I’m flying back from Chicago after speaking about this Soul Revolution Experiment. I’ve been thinking about how impossible it feels to adequately explain what I’ve personally experienced—words just don’t cut it. I find I can’t even adequately explain it to my kids. Life moment by moment with God is so much better than anything else I’ve experienced. And yet, I still fail at it more than I get it right. But when I do get it right—it’s wonderful!

What motivated me to try to get people doing the 60-60 experiment is my own experience. Personally, I stumbled upon it while teaching the biblical basis of the 12 Steps. Step 3 is all about turning my will over to do the will of God only! The way it’s lived out is one moment at a time, praying for God’s will to be done instead of my will be done. I thought about how rigorous this practice of full surrender is, and how most Christians I know do not live that way because we’re not taught that’s how you should live. But that’s exactly how Jesus lived, “my food is to do the will of my father.” (John 4:34) “I do only what I see the Father doing.” (John 5:19)

So I decided to try it. As I taught on the biblical underpinnings of the Steps, I began to surrender my will and ways, and I instead started seeking God’s will and ways as often as I could remember throughout the day. It was on the backside of a very discouraging time when nothing was going my way. What I began to experience by continuing to turn my will over to doing God’s will was so fantastic; it really is difficult to explain. It’s difficult to explain because it’s internal and every word grasping to describe it feels cliché—joy, peace, a new sense of aliveness (why not make up a word!?). But the more I stayed connected and willing to do God’s will, the more I enjoyed every aspect of my life. The deeper I experienced love for my wife and kids, the more peace I experienced in the stresses of daily deadlines, decisions, and even disasters. The more willing I became, the more I experienced God trusting me with more of His work in the world, so this sense of being a business partner in a Kingdom enterprise grew. I felt more alive, less afraid, more wanting to bless others, less frustrated by them. And it’s not like this was a constant experience, but the better I got at staying connected and willing, the more consistently I experienced this eternal quality of life growing within.

The first time I challenged our church to do this was in 2002 (that time it was the 30-30). After we did this, I had someone tell me about a book called Practicing His Presence. It’s the journal of two men who learned and practiced this very moment by moment responsiveness to the God who is with us. Brother Lawrence lived in France in the 1600s, Frank Laubach lived in the early 1900s, but as I read their journals I kept thinking “Wow—this is describing a lot of what I’ve experienced.” So this is nothing new, many have experienced it throughout the ages. In the next few blogs, I’ll share some insights from these men that have helped me.