Elevation with Steven Furtick - I'm Not Stuck Unless I Stop

Episode Date: June 14, 2024

How many times in your life have you been more loyal to your limitations than to your potential? In Mindset MasterClass Session 1, New York Times bestselling author Pastor Steven Furtick sits down with Brendon Burchard to discuss the ways to overcome limitations restricting you from reaching your full potential.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick. I'm the pastor of Elevation Church, and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith. Hope it gives you perspective to see God is moving in your life.

Enjoy the message. The premise of Do the New You is that the main thing that God changes through anything we go through is us. And if you have believed the lie, that the you you have met so far is all there is to you, I think we want to come to you with an announcement. You haven't really met you yet. The two things we just said if you put them together

will change your life. Because I said that the you that God sees is history to him. And then Brendan said, but it's a mystery to me. I haven't met that version of myself yet, but God has. And I love it because it's exactly what I'm trying to say. It's history to him. He's already seen it. He's not waiting for me to become someone he could love. I used to feel like that. I think a lot of people who believe in Jesus feel like there is a version of you that is patient and kind and loving and God will really like hanging out with that guy. And he can really use that

person. When you become that, then God can use you. That's not how God sees you. That's not how God sees it. It's history to him. He's already seen it. It's just coming forth in your life. So what's a mystery to me is history to him. And apart from just rhyming, like, it gives me a new tool for what I want to become in my life. It's not just let me grind to get there and then I'll be worthy of love. One of our favorite authors, Richard Roar, says that most of us were taught that basically God's love was a reward for when we change, that God will love us more when we. But actually, he says, God's love is the resource by which we change. Oh, I love that. So it's not something that we're changing for so that God will love and accept us more is something that we're changed by.

It is the resource. I love that. I think that is a big part of my Christian faith and discovery was, oh, I don't have to go earn his love. Like, I was already saved by grace. Like, this idea that you, that acceptance already happened. Right. That the sacrifice and Jesus' experience opened up the grace that allows me to live through that love. I don't have to earn it and then have it and then enjoy it. It's like, oh, it's here, it's available.

It's been granted. I'm accepted already, and I can act through that. And that's hard for people because we don't like ourselves so often. So you say, oh, yeah, yeah, God likes me, sure, sure. But when you really step into that and you realize you're already accepted, and now you act through acceptance versus acting through earning, you're a different power, you're in a different place. When I walk on stage, if I'm acting through acceptance,

there's a personal power, there's an authenticity, there's a connection there that's different. If I think I got to go get the roar, I'm scrambling the whole stage. I'm scrambling for the roar. I'm scrambling for the roar. The acceptance, right? You're doing things to be accepted,

to get the praise, to get the honor. And then the fact is, when you do get the praise, when you do get the honor, when you do get the roar, you feel empty. Because you weren't acting through acceptance. You are scrambling to get it. That's it, man. It's really about whether you are chasing an acceptance that you think will be given to you as a prize. That's the treadmill. Or whether you're coming from a place of acceptance knowing that, well, since I'm already accepted, since I've already been given this, I actually want to live more into that.

Because you talk about summoning yourself. And one thing about Christians, sometimes if something sounds a little bit, technical to us, it just blows our mind. Like, summoning, is this a seance? Am I, I, I'm calling up the ghost of myself? But I love it because it helps me to understand that every day I wake up, and this is one of my favorite parts that I wrote in the book, I'm deciding a bunch of things, you know, am I going to wear this black t-shirt or that black t-shirt? You know, like, it's going to be a black t-shirt, but which one? am I going to do three sets of this or four sets of this or no sets of this in my workout, you know, whatever, whatever. But the biggest decision is which me will I be.

And I think that can sound schizophrenic to people. Like, what do you mean, which me will I be? I'm deciding that right now. I decided that an hour ago. I will decide it again when I see my kids tonight. And we decide that over and over again. And maybe this would be a good place for us to get into the idea of summoning the self-examining the self- that God sees into the first mindset in the book, which is, I'm not stuck unless I stop.

