’s heart woke up

Motivation:

Nehemiah was in captivity under the Persian king Artaxerxes, serving as the king’s cupbearer. His fellow Jews who had returned to Jerusalem were defeated and experiencing disgrace, but Nehemiah was safe, prosperous, and successful.

Any ambition he had to serve God or his people was likely muted by a fear of risk. He knew the safety he would lose if he were to step forward and lead. With his own safety provided for, Nehemiah could afford to be emotionally detached from the needs of his people.

Our fear of risk can make us mute our ambition to know, serve, or lead for God. As a result, our ambition to make a difference for good and God will lie dormant. This is exactly where Nehemiah was until he made the pivotal decision to awaken his dormant ambition to serve God.

Scripture:

They said to me, “The remnant there in the province who survived the captivity are in great distress and reproach; the wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its [fortified] gates have been burned (destroyed) by fire.” [4] Now it came about when I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days; and I was fasting and praying [constantly] before the God of heaven.

Nehemiah 1:3-4 AMP

Nehemiah’s dormant ambition awoke when his heart awoke. He allowed himself to feel grief and pain for God and others, leaving apathy behind. As a result, he was able to access his desire to do good, which was much greater than his desire to stay safe.

My personal lab results:

1. When was the last time you accessed your desire and drive to do good by making a difference and creating change in the world?

2. What has caused you to suppress your desire and drive to do good, make a difference, or create change in the world?

3. Consider the life of Nehemiah in the passage above and by studying chapters 1-2 of the book of Nehemiah. How did his relationship with God awaken his dormant ambition?

4. How could you turn to God so he can awaken your dormant ambition? What can you do to let him awaken your heart so that you are no longer apathetic to the needs around you, but will instead go to work changing your life, others’ lives, and the world?

My next steps:

So I came to Jerusalem and was there for three days. [12] Then I got up in the night, I and a few men with me. I did not tell anyone what my God was putting in my heart to do for Jerusalem, and there was no animal with me except the one on which I was riding [so as not to attract attention].

Nehemiah 2:11-12 AMP

Nehemiah stopped listening to his human and sinful nature, which encouraged him to live only for his own safety. He overcame his fear of risk by placing his faith in God. Once his faith was in God, he was able to see and understand the plan God had laid on his heart. Awakening our dormant ambition begins by replacing our fear of risk with faith in God, then listening and looking for the path by which we can advance God’s cause to the best of our ability.

Passive ambition: How Moses overcame his fear of failure

Motivation:

By the end of his life, Moses was arguably the greatest leader of Israel, but he didn’t start off that way. He began his journey by attempting to be the nation’s hero and instead became a murderer (Exodus 2:11-14). Having been trained in leadership in the Egyptian court, his motivation was helping the people of Israel his way, which ultimately manifested as selfish ambition and led to failure.

After this, Moses went on the run, fleeing the penalty for murder (Exodus 2:15). He became a shepherd, far from the power and political intrigue of the Egyptian court. He forgot about rescuing Israel and focused on his own life—survival, prosperity, and safety.

Just when Moses had gotten comfortable in his new life of anonymity, God called to him from the now-famous burning bush (Exodus 3:1-4). God commanded Moses to go and lead Israel in Exodus 3-4, but Moses was not in the “going” mood. He no longer wanted to be a hero.

Scripture:

Moses said to the LORD, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.” [11] The LORD said to him, “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the LORD? [12] Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.” [13] But Moses said, “Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else.”

Exodus 4:10-13 NIV

At this point, Moses’s ambition had become passive—he only wanted to do what would make him happy. All the “hero” was gone. His only ambition was for himself and his comfort because he feared failure.

My personal lab results:

1. When was the last time you tried to do something heroic, but failed?

2. How did that failure affect your desire or drive to make a difference?

3. In what areas has your fear of failure caused you to say “no” to God rather than “yes”?

4. Passive ambition is rooted in selfishness. How can you turn your passive ambition into an active ambition motivated by serving God and doing good?

My next steps:

“This is the same Moses they had rejected with the words, ‘Who made you ruler and judge?’ He was sent to be their ruler and deliverer by God himself, through the angel who appeared to him in the bush. [36] He led them out of Egypt and performed wonders and signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea and for forty years in the wilderness.

Acts 7:35-36 NIV

Moses overcame his fear of failure and changed the world. This is a lesson for us all. Fear can make us passive, causing us to ignore the important ways we can serve God in achieving his purposes.

At the core, fear of failure leads us to live for self-preservation rather than service. We build our entire lives around ourselves rather than God and others. We become consumed by selfishness not because we are inherently selfish, but because we have trained ourselves to be afraid. We remember the pain of failure and never want to experience it again.

What we can miss about our lives yet learn from Moses is that both his failure and his time as a shepherd served as the perfect training experience for learning to lead people. His sin of murder teaches us that failure isn’t fatal in the eyes of God, regardless of what people think. Finally, we should learn the difference between Moses being in “hero mode” and “shepherd mode.” When he was in hero mode, he was relying on himself, but in shepherd mode, he learned to rely on God.

Breaking free from the passive ambition of selfishness will open the door to more spiritual forms of ambition, which we discuss in the next three biblical examples.

Quiet ambition: How Joshua made others great

Motivation:

As Moses’s assistant (Numbers 11:28), Joshua possessed the quiet ambition of being happy to be second, wanting to make the person up front successful. This type of ambition is essential to great marriages, families, teams, organizations, and even nations. Yet it is so rare.

Joshua had been with Moses since his youth and was content to be his assistant, doing whatever that role required. Although others sought to take leadership from Moses or gain power by being associated with him, we see zero interest or effort on the part of Joshua to do the same.

What is interesting is that this quiet ambition is clearly one of the reasons God chose Joshua to become Moses’s successor. This is because Joshua’s quiet ambition was moderated and disciplined by a deep spirituality; Joshua would worship God in the tent of meeting with Moses, but when Moses left, Joshua remained behind (Exodus 33:11). He was building his own relationship with God, which caused God to trust him as the leader to succeed Moses.

Quiet ambition is one of the highest, purest, and most powerful forms of ambition. It should serve as the foundation for all other rightly motivated ambitions. Once we grow comfortable with and even desire quiet ambition, we can expect God to use us in new, different, and possibly more powerful ways, just as he used Joshua.

But remember this, true quiet ambition doesn’t want the limelight! As we read earlier, Saul hid because he was insecure, but his desire for approval consumed him. Joshua could have followed the same path; we know he had fears about taking on a visible leadership role because God commanded him many times to be courageous. Joshua had big shoes to fill, but he chose to seek a deeper intimacy with God rather than succumbing to any fears of inadequacy.

Scripture:

“Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. [8] Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. [9] Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”

Joshua 1:7-9 NIV

Joshua’s relationship with God gave him the courage to step into a more visible leadership role without being corrupted by insecurity, fear of inadequacy, or selfish ambition.

Personal lab results:

1. Do you have the capacity to practice quiet ambition? When was the last time you were willing to be second or third so someone else could be first?

2. What insecurities or fears of inadequacy tempt you to turn the quiet ambition of making others great into the selfish ambition of making only you great?

3. If you’re the type of person who is content to be second, do you have any fears about joining Joshua in growing from a secondary to a more visible role? What are your fears about being seen and heard more often?

4. Why do you think a person with quiet ambition must be encouraged to be strong and courageous when taking on more leadership? How could you better serve God by becoming stronger and more courageous to take on more responsibility?

Next steps:

Quiet ambition prepares us for leadership so that when the time comes for us to be the ones making the decisions, we work well with others. This was true of Joshua, and we see it in his interaction with one of his peers, Caleb.

Joshua and Caleb were the only ones who had returned from the promised land with a faithful and optimistic report, while all others communicated a pessimistic report (Numbers 14:5-9). During this time, Caleb was singled out as faithful by God (Numbers 14:24). He and Joshua were the only two in their generation to enter the promised land (Numbers 14:30). Caleb was a great warrior, yet it was Joshua who was chosen to lead Israel in place of Moses. Years later, Caleb questioned Joshua about a promise God had made him:

“Now then, just as the LORD promised, he has kept me alive for forty-five years since the time he said this to Moses, while Israel moved about in the wilderness. So here I am today, eighty-five years old! [11] I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I’m just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. [12] Now give me this hill country that the LORD promised me that day. You yourself heard then that the Anakites were there and their cities were large and fortified, but, the LORD helping me, I will drive them out just as he said.” [13] Then Joshua blessed Caleb son of Jephunneh and gave him Hebron as his inheritance.

Joshua 14:10-13 NIV

As we can see in Joshua 14, Joshua’s quiet ambition surfaced when Caleb asked for his promise from God. A more selfish or corrupted ambition might have made Joshua insecure or competitive with Caleb, but instead, Joshua was pleased to be able to confirm God’s great vision and promise for Caleb’s life.

Those with a heart of quiet ambition are team players. This makes them more effective as leaders; they know how to lead because they have learned how to follow. This is evidenced by Joshua not trying to take all the limelight for himself. As the leader of Israel, he allowed Caleb’s value to shine rather than casting shadows over it.

What’s next for you and me? We must seek the heart of quiet ambition so that if God decides to give us more responsibility, we will handle it with the spiritual wisdom and generosity of Joshua. He made others better rather than focusing only on himself.

Noble ambition: How Paul’s status-seeking turned into service

Motivation:

Before he met Jesus, the apostle Paul was ambitious. As noted in Galatians, he was advancing beyond most of his peers as a member of the Pharisees, a prominent and influential religious sect at the time (Galatians 1:13-14). To him and the people around him, his ambitions were noble. He wanted to do what was right by God. In his mind, persecuting the church Jesus built was the best way he could do that, and he was great at it.

But Paul’s motivations weren’t completely pure. His resume was filled with status symbols of all types (Philippians 3:4-6). Status was his motivation, driven by the underlying fear of being wrong. Ironically, Jesus showed up and fulfilled this fear. He told Paul that he was wrong, and that it was time to make a decision to follow Jesus (Acts 9:4-16). This is when Paul became a Christian.

Paul’s fierce passion as a Pharisee was visible because of his intense ambition and certainty, which is why he had to be physically blinded and sit for three days after this interaction with Jesus. It seems that it took several days before he fully relinquished his will and way to God. Ananias, a believer who brought God’s message of destiny to Paul after those three days, had to ask, “What are you waiting for?” (Acts 22:16). Apparently, it was difficult for Paul to acknowledge that he was wrong even after seeing Jesus.

When being wrong is one of our biggest fears, the realization of it happening can hurl our lives into confusion and chaos. Religious people like Paul are particularly prone to misguided ambition and focusing on being right instead of being obedient and pleasing to God.

What Paul had to do was purify his ambition from status-seeking and selfishness. This clearly happened when he became a Christian. Once the purification of his motives took place, his ambition changed from selfish to truly noble. In this case, that meant being obedient and pleasing to God and passionate about his purposes.

Scripture:

But whatever former things were gains to me [as I thought then], these things [once regarded as advancements in merit] I have come to consider as loss [absolutely worthless] for the sake of Christ [and the purpose which He has given my life]. [8] But more than that, I count everything as loss compared to the priceless privilege and supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord [and of growing more deeply and thoroughly acquainted with Him—a joy unequaled]. For His sake I have lost everything, and I consider it all garbage, so that I may gain Christ…

Philippians 3:7-8 AMP

Paul allowed God to change his mind about what he should be striving for. What Paul once viewed as advancements in merit began to look insignificant compared to the surpassing value of knowing Jesus. Rather than viewing these achievements as losses in God’s sight, he learned to see them as tools—only useful when they serve to make God known. Once he let God purify his ambition, he developed the noble ambition of being close to God and helping others do the same.

Personal lab results:

1. What “status symbols” do you value?

2. How has your pursuit of status diminished your love for and obedience to God?

3. Why is it that when we gain status, it becomes more difficult to admit we are wrong? When has your desire to maintain your status kept you from admitting you were wrong?

4. What do you learn from Paul’s life that can help you purify your status ambition and turn it into a noble ambition?

Next steps:

For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. [10] But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.

1 Corinthians 15:9-10 NIV

Paul’s desire for status, attention, position, importance, and relevance was replaced by his gratitude for what God had done for him. He was so inspired by the grace he received from the cross and resurrection of Jesus that it became more important to him than everything else.

