Eight practices that will lead to a life of greater serenity and peace

Our world can be characterized by out-of-control schedules, lack of rest, frenetic activity, and little margin. Yet our hearts long for peace and serenity. We cannot change the frenetic pace of our world, but we can choose to live in peace and serenity ourselves. Here are eight practices that can lead to a life of greater serenity.

1. Places of refuge. These are places where our hearts feel at peace and where we can slow down. For me, it includes a study in my home that has no television, is filled with books, and a comfortable couch. Whenever I enter, I feel a special peace come over me because it is a place of peace. It may also be a stream where I can fly fish in solitude. For all of us, it will be different, but identifying those places of refuge that we can go to regularly will help us negotiate what is otherwise a busy existence.

2. Time with Jesus. Out-of-control schedules or even the typical challenges of our lives lead to anxiety and personal stress. The best place to leave our anxiety and stress is with Jesus, who told us that he can bring peace to our souls. Who does not long for peace? Psalm 23 says, "He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul." It is a picture of rest, quietness, peace - in the presence of God. But none of that happens in frenetic activity. Only in quietness and time with Him.

3. Quiet reflection. The art of quiet reflection is time without distractions to think deeply about our lives, God, or situations we face. Reflection demands times of peace and quiet: Television off; radio silenced; cell phone muted - maybe soothing music on. I write this blog in the peace and quiet of an early morning, one of my favorite times to reflect and think.

4. Special friends. I am thinking here of friends who bring peace and joy to our lives and fill us emotionally. This is not your average friend. Many friends are needy and drain us. There is a time for those friends, but not when we are needing peace and serenity. These are friends who encourage us, accept us, love us, and allow us to be who we are in their presence without pretense or expectations. Too often, in our busyness, we do not nurture the most important friends who can bring peace to our lives.

5. Good books. Well-chosen books can help us relax, reflect and grow. It is why my personal place of refuge is lined with them. One need not be a prodigious reader for this to be the case. Even a few pages or a short chapter can stimulate our thinking and reflection. Books help us stretch our minds and offer perspectives of others that can change our own perspectives.

6. A journal. Journaling is a practice that can bring greater peace and serenity to our lives. It allows us to record insights we gain in our times of reflection. The simple act of writing those insights down dramatically increases our retention of them. It allows us to have a record of our personal growth. It allows us to be more reflective in our prayer lives as we write out our prayers from time to time. It forces us to think more clearly and reflect more deeply. It is worth the effort even if we are not naturally writers.

7. Interludes of prayer. These are times during the day when we intentionally reconnect with Jesus in prayer. For instance, my cell phone alerts me on the hour, every hour during the day. When it does, I silently engage Jesus about whatever I am working on or the meeting I am in. It reminds me to be present with Jesus, it reminds me to check in with Him, and it reminds me to bring the events of my day to Him. They are hourly check-ins with the only one that can ultimately bring me peace of heart and soul.

8. Learning to be present. How often do you find yourself mulling on a problem or anxiety when you should be concentrating on a conversation, a work project, or playing with your kids? Being present means that we are mindful of what we are doing at the moment and truly focused on that rather than focusing on other things that distract us from being present in the moment. Being present means that we are fully "there" in whatever we are doing. It also prevents us from being "elsewhere," which is usually a problem or challenge that we should have left with Christ rather than carrying it around with us. The hourly reminder from my cell phone not only reminds me to check in with God but to check in with myself to see if I am present in the moment.

A life of peace and serenity does not happen by itself but comes from healthy practices in our lives. It is a beautiful place to live and something that we can grow in regularly.

Disciplines, Habits and Lifestyle

The concept of "discipline" in our lives evokes various responses but for many it is not an overwhelmingly positive concept. I prefer the concept of "disciplined practices" of those activities that will lead to  the kind of lifestyle that I believe Jesus will be happy with. We either live accidentally or intentionally and there is no intentionality without a set of disciplined practices.

The value of well thought out disciplined practices is that over time they become habits. Habits can be our ally in living a Christ centered life. King David had the disciplined practice of praying in the morning and the evening. It became a habit and you see it reflected in numerous Psalms. His disciplined practice of memorizing God's word became a habit which is also reflected in the Psalms. These habits that lead to a God honoring life start with a decision to a certain discipline and rhythm in our lives which practiced long enough become instinctual.

Many Christ followers wonder why they don't make more traction in their Christian life. Often, it is because they have not considered the intentionality of healthy practices that become habits and which in turn become our lifestyle. Doing something often enough - good or bad- actually rewires the connections in our brain to make the practice habitual. It is our brains way of operating in a lean fashion. It can work for us or against us. In unhealthy addictions it works against us. In developing healthy practices - which takes intentional effort on our part - it works for us.

