You Can Live Outside the Rut
Resolve to break free of patterns and attitudes that hold you back.
By Dr. Dan Erickson
If your vehicle has ever been stuck in a rut, you know how frustrating it can be.
You move a few feet forward, then slip back again. All the while, mud, snow or both are flying all over the place. After a lot of expended energy, you end up where you started.
Sometimes, life is no different. We get mired in mediocrity, caught in a pattern of living that requires neither faith nor the power of God. If we remain in this rut, it will ultimately rob us of our God-given potential and destiny.
After years of frustration and despair, many of us throw in the towel and settle for something far less than God has planned for us. We may give up on a career, a marriage – even our faith in God.
God never intended for us to live in a rut. Rather, Jesus said He came to bring us “a rich and satisfying life” (John 10:10). God calls us to believe Him for more than we could ask or imagine.
If you’re stuck in a rut, there is hope. With God’s help, all of us can discover a new pattern of living that can set us free from the ruts that confine our potential and rob us of joy.
Stop digging
It’s been said that the first thing to do when you’re in a hole is to stop digging. This means it’s time to evaluate which parts of our lives are stuck. Identifying these areas is the first step in breaking free. Ruts could be financial, spiritual, physical or relational. Maybe you feel stuck in your job. Everyone has some sort of rut to break out of.
As a minister, it was hard for me to admit that an emotional rut was affecting my relational and professional life. I finally came to a place where I was willing to accept the price of change. I knew I needed a fresh perspective to help me identify the source of my rut, so I sought out a trusted Christian counselor. He helped me realize that when the past lives in the present, it robs me of my future.
Because of a birth defect, my twin brother and I did not learn how to talk until we were about 11 years old. Since we had difficulty communicating, we were often ridiculed by other children. Because of this, our well-meaning grade school teacher tried to get us involved in class projects. Her efforts, however, often led to even more embarrassment. This culminated in a fourth grade play. When it was time for me to recite my lines, I could only sputter.
Afterward, the beautiful lead actress looked at me and cried out, “You ruined the play!” Her family rushed to comfort her, but I was left all alone.
Now I speak all over the nation. To this day, her words echo in my mind whenever I prepare to speak. But because of my counseling friend, I realized that cruel words of the past do not have to have power over my future.
In order to have victory, we must identify the source of our frustrations. Maybe some of the following factors are keeping you in a rut:
1. Fuzzy focus: In Numbers 13, a group of explorers returned home with a negative report about the land they surveyed. “We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them,” they said. These men put their focus on themselves instead of on God. He doesn’t call us to defeat our giants all alone, but He does call us to face them in His strength. Realize that we all have giants to confront.
2. Doing it our way: God gave the Israelites clear instructions on how to transport the Ark of the Covenant. These instructions were disregarded, resulting in the death of an innocent member of David’s band (2 Samuel 6:1-11). David was attempting to do God’s will man’s way. We can’t succeed if we take matters into our own hands and ignore God.
3. Limiting choices: In Numbers 32:5, three tribes asked Moses if they could simply drop out before they crossed the Jordan River into God’s promised land. How many times do we settle for less than what God is offering?
If we continue in our ruts, like King David, we will become angry, fearful and unwilling.
In John chapter 5, Jesus asked a disabled man, “Do you want to get well?” For 38 years, the man had been sitting at a pool that was thought to possess healing powers whenever it received a divine stirring. The man responded, “I have no man to put me in the pool.”
Jesus took away his excuse when He said, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”
Jesus is waiting to lift us to our feet and out of our ruts, but we must put excuses aside. We must ban the words “if only” from our vocabulary and begin a fresh way of thinking. This new paradigm calls for:
1. Clear vision: This is the ability to look beyond our circumstances and see what God sees.
2. Faith: Faith is believing in and walking by what we know but cannot yet see.
3. Truth: When we renew our minds with God’s truth, we see things as they really are. This allows us to reject the lies of Satan and his world system.
4. Change: God wants to transform our thinking and actions in order to move us out of our rut. Will we give Him permission, or resist Him?
5. Empowerment: Instead of relying on ourselves, we need to depend on God and His resources.
6. Action: God’s knowledge is meant for application. We must put what we know into practice instead of waiting for the “right” moment.
7. Discipline: This means setting aside those things that keep us from our potential, whether they be our successes or our failures. It’s going to take daily discipline to get up and say, “God, I’m going to give you this today. I’m going to give you my fear. I’m going to give you my anger. I’m going to give you my future. I’m going to give it all to you.”
8. Perseverance: Resolve to never give up, even when life comes against you in all its fury. Determine that you will not let Satan win, that you will fight for your marriage and your family. Decide that you will not let circumstances – such as a job or lack of one – determine your identity or potential. It’s a choice we must make every day.
Since all of our lives contain ruts, the question is, “What are we going to do?” We can settle in and accept mediocrity. We can make excuses. We can blame others. Or we can reach out and accept the hand of God, who is willing to pull us out of the rut. He longs to show us a new horizon that we may have never dreamed was possible.
Dr. Dan Erickson believes life is too short to spend it on something that doesn’t really matter. A leader in churches and parachurch ministries for nearly four decades, Dan stepped out on his own to launch People Matter Ministries in 2002. The heartbeat of this ministry is Dan’s conviction that God has given every believer a unique mission to fulfill. Dan calls this our “fingerprint of potential” or “Greater Yes!” He is the author of “Finding Your Greater Yes!” and is writing “God Loves Do-Overs” along with his wife Cathy. Dan lives in Lee’s Summit, Mo. He and Cathy have two children and six grandchildren.