EP 117: Give It Up Or Take It On

Grab Your FREE copy of the audiobook The Mission Driven Life: Discover and Fulfill Your Unique Contribution to the World: https://www.themissiondrivenmom.com/.

What can we do when our persistent problems just won't go away? When we're stuck and can't figure out what is really going on? When depression, overwhelm, or anxiety seem to be running our lives? When our relationships are stale or taxing? 

This podcast holds the answer! 

You'll learn about George who was tortured by voices who spoke of his imminent death. You'll hear about Eric and how an English degree from Yale left him unemployed, spiritual bankrupt, and lost. You'll hear about Tracie, who liked her life and didn't want things to change. And you'll hear about Audrey and one of the most challenging times in her life. 

And you'll discover the 2 SIMPLE STEPS that each of them took to move beyond their struggles to a better life!

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PODCAST TRANSCRIPT (AI GENERATED)

 Give It up or Take it on Podcast

Welcome back to the podcast. I’m Audrey Rindlisbacher, author of The Mission-Driven Life and founder of The Mission-Driven Mom. If you haven’t yet visited TheMissionDrivenMom.com to get your free copy of the audiobook The Mission-Driven Life: How to Discover and Fulfill Your Unique Contribution to the World, you should definitely do that!

We’ve recorded the entire book for you, and in it you’ll discover the 7 Laws of Life Mission—principles that will revolutionize your life. They’ll help you love God and yourself better, learn to love truth and humanity, and gain the tools to lead yourself, your home, and your community. You’ll learn how to use your greatest gifts and talents to bless those around you, while finding joy and fulfillment in the process.

If you’re new to this podcast, we’ve reorganized the episodes so you can start from the beginning, binge-listen, and get all the key elements you need to understand the 7 Laws of Life Mission framework. We have a whole series on the Laws themselves, plus series on other topics like feminism. You’ll also find “Mission-Driven Stories,” where you can see the Laws in action in the lives of great men and women, along with personal development episodes like this one—on self-education, growth, and more.

The Story of George

I want to start today by telling you the story of George. He was a middle-aged man, married, with three kids. He worked as a traveling salesman with a large sales territory. Life was pretty normal for George—his marriage was “fine,” his kids did okay in school, and he went about his daily routine without much disruption.

Then something strange began to happen. Over the course of a few weeks, George started having disturbing thoughts about his death while driving his sales routes. Thoughts like:

“The next time you come this way, you’ll drive over that embankment and be killed.”
“Before it’s filled, your car will drive straight into that excavation, and you will die.”

The scenarios were always the same—his death, always imminent, always tied to the road he was traveling.

These thoughts became more frequent and began to plague him. As they grew stronger, George started losing sleep. He would pace the floor at night, wake up repeatedly, and find himself worrying.

One night, he thought he’d found a way to stop it. That evening, the voice had told him, “The next time you cross that bridge, you will die.” He decided that if he drove back to that bridge right then, crossed it, and didn’t die, he could “prove the voice wrong” and be free from the thoughts.

Even though it was over an hour away and the middle of the night, George got in his car, drove to the bridge, crossed it two or three times, and of course, didn’t die. Relieved, he went home, certain he had “kicked it.”

But a few days later, the voice returned. This time, it gave him a new death prediction, and again he felt compelled to drive to the location and prove it false. Soon, this became a pattern—whenever the thoughts came, he couldn’t sleep until he drove to the spot and disproved them.

Over time, the toll was obvious: less sleep, more anxiety, declining work performance, and a haggard appearance. Eventually, George told his wife what was happening. She was shocked—she had no idea. But she happened to know Dr. M. Scott Peck, a psychiatrist, and told George, “You need help. I’m calling this doctor.”

Therapy with Dr. Peck

At first, in his sessions with Dr. Peck, George insisted he didn’t know where the thoughts were coming from:

“Everything’s fine in my life. There’s no problem.”

But as time went on, he began sharing more—about his abusive childhood, his broken marriage, and his estrangement from two of his three children. He was only close to his youngest, a 10-year-old.

It became clear to Dr. Peck that George was struggling with obsessive-compulsive disorder. The compulsions were running his life. Dr. Peck wanted to help him understand why this was happening, but George resisted. He wouldn’t fully cooperate or admit the seriousness of the problem.

Then, after several months of therapy, George walked into a session elated.