In his writings, the Apostle Paul talks about old habits and practices that need to be discarded and new habits and practices that need to be put on. With the help of the Holy Spirit and our own discipline we can indeed do that. But it does not happen by itself - it happens when we focus on disciplined practices long enough that they become habitual and which in turn inbed those healthy practices into our lifestyle. 

Think about the habits of your life. Which of them are contributing to your followership of Jesus and which of them are distracting or even undermining that followership. Then ask the question: What disciplined practices would change the equation of they became habits and then became part of your lifestyle?

Keystone habits that can change organizational culture

Eight years ago when I assumed leadership of ReachGlobal, the international mission of the EFCA I made two decisions that would radically impact the culture of the mission. The first was that we were going to place a very major focus on health: healthy staff, healthy teams and healthy leaders. The second was that we were going to develop, empower and release healthy national leaders wherever we worked.


While I knew that these two decisions were the right decisions for ReachGlobal I did not know how foundational they would be for the organizational culture long term.  I am currently reading Charles Duhigg's groundbreaking book on The Power of Habit: Why we do what we do in Life and Business, where Duhigg defines these kinds of decisions as Keystone habits which while seemingly insignificant in themselves (who would argue with healthy individuals, teams and leaders?) have a lasting and long impact on the organization's culture.


The focus on health forced us to re-evalutate our screening processes for potential missionaries and we actually shut the process down for six months to rebuild it from the ground up. It allowed us to deal with some staff who were disruptive to others.


It also spawned a new way of mentoring and coaching, team training, supervisor training and a redefinition of what leadership in the organization was about. That one directional decision touched everything we did and how we did it. My book "Leading From the Sandbox" defines our approach to leadership and teams all in line with that one directional decision.


The focus on developing, empowering and releasing healthy national workers wherever we worked shifted the focus from what we as missionaries could do to how we could help others do what they could do better than us. Again, that seemingly small keystone habit changed our whole approach to mission strategy.


I would encourage all those who lead to read Duhigg's book. But I would also encourage leaders to think carefully about what key habits should define your ministry culture and realize that you can intentionally change or redefine your culture for the better by a few key directional decisions. That is, if you have the resolve to see them through. 


What I have learned is that it does not take many decisions to actually redefine one's culture. It usually takes one or two that you believe in fully and have the resolve to stick to no matter what. 


People understand that you are actually serious and that it is not the flavor of the month when you make hard decisions that are in alignment with those directional decisions (keystone habits) you have resolved to live out. In the early days of my leadership and still today I tell staff "Do not question my resolve" to see these things become reality.


All organizations have a culture that is either intentionally created or accidental. Intentional is far better than accidental. In fact, there may well be habits in an organization that are unhealthy and which should be replaced by new habits. Understanding what is and what should be is part of the job of a leader.

Leadership self evaluation

As a leader I have high expectations of those who work in our organization. These include integrity, being focused on our common mission, creating a healthy atmosphere for our staff to flourish and then small things like returning emails and phone calls. In fact, we have a short document called "expectations of a leader" that spell these out.


From time to time I need to evaluate myself to ensure that I am living by the same standards I expect of others. It is all too easy for leaders to develop a sense of entitlement that the rules do not apply to them. And we know that others will not generally call us on it - we are their leader. It doesn't mean they don't notice, however! 


Not only do staff notice but it directly impacts the opinion they have of their leader, either creating great trust and respect or cynicism and disrespect. It is easy for leaders to miss this point because no one is calling them on their failure to live up to the leadership expectations. 


Here is an interesting scenario. It is possible for a leader to be well respected outside his/her staff because they accomplish good things but have far less respect within their staff because those who know them the best don't see them living out staff expectations. The real test of our leadership is whether those who know us the best respect us because we keep the common commitments well. We live what we expect from others. 


From time to time I directly ask those who report to me if there are things I do or don't do that negatively impact them - or that they wish I would do differently. If there are areas where I am falling behind I want to know about it so that I can rectify my shortcomings. 


All of us have shortcomings but wise leaders ensure that they are living out what they expect of others. It is a matter of leadership!

Five danger zones for leaders that contribute to leadership failure

I have spent a great deal of time lately mulling over the propensity of otherwise good leaders to crash and burn after years of effective leadership. we have examples in Scripture of leaders like King Saul and there are many contemporary examples. But what are the factors and symptoms that most often contribute to good leaders who get themselves into trouble?

