From Desperation to Determination

Grounded with Chuck Quinley

Are you genuinely excited about the direction of your life in the coming year? You can be. The life God has for us is, "above all that we can ask or even think".

I guess we've all figured out by now that although planning our destinations (goal setting) is important, “living” is more about the process of finding enjoyment in the journey itself as we do life with others.

I go on my first big trip

When I was eight and living in LaGrange, Georgia, Mom and Dad announced that we were going on a road trip. I would get to see where they had started their life together in Washington DC, our nation’s capital. It was going to be a long, long journey.

They gave me a gift for the road, a small transistor radio with an earpiece to help me deal with the endless hours of riding in the car. They were smart enough to give it to me a month before we left so I had time to explore what a radio was and fall in love with the magical thing. (Did you have one of these as a kid?)

All the way to DC and back I was plugged into radio magic and expanded my mind with all the things I heard city by city.

Our journey through life is long and demanding, so God has given all of us some gifts too.

Our First Gift

Imagine being trapped in a life where others chose our thoughts, words, and direction. It would be like one of those nightmares where there’s an attacker and you can’t run or hit them or even shout out (don’t tell me I’m the only one).

Thank God, we aren’t trapped in such a powerless existence! The first gift God gave humans when Adam and Eve opened their eyes was dominion, rulership over their own existence. Their thoughts, words, plans, and actions would be under their sole control.

In other words, our first great gift is the key to the car. It’s your life and you can drive it anywhere you decide. Slow or fast. In the middle of the road or off a cliff. It’s completely up to us and only us.

This has to be our journey and the sooner we take charge of our direction the better it will be for us.

We should all be forever grateful for this gift alone.

Our Second Gift

The second power is the ability to conceive a favored future in our mind, and then focus on it until it comes into being. It’s called belief or faith.

We would all do well to expand our awareness of the power of our own faith and vision for our near and longterm life.

Before Jesus laid hands on people he often asked them, “Do you believe that I can do this for you?” After their miracle, he would say, “Your faith has made you whole”.

Medical science has long recorded the amazing ability of placebo medications to cure serious diseases although the pills were made of nothing beneficial. It was the faith that brought the cure. Self-healing.

According to Jesus, faith has the power to kill fig trees, move mountains, and allow a normal human like Simon Peter to walk on water.

Your own vision for your life, if you lean into it, can bring that God-honoring future into existence.

So let me ask you again, are you genuinely excited about the direction of your life in the coming year?

Let’s Get Our Vision On

We all need to get a compelling vision of ourselves in a better state 12 months from now. Imagine yourself physically healthy, taking long walks and full of energy. See your closeness with your family, especially if you don’t click well with them. Describe out loud the life you know God wants for you. Then put it in writing as a declaration on a card and tape it to your bathroom mirror. Believe it. Have confidence in it.

Then take your dominion and align your gifts and abilities—your mindset, your attitude, your speech, your actions, your relational ability—and drive into that future.

Dominion, plus a compelling vision of a favored future—that’s powerful stuff!

Dominion and Faith in World Missions

In urban barrios, mountain villages, and college campuses in Southeast Asia, we and our partners watch repeatedly in happy wonder as these two great divine gifts completely rewrite life stories. Time and again we have watched kids from the hardest backgrounds you can imagine catch a vision of themselves in a different life.

They start to see themselves through God’s eyes of unlimited possibility. They accept our word to them, that they are the child of promise, and they take on the vision of lifting their family out of spiritual and material poverty. They see themselves as the hero in their family’s story, of God giving them the breaks as they apply themselves with all their might.

They say no to destructive friendships, no to drugs, no to sexual immorality. They use their dominion and rise from brothels, from the generational poverty of the barrio and from the despair and depression that is sweeping across college campuses everywhere.

Jesus changes lives, but this is how he does it. He empowers humans to live as the image of God on earth.

And that, my dear friend, is how we get ourselves equipped to face the next 12 months with genuine excitement.

This Week’s Video

This week’s video was shot in the raw borderland of Thailand and Myanmar. Denzel Washington’s breakout hit, American Gangster, tells the true story of the drug cartel that was (and is) operating in that region. The actual village is just over the mountains behind me. It produced 70% of America’s heroin during the Vietnam War.

Many, many lives have been destroyed in this place, but many amazing stories of transformation are also being written there as well. I hope you enjoy the video and will put the power of dominion and faith to work in your own life this week.

This post is public so feel free to share it with your friends.

*If you would like to be part of Emerge Missions initiatives in Southeast Asia you can donate here. On behalf of the thousands of young people impacted weekly, we thank you.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chuckquinley.substack.com