Agree/disagree with the following statement: “What I believe is correct because it’s what I was taught growing up”.

Chances are, most of us would disagree.  It doesn’t make us sound very independent, and it’s not very sexy.

How about this one: “What I believe is correct because my friends agree with me”.

Again, this statement wouldn’t exactly paint us as the rugged protagonist willing to risk all for the truth.

Alright, last one: “My beliefs are correct because I have objectively explored all possibilities and judiciously selected only what resonates most with my mind, body and spirit”.

OK, that one’s sort of wordy, but we’d probably take this one above the other two.  I know I would.

However, let’s find out whether our beliefs actually hold up to our ideals.

Think of your favorite sports team.  Did you choose them because they really are the best team in the league?  Maybe they have the most energy-efficient stadium?  Or perhaps because their fans are the kindest?

Likely not (Philly fans, that last one’s an enthusiastic “no”).  You probably support them because you grew up near them.  Or your parents supported them.  Maybe you have a cousin who played for them (GO PREDATORS!).  Or you discovered a random Yankees jersey in your closet one day, and figured it would save on fan gear.

Seems a bit arbitrary, doesn’t it?  Well, no matter – it’s sports.  But what happens when we extend this concept to other spheres?

Think about the college/school you went to.  Your religion or spirituality.  Who you voted for in the USA election, or would have voted for.  Can you really say that you made all these choices without any outside influence?

I somehow doubt many of us are proud of our colleges because they’re really the most academically rigorous higher education institution out there. I don’t think that we were all magically born into families who just happened to share our spiritual beliefs.  And I have a hunch that many of us did not make our presidential pick based on information from watching all 3 presidential debates, exploring the websites and policies of all the candidates, and reading news sources from every leaning across the spectrum.

“Well”, you say, “I don’t need to.  I’m right”.  That’s funny, because that’s exactly what the person across the tracks from you ALSO said.

To clarify, this is not a reprimand for having an upbringing or current circumstances.  Those are rather difficult things to avoid.  However, I do want to make the point that, more often than we’d like to think, we have a tendency to believe things simply because it is convenient to do so.

This is not only a problem because it’s just kinda pathetic – it actually makes us less effective as human beings, both individually and in groups. You can check out the science behind this in a Scientific American article.  I had a rude awakening to this myself when I took my little Canadian Mennonite self to a huge secular college in the angriest city in the USA (that’s a fact, btw).  Coming in with preconceived notions about everything from economic policy to the LGBT community to yoga, I realized (after a few years) that there is a lot that I did not know. And, in an unexpected turn of events, there still is.

I don’t have the time, and you don’t have the attention span, to give you the complete memoirs of my college experience.  At least not in this article.  But I would like to suggest two things that I think will help keep us more honest:

1.  Deliberately seek to hear from people who think differently than you.  Bonus points if you don’t come in with your holster, at least initially.  There’s a time for grungy facebook thread debates, but so often I’ve observed those go down a vortex of death simply because neither side has any idea where the other is actually coming from.  I kinda wish that people donned inflatable sumo suits when they debated so that it would be acknowledged that we’re all human beings.  So let’s put faces to our foes.  Read their blogs.  Get news from more than just The New York Times or FOX.  In many cases I think the amount of grace we have for people is directly tied to how well we actually know them.
2. Focus on facts rather than the fanfare around them.  It’s amazing how many of us will agree with someone’s opinion simply because they dress well, or articulate it well, or post a funny GIF with it.  In our age of infotainment, it’s almost becoming passe to go to websites like snopes.com or politifact.com to look up whether something is true or not.  I have a whole separate teaching on this crucial concept which can be found here.  In short, look before you “like” and BEWARE THE MEMES.  I think John Adams put it best when he chose to go against popular opinion to defend the British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre, making the following statement during the trial: “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence”.

So, let’s remember, truth is not a coward.  We don’t need to be surrounded by people who agree with us all the time.  To put it in pastorly terms, Bill Johnson said: “a Gospel that doesn’t work in the marketplace, doesn’t work”.  And in Adele terms: “Hello from the other side”.  Let’s come alongside people who admit to being on the same journey we’re all on – the journey towards truth.  Because together, I think we’re gonna get there faster.

