Faith Venture

Taking Small, Progressive Steps

May 20, 2026

Many years ago, we saw a movie “What About Bob” starring Bill Murray. The phrase I remember most was “Baby steps.”

I thought of this intro while digesting this amazing conversation on Tim Ferriss’ podcast, The Most Incredible Transformation I’ve Ever Seen — Jerzy Gregorek on Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Coaching, and the Power of Micro-Progressions (#865). This conversation ranks as one of the most important I’ve ever heard. Gregorek, former four-time World’s Strongest Man, talks of guiding a young man with both Autism and Cerebral Palsy into a better life beginning with resistance training and then adding math and poetry.

The key? Gregorek didn’t treat the physical disability with rehab work. He used micro-progressive strength training. Sort of like “baby steps” leading to the ability to bench press 135 lbs. after beginning at 3 lbs.

Arnold Schwarzenegger discussed the many success stories people post on his Pump Club app. He observed why he thinks the Pump Club has been so successful. “I think it is this idea that you need to see the little steps along the way to keep yourself going. Normally people see fitness as before and after. We do it differently and celebrate every step.”

I began thinking about a metaphor for spiritual development building upon this idea. I’ll pick up my intentional music practice. The goal for this practice includes mental development, finger dexterity, and enjoyment. (Maybe I’ll add a fourth career as a busker, who knows 😉

Following a hiatus of moving and just staring at my 50-year-old guitar, I decided to begin again.
Purchase a new, sufficiently good instrument
Begin with scales to extend fingers due to my dupuytren’s (thanks to Irish and Welsh ancestry)
Begin work on chords and chord changes
Intentional practice, chord progressions in successive keys
Intentional practice—variety of finger-picking rhythms
Add voice—discovered I’m singing in different keys than before

It’s all a micro-progression.

Let’s consider spiritual formation or growth (or whatever you wish to call it).

Set aside quiet time at least once daily.
Read something uplifting—could be stories of Jesus from the New Testament or spiritual classics.
Begin with maybe 5 minutes. See if you can progress to 15 and then 30 minutes. Maybe then twice a day.
Walk outside in nature daily as much as you’re physically able.
Meet with 2-3 fellow seekers for coffee or soda regularly.
Find a service—bake cookies for a shelter’s dinner, knit blankets for homeless shelters, mow someone’s grass, there must be things within your skill set and constraints.
Find a place of worship that fits your personality.
Learn to listen—to God and to others.

Remember—baby steps. Don’t plunge in to everything trying to save the world. Take a step. Strengthen a muscle. Move to the next. You have a whole life to gradually develop the spiritual muscle leading to a life that includes love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

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Posted in Disciplines, Intention | Leave a Comment »

Owning Our Mistakes

May 19, 2026

Perhaps you’ve been there.

Something goes wrong. The product/service did not satisfy. It fell short of quality.

We recently had dinner at a new place after a concert at the local high school. (By the way, I’m blown away by all the levels of orchestra there. Love to see kids developing talents.)

It’s already late. Server takes order. Later, he must have seen me touching my iPhone checking the time, for he soon stops by and tells us “the kitchen is a little backed up, and our food should be arriving shortly.” Observation, the place is busy, but not packed.

Food comes. They could not verify the accuracy of two orders. Eventually, they take the two orders back to the kitchen. Returning after a few minuted, they place the two orders before us.

The manager stops by. He offers a bland apology, saying, “We have a new line cook, and he assembled the sandwiches improperly.”

Being a nice guy who was hungry, I said nothing. But I thought about it.

Consider this, and reflect if you (and I) have ever reacted thus:

I did not accept the blame, instead deflected it upon a defenseless employee.
I did not acknowledge that it is my responsibility to assure proper training for said employee.
I did not immediately offer some sort of make-good (sent the server later to offer a free desert).
(They thought they pulled one over on us, but I’ll not return) We have reason to believe that they took the meat temperature toothpick from my cooler temp to the more well cooked with the additional extras my companion ordered while overcooking the burger for my companion probably from the sandwich they originally presented to me. We could tell.

There is a manager who needs to find a job within the scope of his abilities.

I wonder, though, how often you and I have taken some short cut and placed the blame squarely upon a defenseless someone else. I as for forgiveness for the times I have slipped.

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Act First

May 18, 2026

Our average self tells us as we are sitting on the couch, “I will (exercise, practice my instrument, write my novel, pray, study, perform a service) when my motivation rises.”

This motivation to get up and do rarely happens. I have a time in late afternoon when I pick up my guitar for practice. Sometimes I just don’t feel it. But I run through a few chord progressions and finger picking styles, and I’m into it.

Motivation follows action. Not the other way around.

Waiting for the proper motivation for your daily time of prayer and meditation? Quit that. Pick a chair and a regular time—usually before the household comes alive. Then, like the old Nike ad, just do it.

Same with reading.

Same with exercise.

Force yourself if you must. Get up and start. Once begun, the rest is easy.

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Meet Your Heroes

May 15, 2026

Can you live with the complexity of humans?

I know many people who express instant visceral dislike for certain people For them, the reaction tends to be either/or. Sometimes the radar is a bit off. They like someone, perhaps even adore or admire. Then a flaw appears in the statue of the hero.

Some are more like I am—enjoy the complexity of people. Some are really good; some are seemingly inherently evil. Most do good things, yet have some flaws. Is it possible to admire the good while recognizing the bad. I will almost always extend grace and trust initially letting the other prove which way to go.

