G.W. Bill Elliott, Jr once noted;
While you work, plan, and dream about 'making your mark' in this world, don't let this world make it's mark on you.
Week:
8
Humility, Weakness, and Renewal
Humble growth, repentance, reclaiming lost ground. This session reframes weakness as a place of grace and growth, inviting honest repentance and the humility that precedes renewal. It teaches how to reclaim areas of life that have drifted from God through confession, restoration, and small corrective practices. Participants are encouraged to see vulnerability as a pathway to deeper formation.
Objectives
Reclaim spiritual habits that were lost.
Learn how weakness becomes a channel for God’s strength.
Practice confession and restoration.
Reflections
Who will walk with me in this renewal?
What habit do I want to reclaim and why?
Where do I hide weakness instead of bringing it to God?
NowTo the HowTo
Accountability/Tracking
Weekly check ins with an accountability partner to report progress on the habit restart.
Community Action
Pair for a 7 day habit restart where partners encourage one another daily.
Creative Project
Create a “renewal roadmap” listing three small, concrete steps to reclaim a lost habit.
Leader Prompt
Facilitate a non shaming confession time and offer practical next steps for restoration.
Personal Practice
Confess one small failing in writing and tear it up or place it in a “renewal box” as a symbolic act.
Devotionals
Grumbling and Complaining Allowed
Well, to the right person, anyway. Alright, not just any person... someone who knows and understands you better than anyone else. But first, let's understand that grumbling and complaining actually is just an ornery way of venting frustration, disappointment, and dissatisfaction, to name a few. As we'd discussed in the ' Joy Regardlessly ' devotional, we really should find joy and quiet peace in His leading in our lives... but, we 'are' human, we 'do' have limitations, we 'are' a fallen...
Inner Sense of Innocence
Oh, to be a child again, huh? Sure, we all have those thoughts on occasion... more and more frequently as we face toils, fears, anxieties from our world. To 'run home to mommy/daddy', sometimes seems like the only valid choice at times! Those days of innocence are quite envying, but we all know we can't remain there, that we must progress, grow, mature. I recently read 1 Corinthians 13:11 , which reminds us; " When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a...
The Gain of Loss
We don't set out to lose our souls, in fact we are born with our being in a 'lost' state, or 'lost' realm... a disconnect, if you will. Proof is, we work, toil, and 'build memories' trying so hard to 'fund ourselves, justify our presence on this planet, and worse, bring meaning/understanding to the purpose of life... inadvertently trying to fill that ' God Shaped Hole ', as Plumb has voiced. One of the more prominent passages for this is Mark 8:36 , which states; " For what shall it profit a...
Strength of Weakness
Overwhelmed, is not a pleasant feeling/experience. Inability has a demoralizing impact on our lives. Even just our deteriorating bodies can wear on our spirits, our hearts, our very lives. Sure, it is a fact we are getting older, it is a fact we have inadequacies, it is a fact we encounter 'bigger than us' moments in our lives. Our devotional today helps put perspective on all this because even Psalms 42:5 , reads; " Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope...
Successfully Failing
Yea, contrary terms, I know. I enjoy being successful, being on the winning side of a problem (even if it is only the garbage-disposal plumbing), being strong, admired, even 'looked up to'. These traits, these events, these moments in my life leave me self-satisfied, proud of my stature in life, and they even kind of invigorate me to press on, to strive more or harder, to improve... but, all too quickly, my fallibility lurches RIGHT into the middle of some fantastic quest I am (was) on the...