One. We neglect our inner life for too long a period of time. This is usually not by design but the busyness of life (leaders are busy) and the demands that are either self imposed or other imposed (and not regulated) cause many leaders to run faster and faster until they are exhausted and the shallowness of a neglected inner life catches up. We can easily rationalize our busyness by thinking that what we are doing we are doing for God but He does not ask us to do anything at the expense of our inner spiritual lives.

Schedule, a fast pace of life fueled by the "importance" of what I am doing are deadly to healthy leaders. Because our outer life is simply a reflection of our inner lives, neglect of the former spells trouble for the latter. The antidote is actually to slow down and do less activity, more introspection and spend more time with God. He does not feed our ego as our activity and other people do but He feeds our tired and hungry hearts. 

Two. We start to believe our own press. People tell us we are good leaders and somewhere along the way we begin to believe that we are better people and leaders than we really are. Our humility erodes and our pride increases until we end up with a highly over inflated view of our leadership, self importance and value to the organization we lead. 

Belief in ourselves, our abilities, when they become over-inflated, cause us to make decisions without adequate input from others (we know the direction, we know the truth north) and even make over-calculations as to the impact of those decisions. After all we have a history of making good calls so this one must be a good one as well. 

The antidote is never to believe the press others give you but to cultivate a thorough and accurate self knowledge that is based on deeply understanding one's wiring, dark side, propensity to sin and the "real truth" about who we are. The more press we get, the more time we need to access who we truly are because the accolades from others are never a true picture of who we really are. It is only a public persona that others see. They see the good but we know the dark side. What we want to maintain is an accurate picture of who we are which is rarely the inflated picture others have of us as leaders. The loss of personal humility is deadly to any leader.

Three. We stop listening to the people who will tell us the truth and start listening to those who tell us what we want to hear. This is a very dangerous place to be. Those who tell us what we want to hear simply stroke our egos and opinions which only works to prove to ourselves what we want to think or hear. It is false knowledge that begins to skew our view of reality. When our view of reality becomes skewed, we see life through a faulty lens which blinds us to the dysfunction in our lives and causes us to make decisions that are based on skewed data. 

Once a leader gets to this stage, they are headed for trouble because they no longer listen to truth tellers, even those who have been truth tellers and counselors in the past. Because they trust their own judgments, they are able to discard those who don't agree with them and seek counsel from those who will agree with them. 

This is complicated by a fourth characteristic. Leaders at this stage often divide people into two camps, those who are for them and those who are against them. After all, with an inflated view of our own self importance and value, those who disagree with us must not understand how God is using us! And in getting in our way they are also getting in God's way. Often those who share opinions or counsel that the leader does not want to hear are marginalized and put into the enemy camp effectively preventing them from ever speaking into their lives again. I have had this happen to me on a number of occasions. 

This becomes a self fulling prophecy of leadership implosion unless it can be halted. The antidote is to surround ourselves with wise, Godly people who have permission to speak into our lives and whose counsel we will never disregard even when it is hard to hear.   The best counselors are those who have had a history of giving us wise counsel in the past, before we were in the place we are today. When leaders crash and burn and others look back they almost always see an individual who has isolated herself or himself, stopped listening to those they used to listen to and increasingly narrowed their list of friends or counselors. 

Fifth, leaders who crash and burn have usually isolated themselves from others. Often this is because they no longer feel they need to be accountable, or are running too fast to stay in relationship, or are unwilling to be transparent in their relationships out of a desire to control their image. This isolation also involves keeping others at arms length so that it is not easy to "reach" them. Often, the knowledge that my opinion may cause them to marginalize me will keep me from speaking up, and the strong personality of an isolated leader can keep me from pressing in.

Image control naturally leads to isolation since transparency is a prerequisite of close relationship and transparency gets in the way of image control. The need to control image is a sign of one who has become isolated and that isolation will eventually hurt them. God designed us for relationship and community and that community keeps us from going in directions that are unhealthy. Isolation removes the protection of deep friendships and community and sets us up for trouble.

All of us need others in our lives who will speak truth, hold us accountable, help us in our journey of faith and give wise counsel. When we cross a line where we are too important or too busy to cultivate those relationships we will find ourselves in dangerous waters. If you are a leader, pay attention to these five characteristics. We are all susceptible to them. They are very dangerous, each of them. In combination they are deadly.

Ask yourself these questions on a regular basis:
1. Am I too busy for my inner life?
2. Am I starting to believe my own press?
3. Have I marginalized people I listened to in the past?
4. Am I dividing people into camps: for me and against me?
5. Am I becoming isolated?

Healthy character traits

Character is the foundation that gives us influence in ministry. Think about these markers as you evaluate yourself as a ministry leader or a person who values character.


