​

Three common pitfalls to avoid in life

Ways to become a better disciple

Dawn Duryea

Jan 18, 2026

 

I read through the lectionary passages for today and none of them really seemed very interesting to me so I thought I would just talk about three things I have noticed that keep people from growing in the faith, based on my interactions with people since I have become a pastor.

 

1. Don’t neglect your spirituality

It’s amazing to me that people aren’t really AWARE of their spiritual nature. We are so hung up on our PHYSICAL bodies, all the things that can go wrong there and our EMOTIONS that we neglect our spiritual needs. Today I want to remind you that you are a SPIRITUAL being. Spirituality is one aspect of your WHOLE being. You cannot become a fully actualized human being if you neglect your spirituality. And because you are here today I don’t think I have to convince you of this necessity, but I do think our spiritual needs often get put behind our more insistent physical and emotional needs.

Which leads me to the point that our bodies are so present, so insistent, so needy. All the sensations tend to overwhelm us and occupy so much of our energy. We are hungry, we need to sleep, we need to clean ourselves, something hurts so we must attend to that.

​

And it’s not just our PHYSICAL needs which demand attention, we all have EMOTIONAL needs as well. We feel anxious or depressed and so we immediately put all of our energy into getting ourselves back to a state of equilibrium. We feel a prick of irritation and then we are off analyzing all of our interactions and trying to figure out whether our irritation is justified or not and even after we figure out where it came from it’s not like it just goes away and so we spend the next few hours trying to distract ourselves from this annoying emotion. Emotions are DEMANDING taskmasters!

​

In the interest of spiritual formation for our church, I am going to focus this year on getting everyone connected with a small group. This is a very Wesleyan thing. John Wesley was OBSESSED with small groups – he organized his Methodists into classes of 10-12 and bands of 3-5. These small groups are essential for spiritual growth – it’s where all the good stuff happens, the all-important shaping of our character so that it more resembles that of Jesus.

​

In our church we already have some active small groups like Sunday School, United Women in Faith, Coffee and Chatter, Choir, Bells, Prayer Group, Lunch Bunch and we are going to try to get some of the Teams to be more active such as Missions, Christian Education and Family Ministries. So, expect to hear more about this in the future.

​

To begin this process, I printed off a list of the members of the church and started going through the list and writing down which groups people were already associated with and I noticed that some people are involved in EVERYTHING, they aren’t just in ONE small group but oftentimes the people in more than one group are in 3, 4 or 5 different groups – they are partaking of every opportunity for spiritual enrichment. And that is a sign – they are hungry for God’s sustaining presence - they are seeking spiritual nourishment.

​

Here’s a question for you: Do you hunger and thirst for God’s presence which nourishes your spiritual soul?

​

2. Don’t be so inwardly focused instead let your light shine before others. (connect with others – humility)

You might be thinking with all this talk about caring for all these different dimensions of myself how can I possibly turn my attention away from me and my constant needs? And I know it’s HARD but in order to live a fulfilling life, to live into our calling as disciples of Jesus, we must turn our focus outward.

​

We are called to love our neighbors as ourselves and we can’t love them when we are overly focused on ourselves. This is a truth that has taken me MANY YEARS to come around to. As an introvert, I believe that I am happiest when I am alone reading my books or tending to my plants. These things bring me pleasure and I gain a considerable amount of peace and joy while relating to the written word and the natural world but I discovered that even though I may THINK the life of a hermit would appeal to me it is not really the healthiest lifestyle.

​

When I was struggling with depression I really did not want to see or talk to anyone, being ashamed of my state of mind – I didn’t want anyone to see me in that way. But pushing people away by ignoring their calls or offers of help just made me feel worse! Because then I would tell myself that no one liked me because they weren’t talking to me! You see by isolating myself from others I was making the depression worse.

​

And even today when I start to feel down or start ruminating on things that plague my well-being I have discovered that the best way to turn that around is to start praying for other people. I am privileged to know so many people now that there is always someone who needs prayer! By turning my attention from myself to another it helps put my life in perspective. I am only one among many. So many people and every one of them carries hidden pain. I find that by sharing in the suffering of others your troubles begin to seem much smaller and easier to bear, floating on a wider sea of trouble.

​

By connecting with others you build a network of friends who are there to help when you need it. It is necessary to tell the truth of yourself to other people, don’t hide your light from the world. You may not feel very special but each one of us is unique and each of us has a specific purpose suited to our unique God-given gifts. We are needed and important to this world God has created and so is every other person.

