(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)
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Welcome back to Goals and Grace, the podcast for faith meets high performance, and where we talk about building a life that's not only successful, but fulfilling. I'm Rev. Dr. Juliet Spencer, the Spirit-Led Strategist, and we're continuing our series You're the Adult, But It Didn't Come With Instructions. And today I have some slightly unsettling news for you.
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Nobody is coming to give you permission. I know. It seems like somebody should, right? Surely there's an office somewhere.
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You walk in, you take a number, wait your turn, and eventually somebody calls you to the counter and says, great news. We've reviewed your file. You've worked hard enough.
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You've been responsible long enough. You've taken care of enough people. Everything seems to be in order.
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You are now officially authorized to make a change. And then they stamp something. Approved.
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Wouldn't that be nice? Is it just me? Am I the only one who thinks so? You know, permission to leave the job or start a new business. Even permission to rest. And what about permission to disappoint someone? That's a big one.
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And permission to stop doing something that you have been doing for 20 years because you've always been doing it, but it's no longer working. Permission to want something different. And permission to say, hmm, this used to fit me, but it just doesn't anymore.
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Oh, well, there is no office. There is no stamp. And one of the strangest things about being an adult is realizing at some point you become the person who signs the permission slip.
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And some of us have been standing around for years, waiting for somebody else to pick up the pen. I mean, let's just face it. We learned to ask permission.
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And it makes sense when you think about it. So much of our early lives asking permission was exactly what we were supposed to do. May I go outside? May I spend the night at a friend's house? May I stay up later, borrow the car? And then we go to school.
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May I sharpen my pencil? And yes, I do realize as that came out of my mouth how dated that makes me sound. And so then we raise our hands. May I go to the restroom? May I turn this in tomorrow? Then we enter the workplace.
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May I take Friday off? May I move forward with this project? May I spend this money or make this decision? And they're perfectly appropriate places where permission is necessary. But somewhere along the way, many of us absorb a bigger message. Before I do something significant, someone else needs to tell me it's OK.
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And here's where it gets interesting. You can become extremely successful while still carrying that belief. In fact, sometimes success reinforces it.
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High performers become really good at understanding expectations. We figure out what gets rewarded. We learn the organization's values.
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We learn what makes the client happy. And we learn what our families need from us. For people of faith, we often learn what our churches expect of us.
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We learn what makes the people we love proud. And then we seek to deliver. And we do this over and over and over again.
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And then one day you realize, I've become exceptionally good at living a life other people approve of. But I'm not sure I've stopped to ask whether it's still the life I want to live. The tricky part is that approval can look a lot like wisdom.
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And so I want to be careful here. I'm not suggesting that mature adults simply do whatever they want. Because that's not freedom.
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That's just adolescence with a mortgage. Wisdom matters, of course. And commitments matter.
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As do consequences and the people we love. Even the people we don't love, but the people who matter. If you're married, your decisions impact your spouse.
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And if you're rearing children, then clearly your decisions affect them. If you lead an organization, then there are probably a lot of people your decisions impact. If you've made commitments, then integrity matters.
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And being an adult doesn't mean that, you know, nobody can tell me what to do. It means something a whole lot more demanding. It means I'm willing to take responsibility for the life that I'm choosing.
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I love that. And it's a pretty big difference. We don't need to ask, am I allowed? I mean, of course, there probably are occasions when you still need to ask that.
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But in general, you probably don't need to assume your responsibility by asking, am I allowed? Instead, responsibility gives us the responsibility to ask, is this wise or appropriate? Is this aligned with who I believe I'm called to be? What are the consequences? Who else will be affected? Am I willing to take responsibility for those effects? Those, beloved, are grown-up questions. Sometimes we disguise our desire for approval as wisdom, though, don't we? We keep asking people what they think. And then we ask somebody else and somebody else and somebody else.
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And we do this because we somehow not only believe that somewhere along the way we need permission, but we also believe we need somebody else's approval to reassure us that our ideas are truly worthy of pursuit. If you're a person of faith, there can often be another layer of this. Sometimes we don't just want guidance from God.
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We want permission from God. And that's not always a bad thing. But sometimes God has already given us the wisdom and the freedom and the responsibility to decide.
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And so we want God to make the decision unmistakable. To close the door we're not supposed to go through and to open the one we are. And I'll be honest, I have prayed that many times.
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I've also asked God to send a sign. And sometimes God does. And it seems like the more important the decision, the more I'm turning to God to guarantee, if you will, that I'm not going to make a fool of myself.
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That what I'm pursuing is not only worthwhile, but that I have the capacity to carry it through. And clarity certainly does help. Spending time in God's presence can provide a clarity that really will help.
