Chapter Four
What kind of relationship
do you want with Jesus Christ?
On your mission, worship was structured for you. Study time was scheduled. Prayer was constant. Then you came home, and the structure disappeared. A lot of returned missionaries quietly conclude their faith is weakening when what actually changed was the scaffolding.
It’s one of the first major Now What Moments of your adult life: What does following Jesus Christ look like now?
The core idea
Discipleship, not convenience
There were Sundays when staying home felt easier. There were moments when I questioned whether I really belonged. And then came a moment I still remember clearly: sitting in my car outside the chapel, hands on the wheel, trying to decide whether to walk in or go home.
I realized that if I let how I felt in that moment decide my choices, I’d become the kind of man who follows convenience instead of conviction. So I opened the car door and walked inside.
Start with Jesus Christ. If the weight of every decision becomes too much, set some of them down for a season. But don’t set your relationship with Jesus Christ aside with them. He is not one more decision competing for your attention. He is the source of strength you need to face every other one.
You can’t recreate mission-level worship inside adult life, and trying to is why so many returned missionaries burn out. What you can build is a Spiritual Rhythm — something sustainable, honest, and yours. And it starts by telling the difference between what you do because it brings you closer to Christ, and what you do because the culture expects it.
The Now What Method, applied to faith
Seek. Study. Shape. Strive.
Get a clearer vision of the relationship you actually want with Jesus Christ. Not the version other people expect, but the version God sees when He looks at you.
Test the spiritual practices that could build that relationship, and find the ones that hold up when life is busy, loud, and unstructured.
Learn from people who live the discipleship you want, then design a Spiritual Rhythm that fits your real life. Not a rigid schedule. A structure you can live.
Live it on the days you don’t feel like it. Consistency keeps the relationship alive while the feelings catch up.
Run your spiritual life through the Refinement Funnel
The same four filters apply to every major decision in the book. Only the application changes.
- Verify. Does this routine help me feel the Spirit? Does it work with the life I’m living now, or does it collapse the moment things get busy?
- Discern. What brings light? What brings pressure or guilt? This is where you separate the gospel from the culture you absorbed growing up or on your mission.
- Identity. Does this spiritual choice align with the man I’ve committed to becoming? Check it against your Identity Standard.
- Prayer. Bring it to God. Revelation in adulthood is usually quiet: peace, clarity, a gentle nudge, a sense that “this fits.”
From Start Now · Faith
Define the relationship you want with Jesus Christ
Nothing will shape your future more than the strength of your relationship with God. Five things, starting today.
Write the kind of disciple you want to become
Take ten minutes. Not the disciple you think you should be, or the one that would impress your ward. The one you actually want to become, especially when it’s hard.
Name one habit that isn’t actually helping
Identify one spiritual habit you’re doing right now that isn’t bringing you closer to Christ — something you do out of culture or pressure rather than conviction.
This is not permission to quit hard things. It’s permission to be honest about which things are actually working.
Replace it with something that genuinely lifts you
Swap it for something real. A short walk with God. One verse you sit with instead of a chapter you skim. A different kind of prayer — one where you mostly listen.
Choose one action and do it every day this week
This is the first play in your new Spiritual Playbook. Small and consistent beats ambitious and abandoned.
Small, consistent steps create real spiritual momentum. Seven days. Then reassess.
When you don’t get a clear answer — the Stop Me Prayer
The absence of clear confirmation is where many returned missionaries freeze — expecting mission-style revelation while living in a non-mission world. Revelation in adulthood is usually quiet and incremental: peace, clarity, a gentle nudge, a sense that something fits, or a subtle redirection.
Once you’ve verified what you can, discerned your options, sought wise counsel, measured the decision against your Identity Standard, and prayed sincerely — don’t use uncertainty as an excuse to stay still. Ben’s friend Steven Sharp Nelson once shared a prayer for exactly this moment — the Stop Me Prayer.
It does two things: it gives you the courage to move without a perfect answer, and it releases the fear of choosing wrong by keeping you humble, attentive, and willing to be redirected.
God may redirect you through persistent discomfort, a lack of peace, wise counsel, new information, or circumstances you can’t ignore. But don’t treat every obstacle as a no. Some resistance is redirection. Some is simply the cost of moving forward.
Your identity tells you who you are. Your relationship with Jesus Christ guides who you’re becoming. Once those two are aligned, every other decision gets clearer.
Chapter 4 in full
This is the short version
The full chapter walks through Seek, Study, Shape, and Strive for your relationship with Jesus Christ — including how to tell the difference between following Christ and following Church culture, and what to do in the seasons when God feels silent.
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