​

Being openhearted in this way is painful. But LOVE is painful. If we didn’t care for others we wouldn’t hurt when they hurt, we wouldn’t cry when they cry and it wouldn’t pain us so much when they die. Accepting that pain is part of love and in spite of that continuing to keep your heart open is another step closer to being made in the image of Christ.

Ask yourself: Which is greater – the amount of time I spend focused on myself or the time I spend thinking about other people?

​

3. Everything changes, accept it.

Now this is a truth I wish I could instantly convey to everyone through a little harmless brain manipulation! You will often hear me say that the only constant in the universe is change and my experience in life has borne that out.

We often want to control EVERYTHING in our lives, but what happens is that we end up having too much control and we don’t have any freedom. If you think about a reed on a saxophone or clarinet and how it vibrates you will notice that one end of the reed is fixed, clamped tight to the mouthpiece, but the other end is free to vibrate. If both ends of the reed were fixed, or under complete CONTROL, there would be no MUSIC. There has to be freedom of movement to create the vibrations needed to produce music.

​

When I first started playing music, I LOVED it because it was like math to me. MATH makes sense, math is logical. When I learned about ½, ¼ and 1/8 notes in music and how everything adds up to 4 beats in a measure, I said, oh, that’s just like math! My approach to music in the beginning was to play the notes exactly as written at exactly the right time and then I thought it would be music.

​

And I would get ANNOYED with the people whose approach to music came from a completely different place than mine. You know those people who say music is a creative art! Their loose approach to musical interpretation irritated me. I didn’t understand it when people would call me creative just because I played music, because I definitely was NOT creative! It was only later, after many years of playing, that I began to understand and employ the fine art of interpretation – the freedom to vary your approach to the notes on the page. And it was only then, when I united that very LOGICAL system of music notation and the very CREATIVE approach to interpretation that I truly began to play MUSIC.

​

And the only way I know how to explain to non-musicians the difference between playing all the right notes at the right time and MUSIC is this. You may have heard a computer playing music perfectly in tempo but you said to yourself – that doesn’t really sound like MUSIC to me! That’s because a computer has no creative circuits that let it choose how to interpret the music – it just plays the notes as entered – it is only playing the black and white.

​

Because the wonderful truth is that MUSIC contains elements of both logic AND art. It is a complete world unto itself. It is grounded in the very strict, fixed nature of music theory but also includes the very free interpretative right brained artsy stuff. So, that’s why MUSIC is so great and speaks to people of all persuasions, because it contains elements of both CONTROL and FREEDOM.

​

Once you let go of your need to keep everything the SAME and under your CONTROL you are ready to enter a growth mindset. Like the Kingdom of God, which starts from a seed and grows to something unbelievable, so will it be with YOU once you decide to let go of some of your control.

​

At lot of times people will say, why should I go to worship – I don’t get anything out of it. That’s because they are viewing it as a TRANSACTIONAL experience, but worship is not a transactional experience, you do not pray to God like that’s the coin you put into the vending machine and get out a prize. That’s not the way worship works. Worship is TRANSFORMATIONAL. It forms you into something more than you are, it makes you into a better person. That’s not so easy to see on a daily basis. So, say one Sunday you go and you show up and you say well that was OKAY, it was just okay or you like one part but not another.

But you can’t see the growth it produces after just ONE Sunday. It’s only after many years of Sundays that you begin to see the growth.

​

Just like when your kids are small. You are with them every day and so it seems like they are always the SAME, you can’t see the small incremental changes being wrought. It doesn’t even seem like they grow, but somehow they grow from being very small to being very tall. It’s only when you look at it on a larger scale, when you take a look at pictures from when they were 5 years old and compare them to pictures of when they were 10 years old will you say, “Wow they have grown so much!”

So it will be with you once you allow the Holy Spirit to direct your days and your ways, once you give up your illusion of control and give yourself over to be formed and shaped by the Master.

​

Here’s a question to ask yourself: How resistant are you to change in yourself or in the world?

Sanctification is that process by which our natures are conformed to that of Christ. It is a slow process that begins first by recognizing your spiritual nature and then by opening yourself up to receive the love of God which often comes through other people and finally by accepting that in order to grow you must change.

​

Prayer

Holy and Loving Father, it is your holiness we wish to imitate but it is your love which draws us into your presence. Open our eyes to see where we need to grow, give us the courage and the strength to evaluate ourselves with honesty. Show us where we need to trust you more and remind us of your unending love. Your love which will go on for eternity without ever dimming. Your love which will change the world one heart at a time. Let us be part of your Kingdom, we offer ourselves to you today. AMEN