Getting Unstuck For A New Year

By John Stallings



In the movie, “Forest Gump” you may remember the part of the movie where Forest decides to go for a run.

He first runs to the end of the driveway. Then he runs into town. Then he runs to the county line & then he runs to the state line. Then he runs across half the United States to Santa Monica California.Then Forest decides to turn around & run some more. This time he runs across the country to a lighthouse in Maine. He keeps running until people notice. He’s in the media, on magazine covers & starts to build a following. People start to run with him & follow him wherever he goes.With a full beard & dirty, grungy clothes, Forest finds himself with a large number of followers who will go wherever he goes.

One day, Forest stops running. Standing in the middle of a road he speaks to his followers. They wait with bated breath for his words of wisdom. They lean toward him waiting for the words to fall from his lips.Forest speaks like no man ever spoke before, sharing these words of unprecedented wisdom, I hope you’re sitting because this is big; Forest says, “I’m kind of tired. I think I’m gonna go home now.” He walks through his followers who part like the Red Sea.

Though the movie was first & foremost a comedy, I think, & certainly it was just a movie, there’s something here that rings a serious bell. You can’t help but feel sorry for these people following Forest, mostly because they have nothing better to do. They have no direction in their lives. These folk put their faith & hope in Forest & he has nothing to offer them.

WE HAVE A GUIDE

As we embark on the year 2011, we aren’t like the people in the movie Forest Gump, - so empty, - so lost -that we would follow someone who’s going nowhere in particular. Forest had a good heart, but really had no clue where he was going & why.We’re told in scripture & we know experientially that the Holy Spirit who resides within us will Guide us into all truth. We have God, His Son Jesus & The Holy Spirit to fill our lives with meaning & give us guidance.

STUCK

The greatest challenge of the coming New Year will be letting go of the past in order to grasp a new future. It’s not as easy as it sounds because we as human beings have a way of getting stuck. Many people find that though they want passionately to believe things can be different, a new beginning always seems to move just out of reach. They find themselves slipping back into the bondage of the past.In Philippians 3:13-14 Paul said….

but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind & reaching forth for those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

If you saw the movie Groundhog Day; you have a perfect example of a man who’s stuck, living the same day over & over. I don’t think there is anyone who isn’t, or hasn’t been stuck. Maybe our “stuckness” centers on a tangible such as buying, eating, drinking, drugging, worrying, fretting, gambling, risks, sex, love, books, movies, television, ideas, work, or power. Or maybe what we’re experiencing is a general malaise or vertigo that we can’t put our finger on.

Being stuck is sort of a twilight zone of sameness with no seeming ability to affect any kind of change. We yearn for new vistas but seem to be fresh out of ideas as to how and where to find them. We look down the road and see no chance of anything but more of the same.

We all know what it’s like to be in a car that’s stuck, either in snow, sand or mud. My heart bled these past few weeks as I watched the folk in the northeastern states being victimized by the white stuff.Though we love white Christmases, too much of a good thing can be devastating.

But being emotionally and spiritually stuck is worse. It’s the realization that we’re not moving forward, and we feel paralyzed. There are projects we know we need to start or finish, but we’re seemingly trapped and frozen in place.

Few of us will grow in our Christian lives in a steady, gradual, upward slope from birth to death. Granted there will be seasons of seemingly effortless growth but there will also be seasons where we somehow get “stuck” at one level and can’t “break out” to the next level.Something’s getting in the way!It's my contention that part of what impedes our personal and spiritual growth are the "stuck" places in our life.

There are varieties of reasons we get stuck but whatever they might be, our personal growth diminishes the longer we remain stuck. We can get stuck in our past, in our pain, in our problems, in our perspectives or in our life patterns.I get stuck sometimes, don’t you? It is not usually an absence of options, but a plethora of them. One gets stuck in the process of choosing & then shuts down.We can sometimes get stymied. That implies being thwarted by some outside force.

