by Tony Stoltzfus
One way you can bring more of Jesus into the way you coach is to have a robust picture of how Jesus himself followed his destiny. There are some important lessons in his story for how you coach.
For instance, let’s look at the moment when Jesus first begins to ‘function in his destiny.’ He’s 12 years old, having taken the five-day walk to the temple in Jerusalem with a group of friends and neighbors from Nazareth. As observant Jews, his family would have visited the temple at least once and maybe as much as three times a year. You know the story—the clan goes a day’s journey back toward home, realizes he’s missing, and after a frantic search, his parents find him in one of the porticos of the temple where the Pharisees used to teach, discussing Torah with them. They are amazed at his gifts. He’s being recognized for who he really is, doors are opening in front of him… God seems to be all over this.
It looks like Jesus expects that his parents would have understood. ‘This is my destiny! Didn’t you know I need to follow it?” he seems to say. One important fact to add to this story is that Jesus was at the age in his education (12 or 13) where Jewish secondary school began. A few of the best of the best would continue studying the oral law till about age 20, then attach themselves to a rabbi for a 10-year apprenticeship. At 30 they became rabbis and could take disciples for themselves.
Jesus is clearly one of the best of the best here—he’s at the top school, at the temple itself, and the teachers are wowed by his insight. Jesus seems to expect that he’s going to stay there attending school in the temple. But Mary and Joseph don’t understand. They insist that Jesus return home with them… and Jesus’ dream gets shut down. He “went down” with them to Nazareth, left school and became a carpenter. The Greek word here means to ‘move down, go down, descend’. He let go of his ministry dream, left the approval and the acclaim behind, and went down to live in obscurity as a blue-collar laborer.
Scripture says Jesus ‘learned obedience from what he suffered.’ This is one of the places where that happened. Jesus had to die to his dream and wait for 18 long years until God finally said it was time.
So what can we learn from this as coaches? Well, one of the unspoken assumptions in the church (and culture at large) about destiny is that I should 1) find my destiny now; and 2) start doing it now. We assume moving into our destiny is a choice, not a lengthy process.
However, Jesus’ modeled a different approach: he found his destiny but then spent nearly 20 years in obscurity becoming the person he needed to be to do what he was born to do. He had to grow in wisdom and stature and favor with God and man before he entered his destiny. As coaches, we need to find ways to incorporate this idea of developmental process into the way we coach and conceptualize life purpose. For instance, if a young person of 25 with a big dream comes to me to be coached, my assumption is that it will be roughly 20 years until he or she really enters the fullness of his/her destiny role.[1]
The biblical pattern of pursuing destiny is that I die to my dream before I enter it. Moses herding sheep for 40 years, David living in a cave, Joseph a slave in prison—these heroes are all examples of the many-years-long process of being formed for your purpose..
Here’s a simple way to incorporate that in your coaching. When you are working with someone’s destiny, ask:
- In order to follow your purpose God’s way, you first have to be content to live without it. What process does God have you in to learn that contentment?
- “What does it look like to lean into how he is forming you instead of what you can do for him?”
- “If God said it would be ten years before you move into the fullness of your destiny, how would you use those ten years?”
If you can’t let go of your dreams you’ll be a slave to them.
Another way to do this is to ask, “What would it give your heart to fulfill your destiny?” Have the person imagine themselves in that place—where it is done, you made it, and the applause is raining down on you. Does that give you a sense of value, significance, approval, being good—or what?” Once the person has identified what they hope the dream will give them, they need to find a way to get that in their relationship with Jesus, outside of any accomplishment. A good resource for this is the free Questions for Jesus App—it gives you a process to ask Jesus for the desires of your heart and get them directly from him.
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[1] Study prominent leaders in the Old Testament, and plot how many years it was from when they first discovered their destiny to when they finally entered it. Or read The Calling Journey book where I lay out all my research on this question.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: © Tony Stoltzfus, 2021 All Rights Reserved 530-247-1313 | Tony@Meta-Formation.com
