I looked at October the honest way

October's got a lot going on. Teachers at the front of it, pastors all the way through it, and the ones we've lost at the end of it.

I didn't plan a theme. I just kept landing on the same kinds of people. The ones who believed in me first. The God I drifted from without meaning to. The hours I say matter versus the hours that actually got spent. And the ones who aren't here anymore.

Four pieces below. Read the one you need.

Champions Are Made Before The Game

Listen to Keith's original song on this topic! 

It's sixty years later and I've never forgotten my Algebra teacher, Mr Struber. He pulled me aside once. Not to punish me. Just to tell me I was capable of better than what I'd been handing in. I didn't appreciate it at the time, but I do now. He noticed how much work I had been putting into my basketball practice and not in his class.

I've come to believe most of us are walking around carrying somebody else's belief in us and don't even know it. In Champion Mentors I wrote that champions are made off the field, during practice, before the game, wherever they hone their skills. That practice field is usually somebody else's classroom, or office, or kitchen table.

Today is World Teachers' Day and this whole month is Pastor Appreciation Month. If somebody like that shaped you, tell them while you can. And if you're trying to be that person for someone else, I wrote Champion Mentors for you. It's at keithlilek.com/store

One Skipped Sunday

Listen to Keith's original song on this topic! 

Nobody wakes up one morning and decides to walk away from God. That's not how it went for me and it's not how it went for the people I watched during the pandemic. It's slower than that. You skip a Sunday. Then a few more. Then one day you realize you haven't actually prayed in a month and you can't remember when you stopped.

I've come to believe the drifting is the easy part and the turning around is the hard part, but the turning around is always sitting right there available to you. There's no distance too far to come back from. That's the question I finally stopped being able to sit on the fence about in Getting Back to God. Either there's another life after this one or there isn't, and how you answer that changes everything about how you spend this one.

Today's a holiday about journeys and where people came from. If you've been meaning to start your own way back, Getting Back to God is available at my store.

One Small Choice At A Time

Listen to Keith's original song on this topic! 

I looked at my calendar this morning to see where October actually went. Not where I planned for it to go. Where it went.

I've come to believe that's the only honest way to check your priorities. Not what you say matters most. What got the hours. For years I told myself the order was God, family, then work, and my calendar told a different story every single week.

In Living Life's Priorities I ask whether the modern whirlwind is stealing your peace, because for a long stretch it was stealing mine. The fix was never balancing everything better. It was reordering what came first, one small choice at a time.

If your own order feels off, the book and the soundtrack are both at my store.

Staying Was All I Had

Listen to Keith's original song on this topic! 

There was a season in my life, during the pandemic, when I watched people all around me lose their sense of God. I watched it happen in my own family and friendships too, and it unsettled me enough that I stopped and asked myself some hard questions.

I've come to believe it really does come down to that one choice. Either there's another life after this one, or there isn't. I stopped being able to sit on the fence about it. That question changed how I write, how I pray, and how I try to lead my family.

If you've been circling that same question, I'd invite you to spend some time with my book, Getting Back to God

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