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But I don't believe that Christian maturity means becoming less capable of making decisions because we're waiting for God to make decisions for us. I believe spiritual maturity should make us more discerning, more grounded and more aware of our motives. More attentive to the wisdom around us and the wisdom in us.
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And more compassionate towards the people affected by our choices. More willing to listen and more courageous. More willing to act.
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And also more able. There's a fascinating moment in the book of Acts, which for those of you perhaps new to the study of scripture, is really a book of the history of the earliest church. And it comes right after the four gospels in what we call the New Testament.
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The author of the book, Acts, is the same as the author of the gospel of Luke. In any event, there's a fascinating moment in the book of Acts. The apostle Paul and his companions are trying to determine where to go next in their ministry.
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Acts chapter 16 tells us that they are prevented from going into certain regions. And eventually Paul has a vision that directs him toward Macedonia. But here's what I find interesting.
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They're already moving and making plans. They're trying things and they're paying attention. Then they adjust.
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They're not just sitting in one place saying, until God provides the complete itinerary, we won't move. There's this beautiful interaction between human agency and divine guidance. And it's absolutely worth paying attention to.
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In Acts 6, the people move. They listen, they adjust, they move again. That is discernment.
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And maybe some of us have been waiting for divine permission when what we really need is divine partnership. God has given you a mind and is with you as you develop experiences that inform you and give you wisdom. God has provided you with a brain and community and scripture and through the Holy Spirit, discernment.
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At some point, faithfulness requires you to use them and to use all of them. So let's get practical. Think about something you've been wanting to change.
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Maybe you've been saying, I don't know if I can. And then finish that sentence. I don't know if I can... I don't know if I can change careers.
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I don't know if I can change that much. I don't know if I can stop volunteering for that program, even though I've been doing it the last 35 years. I don't know if I can take that trip.
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I don't know if I can say no. I don't know if I can spend money on myself or take time off to relax. I don't know if I can start over at my age.
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I don't know if I can take a day off without accomplishing anything. Now ask yourself, when I say I don't know if I can, what am I asking? I mean, what is it that I'm asking underneath the question? In other words, do you mean, is it financially possible? Well, that's a legitimate question. Will this hurt someone I love or even someone I don't love? Well, that's an important question.
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Would this violate a commitment I've already made? Again, important question. Do I have the skills and am I capable of learning new ones required? Great questions. Or you could mean, will everybody understand? Ah, that's a different question, isn't it? Or even, will everybody approve? Again, a different question and probably one worth spending a little time on.
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Not because you necessarily need the approval, but because you now recognize you want it. Or maybe the underlying question is, will anybody be disappointed in me? That can be a powerful eye opener. And sometimes the answer to that one is, oh yeah, people are going to be disappointed, very likely, but you still might need to do it anyway.
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One of the hardest lessons I find for responsible, caring people, high performers, to understand is that someone else's disappointment doesn't automatically mean that you've done something wrong. Some of us confuse the two. I know I have from time to time.
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Too many times people say, oh, someone's unhappy with our decision, so immediately we need to begin reviewing the evidence. Or sometimes we assume blame, don't we? Maybe I misunderstood. Oh, I probably shouldn't have said anything.
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People can be disappointed because your decision costs them something. They can be disappointed because your boundary changes what they receive from you and they don't like that change. They can be disappointed because your growth changes a pattern that worked really well for them.
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They can be disappointed because, well, because they love you and they would have made a different choice for you. Their disappointment is real and deserves compassion, and it also deserves to be honored and acknowledged. But frequently, that doesn't automatically mean they get a veto vote.
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That's important, my friend. Compassion doesn't require surrendering authorship of your life. And here's the part we don't talk about enough.
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We spend a lot of time thinking about the cost of making a change. What if I do this and it doesn't work? What if somebody's upset? What if I lose money? What if I regret it? All fair questions. But adulthood also requires another question.
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What is the cost of not changing? What is the cost of not going forward? Of waiting another year or three years or 10 years? What happens if you remain in the role because everyone's accustomed to you being there? What happens if you keep giving away the time that you refuse to put a boundary on? What happens if you keep postponing the work that matters to you? What happens if you keep saying, someday? We tend to treat that as though it's somehow neutral, but it isn't. Not choosing also becomes a choice with consequences. And just like there's a cost to action, there is also a cost to inaction.
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Wisdom considers both. Maybe this is a sentence somebody needs to hear today. Your life does not need a unanimous vote.
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Let me say that again. Your life does not need a unanimous vote. There are people whose voices should matter enormously.
