Creative Destruction

Right now you can feel something stirring in the world. As believers, I think we all sense in some way that we have arrived at a brand new place. Whatever this place is, we know that it brings a lot of change with it, but change to what? And change how? How do we change? This idea of creative destruction is something that I believe we all have to get a grasp on if we are going to make the turn, and be effective in this new place.

Just those two words “creative destruction” are rather intense aren’t they? They can also appear to cancel each other out, but in your life, they work in tandem. In fact, they actually require one another, and strike a balance that results in making progress.

World-renowned economist, Joseph Shumpeter, is called the father of “creative destruction”. This is the theory that innovation creates growth by destroying old ways of doing things. There is a lot reverberating in that line of thought with a scripture found in Jeremiah 31:28.

“Just as I watched over them to uproot and tear down, and to overthrow, destroy and bring disaster, so I will watch over them to build and to plant,” declares the LORD.” (NIV)

How interesting is it that the destruction comes before the construction? That the tearing down comes before the growth? God will actually lead you toward the tearing down of some old ways of functioning in order to bring you into a new way.

It’s not that the old way was wrong. In fact, it may have been right for the season you were in, but you’re not in that season anymore. You’re not in that time anymore. You’re in this time right NOW, and right NOW requires new ways, and even a new YOU if you are going to be effective.

Let me clarify that this isn’t throwing out your principles. This is a spirit-led overhaul of your methods—how you do what you do that makes the difference.

Let me get personal for a moment with you, if I may, and ask you this question: deep down, do you believe that you know all there is to know of you? Or is it possible that there is still more of you that God placed within that hasn’t come forth yet? How you see yourself is going to be a big part of the answer. If you settle on yourself, believing that this version of you right now is the totality of you, then you sell yourself short.

“As a man thinketh in his heart… so is he/she.” (Proverbs 23:7 KJV)

So what YOU believe about you is a very big deal. The truth is there is more, but if you don’t believe that about yourself than the more can’t come forth. The other half of the equation is found in another question. Do you believe that you know all there is to know about God, and have seen all there is to be seen of Him? I am assuming your answer is no. Well if there is more of God, than there is more you of you, because He lives within you. Before a revolution of “the new” can take shape in your life, revelation must come first. What do I mean? I mean you have to see what you couldn’t see.

The reality is that we are called to effectively influence the world we are living in, but if we are going to accomplish that, then we have to be willing to endure a new disruption. This is a disruption to the way things have been because we can now see the confines we’ve been living in. Realizing that there is a ceiling over our heads keeping us from going up empowers us to find the courage to rise up and say to ourselves, “We can’t stay here because there is more.”

For those of us that were raised in a legacy of family, business, or even ministry, this isn’t as clear cut as it sounds. Let me reiterate that we are talking about a rebirth of methods, not principles. On the other hand, we have to identify whether our principals came from religious man-invented ideas, or the word of God because there is a big difference.

Even in this new place of change that we are all sensing, many things will be challenged that were once taken as “what the word of God says”, but when we look again, we discover that maybe this is not the case.

This progression of revelation has been transpiring for generations. Kenneth E. Hagin would say repeatedly, “It should not be that twenty years from now all you know about these subjects is what I am teaching you right now! Revelation is progressive, and you ought to be progressing in your revelation and understanding of what the Word of God says!”

Choosing innovation can mean letting go of current methods, and choosing to look to the Spirit of Truth on the inside for how He would lead us to go today. The reality is that not all plans are meant to be implemented in the same way forever. Methods are seasonal, and sometimes generational. If we are going to be a vibrant part of the building of the Kingdom of God than we have to listen and obey His voice, and not just merely duplicate the blue print that was handed to us from another day.

The danger of the mere duplication version of living and leading is that it can entangle us in a false sense of loyalty, all the while cutting off our vital union with the Holy Spirit for receiving His directives. His is the job of leading you and me.

So before the new can come the old ways have to go. Before the planting and the building can begin, the rooting up and the tearing down must transpire. What we are called to do in this moment is to leave the comfortable confines of the “known” for the enlargement and expansion of the purposes at hand.

This is a departure moment in your life from the old you to the new you. The shedding of the old and the coming into the new is beginning, and the Spirit of Truth is instigating it. You are in a “Romans 12 moment” where He is inviting you to step into a deeper place of “being transformed by the renewing of your mind.” To be transformed also means to be transfigured. It begins in how you think, and when you act on the new ways of thinking, it begins the transfiguring of a new you! Don’t be afraid when this process starts with ending things that need to end, and shutting the door on what has been. Don’t be afraid when it leads to walking through doors you have never been through, and committing deeper to things that you have never truly committed to.

Let Him lead you by His Spirit into places of innovation where He can do what only He can do—where you are working with God on His scale, and not your own. The greatest progress of your relationship with God is when you move from Him working for you to you and Him working together.

It’s time to grow. It’s time to change, but how you respond to this moment in time is completely up to you.