Yes. And I'm going to give you these mindsets, and Brendan's going to help me unpack them over the next few episodes of this master class. But I want you to write the first one down, even if you don't believe it, okay? You don't have to believe this. Just get it down and then let's argue about it, okay? Write in the comments, I'm not stuck. and just put that in the comment,

even though you're like, I am stuck, I'm literally stuck, I'm totally stuck, I'm something else that rhymes with stuck, but I can't say it on YouTube, I'm really, really stuck, okay? That is a challenging paradigm for people because if you look in the Bible, Paul and Silas seemed stuck in prison,

but they praised God and the chains broke loose. You know, Gideon seems stuck in a wine prayer, but God spoke and he became a deliverer. Moses seemed stuck as a murderer, running as a fugitive on the backside of the desert. And then this burning bush, and God had 40 more years of amazing things for him to do. And all of these people felt stuck.

So I want you to tell me what were your reflections on this first mindset. I'm not stuck unless I stop. Do you agree with it? How do you see it? How do we summon our way through that? and let's really dig into this first mindset. I love it. I love every section of this chapter

because it reminds you that everyone feels stuck. I think one of the things you did great in the book is that people see themselves in it constantly. You go, I do feel stuck sometimes in my relationships. I feel stuck in my head. I feel stuck in my career. What am I going to do? And a lot of people, they feel like that stuck is permanent.

Like, hey, I'm working hard, but I'm stuck. So there's not lack of action for them. They're like, I'm going to work, but I feel stuck. You know, I'm working hard, but I'm not earning more. I feel stuck. And what ends up happening is the more you feel stuck, the more you spin and doubt. Wow. And so...

When you're stuck, you spin. Write that down. When you're stuck, you spin. Yeah. And people always mistake the signal for doubt as a signal to stop. Tell me more. Doubt is not a, doubt is not saying stop. Doubt is a signal to learn.

And when you change that frame in your mind, everything changes in your life, I'm so doubtful. Doubt doesn't say, well, stop and don't learn anymore. Doubt is literally, I don't know. So the only way to actually figure it out is get in motion, try, test. Like, doubt is the entrance to the scientific process. Doubt is the entrance to faith.

Wow. And so when you realize that, Like, oh, I'm having all these doubts about this thing. The next thought should be, well, I'm going to have to do something to discover the answer. I'm going to have to do something to discover the truth. I'm going to have to do something that test this hypothesis. Will it break your flow if I ask you something about that? No, I love it.

Every religious person in the world is pulling up James 1 right now going, but the Bible says, let he who hath faith ask and not doubt. For he who asketh in faith shall not receive anything from the Lord. He is a double-minded man unstable and all he does. And I always thought that verse meant not, you know, don't have doubts or don't feel doubts. I thought it just meant go through the door of your doubt to get to the other side and find your faith. Right. Right.

Well, I think a lot of themes of the Bible are do not be afraid or, as you taught me, be strong and courageous. That presupposes some doubt. Right. most of the Bible presupposes we have doubts. Yeah, if he says be strong, I must feel weak because I wouldn't tell you to sit down. You already are. Yeah, he didn't start the story. Gideon doesn't start the story as, you know, a champion and a warrior.

He starts in the wine press. A wimp in a wine press. Yeah, David doesn't start the story with the sling. I mean, so you have to go, oh, each of these stories starts in a place often of doubt. or discouragement, despair, division between people. We have to cycle through that. But the thing is, I always say, well, that's why there's another verse. That's why there's another chapter.

It's why there's something more. It's like the story might begin in doubt, but the story doesn't stop there. And we have to remember that in our own lives. And so what I loved about this first chapter where we're saying, I'm not stuck unless I stop, is you unlock a lot of reasons that people should not stop and realize that they can change. I love how you talk about, you know, you can defy your default. Yeah.

That maybe your default was to stop or to do these bad negative behaviors, but you can work your way through them. You can change, you can shift. And I think that's a hopeful message for a lot of people because they really do believe that they're stuck and stuck is a place of permanence when what your book is teaching them. Stuck was a mindset. And you can change your mind, so you can change your life.

Yeah, you know, when you say stuck, you're probably thinking of all the people that you've coached who basically thought they had gone as far as they could go. You know, whether that's in their business or whether they had wrecked their personal life, building their business. And part of what you do is to walk into somebody who goes, and I've heard you say this phrase before, I love it, you go, I've tried everything. Right. Right?

