When it comes to quitting, there are many slogan, sayings and motivational messages that encourage people to not quit. I wholeheartedly agree with those encouragements, especially because I love raising up people to live as overcomers. In fact, I spend a lot of my invested time helping people to not give up.
But are there some things that we should quit on? Absolutely.
I want to share four things you need to quit doing as soon as you can. Today … right now … immediately.
Here are those four things you need to stop doing:
1. Quit Beating Yourself Up.
If I was to walk into the minds of people these days, I would have to call family services to come and arrest them, because most people’s thoughts about themselves are not kind. Most of their self-talk is actually abusive. Filled with guilt, shame and regret, we listen to these thoughts and pound at ourselves in hate, contempt and rejection. Many people are so familiar with this toxic world of thought that they don’t know otherwise.
Most people’s self-talk is very abusive.
God did not design us to bear under these kinds of thoughts. He made our bodies to live in thoughts based on love, especially patience and kindness. Thoughts that are unloving towards ourselves become very deadly. They kill our health and destroy our sanity. Yet millions of people listen to thoughts that are so harsh and try to do things out of those unloving impulses.
How many of you are walking around living under thoughts that beat you up, put tremendous pressure and oppress your joy? Today, quit listening to any thought that is not kind and empowering towards yourself.
2. Quit Investing in People Who Don’t Want to Be Helped.
The energy of so many is being wasted as they invest countless hours into someone who is not interested in changing, but remaining a victim. Many good intentioned people get sucked into the vortex of victim community, helping people who are so used to their dysfunctional life they wont hear about entering into a new life by their own choices.
They choose by their decisions to remain in their junk. Those who live as victims look to prey off loved ones and friends to affirm their victim state and continue to pour into that mindset.
I have even ministered to so many who have gotten mentally fried and even physically sick, coming out of the defilement and false burden bearing they got lured into. Guilt is a massive motivator, because it disguises itself as good intention, compassion and love. But its not.
Guilt will motivate you to help those who are not really interested in changing. Its time to let them go. Release them to God and be available, but don’t carry this weight anymore.
This means we have to let go of performance, striving and people pleasing. We have to let go of trying to change other people when they are not doing their part at all. We cannot take the sins of others into our own bodies.
My motto in helping people is that I cannot want their healing and transformation more than they do. The other person has to want it more. The more they want it, the more I will be an added help to their life.
You cannot want someone’s healing more than they do.
3. Quit Investing So Much Time in Something You Are Not Called To.
When you’re off your gift and calling, it is extremely taxing and frustrating. This doesn’t mean that living in your calling and gift mix does not have trouble. There is a ton of resistance that will come against you breaking into your divine destiny. The problem is I watch so many people investing in something they are not clearly called to.
The Bible says that your gift makes room for you. (Proverbs 18:16) This means that as you stir up your gifting, there will be open doors for that gift to land, providing you keep a humble heart and walk in the character of God in your life. There will be a witness in the body of Christ as to what is operating in and through you. This is not just talent, but supernatural grace flowing through in specific areas of assignment on your life.
The most challenging conversations I have is with people who are clearly not in their calling lane. The biggest sign of someone who says they are called to something, but it is not evident, is really simple: They are not doing NOW what they say they are called to do.
For example, they say they are going to minister to youth all over the world, but they don’t minister to the young person right next to them. They claim they are going to minister to nations, but wont help out in their church’s mission work. They talk about teaching to crowds, but they don’t put effort into teaching the small group they are involved with.
The most challenging conversations I have is with people who are clearly not in their calling lane.
The problem is that we don’t value who we are and who we are made to be. So we often chase something for the feeling and esteem we think that position will bring. We end up chasing something that is not us.
Don’t get me wrong, going after what God has called you to do takes a life of investment. You will go through disappointments, rejection and seasons of silence, where not fruit seems to happen. But in the end, God releases grace to what He has called you to do.
If someone says they are called to something, but they are not stewarding that dream in what they are doing now with people, I wonder if thats really the lane they are called into.
Sometimes in stepping into what we are called to do, we have to let go of what we know we are just not called to.
4. Quit Waiting for Life to Just Fall on You and Bless You.
The classic mistake among many involves one of the biggest Christian excuses of all time–“I am just waiting on the Lord.” The meaning of this phrase has lots its meaning with so many, becoming a colloquialism to cover up the fact that we are really doing nothing.
Waiting on God is not passive, but very active. We spend a lot of time growing in who we are, preparing the grid of our lives for where we see Him calling us and investing in the soil we are in now. Most live in a world of passivity; waiting for the call, waiting for the money to come in and waiting for a open door.
Waiting on God is not passive, but very active.
Yet God is looking for people, who when He looks upon us, finds us busy about His work in people’s lives. It is in that atmosphere of activated faith that He adds His blessing and increases favor over our lives.
If you are waiting on the Lord, then you are going to fill your day building the grid to house what you sense God is pouring into your life.
Question: Which one of these four things do you need to quit today?