His passion became service to God and seeking the attention of God. He found satisfaction from the position of being in a relationship with God and found his importance in the love and purposes of God. He derived his relevance from the knowledge that God was pleased with his life. The next step for all of us is to learn from Paul how to turn status ambition into noble ambition so that God can use us to change lives and the world.

Spiritual Ambition: How Jesus got his power and motivation from God

Motivation:

Jesus is always intimidating to consider as a role model because he was perfect. But it might be more accurate to say he was without sin rather than perfect because Jesus experienced human weakness just like us and was tempted in every way we are (Hebrews 4:14-16).

The key to the sinlessness of Jesus was not his human effort but his spiritual motivation. His motivation was so pure that it gave him the power to resist temptation. His motivation was not to pursue personal glory, but to glorify God (John 5:41-44, John 7:16-18, John 8:50).

Attempts to corrupt this motivation were a central line of attack on Jesus. This should serve as both a reminder and inspiration to us about the power of pure motivations or what we can call spiritual ambitions.

Spiritual ambitions are those that lead us away from sin, not into it. They inspire us to serve others, not merely serve ourselves. When someone has spiritual ambition, they live, work, and possess a purpose greater than themselves. The Bible describes this as seeking God and his kingdom first (Matthew 6:33).

Becoming like Jesus is imitating his heart and motivation. We do this by finding the power to resist the lures of the world to corrupt our ambition.

Scripture:

Then Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan River. He was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, [2] where he was tempted by the devil for forty days. Jesus ate nothing all that time and became very hungry.

Luke 4:1-2 NLT

Personal lab results:

1. How seriously do you take your temptations?

2. Why was it so important for Jesus to experience temptation?

3. What temptations do you face that threaten the purity of your motives?

4. In what ways could you imitate Jesus’s motivations?

Next steps:

Then the devil took him up and revealed to him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. [6] “I will give you the glory of these kingdoms and authority over them,” the devil said, “because they are mine to give to anyone I please. [7] I will give it all to you if you will worship me.” [8] Jesus replied, “The Scriptures say, ‘You must worship the LORD your God and serve only him.’”

Luke 4:5-8 NLT

Jesus came to Earth with a mission to save all humanity. This would be accomplished not through his considerable power, but through his death on the cross, through embracing the weakness of being human, then relying on God to deliver him.

This left Jesus vulnerable to a great temptation: the fear of powerlessness. He was a human with the power of God at his fingertips, but he was not going to use it. So the devil offered him another way, a different type of power, the power to control the world. This would provide another path to saving the world — one that wouldn’t require him to experience suffering, pain, or powerlessness.

What Jesus did instead was conquer the fear of powerlessness. He resisted the temptation to be motivated by the pursuit of power or control and instead chose to rely on God. In doing this, he allowed the world to see the greatness of God and gave them a chance to believe.

We need to understand that our desires for power and control could perhaps be our greatest temptations. This is especially true for leaders, but it applies to everyone; every human seeks control for confidence, security, and peace. We must resist these desires for power and control and instead place our faith and absolute trust in God. Rather than fearing the vulnerability of powerlessness, we will increase our confidence in the love and power of God to rescue and deliver us.

When we live with this purity of motivation, we develop spiritual ambition. We are ready and willing to use all of our talents, resources, and efforts to advance the velocity of hope through the gospel so it can reach every human being possible. In so doing, we will allow anyone to live the best life possible—a beautiful life, here and for eternity.

Field notes

Key takeaways and final thoughts to carry with us into the week ahead.

After examining Saul, Nehemiah, Moses, Joshua, Paul, and Jesus, here’s what our lab analysis reveals:

• Three destructive elements (selfish, dormant, and passive ambition): These create spiritual and social decay. But they can be transformed into spiritual ambition by following the roadmap in Scripture.

• The constructive elements (quiet, noble, and spiritual ambition): These ambitions, rooted in God’s love, create peace, humility, and healing.

• The critical discovery: Most people think the solution to selfish ambition is no ambition. Wrong. The antidote to toxic ambition isn’t the absence of drive—it’s the right kind of drive.

The diagnostic question:

As always, I would love to hear from you. Which type of ambition currently drives your life?

• Do you find yourself constantly comparing, competing, and accumulating achievements or possessions? These are signs of selfish ambition.

• Have you checked out, convinced that nothing really matters? This is a sign of dormant ambition.

• Are you playing it safe, avoiding anything that might fail? This is a sign of passive ambition.

• Are you faithfully serving without needing recognition? This is a sign of quiet ambition.

• Are you fighting for justice and positive change? This is a sign of noble ambition.

• Are you pursuing God so passionately that you inspire others to do the same? This is a sign of spiritual ambition.

The Chemistry Lab conclusion: Every believer needs at least quiet ambition to live out God’s purposes. But the world desperately needs more people with spiritual ambition—those whose relationship with God becomes so transformative it awakens potential in everyone around them.

The political climate of today is such that people often ask me what is going on with our world.

My answer can be found within the next three newsletters, but begins with a story about a conversation James Roosevelt had with his father, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), after his father was elected president for the first of four terms:

“You know, Jimmy,” Franklin said, “all my life I have been afraid of only one thing—fire. Tonight I think I’m afraid of something else.” “Afraid of what, Pa?” “I’m just afraid that I may not have the strength to do this job.” He paused reflectively. “After you leave me tonight, Jimmy, I am going to pray. I am going to pray that God will help me, that he will give me the strength and the guidance to do this job and to do it right. I hope you will pray for me, too, Jimmy.”

H.W. Brands, Traitor to His Class

What I know about our country, our culture, and the world is that despite all the difficulties and tragedies, it does not seem that anyone today prays like one of our greatest presidents did then.

FDR had his flaws, as do we all. But he prayed. The difference between him and many other leaders is the nature of his ambition. Selfish ambition—a desire to get something for one’s own pleasure or profit—is often considered essential in secular leaders. But any self-promoting, self-reliant, or self-consuming motivations in FDR had been tempered by contracting deadly polio on a family trip. He went to bed sick and woke up paralyzed. His battle to overcome changed him so he could change the world.

What is wrong with our world today? Too few leaders like this exist in the world, and I am not sure they are desired. Nevertheless, I will make the case that we need them, and the best path for developing them is found in the Scriptures.

Let me explain.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

The paradox of progress: How our selfish ambitions cause us to lose more than we gain

Again, I saw futility under the sun. [8] There is a man all alone, without even a son or brother. And though there is no end to his labor, his eyes are still not content with his wealth: “For whom do I toil and bereave my soul of enjoyment?” This too is futile—a miserable task.

Ecclesiastes 4:7-8 BSB

The last 25 years of the 21st century have brought breathtaking advances in science and psychology. We diagnose and cure diseases that once destroyed generations. We live longer, think faster, and understand more about the human brain. We seem poised for generational breakthroughs as AI and quantum computing promise unimaginable futures.

Yet something has shifted in these same decades. The rise of social media, hustle culture, and personal branding has transformed ambition from something we once pursued on behalf of greater humanity into something we now chase in isolation. The remote economy and the four-hour work week promised freedom, but reality is setting in as these post-pandemic visions are being upended by the creative destruction of AI. Once again, we are experiencing the very futility the writer of Ecclesiastes observed—endless labor that leaves us asking, “For whom do I toil?”

We’ve gained unprecedented tools for connection, yet loneliness epidemics plague our societies. We’ve democratized ambition, making it accessible to everyone with a smartphone and a side hustle, yet this same accessibility has made selfish ambition more universal—and more destructive—than perhaps any generation before us has experienced.

We live in polarized times. Hate explodes in mass shootings. Anxiety is the common cold of our emotional lives. Birth rates are plummeting. Fewer young people believe in marriage. And for many, the most profound experience of the day is earning more “likes” than their peers.

The irony is unbearable: at the very moment that we know more than we ever have, we also feel more lost than ever before. We are left to wonder how all our human achievements could have led us to the exact place Jesus warned us about. As he put it:

What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?

Luke 9:25 NIV

One of the reasons? We’ve placed all our faith in science and psychology—and used them to push ourselves to the center while God is relegated to the margins.

This is not a knock on science or psychology. They are extraordinary disciplines, capable of improving and saving lives. But they were never meant to replace spirituality.

Science is a way to measure physical truth. Psychology is a way to measure brain chemistry and its effects. They can’t tell us why we are here or how we should live, only how things work. But there is a third domain—one they cannot measure: the spiritual.

This is where we turn to God. To Scripture. To faith. And contrary to assumptions about scientists, this path is not as irrational as some would have us believe. Even Einstein recognized the necessity of both domains:

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions

Simply put, science and faith ask different questions and use different methods, but we need both to live fully human lives. Science without faith leaves us knowing how everything works but not why any of it matters. Faith without science leaves us with meaning but no way to engage the physical world God created.

Today, understanding and recognizing both science and religion as credible sources of wisdom, we’ll use the framework of the scientific method—not to prove God, but to pursue him. In doing so, we’ll rediscover what it means to live spiritually in a world dominated by data.

Here are the key elements of the scientific method that will help us discover the answer to the questions we began with: What’s going on in our world, and what can we do about it?

• Observation: Noticing things about ourselves that cause us to question the patterns we see in the world.

• Hypothesis: Proposing an explanation of what’s going on in the world using the Scriptures.

• Experiment: Testing our hypothesis by looking at the Bible and asking ourselves deep questions.

• Analysis: Making sense of our answers by looking at data and at the life of Jesus.

• Conclusion: Going forward with new clarity about what’s going on in the world and what we can do about it.

Over the next three weeks, we’ll run a spiritual experiment. We’ll collect evidence—not from labs, but from lives. We will operate under one bold premise:

The Bible offers a more precise diagnosis of our cultural crisis than any secular framework.

For ever since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through His workmanship [all His creation, the wonderful things that He has made], so that they [who fail to believe and trust in Him] are without excuse and without defense.

Romans 1:20 AMP

This is not just content. It’s a confrontation with the force that’s destroying our world.

The Chemistry Lab is open. Let’s begin our investigation.

Observation

Noticing things about ourselves that cause us to question the patterns we see in the world.

In this first step of the scientific method, here is my observation: our world is currently being broken by selfish ambition.

Let’s break this down.

Jesus taught us that we must diagnose our own vision problems before we attempt to help someone else with theirs.

Why do you look at the [insignificant] speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice and acknowledge the [egregious] log that is in your own eye? [4] Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me get the speck out of your eye,’ when there is a log in your own eye? [5] You hypocrite (play-actor, pretender), first get the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

Matthew 7:3-5 AMP

Centuries after Jesus taught this, psychiatrist Carl Jung discovered what he had been teaching all along. Jung wrote about those who can’t see other people clearly or objectively because they are projecting their own unresolved issues on them:

No matter how obvious it may be to the neutral observer that it is a matter of projections, there is little hope that the subject will perceive this himself. He must be convinced that he throws a very long shadow before he is willing to withdraw his emotionally-toned projections from their object.

Carl Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious

The similarity of Jung’s writing and Jesus’s teaching is spiritual chemistry at work—God using psychology to help us rediscover biblical truth. Jung was describing exactly what Jesus warned against: projecting our own unresolved issues onto others, criticizing their speck while ignoring our log. The hypocrite and the person with a “long shadow” are the same person.

I know this because I was that person. As a teenager, my way of projecting was to remain silent about my insecurities while being condescending—verbally and silently—to people around me. Years later, while reconnecting with friends, one of my former classmates said that she considered me and one of my friends to be the two most conceited people in our entire high school of 2,000 students. That was shocking to hear, especially since I was already a Christian by then. But it explained the length of my shadow and showed me that becoming a Christian was just the beginning—I needed to grow as a Christian by dealing with not only my sinful nature, but my human nature.

Achievement had been the measuring stick of my life from my earliest days. I measured myself by where I ranked in class, sports, and popularity. I defined myself by the positions I held, possessions I owned, and prestige I possessed. As a result, I developed an insatiable drive that I later learned was selfish ambition.