Certainly outside forces influence us negatively or positively, but the reality is that most of the stymieing comes from within. We are afraid. We are afraid of the shame, embarrassment, & disappointment that failure will bring & the increased responsibility of success. Therefore, we are timid, tenuous, and terrorized by fear of the decisions we might make or actions we might take. After all, we might make a mistake. We might produce mediocre work. We might open a can of worms. Our "mights take away our might.”

Maybe a large challenge comes up, -we get discouraged & we freeze. We put our plans on hold & break our pattern of discipline.Sometimes “being stuck” is a signal that something has gone wrong; somehow we’ve missed it, and we’re terribly off course. This is not always the case; as a matter of fact, feeling stuck is a condition that can be good for us. For one thing, a prime prerequisite for getting unstuck is to be stuck. When we’re stuck, we’ve lost our momentum and are forced, at least temporarily, to stop and assess our lives.

Feeling stuck acts as an inward summons or call. We face the fact that we are dissatisfied with where we are. We see the utter futility of our situation, and, if we are wise, we reach for another level to satisfy the desire for change. At that point, we are reaching for that which really satisfies, and, in so doing, we are calling out for God. So that’s why I say that being stuck isn’t really a bad thing. What has happened is, because of the stuck feelings, we have begun to readjust our lives, looking for a clearer perspective. In a way we are calling out, “What’s next for me, God?

PEOPLE GET STUCK IN THE PAST

Some people live in the past and seem to revel in the hurts of yesterday. They won’t shake loose from their past failures or calamities because, to them, the past is more important than the present. When you talk to them, you quickly see they are totally caught up with & committed to keeping the past more real than the present. They are stuck. What decade was it that Ronnie Millsap was lost in? Was it the sixties? I liked the song but always forget the decade. Oh well, it matters not; the important things is he was stuck.

In John 5, Jesus saw a man sitting beside the pool of Bethesda. He had been sitting there for thirty-eight years, trying to be first into the water after it was troubled by the angel. Jesus came along and heard the man’s story and immediately saw that he was stuck. I would say that thirty-eight years of sitting in the same spot, whining about the same problem is really being stuck. It didn’t cross the man’s mind that there was another way. When Jesus was able to get him to quit worrying about his past defeats and disappointments & look to Him, the man was healed, & he carried his bed away.

WE CAN GET STUCK IN OLD PATTERNS AND HABITS.

It’s not hard to develop bad habits (sometimes sinful), but more often people are just bogged in ruts. Some give up, figuring they can’t change, so why try? Perhaps because of resentment or a negative thought pattern they’ve been in so long, they think their situation could never change. Perhaps they’ve come to believe their lot in life is already static, & nothing can ever be different.

MAYBE YOU’RE STUCK FINANCIALLY OR WITH SOME OTHER PHYSICAL NEED.

In John 2, Jesus attended a wedding in Cana of Galilee, & they had run out of wine. The people were stuck with no libation, & obviously it put the wedding planners in a bit of an embarrassing spot. They were stuck with no wine. Though Jesus’ time had not yet come to do miracles, He responded to the need & performed His first miracle by turning water into wine. When we are stuck financially, emotionally, or in any other way, we should immediately turn to Jesus, knowing He’ll always be responsive to our needs.

YOU MAY BE STUCK WITH A FALSE ASSUMPTION

In Joel 2:23-32, the prophet speaks to a people who are stuck in despair, feeling things will never get better. He tells them to look up and be glad for God is going to do great things for them. They have a great future if they’ll rise up and take hold of it by faith.He says in verse 25,-

-And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpillar, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you. 26And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you: and my people shall never be ashamed. 27And ye shall know that I am in the midst of Israel and that I am the LORD your God, and none else: and my people shall never be ashamed.28And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions.

In I Kings 17 we read the story of Elijah being sent to the home of the widow of Zarephath. A famine was in progress, & the only thing she had was just enough meal to make a cake for herself & her son, then die of slow starvation. This poor little widow woman was indeed stuck. Elijah asked her to make him a little cake first, and at that point she had a choice. She could believe the word of the man of God or do it her way, & no doubt die. When she opted to obey, she was given a miracle supply of oil & meal that lasted for many days.

