MarcAlanSchelske.com

Life at the intersection of Grace and Growth.

Is it possible to grow spiritually in the middle of a busy life?

Busyness is the enemy of spiritual growth. Busyness is a trap, mindset, a wall of self-defense, an addiction. Busyness is about lack of focus and confused priorities. At least that’s what they say. Surely there’s something true about all of that.

But what about those times when life is just full, full of commitments and obligations and unexpected requirements that you can’t do anything about? What then?

Is it just impossible for a single mom with three kids to be spiritual? Is it an unreasonable expectation for a guy trying to take care of his family, support a hurting friend, and run a business to have a real and on-going relationship with God? Is the only answer to go on a retreat?

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Is it time to practice the spiritual discipline of minding your own business?

6 minutes

So, I’ve got a book out in the world. (Yes… I’m mentioning the book, but this post is about character growth. Hang with me.)

You may not know this, but Amazon gives authors a dashboard showing your book’s progress. At one point on launch day, my book was 32 in the top 100 for its category. In that one-hour period, my book was selling more frequently than all the others in its category. Except for 31.

I’m not sure it’s healthy knowing that. Of course, I wanted to know what those 31 books were. I looked. I may or may not have thought that some of them had no business selling more frequently than my book.

The dashboard updates every hour. So all release day long, I got to fight with myself over the urge to check again. What comes with that? Feelings! Feelings that can so easily be turned into meaning. If the the book rose higher in the lists, that felt good. I am a great author who will change the world! But when the book fell lower on the list, what did that bring? Disappointment. Woe. I’m a hack, and nobody loves me!

All because of this little number representing the comparison between my book and a bunch of others.

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The 4 Biggest Emotional Myths You May Have Learned in Church

Much of what we think we know about emotions we learned from parents, teachers, pastors, and other influencers in our lives. These lessons have formed maps that guide out thoughts and choices as we grow up. But sometimes those maps are wrong.

Today I am honored to have a guest post over at Crosswalk.com. Crosswalk.com is a giant Christian website, and I’m pretty stunned to have this opportunity. In The Wisdom of Your Heart I dissect 4 very common myths that many of us have picked up in church about emotions, and I summarize them for you in this post. If this post connects with you, then there’s a good chance you’ll like my new book.

Here’s a short excerpt.

This is the most important reason why pursuing emotional growth as a part of discipleship matters. When we misunderstand or misinterpret our emotions, we hurt ourselves and the people around us. When we deny and repress our emotions, we limit our ability to be in intimate relationships, even with God.
We have emotions because they are a part of God’s design. They are purposeful. They are a vital and necessary part of a healthy life and a growing relationship with God.

Click through to read the rest.

“The way I was living stopped working for me.” An Interview with Chuck Hagele.

Emotional maturity is a topic that touches every important part of our lives.  My friend, Chuck Hegele, leads an incredible ministry to families with at-risk youth called Project Patch. As a part of that ministry, he produces a podcast for parents called Today’s Family Experience. He and I spend about an hour this week talking about The Wisdom of Your Heart  and it’s implications for ministry and parenting. Check it this great recorded interview.

Here’s a excerpt.

The way I was living worked for me through college. It worked through my singlehood. It worked through the early years of my marriage–it really wasn’t working in my marriage, but I thought it worked for me…It seemed like things were going well… When more and more layers of responsibility and emotional complexity were added on, that’s when I got stretched. I got to a place where I could not bear the burden that I had… I didn’t know what to do… I ended up in a place of deep depression, lots of anxiety, emotional brokenness in relationship with people that are close to me. That was all a fruit of not being equipped to handle and process what was happening for me emotionally.

Click through to read the rest.

“Emotions don’t just happen in your mind…they impact our body, and thus our health.” An Interview with Michele Stanford

For a long time I thought of emotions as something that happened in your head, a passing emotional state. One of the things I was must surprised to learn in my study of emotions, was how deeply they impact the body. Michele Stanford is a holistic health coach that I met this past year, and her passion is healthy living. So, when she read  The Wisdom of Your Heart she was thinking about how emotions impact the body. I’m honored to have her publish an interview with me about the book, and this topic.

Here’s a excerpt.

I had thought of my emotions as ephemeral mental states. Sleep on it, and you’ll feel different in the morning. I thought they were something I could just power through.

I’m not alone in that. This has been the predominant view of emotions since the Greek philosophers. Even as recently as the ‘70s, some researchers argued that emotions happened in the “black box” of the mind, were completely subjective, and couldn’t be reliably studied.

But our capacity to look inside the brain has radically changed since then. fMRI scans have allowed us to see what happens in the brain in ways we could never have imagined.

One of the surprising things we’ve learned is that emotional reactions happen in the body before the conscious mind is ever even aware of them. This is surprising and maybe even counter-intuitive news. But it’s true. Your body knows that you are experiencing an emotion before your mind has time to sort the data and interpret what emotion is happening and why it happened.

Click through to read the rest.

Welcome!

Welcome to MarcAlanSchelske.com.

This blog is centered around helping you find belonging, redemption and growth, learning that you are God’s artwork made for a good purpose, and giving you tools to live that life with your whole heart, soul, strength and mind.

If it's your first time here, this is a great place to start.

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