The problem was deeper than I realized. I thought I grasped the point of life, but I couldn’t—because I was living a life of selfish ambition, blinded to what God was doing in the world and in my life:

He has made everything beautiful and appropriate in its time. He has also planted eternity [a sense of divine purpose] in the human heart [a mysterious longing which nothing under the sun can satisfy, except God]—yet man cannot find out (comprehend, grasp) what God has done (His overall plan) from the beginning to the end.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 AMP

My obsession with achievement was my human nature’s dysfunctional response to life—a way to suppress and avoid uncomfortable emotions. But the result was an inability to access love and deep emotional connections. My sinful nature took advantage of these dysfunctional obsessions to draw me deeper into the empty pursuits of selfish ambition.

This dysfunction came from many places—being an adult child of an alcoholic, being raised during a time when men weren’t learning or teaching much about emotional intelligence, experiencing the insecurity of adolescence, and being an African American in a predominantly white community that I loved but required me to negotiate two very different worlds. All of this gave my sinful nature fertile ground to draw me into an empty life.

This was my “long shadow.” If I had not become a Christian, I would have avoided it all and just projected my angst onto other people through bitterness, criticism, and competition. But because I became a Christian, the light of Christ set me free from my shadow, just as John 8:31-32 promises.

The years have taught me to stop living to impress and start living to love people, with this passage of Scripture as my guiding light:

Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. [4] Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.

Philippians 2:3-4 NLT

Selfish ambition has been responsible for most of the foolish decisions, careless mistakes, heartless sins, and broken relationships in my life. It has been at the scene of all my ”unpretty” moments.

I am an expert on the manifestations and consequences of selfish ambition. While it’s humbling and it’s left me with my fingers searching for the rewind button on my life, I am nothing without my sins. They have taught me to understand the importance of focusing on God and relying on him to become the person I was meant to be rather than regretting the man I used to be.

Which puts me in a credible position to tell you: our world is currently being broken by selfish ambition.

Hypothesis

A hands-on reflection and action guide designed to turn insights into growth.

My observation leads me to this working hypothesis: Selfish ambition produces spiritual disorder and social decay, but spiritual ambition rooted in God’s love creates peace, humility, and healing.

What if the very force breaking our world is the same force that could heal it? Ambition was meant to build, not break. The difference lies in a single word: selfish. This hypothesis changes everything about how we approach our cultural crisis.

To explore this hypothesis, we need to start with Jeremiah 6, where the prophet addresses a people who are looking for solutions in all the wrong places:

This is what the LORD says: “Stop at the crossroads and look around. Ask for the old, godly way, and walk in it. Travel its path, and you will find rest for your souls. But you reply, ‘No, that’s not the road we want!’

Jeremiah 6:16 NLT

[13] “From the least to the greatest, their lives are ruled by greed. From prophets to priests, they are all frauds. [14] They offer superficial treatments for my people’s mortal wound. They give assurances of peace when there is no peace.

Jeremiah 6:13-14 NLT

The prophet Jeremiah noticed something about the mindset of his time. People were only out for themselves, driven by an innate ambition that had been corrupted with self-consumption.

The cultural data today confirms what Jeremiah observed. Let’s take a look at some data from a book by political and cultural commentator David Brooks:

Between 1948 and 1954, psychologists asked more than 10,000 adolescents whether they considered themselves to be a very important person. At that point, 12 percent said yes. The same question was revisited in 1989, and this time it wasn’t 12 percent who considered themselves very important, it was 80 percent of boys and 77 percent of girls.

David Brooks, The Road to Character

The percentage of people who consider themselves very important has increased, but here’s what I’ve learned working with every generation from Gen Z to Baby Boomers: saying you’re important and feeling personally secure are two different things. Many people I encounter are flooded with negative thoughts about themselves. The boasting is often a cover-up for deep insecurity.

We’ve confused being important with being loved, included, and valued in relationships. This is how the world distorts the essential with the superficial—offering “superficial treatments” just as the earlier passage from the prophet Jeremiah warned.

David Brooks also reports on the alarming rise in narcissism:

Psychologists have a thing called the narcissism test. They read people statements and ask if the statements apply to them. Statements such as ‘I like to be the center of attention…I show off if I get the chance because I am extraordinary…Somebody should write a biography about me.’ The median narcissism score has risen 30 percent in the last two decades. Ninety-three percent of young people score higher than the middle score just twenty years ago.

David Brooks, The Road to Character

These statistics give us helpful information, but fail to explain how our culture became fertile ground for narcissism. I believe there’s a dangerous progression at work:

Bruce Springsteen described this never-ending cycle perfectly in his song “Badlands”:

“Poor man wanna be rich, Rich man wanna be king, And a king ain’t satisfied till he rules everything.”

This is the dangerous cycle that the Bible describes in James 3:16—a disordered life born from selfish ambition. It’s a personal cycle we must break and a culture we must eradicate.

James explains exactly why this cultural breakdown is happening:

If you are wise and understand God’s ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom. [14] But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don’t cover up the truth with boasting and lying. [15] For jealousy and selfishness are not God’s kind of wisdom. Such things are earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. [16] For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind.

James 3:13-16 NLT

This “disorder of every kind” is shown across multiple areas in data presented by David Brooks in The Road to Character:

1. The rise of fame-seeking – Fame ranked 15th out of 16 life goals in 1976, but by 2007, 51% of young people listed being famous as a top personal goal. Middle school girls now prefer being a celebrity’s assistant over being president of Harvard.

2. The decline of intimacy – People once reported having four or five close friends; now it’s two to three, and the number with no confidants has doubled. Thirty-five percent of older adults report chronic loneliness, up from 20% a decade ago.

3. The erosion of trust – In the early 1960s, majorities believed most people could be trusted. By the 1990s, distrusters had a 20-point margin over trusters, and that gap continues to widen.

4. The collapse of empathy – Today’s college students score 40% lower than 1970s students in their ability to understand what another person is feeling, with the biggest drop occurring after 2000.

5. The death of character language – Words like “bravery” (down 66%), “gratitude” (down 49%), “humbleness” (down 52%), and “kindness” (down 56%) have drastically declined in usage, while individualistic phrases like “I come first” have surged.

These societal signs show we are in need of an answer when it comes to the question of selfish ambition and self-consumption. David Brooks captures the essence of the solution:

Humility is freedom from the need to prove you are superior all the time, but egotism is a ravenous hunger in a small space—self-concerned, competitive, and distinction-hungry.

David Brooks, The Road to Character

Brooks says humility is freedom. I agree that humility is freedom because it’s the absence of insecurity. It’s the freedom God gives us from always trying to impress. It’s the fruit of living God’s way, as James 3 continues to explain:

But the wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and the fruit of good deeds. It shows no favoritism and is always sincere. [18] And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness.

James 3:17-18 NLT

Humility breaks us out of the self-consumption cycle by making us willing to admit our deeper spiritual and emotional needs to God. What we need is not to be impressive or important, but to be loved, understood, and believed in. When we are humble, we will find security by being rooted in God’s love:

For this reason I kneel before the Father… [17] so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, [18] may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, [19] and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Ephesians 3:14, 17-19 NIV

Despite the weakness of our human nature and the sinfulness of our sinful nature, Jesus died on the cross to free us forever from the consequences of our past so we could live for the future. This is what saved me from selfish ambition and what I believe will save us all. Knowing how great God’s love is strengthens us on the inside, making us capable of handling whatever comes on the outside.

With this resilience, we can walk in this world no longer afraid of people or God because we know the cross has purchased us perfect love:

Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love. [19] We love each other because he loved us first.

1 John 4:18-19 NLT

The love of God quiets the noise and complexity of life, leaving us satisfied:

My heart is not proud, LORD, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. [2] But I have calmed and quieted myself, I am like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child I am content. [3] Israel, put your hope in the LORD both now and forevermore.

Psalm 131:1-3 NIV

This is how we move from a disordered life to a beautiful one.

This brings us back to our hypothesis: Selfish ambition produces spiritual disorder and social decay, but spiritual ambition rooted in God’s love creates peace, humility, and healing.

To be continued…

This is where we will leave our scientific method today. Next week, we will run an experiment to learn how to transform selfish ambition into spiritual ambition.

As we await the next installment of this three-part newsletter, reflect on these questions:

• How have you seen selfish ambition in your life? How do you see it in the world?

• Why do you think it’s helpful and even hopeful to identify selfish ambition in our own lives and in the world around us?

• What would taking the first steps of humility look like for you?

• How can God’s love keep you secure in the coming weeks?

As always, I would love to hear from you.

One of the most profound experiences I’ve had was reading Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman. When it was published in 1995, it upended our culture’s tendency to overemphasize IQ, undervalue gifts that aren’t intellectual, and ignore emotional insight.

For me, the book opened a door. It helped me understand my emotional numbness, suppression, and immaturity. Goleman broke through and made it okay to talk about emotion—at home, in school, at work, and beyond. Suddenly, those of us who were emotionally unaware or afraid had a path forward.

Over the years, I’ve recommended the book to many people—yet most of them never finish it. That always puzzled me. But eventually, I realized why: trying to overcome emotional limitations with insight alone is too much. People resonate with what Goleman teaches and might discover helpful insights about themselves, but they often don’t have the power to live it out.

And that’s where I believe his book stops just short of the deeper truth: we need spiritual power.

Great spiritual teachers, like Buddha and Jesus, have touched their disciples’ hearts by speaking in the language of emotion, teaching in parables, fables, and stories. Indeed, religious symbol and ritual makes little sense from the rational point of view; it is couched in the vernacular of the heart.

Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence

Goleman writes about Jesus and gets close to the truth. He describes Jesus as emotionally effective, but Jesus was more than that. Jesus was also spiritually real and powerful.

Jesus didn’t just speak the language of the heart—he transformed it. He didn’t just help people understand emotion; he gave them the power to become new people through the Holy Spirit.

How foolish can you be? After starting your new lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort?

Galatians 3:3 NLT

Emotional intelligence opens the door to change. But without the Spirit, most people can’t walk through it. Only those who walk with God the way Jesus did will step beyond emotional intelligence into a powerful and transformative life. That’s why the spiritual intelligence of Jesus must be taught, understood, and imitated if we want total transformation. Without it, we will rely on humanistic strength, grinding and striving to become someone better by our own effort.

But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, [23] gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!

Galatians 5:22-23 NLT

Transformation doesn’t come by trying harder—it comes from being connected with God. This is what produces qualities like love, joy, kindness, and strength in our lives and relationships. In today’s edition of The Chemistry Lab, we will discover how these qualities can become limitless in our lives, not through self-reliance, but through the Spirit who makes it possible.

Notebooks open. Let’s see what we can learn today.

The Weekly Experiment

A hands-on reflection and action guide designed to turn insights into growth.

If spiritual intelligence is the missing ingredient in our emotional growth, then we need to learn how Jesus lived it. What does it look like to follow his pattern?

First, we have to recover the real Jesus.

Because for too long, religious tradition has bled him dry—extracting his intensity, his tenacity, and his dangerous love—leaving behind a lifeless symbol. They’ve robbed us of the revolutionary who walked with outcasts and confronted power, substituting him with a harmless institutionalized figure who confronted no one and changed nothing. What they’ve stolen isn’t just his edge—it’s his heartbeat and his breath. It’s his capacity to shatter comfortable lies and awaken sleeping souls.

They’ve made him seem unreachable in an effort to depict sinlessness, detached in an effort to make him appear supernatural, and turned his humanity into a costume instead of reality.

But Jesus wasn’t a symbol. He was a man. He was a carpenter. He was built for storms and suffering. He was tough enough to face demons and tender enough to touch lepers. He was spiritually intelligent enough to read a room—and a soul—without saying a word.

When I try to grasp that presence, I often look to movie characters who show me glimpses of it. I see the spiritual steadiness of Jesus in Obi-Wan Kenobi. I see the focused intensity of Jesus in Jason Bourne. I see the mission-driven courage of Jesus in Mission Impossible’s Ethan Hunt. I see the relentless empathy of Jesus in Robin William’s portrayal of Patch Adams.

But even these characters—as incredible and even superhuman as they are—fall short.

To me, Jesus was a spiritual scientist—a people scientist—who unearthed the mysteries of the human soul the way Newton revealed gravity and Einstein revolutionized our understanding of reality itself.

As a people scientist, he didn’t just understand emotions; he transformed them. He didn’t just observe people; he discovered them. And what he discovered wasn’t weakness to be fixed but potential to be awakened.