When things are going bad & we are stuck in some situation or other, we should always listen for Gods voice. He’ll have a plan to get us unstuck. [He has a fleet of spiritual tow-trucks that can be on your case before you can say “Gesundheit”.] The only thing the widow had to do was exercise obedience, & her need was met. To get unstuck, you & I will often have to make that same choice--to obey God.

SOMETIMES BEING STUCK IS JUST PURE PROCRASTINATION.

We develop a habit of putting things off until it finally turns into resistance to tasks that are unpleasant to us. Though we don’t enjoy thinking about it, sometimes we can become stubborn, which started as a childhood-survival technique we may have developed to ward off controlling people. We learned early that we can resist certain things, & people can do nothing but accept our resistance. Perhaps we even enjoyed seeing how it frustrated others when we used those powers of resistance. This may have worked as a child, but it isn’t necessary now, and if we don’t recognize what’s happening, it can be a tool of the devil to sabotage our motivation. Now it translates to pure, old, mule-headed stubbornness, keeping us from the changes we should make.

MAYBE WE ARE STUCK BECAUSE WE ARE RESISTING CHANGE.

Are you stuck at the beginning of the great New Year, 2011?

HERE ARE A FEW HELPFUL HINTS FOR GETTING UNSTUCK.

1. Look at your situation realistically. Does anything in the aforementioned apply? Ask God to help you see what’s really stopping your progress.

2. Look for the bottlenecks in your situation & address them.

3. Develop a “what’s next” mentality. God will show you His will if you seek Him.

4. Don’t hesitate to go to people you respect & enlist their prayers & advice. Don’t forget to seek God.

5. When you get temporarily stuck on a project, walk away for a while, & you’ll come back to it with a new perspective. But do come back.

6. Home run king, Henry Aaron, had this advice: In a slump, keep swinging.

7. Help others with their problems, & yours will seem smaller.

8. Take care of yourself spiritually, emotionally, & physically.

9. Start each day with God’s Word & a prayer for guidance.

LET ME GIVE YOU A LIST OF IMPORTANT QUESTIONS FOR THE NEW YEAR

1. What’s the most humanly impossible thing you’ll ask God to do for you this coming year?

2. What’s the single most important thing you need to happen to improve the spiritual quality of your family?

3. What spiritual discipline do you most want to make progress in & what will you do about it?

4. What’s the biggest time-waster in your life & what will you do about it in the coming year?

5. For whose salvation will you most fervently pray in the coming year?

6. How could you improve your prayer life in 2011?

7. What will you do in 2011 that will matter most in 10 years? In eternity?

8. What will you do differently by God’s grace this coming year?

9. What’s the most important decision you need to make in 2011?

10. What area of your life needs simplifying & how will you do it?

11. What important need do you feel burdened to meet in 2011?

12. What habit would you like to establish in 2011?

13. Who do you most want to encourage this year?

14. What’s the most important financial goal you need to meet & how will you go about doing it?

15. How can you improve the quality of your work life?

16. What will you endeavor to do to bless your pastor or others who minister to you?

17. What book in addition to the bible do you want to read?

18. What’s your biggest regret of 2010 & what will you do about it in 2011?

19. What important trip would you want to take this year?

20. What skill do you want to learn or improve?

21. To what need or ministry will you give to in an unprecedented way in 2011?

22. What biblical doctrine do you want to better understand?

23. If those who know you best gave you advice, what advice would that be?

24. Would they be right?

25. What will you do about it?You are looking for ways to make progress in your life. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t have read these little tips by such a non-expert as I.

If we keep reaching, the best is yet to come.

In Saskatchewan there’s a sign by the side of a muddy road which reads:

CHOOSE YOUR RUT CAREFULLY, YOU’LL BE IN IT A LONG TIME.

Happy New Year,


Blessings,


John