“I’ve solved it! My problems are over. I don’t even know if I need therapy anymore.”

Dr. Peck was skeptical. How could such a long-standing problem vanish in less than a week? Eventually, George admitted his “solution”:

“I made a pact with the devil.”

George quickly clarified that he didn’t actually believe in the devil:

“I don’t think the devil is real. But you wouldn’t command me to stop, and I couldn’t control it myself. I had to get someone in control of the problem—so I decided to make this pact.”

He told Dr. Peck he felt “a little bit guilty” about it, but since it was helping him feel better, he didn’t see what the big deal was—especially since, in his mind, the devil wasn’t even real.

Dr. Peck asked, “What does that mean? Why are you feeling guilty?”

Finally, George admitted, “I guess there’s a little bit more I haven’t told you. There’s another reason I have the ‘guilties’—at least a little bit. You see, there was another part to my agreement with the devil. Because I don’t really believe in the devil, I couldn’t be certain he would actually kill me if I went back. For it to work, I needed some insurance—something that would really keep me from going back.

“What could that be? I wondered. Then it occurred to me that the one thing I love most in the world is my son, Christopher. So I made it part of the agreement that if I gave in to the compulsion and went back, the devil would see to it that Christopher died an early death. Not only would I die, but Christopher would too. Now you know why I can’t go back anymore. Even if the devil’s not real, I’m not willing to risk Christopher’s life on this issue. I love him so much.”

Dr. Peck replied slowly, “So you threw Christopher’s life into the bargain as well?”

“Yes,” George said numbly. “It doesn’t sound good, does it? That’s the part that really gives me the guilties.”

As you can imagine, Dr. Peck sat for several minutes in silence, trying to process what George had just told him. He didn’t want to be judgmental, but this was a serious problem. Sitting across from George, he tried to decide how he felt about what George had done, what the truth of the matter was, and what they should do about it.

Finally, Dr. Peck said he was glad George felt guilty—it meant he still had a conscience and knew what he had done was wrong. “That’s why you feel guilty,” he explained. Then he added, “George, you’re a kind of coward. Whenever the going gets a little rough, you sell out. When you’re faced with the reality that you’re going to die one of these days, you run away from it. You don’t think about it because it’s morbid. When you realize your marriage is lousy, you run away from that too—instead of facing it and doing something about it.

“Because you run away from these things that are inescapable, they come back to haunt you in the form of symptoms, obsessions, and compulsions. These symptoms could be your salvation if you said to yourself, These mean I’m haunted. I’d better find out what these ghosts are and clear them out of my house. But you don’t. Facing them would mean confronting painful realities. So you try to run away from your symptoms too, instead of facing what they mean.

“And when they’re not easy to get rid of, you turn to anything that will give you relief—no matter how wicked, evil, or destructive. You’re always looking for the easy way out, George—not the right way, the easy way. When faced with a choice between the right way and the easy way, you’ll take the easy way every time—the painless way. In fact, you’ll do anything to find that easy way out, even if it means selling your soul and sacrificing your son.

“If you’re willing to face the painful realities of your life—your tearful childhood, your miserable marriage, your mortality, your own cowardice—I can help you, and I’m sure we’ll succeed. But if all you want is the easiest possible relief from pain, then I expect you are the devil’s man.”

This struck George deeply. He knew Dr. Peck was right, but it was hard to face. He had spent his life running.

One of the things I talk about in my new book, How Truth Makes Us Free, and that we emphasize in the Academy, is that problems can be solved—and solved permanently. God has given us truth and principles to guide us toward permanent solutions. But the first step is to be honest about the existence of the problem and to be courageous enough to face it.

The women who join our Academy are some of the most courageous women in the world because they’re willing to say, “My life isn’t what I want it to be. I believe it could be better. I believe that with the right mentoring, community, and resources, I could become more than I am. I could overcome persistent problems, discover my greatest strengths, and become a real resource in my home and community for those seeking to better themselves.”

It takes courage to make that declaration. These women sacrifice—time, money, energy, mental effort, spiritual effort, emotional effort, and social effort—to sign up and do the work. And it works every time. When the women do the work, they see the results. Over the years we spend with them, they find those outcomes—because anything worth doing takes time.

For transformation to be permanent, for it to become subconscious, for it to change the very lens through which you see the world, it takes time, repetition, and effort. That’s what George was facing in this moment. He was so desperate to get out of pain, and so much in his life truly was painful. It wasn’t all his fault—he had endured a terrible childhood, unloving parents, a loveless marriage, and had checked out of most of his relationships.