That’s the Jesus we follow. And that’s the pattern we’re called to practice.

We can become spiritual and powerful people scientists like Jesus was. Here’s what he did, and, if we are bold enough to experiment, what we can do too:

1. Open your eyes

“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. [35] Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.

John 4:34-35 NIV

People scientists like Jesus pay attention to the people around them. They open their eyes to notice others, but they don’t make superficial judgments. They stop, listen, and learn. People scientists make it their life’s work to study and understand those around them—their needs, interests, dreams, passions, weaknesses, and strengths—with a deep and loving curiosity.

2. Act with compassion

Whenever crowds came to Him, He had compassion for them because they were so deeply distraught, malaised, and heart-broken. They seemed to Him like lost sheep without a shepherd. [37] Jesus understood what an awesome task was before Him, so He said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. [38] Ask the Lord of the harvest to send more workers into His harvest field.”

Matthew 9:36-38 Voice

Noticing people’s needs made Jesus feel compassion for them. But Jesus didn’t just feel something. He did something.

Compassion, for Jesus, wasn’t sentiment. It was action. It was a decision each day to alter the conditions of those he came to know.

People scientists don’t stop at empathy. They follow Jesus’s example. They move toward the hurting with a love that intercedes with prayer and intervenes with action.

3. Diagnose spiritually

But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. [25] He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person.

John 2:24-25 NIV

Emotional intelligence can read behavior. Spiritual intelligence reads the heart, the soul, and what’s beneath the performance.

People scientists like Jesus can do both. And that’s why they make the greatest impact—not by managing relationships, but by ministering to the soul.

Jesus didn’t just react to what people did. He understood who they were. This deeper understanding allowed him to see the patterns that no one spoke out loud and feel the brokenness that no one dared admit.

4. Live and lead with love

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.

John 15:9 NIV

Now about your love for one another we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other.

1 Thessalonians 4:9 NIV

The greatest people scientists are taught by God. They love from the deepest source of all—God himself.

This is how Jesus lived his life.

People scientists who follow his example don’t rely on tools or techniques to manage or manipulate relationships. They’re not motivated by performance or pressure, but by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, who lives in them. He shapes their hearts and teaches them how to love with patience, power, and purpose.

That’s what makes their love real and their leadership transformational.

Field Notes

Key takeaways and final thoughts to carry with us into the week ahead.

And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.

Romans 8:11 NIV

Jesus didn’t just model love; he made love possible through the Holy Spirit. Becoming a Christian isn’t adopting a moral code; it’s entering a relationship with God that rewires our hearts from the inside out.

The truth we must come to terms with this week is this: Emotional intelligence helps us manage behavior. Spiritual intelligence transforms who we are.

This is the spiritual chemistry we were made for: God’s Spirit connecting with our spirit to unlock our fullest potential—emotionally, spiritually, mentally, and physically—across all four dimensions of life.

Not everyone will believe this—but if you’ve ever sensed there’s more to you than self-help can reach, more to love than technique can teach, then you’ve already begun the search for what Jesus came to give.

And that’s what makes you a people scientist.
You don’t work harder to love people.
You notice them with open eyes.
You care for them with loving action.
You understand them beneath the surface.
You love God—and he teaches you how to love others.

If you’ve ever wondered whether Gen Z still wants anything to do with God, this conversation is for you. Dr. Tanita Maddox has spent 26 years on the front lines of Gen Z ministry, and what she taught me about talking to Gen Z about God completely reframed how I see this generation — and it’s the most hopeful conversation I’ve had in a long time.

We dig into why relationships — not statistics, not sermons, not slick programs — are still the doorway into faith for young people. Tanita shares the three things Gen Z says makes them actually feel listened to, why so many of them trust a stranger on TikTok more than the adults in their own home, and the surprising reason AI is becoming a competing spiritual authority in their lives. We also talk honestly about why being comfortable with being uncomfortable might be the most important skill we can give our kids — and ourselves.

This one is for parents wondering how to reach their teenager, for pastors wondering why Gen Z church attendance doesn’t always translate into real faith, and for anyone who’s ever felt rejected while trying to love someone well. There is so much hope found in this conversation, and I think you’re going to walk away encouraged, equipped, and ready to show up differently in the lives of the young people God has placed around you.

Who is Tanita Maddox?

Dr. Tanita Maddox is a Gen Z expert and the National Director for Generational Impact at Young Life. With over 26 years of youth ministry experience, she specializes in analyzing modern adolescent culture, diagnosing where legacy models fail, and training leaders on how to build authentic, localized relationships with Generation Z.

Tanita’s links

• Website

• Book

Share The Spiritual Frontier

The Father is spirit, and He is seeking followers whose worship is sourced in truth and deeply spiritual as well.

John 4:21-24 Voice

The path to God is a deeply spiritual one.

Jesus is our guide on this path. He is the one who can show us how to enter into and live with a spirituality that allows us to break free from the limits of the physical world.

This Spirituality of Jesus is the subject of our series. The first four installments were intended to lay a foundation for thinking spiritually. Part five begins the process of making spirituality practical.

The spiritual path

Don’t get lost in despair; believe in God, and keep on believing in Me. My Father’s home is designed to accommodate all of you. If there were not room for everyone, I would have told you that. I am going to make arrangements for your arrival.

I will be there to greet you personally and welcome you home, where we will be together. You know where I am going and how to get there. I am the path, the truth, and the energy of life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

John 14:1-4,6 Voice

Making the “Spirituality of Jesus” practical is a process.

It begins with embracing the truth that Jesus himself is “the path, the truth, and the energy of life.” This understanding is made practical when we read the narrative of his life as recorded in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as the embodiment of spirituality.

Believing in the “Spirituality of Jesus” in this way leads to believing he is intimately guiding our lives. Spirituality becomes a way of life, where the path we walk is the one marked out for us by Jesus (Hebrews 12:1-3), the truth we believe is found in his Word (John 8:31-32), and the powerful energy flowing through us is his Spirit (Colossians 1:29).

The spirituality of parts one and two in this series will remain interesting theories until we decide to live the “Spirituality of Jesus,” which begins with being “born again.”

Born again spirituality

Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”

“How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”

Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.

John 3:3–6 NIV

I became spiritual when I became a Christian, but I didn’t know it. Maybe you were like me. I understood the foundational truth of John 3:3-6 as a call for me to become a Christian. While this is true, viewing this Scripture solely through the lens of conversion obscures the deeper truth of why we need to become Christians.

Jesus uses the metaphor of being “born again” to explain that it is impossible for us to become spiritual without experiencing a second birth. The key is found when he says, “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.”

The truth according to Scripture is that we are first born in the flesh with human parents to know, care for, and raise us into adulthood. This is human or humanistic living, where we live by the strength of human effort, the intelligence of human wisdom, and the strategies of human understanding. We rely on self-help, psychology, and science to navigate the physical or fleshly world, but the “Spirituality of Jesus” is much different, as expressed in John 18:36:

My kingdom is not recognized in this world. If this were My kingdom, My servants would be fighting for My freedom. But My kingdom is not in this physical realm.

John 18:36 Voice

When we are “born again,” something quite different begins to happen. We come in contact with and are inhabited by the Spirit of God. This is much different than getting out into the spirituality of nature, or experiencing the spirituality of meditation, because what is happening is more than entering a different state of awareness or consciousness.

Those of us who are “born again” don’t merely experience the spiritual, we become spiritual beings. Our capability extends beyond what is human. We see beyond the physical and fleshly. We sense and see the invisible, the spiritual world, which allows us to actually see God’s Kingdom (see John 3:3).

We become spiritual beings walking in the physical world, conquering it and changing it. Living any other way is to ignore or stifle the “Spirituality of Jesus” in our lives (1 Thessalonians 5:19).

Practical powerful spirituality

Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.

“All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

John 14:23–27 NIV

Before I became a Christian, I was proudly and completely humanistic.

I boasted in and relied upon my human strength, intelligence, and strategies. When I was “born again,” I joined the church but remained humanistic. My experience of Christianity was exactly what is described in Galatians 3:3-4.

Are you so foolish? Do you think you can perfect something God’s Spirit started with any human effort? Have you suffered so greatly for nothing – if it was indeed for nothing?

Are you so foolish? Do you think you can perfect something God’s Spirit started with any human effort? Have you suffered so greatly for nothing – if it was indeed for nothing?

Galatians 3:3-4 Voice

The early part of my spiritual life was filled with foolishness and frustration because I kept working humanistically.

I created rules and restrictions to help me overcome sin. But as Scripture teaches, they failed due to my lack of spiritual power (Colossians 2:20-23).

Once I became a leader, my heart and character were crushed by the consequences of pride born from insecurity, and by all-consuming anxiety that was rooted in my people-pleasing and fear of failure. I had become a Christian, but my lack of spirituality made my life indistinguishable from someone who was not.

The reason for this is found in John 14:23, which describes the desire God and Jesus have to make their home with us.

According to John 14:24-27, God and Jesus make their home with us when we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38). Once they have made their home with us, we are to give the Holy Spirit unlimited access to our lives (John 16:15 Voice), a process that is explained in inspiring detail in Romans 8 and Galatians 5.

When we live like this, we are living the “Spirituality of Jesus” as spiritual beings in the physical world — conquering it, changing ourselves, and changing the world. For me, this meant abandoning harsh rules and regulations.

Instead, I learned to live in the “flow” of the Spirit, allowing God to inspire a desire to please him, a sentiment best described in Philippians 2:13.

What does this look like? We conquer sin, change our character, and by doing good change the world around us.

All of this is possible, because we are not walking in or being limited by our flesh, but are free in the Spirit (II Corinthians 3:16-18).

Reflection questions

Reflect on the following questions to begin living the “Spirituality of Jesus” practically in your day-to-day life:

1. What other paths are you tempted to take besides Jesus’s path? How can you increase your focus on and devotion to Jesus as your spiritual path?

2. How well do you understand what it means to be “born again”? Who can you spend time with to better understand being “born again,” and if necessary, receive help from to make this pivotal decision?

3. How practical is your spirituality? Are you better at reading and thinking about spirituality or actually living spiritually in your day-to-day life? How could you change to live spiritually in your actions and not just in your mind?

4. Based on the first four parts of the “Spirituality of Jesus” series, write down three ways you need to change your thinking, actions, and relationships to become more spiritual.

Share The Spiritual Frontier

13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.

Ephesians 6:13

In the first installment of our series we discussed “How We Search,” then in part 2 we pursued a spiritual “Awakening.”

After that we set out in part 3 to become spiritually “Aware.” These first 3 installments combine with this, number 4, to create a foundation for us to think about and discuss our spirituality.

This fourth one, on becoming spiritually “Active”, seeks to set our minds to exert spiritual power in our daily lives. While we won’t exactly become Harry or Hermione, the level of power God desires to exert in our lives will be real and greater.

While some may be uncomfortable talking about exerting spiritual power in our daily lives, we cannot ignore Ephesians 6:13, which makes it clear that “the day of evil” will come, and in order for us to stand our ground, we must put on “the full armor of God.”

Putting on this armor is spiritual activity, which means we are exerting spiritual power with each piece of armor we add. Too many people see and experience this armor humanistically, which is why their lives lack spiritual power.

For instance, we can read Ephesians 5:14 dutifully as our need to tell the truth, be righteous, and tell others about the gospel of peace. Reading this passage with a mindset to be spiritually “active” is different. It suggests having the faith that something spiritual even magical happens when we obey this Scripture.

14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.

Ephesians 6:14-15

Spiritually active people believe they are driving darkness out of their lives when they are truthful with God in prayer and people in conversation. They approach every prayer and conversation with the awareness that truth will bring God’s power to bear on whatever the focus of their prayer or conversation might be.

This same mindset carries over to righteousness being the breastplate that not only protects our hearts, but allows God to move more powerfully in our hearts. Righteousness, or keeping our relationship with God clear of sin, allows Him to give us insight into Scripture, circumstances, and people. It unlocks the heart for the Spirit to flow without limit (John 16:15 Voice).

Perhaps most interesting is the idea of having our “feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.” This means when we become spiritually aware of someone in need of God or good, we are ready to serve them. Interestingly enough, this is our spiritual offense.