And you go, oh, yeah, everything? Yeah, I've tried everything. And then walk through it because you have an exercise you make people do that I love. Yeah, I said, well, I tried everything. I'm awesome. I'm so excited. And I get really encouraged for them. And I say, well, if you tried everything, show me the list.

And they go, what do you mean? I said, well, show me the list. You tried everything. I mean, if you tried everything, then you must have kept a list really detailed of all the things you tried because, of course, you'd have to know what's mutually exclusive. You'd have to know what you tried and didn't work, and you'd have to adjust and do it over and again, so show me the list. And most often people go, well, you know, I tried once or twice.

And I tried the same. Well, I asked my boss for a raise on Monday. Asked him on Friday. Asked them in the same way, every time, all the time. But I've been asking. So you've been asking, okay, but you haven't been adding new value. So it's like you tried one strategy and you hit it 50 times and you didn't adjust it from another way.

You haven't tried everything. You tried what you knew. You need to get perspective or approach it in a different way. And I think often, too, people when they think of stuck, they think of just negative things. I'm stuck in a bad marriage. A lot of people are stuck in a very happy marriage. And what I mean by that is they don't need to leave the marriage.

They have to learn to be different. try a new angle to find the happiness, the fulfillment, or the intimacy in the marriage. So what I mean by that is sometimes people, they're stuck is really, they're just at a plateau. They're actually successful. They're actually doing well. Things are good. And a lot of high performances are going, oh, you're just, you're doing well. You're actually high performing, but there's this next level for you.

And I think that I actually got that out of the book as much as I got out of, oh, I'm in despair, I'm troubled. things are bad. What I also took from the book was, things are going well, but there's a new level for me when I'm in a greater connection to my faith. Speaking about plateaus, you have this great statement in the book, don't argue for your limitations. What do you mean by that? Because I think a lot of people, they are stuck, but they're stuck in their own limitation. I heard a motivational speaker say at one time, he said, if you argue for your limitations, you get to keep them. And that convicted me because I realized how many times I do it. And I don't know if I'm arguing with God like Moses did. God, I can't speak, you know, send somebody else.

I don't feel like I'm arguing with God. I feel like I'm just arguing against myself. And I realize what I'm actually agreeing with in that moment is the enemy's view of me. Yes. And I don't mean limitation. hey, you've never picked up a basketball, but you can play in the NBA and you're 54 years old. That's not the kind of limitation I have in mind. I mean, the kind of limitation that is rooted in a lie where you know God is calling you to be this kind of person and to make this kind of impact,

or you sense that he's giving you a glimpse and giving you a step to take. And then you start building the case against yourself and gathering evidence for why there's a deficiency in you. And so the quote just blew my mind. If you argue for your limitations, you get to keep them. You live small. You stay in that space. You actually begin to fulfill that prophecy, not the prophecy of God over your life, but your own prophecy. You start to fulfill the enemy's prophecy over your life, that you'll never be this.

And your dad wasn't that. So what I did, I took that quote, and in the book I take it a little further. I say, if you argue for your limitations, you get to keep them. but if you agree with God about your potential, you get to grow into it. Oh, that's good. Grow into it. That's good. You know, that's a whole sermon.

Put it in the chat. Grow into it. Because growing into it means, no, I'm not it right now. Like, any more than I was 5'9 when I was 5. But I get to grow into it. And I think that first step of agreeing with God about your potential is to go, God, you know what's in me, I don't. And that's why I'm very wary of just the know-thyself philosophy, right?

Like, know-thyself is great, but how about part two? Grow thyself. Yes. Yeah, because that's the outgrow of reflection and awareness and self-acceptance is that I'm going to grow into who God knows me to be. That's the message of the book. I was writing this book to myself in places going. and do the new you, the you that you don't know yet,

but that God already does, the one that he chose. Yeah, and have faith in yourself as equally as maybe he has faith in you, which is a hard thing to grow into. Well, think about this. You're growing into faith of yourself, which is very hard for you. Faith of yourself, because people will say, don't believe in yourself, believe in God. Here's the problem I have with that.