But the only way forward was through the problem—admitting it, telling himself the truth, looking at all the factors, and choosing to be different.

Luckily, this story has a happy ending. George later said, “For the past ten days, I’ve felt better than I have in many months. I’ve had a few thoughts, but they haven’t really bothered me. If I were to reverse the process, it would mean going back to where I was two weeks ago—in agony.”

“I expect that’s right,” Dr. Peck replied.

“What you’re asking me to do,” George said, “is to voluntarily return to a state of torment.”

“It’s what I’m suggesting you need to do, George—not for me, but for yourself,” Dr. Peck told him. “If it would help you for me to ask you directly, then I will.”

“To actually choose a state of pain…” George mused. “I don’t know. I’m not sure I can do it. I’m not sure I want to do it.”

Dr. Peck stood. “Are you going to see me Monday, George?”

“Yes, I’ll be here.” George stood too. Dr. Peck went over, shook his hand, and said, “Until Monday, then. Goodnight.”

That evening was the turning point in George’s therapy. By Monday, his symptoms had returned in full force, but something had changed. He no longer pleaded with Dr. Peck to tell him not to go back. He was slightly more willing to examine, in depth, his fear of death and the enormous gulf of understanding and communication between himself and his wife.

As time went on, this willingness grew. Eventually, with Dr. Peck’s help, George was able to ask his wife to enter therapy herself.

This story is really amazing, and it perfectly introduces something I want to share with you today about what’s required if we truly want to engage in personal growth. I think you’re here listening because you’re like me—because you’re like the women in our Academy, and like other listeners of this podcast, and those who read The Mission-Driven Life. You’re someone who wants more.

You’re someone who wants to overcome, who wants to really believe that there are answers—someone willing to do what’s necessary, but needing to know deep down that the answers really do exist. And I promise you, they do.

Scott Peck goes on to teach a concept that, the first time I read it, completely blew my mind. He talks about how we become evil and how we become good. For George, this was a matter of life—certainly his moral life, but probably his physical life as well. His choice in that moment would make all the difference moving forward. He had to decide: would he side with good or with evil?

Now, there are plenty of people who would make fun of this—“Oh, he made a pact with the devil,” they’d say. “He didn’t really believe in the devil,” and so on. But that’s not the issue here. The issue isn’t whether or not he believed in the devil, or even whether the devil exists. The real issue is this: he was knowingly about to do something he knew was wrong in order to escape legitimate suffering.

He wanted to avoid the pain of things that had been done to him and the poor choices he himself had made. But that suffering was part of the process he needed to face if he wanted to move forward into real growth and healing. He had to decide whether to ignore his conscience or listen to it—whether to side with the good or the evil part of his heart.

In The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn describes this perfectly. He says that right down the middle of every human heart runs a line dividing good from evil, and we each have to decide which side we’ll land on—and how far toward the good we’re willing to go. Willingness is the key here. It’s the willingness to listen when we know what we should do—or what we should not do.

Scott Peck ends this section with a profound thought. He points out that most people we think of as evil—think about Hitler—are actually very strong-willed. And so, we might assume that it’s their strong will that makes them so evil, allowing them to harm so many people. But Peck challenges that idea. He says:

“It’s tempting to think that the problem of evil lies in the will itself. Perhaps the evil are born so inherently strong-willed that it’s impossible for them ever to submit their will. Yet I think it’s characteristic of all great people—whether their greatness be for good or for evil—that they are extremely strong-willed.”

You can read The Mission-Driven Life or listen to the audiobook and hear the mission-driven stories I share—stories of many great men and women—and you’ll notice that they were all very strong-willed. They moved toward what was good, right, true, and virtuous with great force and intention.

Peck goes on:

“The strong will, the power and authority of Jesus, radiates from the Gospels just as Hitler’s did from Mein Kampf.”

If you don’t know, Mein Kampf is the book Hitler wrote in prison, outlining his intentions before he was released and rose to power. The Gospels reveal the will of Jesus; Mein Kampf reveals the will of Hitler. So what’s the distinctive difference? Jesus’ will was aligned with His Father’s. Hitler’s will was aligned only with himself.

The crucial distinction is between willingness and willfulness. And that’s where our choice lies. We get to decide, every day, which side of that line in our heart we will land on—through both our small and big choices.