Serving others by doing good or helping them know God is how we go on the offensive in our fight against the darkness, which means that time-worn idea of evangelism is more than a duty; it is the way we drive back the forces of darkness in our lives.

Once we see the armor of God as our means to exert spiritual power, then we realize we can stop the “flaming arrows” of temptation, discouragement, or evil disruption in our lives.

16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.

Ephesians 6:16

We can fight the negative and destructive thoughts in our minds with faith, which increases our mental and emotional resistance to the discouragements sent from the forces of darkness, intent to make us quit.

Instead of giving up, we put on the “helmet of salvation” to remind us of the unseen power of God, which He promises to exert as He rescues us time and time again.

17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Ephesians 6:17 NIV

With secure confidence in the saving power of God, we tightly grip the “sword of the Spirit”, which is God’s Word, and then march forward in our fight to rescue others from the darkness.

Finally, having embraced the full armor of God, our prayers will become more powerful since God has unlimited access to our lives. We can go to work on changing the world through our prayer lives, exerting spiritual power and creating spiritual activity that changes things for God and for good.

18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.

Ephesians 6:18 NIV

There is so much more to be said about experiencing a spiritual awakening, becoming spiritually aware and active, but beginning today each one of us can start where we are and change things. We can fight for the light and keep the darkness from rising.

Reflection questions

The following questions are meant to help us gauge our level of comfort with and conviction about becoming people who allow God to exert his spiritual power in our lives:

1. Do you feel uncomfortable or comfortable with the idea of exerting spiritual power in your life? Why? Why not? (Ephesians 6:13)

2. We can apply the armor of God either “humanistically” or “spiritually”. In being completely honest with yourself, which one best describes you? What can you learn about yourself from this answer as well as your answer to question number 1?

3. There are multiple pieces of armor mentioned in Ephesians 6:13-17. Which ones do you use? Are there any of which you do not believe in? Are there any you find more or less difficult to apply?

4. How can you become more spiritual in your application of the armor of God? How can you see it as the exertion of God’s power in your life?

Share The Spiritual Frontier

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Ephesians 6:10–12 NIV

Once we have experienced our spiritual “awakening” based on our discussion in part 2 of our series, we are ready to take the next step, which is to become spiritually “aware.”

Spiritual awareness is precisely explained in Ephesians 6:12, where we are directed to see the world spiritually. This means understanding “our struggle is not against flesh and blood,” and never settling for the superficial view that human resistance is responsible for our difficulties.

There are a number of ways to see and understand spiritual awareness in Scripture. One of the most enlightening ways occurs when Daniel is seeking to understand the truth of God’s will:

20 While I was speaking and praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel and making my request to the Lord my God for his holy hill—21 while I was still in prayer, Gabriel, the man I had seen in the earlier vision, came to me in swift flight about the time of the evening sacrifice.

22 He instructed me and said to me, “Daniel, I have now come to give you insight and understanding. 23 As soon as you began to pray, a word went out, which I have come to tell you, for you are highly esteemed. Therefore, consider the word and understand the vision…

Daniel 9:20–23 NIV

Daniel 9:20-23 teaches us that Daniel prayed and confessed sin in making his request of God, and “while he was still in prayer, Gabriel” came to him in swift flight. Gabriel is an angel, which means when Daniel prayed, God sent his angels into action. There was heavenly activity in response to Daniel’s spiritual activity of prayer.

This story becomes even more descriptive when we discover that Gabriel was detained in delivering the message of insight to Daniel:

Then he continued, “Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them.

But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia. Now I have come to explain to you what will happen to your people in the future, for the vision concerns a time yet to come.”

Daniel 10:12–14 NIV

Gabriel, the messenger of God, was detained by the prince of the Persian kingdom. This prince of the Persian kingdom is generally considered to be the angel of darkness assigned to the nation of Persia, what some call a “territorial spirit.” These spirits’ sole purpose is to wreak havoc on nations, keeping them in the darkness.

The reason I am sharing these accounts of Daniel, his prayer life, and the angelic activity it inspired, is to help us become spiritually aware.

I can still remember reading Daniel 9 and 10 for the first time and being stunned because it was as if God pulled back the curtain, so I could see what happens when I pray.

Spiritual awareness is like that–we feel as though the curtain has been pulled back, blindfold removed, or our eyes have been opened. We start to see why prayer is so important.

We begin to think about the sources of temptation, conflict, and confusion being a result of unseen dark spiritual activity. In short, we begin to live spiritually aware lives, understanding the limited power of people, and the immense need to learn to exert spiritual power if we are going to flourish in this world.

When we develop this awareness that the most relevant activity taking place at any one time is spiritual, and recognize the insignificance of human action in comparison to the invisible spiritual power at work in the cosmos, we then lose our fear of people and discover what it truly means to be in awe of God.

Pause and reflect

Reflect on the following questions to ensure you are becoming spiritually aware. If you are having difficulty, reread this study, and reexamine the questions before moving on – until you sense an increase in your spiritual awareness:

1. Spiritual awareness is about seeing the world spiritually, getting beyond “the superficial view that human resistance is responsible for our difficulties.” What relationships or events can you change your perspective on because of this realization? How would you live differently if you embraced this perspective in your day-to-day life? (Ephesians 6:10-12)

2. What does it mean when it says Daniel was “highly esteemed?” Do you believe you could ever be highly esteemed in heaven and by God? How might you grow in your spiritual life to become highly esteemed? (Daniel 9:20-23)

3. How would you describe the connection between confession of sin and the power of prayer? Is this how you pray? Why? Why not? (Daniel 9:20)

4. What is the connection between the spiritual activity of prayer with the activity of God and angels in heaven? (Daniel 10:12-14)

5. Would you describe yourself as spiritually aware, spiritually dull, or spiritually numb? Why? Why not? How can you grow to become spiritually aware, and continue increasing your spiritual awareness?

Share The Spiritual Frontier

Then Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard, and the elders, who had come for him, “Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come with swords and clubs? 53 Every day I was with you in the temple courts, and you did not lay a hand on me. But this is your hour—when darkness reigns.”

Luke 22:52–53 NIV

The unspeakable tragedy perpetrated by one man in Las Vegas on 22,000 concertgoers from the 32nd-floor of his hotel room on October 1, 2017, left most Americans stunned and bewildered.

For those near and far, it was as if we were watching and listening to the final witness testifying to the fact that darkness is rising.

Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal describes her response to the Las Vegas shooting with a horror reflective of this rising darkness.

“And here is the horror for me of Las Vegas: I was not shattered. That shatters me. It was just another terrible story. It is not the new normal it is the new abnormal and deep down we know it’s not going to stop. There is too much instability in our country, too much rage and lovelessness, too many weapons.”

Peggy Noonan, The Culture of Death—and Disdain

Ms. Noonan describes the emotional fatigue setting in on our country. The corrosive gauntlet of negativity filling the airwaves and social media is wearing us down, filling us with fear, burdening us with anxiety, all the while eroding our ability to have conversations with our neighbors.

There is a very real danger that we will accept this “new abnormal.” This is the effect when darkness rises, it wears us down until we accept it as unstoppable, even inevitable.

The additional danger in the rising of darkness is that, while some grow weary, others become afraid. Noonan addresses this in her description of why she thinks people own so many guns.

“I think a lot of Americans have guns because they’re fearful—and for damn good reason. They fear a coming chaos, and know that when it happens it will be coming to a nation that no longer coheres. They think it’s all collapsing—our society, our culture, the baseline competence of our leadership class.

They see the cultural infrastructure giving way—illegitimacy, abused children, neglect, racial tensions, kids on opioids staring at screens—and, unlike their cultural superiors, they understand the implications.”

Peggy Noonan, The Culture of Death—and Disdain

Agree or disagree with her conclusions, what should be clear to each one of us is we are living in a time of fear-inducing chaos, a time when darkness is rising.

The city writhes in chaos; every home is locked to keep out intruders.

Isaiah 24:10 NLT

Our American culture, which was once the envy of the world seems to be coming apart. This leaves us with a decision – to either passively submit to the darkness or embrace the spirit of those timeless words penned by Dylan Thomas in his poem “Do Not Go Gentle Into The Night”:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light

Dylan Thomas, “Do Not Go Gentle Into The Night”

For those of us who choose to “fight the dying of the light,” we should embrace the words of David Brooks without political partisanship, “a new culture will have to be built, new values promulgated and a new social fabric will have to be woven, one that brings the different planets back into relation with one another.”

This means the people of the light cannot grow numb to the darkness. We must embrace our responsibility to God as well as to our neighbors to bring the light.

How do we do this? Simply put, we must learn about and live the Spirituality of Jesus.

This will require each one of us to experience a spiritual awakening, and become spiritually aware and active, so our lives radiate with the hope-filled light of God and overcome the darkness.

Let’s begin by examining what it takes to experience a spiritual awakening.

Experience your spiritual awakening

9 For the fruit of the light is all that is good, right, and true. 10 Make it your aim to learn what pleases our Lord. 11 Don’t get involved with the fruitless works of darkness; instead, expose them to the light of God.

12 You see, it’s a disgrace to speak of their secrets (so don’t even talk about what they do when no one is looking). 13-14 When the light shines, it exposes even the dark and shadowy things and turns them into pure reflections of light. This is why they sing, Awake, you sleeper! Rise from your grave, And the Anointed One will shine on you.

Ephesians 5:9-14 Voice

Ephesians 5:9-14 is a roadmap to experiencing a spiritual awakening. There are three decisions we must make.

Define the conflict

Ephesians 5:7 says the “fruit of the light is all that is good, right, and true. When we are in the light we are doing what is good, right, and true.

Based on this definition of the light, its opposite or darkness would be defined as evil, wrong, and false. It is impossible to have a spiritual awakening unless we identify the forces in conflict or at war with each other, and then choose a side.

Choose a side

Ephesians 5:10-11 calls on each one of us to choose the light by making it our “aim to learn what pleases the Lord.”

The decision we are to make in choosing the side of the light is to not “get involved with the fruitless works of darkness.” Simply put, when we choose the side of the light we make every effort to resist the darkness or sin. No resistance to sin is a choice to be on the side of darkness.

There can be no spiritual awakening if we refuse to choose the side of the light, because choosing the darkness keeps us “asleep”. (Romans 13:11-14)

Start to fight

Ephesians 5:13-14 teaches us that our spiritual awakening begins when we rise from our spiritual grave, the spiritual dullness caused by unresisted and unconquered sin.

This spiritual dullness makes us slow to learn, and will eventually put us into a spiritual sleep (Hebrews 5:11-14, I Corinthians 11:30). When Ephesians 5:13-14 says, “Awake you sleeper,” it is calling on us to “rise from our graves,” something we do by exposing the darkness. This means exposing sin and dark activity in our lives, helping others expose the darkness in their lives, and together with them shining the light of God’s love.

When we let this light shine through our lives, we will drive out the destructive and debilitating darkness responsible for so much pain in so many lives.

Once you have completed your spiritual awakening, the next step is to increase your spiritual awareness, which is covered in part 3.

Until then, reflect on these questions to increase the spirituality of your thinking, and speed your awakening:

1. How do you see the darkness rising in your life and community?

2. When you examine your life, do you see yourself passively submitting to the darkness or fighting the dying of the light?

3. What specific forces of darkness and light do you see in conflict in your life?

4. How do you feel about this phrase, “No resistance to sin is a choice to be on the side of darkness.” Do you agree or disagree?

5. How would you describe your level of resistance to sin?

6. What can you do to “rise from your spiritual grave” or overcome any areas of “spiritual dullness” in your life? If you believe you are spiritually alive and well, sharp and aware, then what can you do to help those who are not?

Share The Spiritual Frontier

You can’t see the truth because you don’t know the Scriptures well and because you don’t really believe that God is powerful.

Mark 12:24 Voice

Kwai Chang Caine was the first person to make spirituality attractive to me.

He was portrayed by David Carradine in the fictional television series Kung Fu. Trained from a young age by Master Po to become a Shaolin Monk, Caine exhibited mystery and mastery. The mystery was where he gained his power, and the mastery was accessing that power.

Sad though this might be to some, Kung Fu was a more important spiritual influence on my early life than anything Christian.

