What does mentoring mean, really?

Mentoring involves life-to-life exchanges that help others discover and pursue their passions and sort our their priorities, and it’s a process of mutual growth. Mentoring is relational. How am I investing my life, and spending my time and energy to truly make a difference? Getting the most out of life isn’t about how much you keep for yourself, but how much you pour into others. — David Stoddard’s, The Heart of Mentoring.

I want to do that. I want to help people and pour into their lives, your lives. I’ve had a life-missions statement for 5 years and I can’t believe I’ve never shared it on my blog. I am now. “LIVING TO DRAW OUT POTENTIAL, IGNITE PASSION, and FOSTER GROWTH in MYSELF and OTHERS for the GLORY OF GOD.” The desire to help someone along in their journey is in me. The desire for mentors is in me. I pursue them, if necessary. Books are mentors to me, and I still sit at the feet of the greatest Mentor and Teacher.

So, how does that make my blog different from before? It’s the motivation of my heart. I want to serve my readers, instead of seek to be served. I want to build people, and not use people to build me, my blog, my name. “How can I help someone?” is the new question I ask before I write.

And I like how Chip Ingram put it, too, “…everyone needs a Paul, a Timothy, and a Barnabas in their life — a Paul to learn from as a mentor and role model, a Timothy to sow seeds into the next generation, with teaching and encouragement, and a Barnabas you can be totally open with, an encouraging friend who will go through life with you in the good times and in the sweat and heartache.” Good to Great in God’s Eyes

I still struggle, and I’ll tell about my struggles, because I want you to know you are not the only one. We are all in the process. It is genuinely difficult to live this life full-out, with no regrets, holy before God and wholly for God, fulfilling our purpose as a parent, spouse, friend, sister, child of God. We can’t do it without grace, and we can’t do it alone.

So, I journey with you by sharing what I know, what I’ve learned, what I’m still learning, where I’m learning it from, and how I’m learning it. I’m a student and always will be. I’m no Bible scholar, but I am a disciple. I am a child of God who wants to walk in a way that is worthy of the calling and purpose to which I have been called, and I’m desperate to follow God through it all. And though I fail, God doesn’t give up on me. Neither will He ever give up on you!

There is much I need to overcome, but there is much I have overcome. I want to write about both.

It seems not much time passes after I overcome, rise victorious, and a whole new life-lesson begins again. It is from glory to glory we are changed. “…we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” (2 Cor 3:18 EVS)

I know that what I write about won’t relate to everyone, but what if it could help someone and don’t write? What if I hold on, with clenched fists, to the truth and grace I’ve been given that is intended to set even one person free to help them be all they are called to be, and I don’t share it? I started this blog with the directive from the Lord, “…be generous with your life.” (Matt 5:15 MSG) And this is just one way I can be.

“We become great in God’s eyes by helping others become better than ourselves…Greatness comes through building others up, by aiming for their greatness more than we aim for our own…In God’s economy, someone else’s gain is our gain, and someone else’s loss is our loss. The best way to greatness in an economy like that is to pursue greatness for someone else.” — Chip Ingram

I’m cheering you on, friend, cheering you on to greatness! And living for a purpose greater than my own.

Post contains affiliate links.