That’s why I want to talk to you about how to ensure you’re engaging in your own personal growth. When we understand what it means to be willing—through the example of George’s story—we see the truth Scott Peck pointed out: George was willing, even in small ways, to examine his pain. Over time, those small acts of willingness grew. He became willing to face bigger and harder things until eventually, he found peace again and was able to move forward.

Because when we are willful—when we resist giving up what we know we should give up, or resist taking on what we know we should take on—we stop our own growth. We cannot move forward unless, as the title of this podcast suggests, we give something up or take something on.

For George, he had to give up his illusions about a perfect life. He had to give up avoiding pain. He had to stop running away from everything and finally stand still, face the truth, and deal with it.

I want to tell you another story—this one about Eric Metaxas. I may have mentioned it before in years past, but it’s such a beautiful story. It demonstrates so clearly the importance of giving something up in the process of our spiritual growth, if we’re truly willing. When we hand over our hearts and minds to what we know is good, true, and beautiful, we will also be willing to release the things that are holding us back.

Eric Metaxas had something he needed to give up as well. He’s written many incredible books—he’s a #1 New York Times bestselling author. I think he’s marvelous. I’ve met him, and I truly admire him.

One of his books, Amazing Grace, was life-changing for me during the last leg of the journey in the MDM Academy. Once you finish your mission project and graduate from the Academy, you’re invited to join our Clapham Leadership Team—named after the Clapham Sect, which I learned about through Amazing Grace. So, that’s a pretty special connection for me.

Eric’s conversion story is a perfect example of this principle: that if we want to grow, there’s either something we must give up or something we must take on. In his case, it was something to give up.

His mother immigrated from East Germany, having grown up during the Communist reign in World War II. She eventually came to the United States, where she met Eric’s father, who had immigrated from Greece. They met in an English-speaking class, hit it off, fell in love, and got married.

And, as Eric likes to say, “If you’re raised by a German and a Greek, how do you think you’re raised?”

Greek.

Eric grew up attending the Greek Orthodox Church and Greek schools, but he always felt like he wasn’t “Greek enough.” Everyone else seemed fully Greek, and he didn’t quite fit in. He felt a little odd. Still, he was naturally bright and had good parents who ensured he had a good life and childhood.

When the time came, Eric was accepted to Yale. Up to that point, he had never developed a strong foundation in any faith—least of all Christianity. Yale, a thoroughly secular school then and even more so now, made it obvious from the moment you arrived on campus: it wasn’t “cool” to believe in God or to be a person of faith. That wasn’t how you fit in. And because Eric had always felt like an outsider, he wanted desperately to fit in at Yale. So, he became an agnostic—and, in his own words, very lost.

Over time, he became more worldly. After graduating, he struggled to find a job—he’d been an English major—and eventually moved back home. That felt awkward and humiliating, and he saw himself as even more of a failure. His parents, who had sacrificed to send him to Yale, were bewildered. “What is going on?” they asked.

During this low point, Eric landed a job as an editor for a company where a devout Christian coworker kept sharing his faith. For months, Eric avoided the conversations—ignoring or shutting the man down. But slowly, his heart softened. He began to listen, just a little. Privately, he sometimes prayed, “God, why aren’t you there?” He wasn’t sure how he felt about anything.

One day, that coworker handed Eric a slip of paper with Jeremiah 29:11 written on it: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” For a young man who felt trapped, who feared God might harm him if he believed, and who was utterly lost, this verse made a deep impression.

As time went on, his heart softened more. Then, one night, he had a dream. The symbolism in the dream was rich—connected to his childhood, his interests, his Greek heritage, and many other layers. When he awoke, he knew without question that Christ was the Savior. “I went to bed single,” he later said, “and I woke up married.”

At work that day, his coworker immediately noticed the difference. “What’s changed?” he asked.
“I have accepted Christ,” Eric replied—something he admitted he would have been embarrassed to say even the day before.

In his interview with Jordan Peterson, Eric explained, “I was a different person. From that day forward, my life changed dramatically. The first—slightly embarrassing—manifestation of that change was that I immediately stopped sleeping with my girlfriend of three years. I just knew I can’t do that. That’s for marriage.”

In that moment, he recognized that God was real, Christ was the Savior, and that following Him meant living differently—even giving something up that had been a central part of his life. He chose to obey. Happily, he chose the path of integrity. Today, Eric Metaxas is a man of profound influence and impact, living out principles that align closely with the Seven Laws of Life Mission.