Finding your burning bush

Caine lived an adventurous life, mastering the difficult and dangerous through the mystery of spirituality. This inspired me. It made me want to understand and know more.

You might say the television series Kung Fu was my “burning bush,” the sight that makes us begin to ask spiritual questions.

There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”

Exodus 3:2–3 NIV

Looking back, what I find interesting is that while living in the midst of a Midwest city saturated with churches, it was the Buddhism of a Shaolin Monastery that made spirituality attractive.

There was a power I saw in Caine’s faith that I did not see in the faith of Christians. This conflicted with my observation that if there were a sacred text that was true, then it was the Bible. How could Christians have the most intellectually honest and consistent sacred text while those who believed it lacked the spirituality I saw in other religions?

These conflicting thoughts made me choose the religious designation of agnostic, a label expressing faith that there was probably something bigger than me in the universe but nothing clear, convincing, or real.

My experience and choice are not unusual, which is something that we will address later. For now, it is important for Christians to understand those who choose not to attend church often have valid spiritual and intellectual reasons.

The problem with organized religion

… having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.

2 Timothy 3:5 NIV

Since becoming a Christian, I have often reflected on my journey to faith, as well as the journeys of others that are similar to mine. The question I have pondered is, “Why Christianity?” The intellectual consistency and honesty of the Bible seem to come up short in the minds of people searching for spirituality.

I always viewed Christianity as the ultimate organized religion, and I think this perspective is one shared by a great many people today. If you want to go to church, then choose Christianity, but if you want to experience the power of spirituality, then find another faith.

When reading the Bible, there is no shortage of profound spiritual mystery, interaction, and activity, so why is Christianity seen as more organized than spiritual? There are a tremendous number of spiritual people, writers, and leaders in the Christian faith, so why does it seem like people see us as more organized than spiritual?

The Bible actually addresses this question. 2 Timothy 3:5 speaks to the fact that we can practice the Christian faith without tapping into spiritual power. When we do this, Christianity becomes a humanistic pursuit—reliant on human strength and effort. It is typically well-organized, advocating morality and good deeds, but devoid of God and his power. These conditions are described in Galatians 3:1-3:

Oh, foolish Galatians! Who has cast an evil spell on you? For the meaning of Jesus Christ’s death was made as clear to you as if you had seen a picture of his death on the cross. Let me ask you this one question: Did you receive the Holy Spirit by obeying the law of Moses? Of course not! You received the Spirit because you believed the message you heard about Christ.

How foolish can you be? After starting your new lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort?

Galatians 3:1–3 NLT

This passage continues to describe the result of this “humanistic Christianity.” In Galatians 3:4 (NIV84), the Bible teaches us about the painful suffering that takes place when we depend on human effort instead of the power of God.

Have you suffered so much for nothing—if it really was for nothing? Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?

Galatians 3:4–5 NIV84

Power from God is only accessible when we are spiritual. Without it, God’s church becomes just another human organization—which is what many people hate and call “organized religion.” In this form, Christianity will only be attractive to those in attendance because those seeking God are usually looking for something spiritual, not humanistic.

How we search

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 NIV

What I have learned from my own journey to God, as well as the stories told me by others, is that God has placed “eternity in the human heart.” He has made us sense and desire the spiritual, the unseen, and the eternal. It is in this sacred space that we find him.

This God made us in all our diversity from one original person, allowing each culture to have its own time to develop, giving each its own place to live and thrive in its distinct ways.

His purpose in all this was that people of every culture and religion would search for this ultimate God, grope for Him in the darkness, as it were, hoping to find Him. Yet, in truth, God is not far from any of us.

Acts 17:26-27 Voice

What we must remember about our own journey to God, and understand about the journey of our children and friends, is that we begin life searching for the unknown and unanswered. We feel spiritual stirrings, a curiosity about the unseen.

This is why we like movies about magic, aliens, and even horror (think Harry Potter or Stranger Things). Somehow, we innately know God is spiritual, so we look for him in the sacred space of spirituality.

But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

John 4:23–24 ESV

We know there is something beyond us out there, and our soul yearns and searches for it. We sense and understand spirituality, though we don’t necessarily connect this to religion or churches.

Pew Research Center supports the idea of it being more instinctive for people to seek spirituality than church in its Religious Landscape Study. What their data shows is that “the rise in spirituality has been happening among both highly religious people and the religiously unaffiliated.” Their surveys find that “the U.S. public overall appears to be growing a bit less religious – but also somewhat more spiritual.”

In truth, the Scriptures view those in search of the spiritual as “religious” because the Bible associates faith with God first and the organization second. Unless the organization has the spirituality to seek and know God, it cannot in fact be his church.

What does this mean for Christians and churches? It means that we have to evaluate ourselves on our level of spirituality—our ability to tap into God’s presence and power. This is how the unbeliever will know God is really among us.

But if an unbeliever or an inquirer comes in while everyone is prophesying, they are convicted of sin and are brought under judgment by all, as the secrets of their hearts are laid bare. So they will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, “God is really among you!”

1 Corinthians 14:24–25 NIV

Rather than focusing on activities and events as the source of attraction to those seeking God, we must learn that people first search spiritually for the experience of God, which is how they know they have found the truth. In short, it is the spiritual lives of the people, not the quality of the facility or programs, which most attracts those who search.

Asking the right questions

The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you–they are full of the Spirit and life.

John 6:63 NIV

Combining my youthful experience of being attracted to the spirituality of Kwai Chang Caine with current Pew Research made me ask three questions. First, what role did media have in my view of spirituality? Second, why are Americans choosing spirituality over church affiliation? Third, why do so few associate Christianity with the mystery and mastery of spirituality?

My answers to these questions have inspired me to develop a 5-part series of posts called “The Spirituality of Jesus” because I believe the spiritual depths of the Christian faith have been misrepresented by the uninformed, diminished by misinformation, and most importantly, neglected through our unbelief.

I hope you will join me in asking these questions, finding the answers, and developing a personal spirituality that clarifies the confusion about the Christian faith—one which should be known for the deep spirituality found in Scripture, not the humanism of organized religion.

Reflect on these questions to increase the spirituality of your thinking about how you and others search for God:

1. Why do you think we need “burning bush” moments? Do you need your first one, or perhaps a new one for a new stage of life? (Exodus 3:2-3)

2. Do you see Christianity as being more about organizations or spirituality? How has this affected your view of God and the church?

3. How do you see yourself practicing “humanistic Christianity,” and how can you be more spiritual in the way you live your faith? (2 Timothy 3:5)

4. How would you define “the sacred space of spirituality,” and what do you need to do to enter this space more regularly? (John 4:23-24)

5. Identify ways in which your view of Christianity might be confused or diminished by misinformation or misrepresentations of the faith. How has this affected your faith? What can you do to refocus and refresh your view of Christianity to make it more accurate?

Share The Spiritual Frontier

In the opening lines of the song “Cheers,” Anderson .Paak puts words to a universal feeling: our innate desire to live an extraordinary life. Each of us has dreamed of a “world premiere,” something big we know we are meant for, no matter how far away it seems. It lights a fire inside us and makes our spirit come alive.

Absent trauma, I believe every kid begins life this way.

I felt these lines decades before I heard them. For me, it began with science. At five years old, dressed in a NASA flight suit, I dreamed of discovery.

I had no idea where I would go from there—but God did. He cleared the runway for me to discover what it truly meant to live an extraordinary, beautiful, and spiritually powerful life.

He is still clearing the runway for me. He is doing the same thing for you.

In today’s edition of The Chemistry Lab, we’ll learn to reignite the fire God has placed in each of us and discover what it means to live a beautiful life.

The Workshop: How we lose our fire

A place of discovery where a story sparks insight, observation, and a deeper understanding of walking with God.

God delights in concealing things; scientists delight in discovering things.

Proverbs 25:2 MSG

It was a breezy summer day in Michigan. My parents were out, and my older sister was in charge. I was in my bedroom, intellectually locked in. There, at a kitchen table turned lab bench, I launched my first experiment.

I didn’t follow the instructions. I created my own formula.

The ensuing smoke signaled to me that I’d made a discovery—but what it signaled to my parents as they pulled into the driveway was something else entirely.

They ran in, expecting disaster. What they found was me—ten years old, grinning, wide-eyed, believing that I’d just made a breakthrough.

This story from decades ago is what inspired The Chemistry Lab. Through that very literal fire in my makeshift lab, God was revealing something to me that had been previously hidden — the fire of discovery, the ability to look at life with wonder and awe.

I learned that even in mistakes and mishaps, something beautiful can be born. While my ambitions at the time were limited to science, God was laying the groundwork for me to discover what it truly would mean to live a beautiful life.

Why did I choose science over God?

Church came first, before the chemistry lab. I remember being six or seven, sitting in pews, surrounded by people doing ordinary things. I didn’t feel wonder. I didn’t hear awe. I wasn’t drawn in.

Then came science—and as you already know, it arrived with fire.

In middle school, I was deep in the world of beakers and Bunsen burners when my mom brought home a brand-new edition of The Living Bible. I devoured books—so I opened it. Genesis. Exodus. I was curious—until I hit the parts that felt repetitive, difficult, or impractical.

The Scriptures are filled with awe, but I needed help to see it. Absent the help, the wonder faded.

I went back to my lab.

Many people lose their fire for God this way.

It’s not because they hate faith. It’s because religion without wonder cannot compete with science presented with awe.

This is what we as religious people can miss about people like I used to be— atheists, agnostics, and those seeking God without attending church. They are looking for wonder. And, at our core, so are we.

The spirit of a person is the lamp of the Lord, searching all the innermost parts of his being.

Proverbs 20:27 NASB

The literal and interpretive translations of the Bible say something stunning in Proverbs 20:27—that our human spirit is the fire of God, a searching light that probes the deepest parts of who we are.

That means God designed us to burn with curiosity, to pursue meaning, and to ignite discovery.

Science taught me that there were mysteries in the world. If I developed the necessary skills and used the expansive number of tools available to me, I could discover and deploy the powers of science to solve problems, answer questions, and resolve those mysteries.

Church didn’t give me that feeling.

Why church often fails to spark wonder

They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly…

2 Timothy 3:5 NLT

Too often, Christianity is presented as behavioral religiosity—a way of acting Christian without being spiritually transformed. We read stories about people in the Bible, and we learn about what they did or didn’t do. But too often we overlook their encounters with the God of wonder—the moments that set their spirits on fire, that show us how we can experience that same God today.

We see the rules and rituals—but not the spirituality and fire.

God didn’t design us for powerless religion or cold conformity. He didn’t call us to traditionalism or routine. He designed us to break free from the humanistic limitations of behavioral religion to discover his power flowing into our lives.

The greatest hindrance to knowledge is our adjustment to conventional notions, to mental cliches. Wonder or radical amazement, the state of maladjustment to words and notions, is, therefore, a prerequisite for an authentic awareness of that which is.

Abraham Joshua Heschel, Man Is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion

Wonder isn’t optional. It’s how we wake up. It’s how we find inspiration.

It’s how we see God—not just as a concept, but as the source and spark of our internal fire.

Reigniting the fire

Have you lost your fire? Cynicism and religiosity made me lose mine, while suffering or overload might make others lose theirs. If you’ve lost your fire, Jesus is not waiting to punish you. He’s coming to revive you.

“He will not break a bent twig.

Your fire might be dimly burning, but it’s not gone. While it may be flickering, that flicker is the beginning of moving from religious to spiritual, from powerless to powerful.

Workshop this:

• Have you lost your wonder?

• Are you living religiously or spiritually?

• Does your faith spark anything in you or those around you?

The Element of “Spirit”

A new element from our Spiritual Periodic Table of the Elements that builds a life of spiritual depth and power.

Properties

• Name: Spirit

• Symbol(s): Sp (for human spirit), Sp² (human spirit joined with God’s Spirit)

• Category: Vital Elements

• Function: Awakens fire, activates flow, restores awe, reveals destiny.

“Spirit” is my first entry into our Spiritual Periodic Table. “Spirit” is where fire meets flow.

God has given us a spirit of fire burning with life. This interpretive translation from the Jubilee Bible is meant to help us connect with the emotion of Proverbs 20:27, which we read earlier:

“The spirit of man is the fire of the Lord, which searches the secrets of the inward parts.”