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Your spouse, people directly affected by your decision, trusted friends, wise mentors, people who will tell you the truth, even when you'd rather not hear it. So listen to them, please. But listening to someone is not the same as handing the deciding vote.
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And the number of people whose opinions matter that much should probably be much smaller than the number of people whose opinions you currently carry around in your head. Some of those people probably aren't even in the room anymore. And they haven't been in the room for the past 20 years.
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And yet still you give them a vote. Maybe it's a former boss, a parent, a professor or a pastor, somebody who has had sway over your life, particularly when you were younger. But you're not younger anymore.
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Sometimes the person whose permission we're waiting for isn't even someone we speak to anymore. And yet we're still organizing our lives around what we imagine they would think. And that's worth noticing.
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I did that for years. There were things I would not preach about because I heard in my head the wisdom of a professor whom I very much admire. Until I realized one day he wasn't sitting in my congregation.
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And the people who were listening to me, the people in the room, the people who were watching online very much wanted me to preach on those things. Sometimes we carry around with us people vetoing things they don't even know anything about. So here's the architect's question this week.
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Well, come to think of it, I'm going to give you two. The first one, whose permission am I waiting for? Don't rush past that. Give yourself time really to think through those voices in your head.
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Whose permission am I waiting for? Who are you hoping will finally say, wow, that was great. You've done enough. You're ready.
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You deserve it. You can do this. You can make the change.
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It's okay to stop. It's okay to want something else. And then ask, what would I choose if I stopped requiring their permission? And that's a pretty powerful question, isn't it? And it doesn't mean, of course, that you don't love them or that you're not going to listen to their counsel anymore.
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And it doesn't mean that you've stopped caring about the consequences of your own decisions. It just means that you've stopped requiring permission. What would you change? Now, let me just add a caveat here because I realize many of you are married.
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I'm not advocating that you simply inform your spouse. Hey, your opinion matters, but you don't get to veto. I'm not saying that that might not be true, but a relationship with a spouse is its own unique animal.
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Am I right? There are times when I tell my spouse, husband, I don't need you to make this decision for me. This is what I'm going to do. But I would love for your wisdom in letting me know if there's something I haven't seen.
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Is there a consequence I'm not aware of? Is there something I'm missing? But there are other times when I recognize that the decision being considered really is one that we both need to sign off on and either one of us gets the veto. In any event, maybe you need to do something a little ridiculous this week. So, take out a piece of paper and write yourself a permission slip.
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And I know it sounds ridiculous, but I'm serious. Did you know when you write out something and then you sign it with your own signature, with a pen or a pencil and paper, it does something to the brain, something powerful in a way that just saying it or thinking it does not. And so, write this.
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I give myself permission to and then finish that sentence. I give myself permission to whatever it is. And you're not limited to only one item, by the way.
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But then sign it. And here's the great thing. You can sign it because you're the adult.
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Remember, this whole series started there. You're the adult, but it didn't come with instructions. And apparently, one of the things nobody bothered to mention is that eventually, you become the one holding the pen.
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There will always be people whose wisdom matters. And there will always be commitments that deserve consideration, that deserve to have their consequences weighed. And as people of faith, we continue listening for God's guidance with open hearts and humility.
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But there comes a moment when seeking more approval is no longer discernment. It's delay. So let's just call a thing a thing.
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Beloved, you have lived and you've learned. You already have succeeded. Chances are you've also already failed and recovered.
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You have accumulated wisdom that you didn't have 5, 10, 20 years ago. Trusting yourself doesn't mean you're infallible, but it does mean that you have confidence enough in the wisdom that you've already gathered. And you have confidence enough in God to redirect or to help you recover if you made the wrong choice.
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Maybe you don't need one more person telling you it's okay. Because nobody is coming with that stamp as much as I would have loved it. And nobody's coming to hand you a certificate.
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Maybe the permission you've been waiting for has been sitting in your own head all along. So seek your own wisdom, pray, listen, consider the people you love, count the cost of action and inaction. And then when you've done all of those things, pick up the pen.
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You're the adult. And this time, hallelujah, you get to sign the permission slip. I'm Rev. Dr. Juliet Spencer, the Spirit-Led Strategist, and this is Goals in Grace.
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Beginning in November, you can find me on SoulWindTV, that's S-O-L-W-I-N-T-V. My podcast will still be audio for now, but at some point that will be changing. But if you still feel like there's a little nagging voice in you that isn't quite ready to give yourself permission, perhaps you'd be the ideal person for Goals in Grace coaching.
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Use the link in the show notes for your free coaching call. Until next time, my friend, keep building a life that is not simply successful, but deeply, authentically fulfilling. And may God bless you with Goals in Grace.
(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)