When Eric told Jordan Peterson about ending the relationship, Peterson said, “So, that’s a sacrifice.” Eric responded:

“Yes and no. People often say God always outgives you. Whatever you give up for Him is nothing compared to what He gives you. I had such a sense of His presence in those first days of my conversion that I thought, I wouldn’t give that up for anything. I wouldn’t do anything to hinder that personal relationship with the God who loves me, died for me, and created the universe. It was so beautiful and extraordinary that I wouldn’t do anything to screw it up. That’s more valuable than anything in the world.”

I’ve personally experienced something similar. Over the years, I’ve had to give up many things: complaining, gossip, unhealthy eating, negative self-talk, rescuing people, small thinking, judgmental attitudes, and sarcasm—something deeply ingrained from my upbringing that took real effort to remove.

If you feel stuck—unsure why you’re not growing, why you can’t solve persistent problems, or why life isn’t improving—start by asking: What do I need to give up? Bring it before God. He loves you and wants you to get unstuck. Ask Him what needs to change.

But personal growth isn’t always about giving something up. Sometimes, it’s about taking something on—an area of growth we don’t talk about enough.

In Scripture, the rich young man approached Jesus, saying in essence: “Good Master, what good thing shall I do to have eternal life?” He had already been living obediently, giving up much to follow the commandments. Yet Jesus replied, “You lack one thing: sell all you have, give to the poor, and follow Me.”

For him, it meant both giving something up and taking something on—the role and responsibility of a true disciple. But he walked away sad, unable to make the sacrifice.

This principle applies to us too. My friend and colleague Tracy Hyde is a perfect example. She’ll soon be rejoining the Mission-Driven Mom Academy, and I couldn’t be happier. When we approached her about coming back, she was honest: her youngest child was about to leave home, she had plenty of free time, and she was comfortable. Taking on new responsibilities—showing up to meetings, meeting deadlines, being accountable to a team—was not what she wanted.

You know, she doesn’t need the money. She’s very comfortable. Her husband is very successful, and they have a very comfortable lifestyle. She doesn’t have to do it.

Here’s what she did: She asked God to soften her heart if this was something He wanted her to do. And in that regard, she’s a truly mission-driven mom.

She’s invested in doing the missions God is calling her to. And often, those missions mean taking something on in a very real sense. All the way through the academy, we’re giving things up—wrong paradigms about ourselves, bad habits we’ve been carrying—and we’re taking things on. We’re learning, growing, studying, practicing principles.

We’re learning to discuss valuable insights and concepts with our families. Eventually, we take on more of a leadership role in our homes and in our communities.

So, for Tracy, this was a place she felt called to again—but she only knew that because she was softhearted, because she listened, because she asked God, “Is this where You want me?” And He said, “Yes.” But she could only hear that answer because she was willing to take something on.

I’m confident that in a few years from now, if we ask her whether she has experienced a lot of personal growth from taking on the role of helping in the academy again—overseeing it and mentoring our moms—she will say, “Yes.” That’s what it requires.

One of the reasons I wanted to talk about this today is because I had a really interesting conversation with someone else in my life recently—someone I truly love and respect. They asked me:

“What do you do if you feel God is asking you to do something, but you really don’t want to? You’re scared of it, you’re certain you can’t do it, and you’re convinced it’s going to turn out badly because it’s not something that comes naturally to you—or something you could ever see yourself doing—and you don’t even want to do it?”

The first question I asked this person was, “Are you certain God wants you to?”

They said, “Yes. It’s been nagging me for years, and now it’s become very clear that this is something I need to seriously consider doing.”

So I said, “Then I would ask the next question: Why am I afraid to do it? Why am I convinced it’s going to turn out badly? Why would God ask me to do something that would be awful for me and for everyone I love?”

She was being asked to take something on—and it was scary and hard and overwhelming. But sometimes growth requires taking something on. That’s the only way we can learn the next things we have to learn.

I don’t know if I’ve told this story before, but in the past, one of the things I was asked to take on was being a foster mother.

It was excruciatingly difficult. I won’t go into all the details here, but there was an emergency need in my extended family, and I was the only one available. I had four children of my own. Overnight, I suddenly had three more—and then I brought a newborn home from the hospital.