Our spirits aren’t passive—they burn with the intensity of fire.

This fire is meant to fill our lives with light, illuminating our lives with mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical self and soul awareness (Proverbs 20:27 NIV).

But until they’re plugged into God’s Spirit, they operate far below their potential, like a match waiting for a spark.

Spiritual flow: The God connection

Once a connection is made with God, something explosive happens: alignment.

No longer wandering, we begin to discover what a truly good and beautiful life is—not just biologically alive, but spiritually alive.

His Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children.

Romans 8:16 NLT

Don’t you know that He who pursues and explores the human heart intimately knows the Spirit’s mind because He pleads to God for His saints to align their lives with the will of God? [28] We are confident that God is able to orchestrate everything to work toward something good and beautiful when we love Him and accept His invitation to live according to His plan.

Romans 8:27-28 Voice

Our human spirit is what makes us capable of experiencing the spiritual chemistry of walking with God. This is what we can call spiritual flow, when God’s Spirit joins with our spirit to unleash light, power, and fire.

This isn’t religion.
It’s spiritual chemistry.
It’s wonder.
It’s awe.

The element of the spirit is what makes us spiritual. It is more than waking up to study our Bible and pray each morning. It is our connection with God.

The component most responsible for our ability to live a beautiful life might be what psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls flow:

A state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

His book summarizes decades of research on the positive characteristics of human experience, including joy, creativity, and flow—which he describes as “the process of total involvement with life.”

While many seek flow through new techniques or settings, God has provided a spiritual path to it. Flow has been available for millennia through the joining of his Spirit with ours

God formed the spirit within

“The LORD, who stretches out the heavens, who lays the foundation of the earth, and who forms the human spirit within a person, declares…”

Zechariah 12:1 NIV

Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.

Ecclesiastes 12:7 NASB

“But it is a spirit that is in mankind, And the breath of the Almighty gives them understanding.”

Job 32:8 NASB

No one can know a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit, and no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit. [12] And we have received God’s Spirit (not the world’s spirit), so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us.

1 Corinthians 2:11–12 NLT

Our spirit was formed by God. It holds our thoughts, our pain, our sin, our potential, and our dreams. But without God, it becomes crushed, disconnected, disillusioned, unfaithful, and wandering:

The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

Psalm 34:18 NIV

A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.

Proverbs 17:22 NIV

The human spirit can endure a sick body, but who can bear a crushed spirit?

Proverbs 18:14 NLT

Use this week to study these scriptures, working to become aware of your spirit. Ask yourself these questions:

• What affects my spirit?

• What strengthens my spirit?

• What weakens my spirit?

Then devote yourself to staying connected to God so that your spirit remains cheerful and strong. God has laid dreams on our hearts that glorify him, and we need that enduring spirit to see them come true.

Flow = Spiritual connection

Spiritual flow comes from sustaining a continuous Spirit connection, which is what Romans 8 is all about. It is not merely theological; it is personal.

So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, ‘Abba, Father.’ [16] For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children.

Romans 8:15–16 NLT

When the Spirit of God joins with our spirit, we enter the spiritual flow state.

This is freedom:

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. [18] And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

2 Corinthians 3:17–18 NIV

This is oneness:

But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him.

1 Corinthians 6:17 NASB

This is intimacy:

Or do you think that the Scripture says to no purpose, “He jealously desires the Spirit whom He has made to dwell in us”? And this is power.

James 4:5 NASB

Neglecting the spiritual aspect of life turns the Christian life into a grind instead of a beautiful flow. We cannot let this happen to ourselves or those we love because God longs to have his power flow through our lives without limit.

Creating a flow week

But the fruit produced by the Holy Spirit within you is divine love in all its varied expressions: joy that overflows, peace that subdues, patience that endures, kindness in action, a life full of virtue, faith that prevails, gentleness of heart, and strength of spirit. Never set the law above these qualities, for they are meant to be limitless.

Galatians 5:22 TPT

One of the motivations for me and our team to create The Chemistry Lab is what I learned about Abraham Heschel from his daughter when she wrote that his goal was to make God audible. That is my goal—to not merely have insight about God and Scripture, but to experience his feelings by entering and remaining in the flow state.

… For my father, the importance of prophecy lies not only in the message, but in the role of the prophet as a witness, someone who is able to make God audible and to reveal not only God’s will, but God’s inner life. To be a prophet, he writes, is to be in fellowship with the feelings of God, to experience communion with the divine consciousness. The prophet hears God’s voice and looks at the world from God’s perspective.

Susannah Heschel, Introduction to The Prophets by Abraham Joshua Heschel

Let this be a “flow week,” a week when you experience the limitless qualities of Galatians 5:22 by embracing the element of the spirit!

As Augustine said about God:

You made us with yourself as our goal, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.

Augustine, Confessions

Share The Spiritual Frontier

Unrelenting disappointment leaves you heartsick, but a sudden good break can turn life around.

Proverbs 13:12 MSG

Personal experience and daily observation have led me to a question. Why don’t we attribute the rise in despair, loneliness, anxiety, and estrangement to our inability to handle disappointment?

Unrelenting disappointment is all too familiar to me. It came early and often — adolescence delivered its share. But nothing was as unexpected as the disappointment I found in my spiritual life.

Prior to becoming a Christian, I considered myself an agnostic. My reasons for unbelief were based on the behavior of religious people, not the truth about God. After all, I had barely read the Bible.

I judged religious people the way I didn’t want them to judge me, which is what a lot of people do.

In college, all of this changed. First, I read the Bible and discovered it was the truth I had sensed was out there but couldn’t find. Second, I attended a church that described themselves as a Bible church: they focused on the Bible over religious tradition and man-focused denominationalism. This is what inspired me to read the Bible in the first place and become a Christian. But after that, disappointment came quickly.

Initially, I was disappointed in myself because of my many sins and failures after becoming a Christian. What kept me believing despite facing this was the knowledge that there were so many people around me who seemed much stronger in their faith—they gave me hope that I could get past my failures. But then I learned that they too were human; they had weaknesses and lacked spirituality just like me. This led to even more disappointment.

I soon discovered the source of my disappointment, and it was a discovery that turned my life around: my faith had been placed in the behavioral superiority of those who led me instead of the God of Scripture.

No one who trusts in you will be disappointed. But disappointment will come to those who try to deceive others. They will get nothing.

Psalm 25:3 ERV

… And the Scriptures give us hope and encouragement as we wait patiently for God’s promises to be fulfilled.

Romans 15:4 NLT

The Christianity of the Bible is not based on human beings, their performance, behavior, or worthiness. The Bible is not a piece of academic literature or theology, but a spiritual book whose intent is to help us know God. Through the Bible, we are being allowed to know a God whose existence strains the limits of human comprehension. This is ultimately achieved through the life of Jesus Christ, who is God taking human form.

My spiritual journey and yours is not about arrival but discovery. This discovery is how God transformed my disappointment into devotion to him rather than to human institutions or people. He saved me from my discouragement by drawing me closer to him.

The LORD is close to those who have suffered disappointment. He saves those who are discouraged.

Psalm 34:18 ERV

I write today to defeat our disappointment. Throughout our lives, disappointment (or its cousins, disillusionment and discouragement will invite us into a relationship with them. Their requirements are simple:

• Pessimism, so that we assume the worst.

• Fatalism, so that we stop making the effort.

• Cynicism, so that we see everything as unfair.

This, disappointment says, is all I require—that you give up living life with hope and accept disappointment. It’s safer and less painful that way.

We can see this battle at play in the world around us—and more recently, during the 2026 FIFA World Cup that just wrapped up this past week. After weeks of competition, Spain concluded its inspiring performance and defeated Argentina to win the title. But what will remain with me is the resonance of this long-standing phrase often used by the English about football or soccer: “It’s the hope that kills you.” It describes the extraordinary pain of anticipating victory only to experience defeat.

There are those who allow their fear of disappointment to steal their courage, and then disguise their fear with respectable names: Contentment. Humility. Being realistic. But those who have stopped hoping because hoping hurts too much are not content. They are afraid. They are broken.

The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

Psalm 34:18 NIV

God doesn’t want us broken. This is why we must make the choice many football or soccer fans choose: courage. Whenever disappointment seeks to kill our hope, we must remember the promise of God found in Romans 5:

And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.

Romans 5:5 NLT

There is not enough space here for me to map out in detail how the spiritual person responds to disappointment, but my experience overcoming it, and helping others do the same, may be instructive wherever your disappointment lies.

Help me God, as you promised, so that I may live. Do not turn my hope into disappointment.

Psalm 119:116 GW

Three answers have guided and transformed my life when faced with disappointment.

1. We must become spiritual rather than behavioral.

Increasingly, it is clear that the major key to Lincoln’s greatness is his spiritual depth.

Elton Trueblood, Abraham Lincoln: Lessons in Spiritual Leadership

My early and middle years of being a Christian were riddled with disappointments because I viewed and practiced Christianity behaviorally rather than spiritually. I lacked spiritual depth.

Behavior manages the outside. Spirituality transforms the inside. In the Bible, the apostle Paul explained the futility of behavioral Christianity to the Colossian church, explaining that rule-keeping looks wise but changes nothing:

Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

Colossians 2:23 NIV

He taught again about the powerlessness of that path in 2 Timothy, describing behavioral Christians as people who “act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly” (2 Timothy 3:5).

That powerlessness is the disappointment I experienced. My faith rested on behavioral superiority—my own and other people’s—but it was frustrating and futile. Only spiritual transformation from the inside out can produce the flourishing life God promises, as Jesus said in John 6:

The Spirit alone gives eternal life. Human effort accomplishes nothing. And the very words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.

John 6:63 NLT

2. We must become God-focused rather than man-focused.

You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water. [2] I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. [3] Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.

Psalm 63:1-3 NIV

I put it this way in my book, He’s Not Who You Think He Is: “Keeping God as our central focus should not be considered a one-time project or campaign, but our life’s work.” We should pursue God until we discover that his love is better than life.

The failure to pursue God in this way places us on a trajectory to become like the New Testament church at Corinth, where they discovered divisive results of attaching their faith to people instead of God. Paul challenged their distorted focus, which was evident in the quarrels he was hearing about: “One of you says, ‘I follow Paul’; another, ‘I follow Apollos’; another, ‘I follow Cephas’” (see 1 Corinthians 1:10-12).

He wrote to the Philippian church about Christians who preached out of “envy and rivalry,” driven by “selfish ambition, not sincerely” (Philippians 1:15-17). Insincere. Or, in the language of our time, inauthentic.

Twenty centuries later, the same rivalry limits the influence and impact of the church. The numbers show it. As many as 15,000 U.S. churches may close in a single year, with roughly 8% of American congregations either shutting their doors or unable to afford a full-time pastor. Forty-four percent of Americans between 18 and 29 now claim no religious affiliation. Boston University theologian Wesley Wildman estimates that nearly a quarter of those still attending houses of worship reject a supernatural worldview altogether, coming for community and routine rather than God. Wildman describes a collapse occurring across four dimensions at once—affiliation, attendance, private practice, and intensity of belief.

This is not the decline of faith. It is the decline of denominationalism—religion organized around human rather than spiritual institutions. People may still practice in private, but when they see the same political polarization dividing the pews that divides the aisles of power, they conclude, understandably, that we are simply another self-interested organization. Purifying the church of selfish ambition, competitiveness, and rivalry is not housekeeping. It is survival.

3. We must become people who understand the times.

When David’s kingdom was forming, one tribe of Israel was singled out—not for their strength, but for their discernment:

… from Issachar, men who understood the times and knew what Israel should do …

1 Chronicles 12:32 NIV

Understanding the times means having intellectual, emotional, social and cultural awareness. Based on these areas, I see the global population searching for answers along ten frontiers:

1. Purpose

2. Relationships

3. The inner life

4. Work and calling

5. Money

6. Technology

7. Culture

8. Family

9. Hope for the future

10. Finding the truth

That last one is the deepest, and I believe it is a search for Jesus, whether people name him or not.
These are the spiritual frontiers. And they will only be answered by men and women who understand the times and speak to them—rather than arguing internally or isolating into bubbles. Talking only to ourselves and listening only to ourselves means ignoring a world that does not care what label we wear, how we vote, or who our rivals are. They care about finding their way.

