The mind is a funny thing; If the mind believes something to be true, the more likely it is that something will happen. Let me illustrate

I play golf. And there are times I know I can make every putt I’m about to take. And I do. Then there are days I know I couldn’t make a six-inch putt. And I don’t. It’s not so much my skill as my mind that makes the difference. Skill doesn’t change that much from day to day. If I make almost every putt it’s not luck. If I miss almost all of the putts it’s not bad luck. It’s my brain telling me either I can’t miss or I don’t have a chance to make the putt. Belief is a powerful thing. Believing something to be true makes it far more achievable than hoping. That’s why every sport has sport psychologists. They help the players train their minds to believe they can do whatever they are called upon to do.

Now apply that to your leadership. Do you believe you can lead? Do you believe you can double the size of your church? Do you believe you can raise up multiple leaders? If you really believe it, the odds that it will happen goes way up.

The problem with belief is that it is born out of perseverance. Belief occurs when it consumes your ever- waking moment. Whatever it is you want to achieve consumes you. Let me use a golf illustration once again. Golf aficionado’s  would agree that Jordon Speith and Justin Thomas are two of the best players in the game. But what most of us never see are the endless hours of practice day after day for ten or more years before ever playing on the PGA Tour. Both of them lived to play and win. It consumes them. But if they stand over a putt and don’t believe they can make it, the odds are they won’t. It’s that simple. What you believe dictates what you can achieve.

Now couple belief and practice with one more thing – prayer and you have God’s formula for driving the Kingdom. When you pray about something day after day it begins to take over your life and hope turns into belief.

The problem is most of us don’t pray and practice enough to turn hope into belief. We allow the everyday mundane issues to distract us away from single-minded obedience to one thing. We feel we have to be all things to all people and in the process we are mostly nothing to everybody. We allow the church bullies to occupy more of our time than the time we spend on turning our hope into belief. We have too much to do each day to spend an hour or two in prayer. I’m reminded of what Martin Luther said, “I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.”

We feel we have to be all things to all people and in the process we are mostly nothing to anybody. @easum

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Let me return one last time to the example of golf. The more a person practices, the more their swing is ingrained into their muscles. That’s called “muscle-memory. In the same way, the more we pray about something the more that something becomes a part of us and ultimately changes everything.

Folks, if you have a dream you feel God has given you and it isn’t coming to pass, perhaps you haven’t focused enough on it long enough to turn your hope into belief.

Having said that I think I’ll go to the putting green and do some practice.