I went from four children to eight children: two under two, a newborn, and two eight-year-olds. They were all young. Of course, they got the chickenpox and all kinds of other things went wrong. I had to get foster care certified in the middle of it.

But I knew it was the right thing to do. I knew it was what I was being asked to do. Still, it was one of the hardest things I have ever done. It was painful and overwhelming every single day. I was stretched to my absolute limit and beyond. It asked things of me that I was certain I could not do.

And yet, in that process, I learned things about myself—some good and some not so good—that I never could have learned any other way. It stretched me to my capacity. It required me to pray in ways I had never prayed before and to plead for guidance in ways I never had before.

When you have your own children, they’re yours—they’re not going anywhere. You love them and you’re on the journey with them for life and beyond. But with foster children, who you might not keep, in a very real way, their lives are in your hands.

I knew two things because my cousin had been in the foster care system years ago and had been abused. I knew that if I handed these kids back to the system, they would probably be abused. And I knew that everyone—including the people in the foster system—guaranteed me that the children would not remain together.

This called upon parts of me I didn’t even know existed. It enabled me to come to know God in ways I never had before—to lean on Him in ways I never had before—and to trust Him more implicitly than ever. This experience became one of the most spiritually profound of my life.

He changed me profoundly—literally in a day. I was a different person. And that change was permanent. The people around me were shocked and amazed at what happened to me because of that experience.

But I had to be willing to take on something I didn’t want to do.

Now, a couple of these stories I’ve shared were things that, at first, I didn’t see as opportunities—but they turned out to be some of the most beautiful experiences of my life.

The end of the foster care story is that everything turned out beautifully for those children. I was not to keep them; they were not mine. God helped me see that, and He healed me completely so that I had perfect faith about their future.

My mom took care of them for a time, and then—miraculously—a family who had just become foster care certified received the call about them. They knew instantly these were their children. They took all four and adopted them.

It was a miracle. I watched God work in a way I never could have experienced without being willing to take something on.

Some of you may know there’s something you need to take on. And maybe you feel like you’re silently dying inside as I encourage you—just like the rich young man didn’t want to give up his riches because his identity was wrapped up in them.

I didn’t want to give up the safe, secure, comfortable home I had for these children I barely knew, along with all the challenges they brought with them. But sometimes taking things on is scary and hard for different reasons.

There have been plenty of things—running a business, doing a podcast, getting on stages, writing books—that were terrifying for me. I spent years rationalizing not doing them.

I recently read a book by Ben Hardy where he talked about how it took him five years to convince himself to write regularly and build up a blog.

These things are hard. It’s hard to give things up. It’s hard to take things on. But the alternative is stagnation, sameness, and the frustration of feeling like life isn’t what we want it to be—and not knowing how to get there.

I’m here to tell you today that a big part of getting there probably involves giving something up or taking something on. If, as you’ve been listening, you’ve felt little inklings about something you might need to release—or something new you might need to embrace—it’s likely because that’s your next step for personal growth.

So don’t resist it. Don’t be willful. Don’t push away the things that are calling you. You are being called to be more. There is so much more in you.

I can’t tell you how many women I’ve watched blossom in the Academy—women who were timid, introverted, scared, and overwhelmed—blossoming into beautiful, confident, self-assured women. They know who they are. They’re willing to bring their gifts and talents forward in situations where they never would have had the courage or confidence before.

They may not be on TV or the radio. You may never meet them or know their names. But they’re making a real difference in the world—living truth, teaching truth, and leaning into their greatest strengths.

And it all happened because they were willing to give things up and take things on. That is the way forward. That’s my way forward. It’s a proven path.

What’s miraculous—and I’ve talked about this a lot lately—is that you always know the next thing. God is so merciful; He will show you the next step.

If that next step is working with us in the Academy, I welcome you. I’m excited to meet you and get to know you. If it’s going back to school, telling your spouse you’re sorry, stopping the habit of complaining—whatever it is—please step into it.

And here’s the truth: if God is calling you to give something up or take something on, it will be for your ultimate good. You will look back and bless that decision. Eventually, you will see that you could not have grown in that way without the opportunity He presented to you.

So take advantage of it. Lean into it. And you will find yourself beginning to grow and transform in beautiful ways.

Make sure to grab your free audio copy of The Mission-Driven Life: How to Discover and Fulfill Your Unique Contribution to the World. And I’ll see you here next time.