These thoughts came from an essay by Brian Morykon of Renovaré:

They say don’t meet your heroes, especially spiritual writers. I say meet them. Let your illusions be shattered, and the complex reality that is a real person make you praise God who brings forth living water out of dust. Your heroes don’t have to be alive to meet them, either. Find them in the Bible. Thank God Scripture isn’t stained glass, untouchable and aloof. It’s alive with extraordinary people of ordinary clay, cracked vessels through whom the light of God beams out.

The intriguing thing about people stories in both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures lies in their complex humanity. Even Moses and Abraham are not treated “with kid gloves.” Both heroes of the Jewish faith are presented with flaws and all. Even Jesus cursed a fig tree seemingly all out of character. Certainly “the Twelve” failed to show hero qualities until after the resurrection.

Thanks to my parents, I often dwell on those parts of me that fall far short of heroic…or even good. All of us need to recognize our own and others’ complexities. We have our good days and bad days. On balance, what is our contribution toward making disciples of Jesus?

Posted in Attitude, Wisdom | Leave a Comment »

On Writing

May 14, 2026

Paul Graham, an early venture capitalist, on writing: “1. When you write something intended to be read by an important person, go through it and cut every unnecessary word. 2. The reader of anything you publish is an important person.”

The same thing could be said about speaking—except you must pause and think before you speak.

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Hard Shelled

May 13, 2026

I remember my grandfather taking me out fishing for my first experience. I was perhaps about six years old. He came home the afternoon before with a pie pan covered with a damp cloth. Peeking inside, I saw a number of crawdads. He explained they were soft-shell crawdads. They were to be the bait we would use to catch catfish in the river.

Later in my youth, I experienced catching mature hard-shell crawdads in the shallows of a creek.

About that time, I heard the description “hard-shell Baptists.” To this day, I don’t know the details of the meaning.

I have no clue what reminded me about those experiences. But, naturally, I thought about it.

Let’s assume that transitioning from soft-shell to hard-shell is a metaphor for becoming older and becoming fixed in our ideas. We are no longer growing. Some may add an observation “closed-minded.”

My orientation to life never lost its youthful curiosity. Every day I look for something I can learn. Some people think I know a lot about the Bible. Well, I should. I led classes in it for decades. But, again, every day I discover something new I’d never thought about.

I would hate to be viewed as hard-shelled.

Want to discover a way to look at the Bible through new eyes? We are taking a short-term class looking at the New Testament through the eyes of the North American Indigenous peoples. It’s the same story we know translated into English using the concepts native to these peoples. It forces you to open your mind and see again for the first time.

Posted in Study, Attitude, Wisdom | Leave a Comment »

Looking at the Journey

May 12, 2026

I have often joked, albeit half-seriously, about how we view God as the Great Vending Machine in the Sky. Drop a prayer in the slot, and a solution appears.

My friend, Jon Swanson, wrote recently, “More and more, I try to talk with Jesus about process rather than outcomes. He already knows what I want, anyway. I think he cares most about the journey and how I travel. I suspect a sense of peace happens when I do what I can with what I have – and trust him for the outcome.”

I like the image of Jesus along for the journey. I’ve been leading small grief support groups for the past 18 months or so. As we discuss the varieties of grief experience, we discover this is not a one time event. It’s a journey that includes different stops along the way.

You may have noticed that your spiritual journey has a similar rhythm of starts and detours and stops and insight followed by being lost.

Richard J. Foster and Dallas Willard and the Renovaré movement talk of the with-God life. Or like the subject of the little book The Way of the Pilgrim who tried to live a life of prayer while walking through rural Russia.

Sorry, once I start thinking, I start linking. And now, I must start the day’s journeying.

Posted in Awareness, Disciplines, Prayer | Leave a Comment »

Change Your Life

May 11, 2026

A popular meme on the internet holds, “You are what you repeatedly do, excellence therefore is not an act but a habit.” Aristotle did not say this. The statement does fit within the scope of his thought. Leadership thinker, John C. Maxwell, restated this thought as, “You will never change your life until you change something you do daily.”

I approached this thought the other day about consistency and again regarding wishing and doing.

This thinking applies to health, fitness, learning, and relationships. Change something that you can practice daily. Then practice. With intention. Daily.

I’ve experienced this fact of life multiple times. It works.

Posted in Disciplines, Doing | Leave a Comment »

Burning Time

May 8, 2026

Newsletter writer, Shane Parrish, wrote in Brain Food, “If you burn money, people call you crazy. If you burn time, they call you busy. We treat money as valuable because it’s quantifiable and time as disposable because it’s not.”

This is an intriguing thought. I’m betting we all fritter away our time. A couple days ago, my stomach was queasy. I could not focus. The good news—I was too tired and out of sorts to burn any money. The bad news—I did nothing useful with my time. No study. No writing. No practicing.

A better thought:

Shall we neither burn money nor time? Instead focus…with intention. And if the body’s system is out of whack, then that’s where the focus should go. That’s the real problem. Deal with it with rest or medication or a walk.

Know where the real current problem lies. Deal with it first.

Sometimes we’re so busy trying to do one thing that we miss the original constraint that must be solved.

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Posted in focus, Intention | Leave a Comment »

Deep Listening; Loving Speech

May 7, 2026

I follow many paths to find wisdom that will help me become a better person. Thich Nhat Hanh from the Buddhist tradition was a person I greatly admired.

He once wrote, “The intention of deep listening and loving speech is to restore communication, because once communication is restored, everything is possible, including peace and reconciliation.”

So much of our society these days seems to experience talking at each other or talking past each other. People have felt “free” to say whatever comes to mind. In addition to what the Apostle James says about speech, I applaud Hanh’s comment about intentional loving speech.

Consider how civil discourse would be if we weren’t trying to get “likes” and followers on social media and news media didn’t amplify the most extravagant and hateful speech.

Deep listening and loving speech. What a wonderful idea.

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