That is where I intend to spend the rest of my life. Not defending a position but walking these frontiers with anyone willing to come. Disappointment invited me to stop hoping. I have declined the invitation.

Share The Spiritual Frontier

For we are God’s [own] handiwork (His workmanship), recreated in Christ Jesus, [born anew] that we may do those good works which God predestined (planned beforehand) for us [taking paths which He prepared ahead of time], that we should walk in them [living the good life which He prearranged and made ready for us to live].

Ephesians 2:10 AMPC

Yes. I am a believer in destiny, a God-given and God-assigned purpose for every human being. The value of this destiny is not whether it leads to celebrity, wealth, or relevance, but whether it lights a fire in the heart that stirs the soul.

Too many people give up on destiny. Too many people settle. And honestly, it’s understandable. Life can be brutally painful, and that pain convinces us that it’s too dangerous or costly to keep chasing our dreams.

So why not settle?

Why not settle for pleasure over pursuing purpose? Why not settle for selfishness over nurturing the fires of our imagination and working toward something greater than ourselves? Why not settle for greed over being motivated by God?

In the book of Ezekiel, God addressed seductive voices that asked questions like these and were leading his people astray:

“…you will no longer conjure up lying visions or practice divination. For I will save My people from your seductive powers. Then you will know I am the Eternal One.”

Ezekiel 13:23 VOICE

Ezekiel warned his generation about seductive voices that offered survival instead of transformation, and it feels like we are facing the same temptation in our time.

Some days it feels like we’re building a culture that encourages resignation—settling for the life the world permits rather than striving for the life God promises. We might be discontent with what the world offers; we might even be downright angry about it. But rare is the person who believes they can change it. Instead of dreaming with faith, we become content to remain within the limits of our fear.

We don’t always call this quitting. Sometimes we call it “realism.” Sometimes we call it “maturity.” Sometimes we call it “wisdom.”

But when we trace our slow, quiet settling to its core, it’s the same thing Ezekiel confronted: giving in to the seductive voices offering us survival in place of transformation.

I am not pessimistic; I am just observing what I see around me and what I must resist daily in myself. The seductiveness of settling may be the greatest temptation I face.

These are the reflections and spiritual disturbances I’m recording today. Not to complain, but to understand, and conquer them by choosing breakthrough instead.

Yes. I believe that there is another way. Rather than succumbing to resignation and surrendering our destiny, we can live in pursuit of breakthrough.

Breakthroughs are life-altering discoveries that move us through obstacles and beyond barriers. They transform us, opening our eyes so that we can see past the limitations of humanity to the possibilities of God.

While past issues of The Chemistry Lab were lab reports, today’s edition is my field notes—spiritual data observed and recorded in real time. Last week, we discussed the brain and spiritual chemistries of getting stuck. Today, let’s discover together the areas where we have settled or resigned, which are also the very areas that have the greatest opportunities for breakthrough.

Notebooks open. Let’s see what we can learn today.

“Breakthroughs are life-altering discoveries that move us through obstacles and beyond barriers.”

Field Notes

Spiritual observations, data, and real-time reflections about faith, fear, and transformation.

“So be reasonable. Make a deal with my master, the king of Assyria. I’ll give you two thousand horses if you think you can provide riders for them. You can’t do it? Well, then, how do you think you’re going to turn back even one raw buck private from my master’s troops? How long are you going to hold on to that figment of your imagination, these hoped-for Egyptian chariots and horses?”

2 Kings 18:23-24 MSG

There’s a seductive voice that whispers to us in times of adversity. “Be reasonable,” it says. It sounds wise, even mature. But what if being reasonable is actually a form of unspiritual surrender?

In his book On Settling, philosopher Robert E. Goodin writes to help those consumed by endless striving. But he also warns against a darker version of settling: resignation—the quiet surrender of hopes and desires, the inward acceptance of unwanted outcomes.

He calls it what it truly is: not peace, but loss—an internal grief that steals joy, masked by a smile we wear to hide our perpetual disappointment.

And we wear it so long, we forget it’s even there.

This ancient pattern shows up vividly in the passage above from the Bible. Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, sent word to Hezekiah, king of Judah, as the Assyrian army laid siege to Hezekiah’s land. Sennacherib’s commander didn’t just threaten Hezekiah with force—he appealed to “reason.” Make a deal. Be practical. Look at the facts. You can’t win. The enemy knows that getting God’s people to be “reasonable” is often more effective than direct assault.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: Most Christians are too reasonable to change the world. Most people are too reasonable to change the world.

Why? Because adversity has a way of making settling seem sensible. Pain whispers to us that those dreams are not necessary for happiness, so why pursue them? Difficulty argues with us that God-given purpose is a myth pursued by the irrational, so why sacrifice our immediate comfort for it?

We trade destiny for safety, calling it wisdom.

But history tells a different story. George Bernard Shaw captured it perfectly in a quote from Maxims for Revolutionists—a quote reinterpreted in the context of leadership in Originals by Adam Grant:

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

George Bernard Shaw

Every major breakthrough—cultural, political, scientific, spiritual—has come from those unreasonable enough to refuse the world as given. They wouldn’t let adversity make them “reasonable.”

So in our own chemistry lab of life, what “reasonable” compromises are we making? Where have we let the world’s logic override God’s calling? What breakthrough waits on the other side of our unreasonable faith?

Becoming aware of the “reasonable” trap is the first step on the path to breakthrough. But here’s what I’ve discovered: “Being reasonable” is just the surface symptom of something deeper. Underneath our logical compromises lie the real obstacles—the veils that blind us to God’s possibilities and keep us trapped in human limitations.

These are the field notes of someone learning to resist the reasonable—because faith was never meant to be veiled.

Removing the veils that blind us to God’s possibilities

But to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil [of blindness] lies over their heart; [16] but whenever a person turns [in repentance and faith] to the Lord, the veil is taken away. [17] Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty [emancipation from bondage, true freedom]. [18] And we all, with unveiled face, continually seeing as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are progressively being transformed into His image from [one degree of] glory to [even more] glory, which comes from the Lord, [who is] the Spirit.

2 Corinthians 3:15-18 AMP

Scripture tells us that the greatest transformations happen when the “veil of blindness” is removed—when we stop seeing through the lens of human limitation and start living by the Spirit’s vision.

Freedom from the human limits of this life is found behind the veil of humanism. Our unbelief in the possibility of breakthrough is rooted in the idea that humanity—our wisdom, our power, our talents—is all we’ve got. Anyone who believes in anything greater is branded irrational.

Scripture counters this illusion.

Humanism is the veil that obscures the possibilities of God.

It places all understanding and power within the created, blinding us to what God can do.

But when Jesus died on the cross, the veil tore. The barrier between the human and the divine was ripped open.

And [at once] the veil [of the Holy of Holies] of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; the earth shook and the rocks were split apart.

Matthew 27:51 AMP

Even W.E.B. Du Bois used the metaphor of the veil to describe how social systems dehumanized Black Americans, blocking their true potential:

Leaving, then, the world of the white man, I have stepped within the Veil, raising it that you may view faintly its deeper recesses, — the meaning of its religion, the passion of its human sorrow, and the struggle of its greater souls.

W. E. B. Du Bois. The Souls of Black Folk

This made me ask:

What are the veils that keep me from God’s dream for my life?

What has kept me stuck in the past, blind in the present, and hesitant about the future?

To live unveiled requires identifying what keeps us disconnected from the glory God wants to manifest in our lives.

Here are ten veils that I’ve identified in my field notes. Maybe some will resonate with you.

The 10 veils that prevent breakthroughs

1. Tradition

The veil of tradition is the past masquerading as wisdom. It says, “We’ve always done it this way.” It’s old ideas and old wineskins (Matthew 9:14-17).

Economist Joseph Schumpeter coined the term “creative destruction,” to refer to the way the free market grows. The market gets better and stronger when innovation sweeps away the old and makes room for something new.

In the same way, creative destruction is necessary for spiritual renewal. What old ideas or traditions are clouding your view of what’s possible in the future?

2. Dysfunction

The veil of dysfunction is the emotional baggage we carry into our faith. One area of dysfunction I recognize in my life is the “hero complex” I carry from being an adult child of an alcoholic. I try to control outcomes to prevent the pain of experiencing failure.

What dysfunctions are you carrying into your faith?

3. Assumptions

Assumptions are the personal beliefs I treat as absolute truth because they are comfortable and familiar. I rarely question these beliefs because they feel true, but such beliefs are often the ones that need questioning most.

An unquestioned assumption can become a sacred cow—a belief that is unreasonably immune to critique or opposition. If I don’t examine my assumptions, I’ll end up clinging to emotional sacred cows instead of chasing biblical truth. These sacred cows will block my vision, keeping me stuck in one way of thinking and preventing me from seeing what God is doing.

Some of my assumptions might align with what the Bible says, and some might not. In some cases, they were passed on to me from other people or institutions. However tempting it may be to question the people or institutions who shaped these beliefs, real transformation starts when I question myself—before I question others or institutions.

What beliefs do you treat as absolute truth? How willing are you to question these assumptions?

4. Ritual

This veil refers to the comfort of routine. It’s clinging to emotional and spiritual patterns not because they work, but because they’re ours. We can become so comfortable in these routines that any change to them feels like loss, even when it’s growth.

Do you cling to any rituals, even when they don’t work?

5. Opposition

The veil of opposition is the resistance we get from people around us who push back on our transformation. It comes from frozen relationships, where people don’t want us to change because our growth exposes their own stagnation. The more we listen to this opposition and resistance, the more susceptible we are to settling into our doubt and fear.

How does it affect your vision when you get opposition from people around you?

6. Pride

The veil of pride is the pursuit of validation over transformation. It’s a drive for attention, achievement, and approval that comes not from purpose, but from fear.

Pride often doesn’t show up in the form of arrogance. It’s the way we handle our fear of inadequacy. Sometimes it leads to competition. Sometimes it leads to envy. For me, it was a search for love in all the wrong places—a desire to earn admiration and attention, hoping it would feel like love.

How do you see the veil of pride in your life?

7. Disbelief

The veil of disbelief is mentally rejecting the truth of who God is. This veil grows when we are unwilling to read Scripture for ourselves, and we only know God through what others say.

When I finally began to see God for who he truly is in the Bible, I realized he isn’t punitive like I believed him to be—he’s corrective. He’s not trying to destroy who I am. He is trying to restore who I was created to be.

God is a coach. He is a parent. He is shaping me to win—not punishing me for falling short.

Every big vision feels unreachable when I view God as punitive. But when I see him as someone training me, not punishing me, breakthroughs stop feeling impossible and start feeling inevitable.

Do you have any disbelief about God that makes breakthroughs feel impossible?

8. Nostalgia

The veil of nostalgia makes us romanticize the past because we’re too weary to believe in—and work toward—a better today or tomorrow.

“Wasn’t it better back then?” becomes a kind of spiritual anesthesia. We numb ourselves with memories and rationalize our loss of faith in what God can still do. When we idolize what’s behind, we lose vision for what’s ahead.

What veils of nostalgia are making you look backward instead of forward?

9. Idolatry

Under the veil of idolatry, the world defines our worth. We are shaped by prestige, popularity, and the latest digital media platform, and we stop listening to God. Our faith shrinks to satisfy the crowd rather than growing to please God.

We might achieve some level of impact by trying to impress people, but we forfeit the far greater impact we were meant to have by pursuing God’s purpose—serving and helping people as he does.

Who or what defines your worth more—people or God?

10. Fear

Fear is the most primal and pervasive veil. It’s our fear of criticism, slander, vulnerability, failure, and even death. It’s the voice that whispers, “What if I’m not enough? What if I try—and lose everything?”

Fear is the veil that makes comfort feel like calling. It urges us to settle, to be “reasonable,” to choose survival over transformation.

Breaking through to our destiny

These veils aren’t theoretical. They’re personal. They’re emotional, psychological, and spiritual. They are the parts of me that need to die.

Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. [24] Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

John 12:23-24 NIV

I am humbled by my veils, and my aim is to imitate Jesus—to die to them, and gain my freedom to fulfill my potential and destiny. What about you? I would love to know if you relate to these.

Better yet, create your own list. You’ll never chase your dreams or discover your breakthroughs if your veils convince you to settle.