Truthful
Character is always based on truth and never on lies. Jesus called the evil one the father of lies while he said that His word was truth. Whenever we skirt the boundaries of truth we compromise our character. As Mark Twain said, "If you always tell the truth you never have to remember what you said."


Forthright
Being honest, upfront and forthright is a mark of Character. There is no question in the minds of others what you are thinking and there is never a need to say different things to different people for the forthright individual. What you see and here is what you get. Part of character is being self defined and willing to state your views.


Non defensive
People of character are not afraid of being challenged or people who disagree with them. They have developed a non-defensive spirit because they know that life is not about them but about honoring Jesus and being all that we can be, personally and organizationally.


Controlled
People of character are able to control their emotions so that they don't hurt others. They are slow to anger, quick to forgive, love reconciliation and are careful of what they say - so that they build others up rather than tear them down. They have learned to control their emotions and reactions in ways that are healthy.


Without hidden agendas
People of character never hide their true agendas. It is not that we don't have an agenda but whatever it is it is stated and in the open. Hidden agendas lack a truth component which is so important to character. Truthfulness and forthrightness preclude hidden agendas. This is a person who is without guile.


Trustworthy
People of character keep their word and can be counted on to fulfill the promises they make. In other words, they can be trusted to do what they say they will do. Our word is our bond and our promises are sacred. 


Fair
People of character are fair in how they treat people and do not play favorites with those they lead. Even when decisions are not what they hoped for, they know they have been treated fairly.


Consistent
People of character display the same character in the dark when no one is looking as they do in their public life. They are integrated people whose private life matches their public persona. 


Humble
At the heart of character is humility. It is what makes possible all the other traits of good character. Humility is necessary for teachability, for growth, for character development and for healthy relationships with others. Pride makes for poor character. Humility makes for great character.

Our habits and a long view of life

Living in the "instant" world of the west where we love immediate results, quick fixes and instant gratification, we often forget that the Christian life is a marathon rather than a sprint and that long term results are the product of long term rather than short term thinking. The Apostle Paul talks about "running the race with our eyes fixed on the prize." He also often speaks of endurance and perseverance. Eugene Peterson rightly called it a "long obedience in the same direction."


The key to a long view of life is the development of habits that will sustain us over the long haul. Habits are long term disciplines or practices rather than short term "resolutions." They form a personal frame or infrastructure that the rest of life connects to. Just as the hidden steel frame of a large building holds all the component parts together, so the habits we develop are the invisible underpinnings of our lives which everything else is connected to and influenced by.


There is good news and bad news in this. The bad news is that unhealthy habits have long term ramifications for our lives if not corrected since our life infrastructure touches everything else. That is why it is so important to deal with sinful habits rather than to ignore or nurture them. But the good news is that the development of healthy habits has long term healthy ramifications and gives us the means of going the distance well and living out that "long obedience in the same direction:" in the power of the Holy Spirit. And, it is never too late to develop new and healthy habits.


Practices become habits when they are practiced long enough that they become second nature. For instance, many people have a habit of spending money they don't really have thanks to the ease of using a credit card. That habit over the long term leads to a life of debt and dependence on others. Others never spend what they don't have. They have practiced a healthy discipline long enough that it is second nature to them. Over the long term it leads to financial health.


Habits we form in our marriages determine the quality of our relationship with our spouse. Habits in our devotional lives form the quality of our relationship with God. Habits in our professional life form the quality of our work. Habits in our hidden life form the quality of our moral architecture. Habits in our relation to our health form the foundation for good or poor health. In every instance, habits contribute either to long term health or to long term dysfunction. 


Studies have shown that our long term practices or habits actually cause changes to our brain. The reason new habits are hard to develop is that our brain is trained to respond in an alternative way (like the urge to purchase on credit). Every time we engage in a certain practice, our brain chemistry strengthens the chemical connections that encourage that particular behavior. The good news is that we can retrain our brain with the practice of new habits which in the long term sustains us in that practice. 


As we think about our lives we ought to be aware of the habits that underlie our actions. Which are healthy and helpful? Which are problematic and hurtful? Which are pleasing to God and which are not? In relation to the former, working hard on making these central to our lives becomes our goal and as to the latter, they become those things that the New Testament says we need to "take off" and discard. 


When Paul talks about old things to take off and new things to put on (see Ephesians 4-5 for instance) he is talking about practices which are habits. The old are destructive and the new reflect the character of Christ. When we cooperate with the Holy Spirit, He gives us the ability to discard the old and put on the new.  Remember these habits are the invisible framework that make up our lives and contribute either to a long and healthy view of life or a dysfunctional view of life.