Getting a Grip : Finding Balance in Your Daily Life

by Bill Hybels with Kevin and Sherry Harney

• ISBN13: 9780310266051
• ISBN10: 031026605X
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-07-01
• Publisher: Zondervan

Summary

How to gain traction when you're out of control.If you drive anywhere in the snow belt, you probably know the feeling: rear wheels fishtailing, steering useless, brakes ineffective-you're out of control. The good news is, life doesn't have to be like a car on ice. Bill Hybels offers biblical insights and practical steps to securing a Christ-centered life that will get you where you want to go.Getting a Grip guides you toward wise choices and disciplined action in five vital areas of your life: your time, your health, your finances, your spiritual life, and your relationships. As you learn what the Bible has to say about each of these, you'll discover how able and eager Jesus is to help you obtain solid traction on the road of life.Interactions-a powerful and challenging tool for building deep relationships between you and your group members, and you and God. Interactions is far more than another group Bible study. It's a cutting-edge series designed to help small group participants develop into fully devoted followers of Christ.

Table of Contents

Interactions	p. 7
Introduction: Finding Balance in Your Daily Life	p. 9
Getting a Grip on Your Life	p. 11
Getting a Grip on Your Schedule	p. 19
Getting a Grip on Your Body	p. 27
Getting a Grip on Your Finances	p. 35
Getting a Grip on Your Spiritual Life	p. 43
Getting a Grip on Your Relationships	p. 53
Leader's Notes	p. 61
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

Getting a Grip
Copyright © 1998 by Willow Creek Association
Requests for information should be addressed to:
Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530
ISBN-10: 0-310-26605-X
ISBN-13: 978-0-310-26605-1
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible: New International
Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of
Zondervan. All rights reserved.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—
except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Interior design by Rick Devon and Michelle Espinoza
Printed in the United States of America
05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 /?DCI/ 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
11
S E S S I O N 1 GETTING A GRIP
GETTING A
GRIP ON
YOUR LIFE
T H E B I G P I C T U R E
A mother stopped at her parents’ home for just a few
moments to pick something up. While she went into the
house with her two little children, she left her car running in
the driveway. As they were coming back out, her four-yearold
boy ran to the car, opened the door, climbed in the driver’s
seat and accidentally hit the gearshift lever. He put the car
into drive and it ran right through the garage door of her
parents’ house. The mother stood in stunned amazement as
she watched the car crash through the door. There was nothing
she could do. It was out of her control. Thankfully, no one was
injured.
Not many days later the woman’s husband was driving the
same car. He was dropping off a friend at home and his fouryear-
old son was sitting in the backseat. As the father was
driving up the driveway approaching his friend’s garage, he
realized that he was on glare ice. He put his foot on the brake
but realized it wasn’t going to do any good. As the car slid
closer to the closed garage door, he said to his friend, “I think
we’re in big trouble.” A moment later they crashed through
the garage door.
His little boy in the backseat quietly said, “It’s okay, Dad, the
same thing happened to me last week.”
I remember the father saying to me, “Bill, it is hard to describe
how helpless I felt when I realized I was on ice and that there
was nothing I could do to stop my car from crashing through
my friend’s garage door. It was a horrible feeling. I was utterly
out of control.”
A W I D E A N G L E V I E W
1. Describe in detail a time you experienced being out
of control.
What feelings gripped your heart at that moment?
A B I B L I C A L P O R T R A I T
Read Genesis 1:1–27 2. How do you see God creating order out of chaos in the
account of creation?
What do you learn about the character of God in this
passage?
3. Genesis 1:26 says, “Then God said, ‘Let us make man
in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the
fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock,
over all the earth, and over all the creatures that
move along the ground.’” If human beings are created
in the image of God, and God is a God of order, what
do you learn about humanity from this passage?
S H A R P E N I N G T H E F O C U S
Read Snapshot “An Honest Look at Your Life”
Look closely at a few examples of what some lives might look
like:
AN HONEST LOOK AT YOUR LIFE
If you took an honest inventory of your life, you might have to admit that some things are not the way
they should be. It is a rare experience to find a person who feels they have a good grip on every area
of their life. Most of us struggle with feeling that parts of our life are out of control. If we portrayed our
life on a pie graph and were to honestly plot each area, each of our diagrams would look different.
Person 1 Person 2 Person 3
Recreation
Family
Vocation
Vocation
Fitness
Hobbies
Friendships
Spiritual
Growth
Family Family
Spiritual
Growth
Recreation
Vocation
Friendships
4. What observations can you make about the life of one
of the people represented above?
5. Take a few minutes and create your own pie graph. Be
sure it honestly reflects the levels of priority and commitment
in your life. Think about where you are
investing your time and energy at this time in your life.
Some areas you might want to plot are: your vocation,
family life, friendships, recreation, hobbies, spiritual
growth, and commitment to developing physical
health. Plot these and any other areas that are important
to you.
What is one observation you can make about yourself by
looking at your pie graph?
What surprises you as you look at this representation of your
life?
6. What is one area of your life in which you feel you
have a good and healthy grip?
What is contributing to this area being so positive?
7. What area do you need to get a grip on as soon as
possible?
What is standing in the way of you getting a grip on this area
of your life?
What needs to change if you are going to finally get a grip
on it?
Read Snapshot “It’s Time to Get a Grip”
8. In the coming five sessions we will look very closely at
five specific areas in which you may need to get a grip
on your life. Take a moment and assess your life. On
the continuum below, mark where you are right now
in each area:
My Schedule
My Physical Health
My Personal Finances
IT’S TIME TO GET A GRIP
We live in a day and age of delayed responsibility. We hear the ads say, “Buy today and don’t pay for
one full year!” Credit card use is at an all-time high. We plan to start dieting and exercising “tomorrow”—
but we have had these plans every day for the last year! We forget that our actions have consequences,
and that lack of action can have just as severe consequences. Waiting, delaying, and procrastinating
make change only more difficult.
It is time for us to get a grip and face reality. Postponing the battle, delaying the inevitable, and waiting until tomorrow
will never make things any easier. If we are going to experience order in our chaotic lives, we need to acknowledge the
disorder. We need to admit that things are spinning out of control. It’s time to get a grip.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Spinning out I have a loose I have a good grip
of control grip on this area on this area
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Spinning out I have a loose I have a good grip
of control grip on this area on this area
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Spinning out I have a loose I have a good grip
of control grip on this area on this area
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Spinning out I have a loose I have a good grip
of control grip on this area on this area
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Spinning out I have a loose I have a good grip
of control grip on this area on this area
My Spiritual Growth
My Relationships

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Excerpted from Getting a Grip: Finding Balance in Your Daily Life by Bill Hybels, Hybels
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.