Further study: Check out this video on the concept of “Bad Faith” which explains why we don’t like to be stretched.

It’s important at this point to define “success”.  Perhaps it may seem too shallow to say success equals finances and jobs, even though this seems to be what Charismatics generally are referring to when talking about things like “favor” and “provision”.  For the purposes of this article, let us simply define success as achieving a dream or goal, whatever that may be – whether that be a solid marriage, a six-figure income, or a thriving ministry to the homeless.

When I started looking for the common thread that actually makes people successful, I found a simple answer: they do things.

Mozart spent ten years learning to compose concertos before he wrote his first masterpiece at age 21.  Bill Gates spent his entire teenagerhood teaching himself how to use time-sharing computers – in one seven-month period in 1971, Gates and his friends ran up 1,575 hours of computer time (which averages out to eight hours a day, seven days a week).  The Beatles in their earlier years got a gig in Hamburg where they played 8 hours a day, seven days a week.  By the time they had their first success, they had already performed 1200 times!

I found this true in my own life as well.  I wrote a musical last year, which was performed in the Fringe Festival and went over really well. Multiple people described the musical as being a spiritual experience, and so it would naturally follow that I had a friend who asked me what my spiritual process was for writing the show. Did I fast? Did I sit around for hours begging God to give me inspiration? Did I wait for a download, and then write?

No. All I did was work extremely fricking hard. No magic formula. Did research, had no social life, spent hours staring at my arm hairs wondering why my songs made no sense, talked to God, or the wall, or my characters, watched historical movies, took walks…that’s it.

What I’ve seen far too much of among some church denominations is this idea that spiritual calisthenics – hours of prayer, fasting, and begging God to move mountains – is going to get the job done.  Hey, nothing is wrong with praying.  And yes, I know stories of people like Rees Howells and George Muller who had incredible stories of divine provision.  But for every Howells and Muller, I’ve got a hundred who have scrapped, clawed, made a million mistakes, and pushed on until they reached their dreams.

Sometimes it’s simpler than we make it.  If you need financial breakthrough, ask yourself if you’ve ever tried talking to your boss about a raise.  If you want to start a business, ask yourself if you’ve ever taken a business class or built connections with people who run successful businesses.  If you’ve been single your entire life and want to be in a relationship, ask yourself if you’ve ever legitimately pursued someone.

“But what if things don’t turn out?”  Since when do we EVER know how things will turn out?  As Helen Keller said, “Security is mostly a superstition…Life is either a daring adventure, or it is nothing”.

“But what if I’ve already tried that and it didn’t work?”  Herein lies another theological rub which I need to unpack.  I’ve found that there is a tendency to excuse a lack of discipline by saying “it’s the will of God”.  By this, I mean that when we hit resistance to our goals/dreams, we take this to mean “God must be leading me somewhere else”.  The only time when we push through this, it seems, is when we’re entirely convinced that our goal is of God – at which point, all resistance magically is credited to the devil. It seems rather flimsy reasoning to believe that the only difference between God’s work and the devil’s is the amount of confidence we have in our goals.

What I’m really getting at is summed up in a quote by Galileo that I often use: “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended for us to forgo their use”.  It didn’t take MLK much to realize he had a responsibility to right a wrong in the world.  And when he got thrown in jail he didn’t say, “well, I guess God’s telling us to quit”.  He kept on the road.  And maybe we should too.  What if success is as simple as looking for good we can do in the world, and doing it?  Like Reinhard Bonnke said, “Those who forever seek the will of God are overrun by those who do the will of God.”

Here’s a final thought, courtesy Bill Johnson: “God wants to renew your mind so much that He can do your will”. If you follow that line of thought to its completion, the implication is that you no longer ask God about anything, you just make decisions and work hard till you see them through.  Hmmm…

Sounds a lot like what successful people already do.

Prayer does not change God – it changes me.  -C.S. Lewis