Who made you? If God made me, and I don't believe in me, what he called me to be, then it's him, I doubt. And that really helps me to get past this sticking point where I feel like, well, I just don't want to hype myself up and say that, you know, I can do great things. Well, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Yes. So I think the two go hand in hand. That's why I was passionate to get this master class going, to get people out of and to get you out of this mindset that says, well, God is great, but I'm no good. Okay. Yeah, we're all sinners. we all need Jesus, we all need forgiveness, but we've been redeemed by him.

So what does that speak of us that he paid that price for us? And that's the limitation that I want you to grow beyond, this view of you that only sees you as flesh and bones and mistakes and disappointments, and to grow into the image of God that you were originally created to be. So good. I thought of when I was reading it, the angle you took on don't argue for your limitations, which was also you were saying, be careful about justifying all your vulnerabilities and your challenges and what's wrong with you

because it's easy to go, well, you know, I'm not a good communicator because, and soon you say because, you enter the world of either blame or self-comfort to say, I'm not a good communicator because my parents were mean to me. And so I always tell you about listen, on limitations, always listen for the word because.

Wow. I'm like this because, and you'll often add a negative thing. My parents were like this. They didn't believe in me. She mistreated me. They cheated. They stole. Or we're doing it for our own comfort because we don't believe we have empathy from the world.

So sometimes when we share our limitations and our vulnerabilities with people, what we're doing is we're reaching out. We're saying, hey, let me just be vulnerable with you real quick. What is doing is, can you please see me? Can you recognize me because I'm not feeling like I like myself? or I'm not feeling good, seeing, heard, or I don't feel like the world is fair. So let me tell you this thing that's unfair for me. Could you see it and acknowledge it

and say to me, oh, yeah, that is unfair? Or, oh, I understand now why you are like that. And the whole conversation suddenly does something funny. It justifies and sets concrete around the limitation. Wow. Suddenly, we have verbalized the reason, because we've verbalized the reason for the limitation, and now we coalesce around it, and we actually just made it stronger. And so empathy can be like that, which we don't talk about in the modern world.

Sometimes overly placating to people's, you know, vulnerabilities or limitations, and staying on it and stewing on it all day doesn't actually move them through. It's often the difference in my career of, as we'll share, the difference sometimes between a therapist and a coach, both absolutely necessary, and I'm a huge mental health guy, but there is a difference. Sometimes we'll spend more time over here in a therapeutic context and a coach is going to try to move you through that limitation a little bit more aggressively.

Not that either is right. Both can be really wrong. But I think it's just a casual way to say to people, be careful of just always talking about the limitation and arguing for it and seeking the empathy and understanding and comfort because all of a sudden you miss the ability to move through it. And I thought that the movement through the book that you took people on was so powerful because you didn't let them sit there.

Well, thank you for saying that because when I wrote the mindset, I'm not stuck unless I stop. I thought, this could come across really callous to somebody who just found out, like, I'm never going to be able to have children, or I'm never going to be able to fulfill this dream, or I'm never going to have my health back like I did before, or this person has gone out of my life. Like, I lost my dad. And in this area of my life, I do feel like there is a limitation. Well, there is a loss. But I'm trying to get you opened up.

And anytime I talk about this, I can't help but think about Moses and the children of Israel at the Red Sea, right? And they're like, okay, God help us, help us, help us. And they cried out. And Moses says, don't worry, stand still. And you will see the salvation of the Lord, right? Next verse, God says, why are you crying out to me tell the Israelites move on? So it sounds spiritual. They're crying out to God, the Lord will deliver you, and he will.

Through you moving through it. Right. And I love that about personal development. I love that about having a coach to help us through these things and bring our faith into motion so that we can actually see faith without works is dead and that God promises to bring you through it. Thank you for joining us. Special thanks to those of you who. give generously to this ministry is because of you that this ministry is possible. You can click the link in the description to give now or visit elevationchurch.org slash podcast for more information.

And if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe, you can share it with your friends. You can click the share button. Take a screenshot and share it on your social stories and tag us at Elevation Church. Thanks again for listening. God bless you. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.