Once you have seen the distance between what you know and how you live, the next question tends to come quickly. You know what Scripture says about patience, or forgiveness, or fear. You can name the places where you are not living it. So what do you actually do the next time that moment comes?
Behind that question sits another one, and it matters more. If God is the one who renews us, what is a process for? Isn’t change His work?
It is. God is the one who transforms us. A process does not replace His work; it helps us respond intentionally to what He is showing us, in the ordinary moments where what we know is tested. When an old response shows up again, that is not proof that renewal has failed. It is an opportunity to put renewal into practice. A process exists so that those moments are noticed and brought to God, instead of passing the way they always have.
Renewing Your Mind Discipleship Ministry organizes that practice around four parts: Recognize, Examine, Respond and Reinforce. They are a way of bringing ordinary moments to God and His Word while He does the changing.
God Renews. We Respond to What He Shows Us.
Paul describes renewal to the believers in Ephesus in three movements:
“…throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life… Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy.”
Ephesians 4:22–24, NLT
The renewing is the Spirit’s work. Throwing off and putting on are things believers are told to do, so believers take part. It is the same renewal Paul has in view in Romans 12:2, where he urges believers to let God transform them by changing the way they think.
In ordinary life, that taking part happens in particular places: a remark you decide not to make, a reaction you do not follow, a thought you stop rehearsing, a kindness you choose when it does not come naturally. The four parts are a way of finding those places and bringing them to God.
One Ordinary Moment
You’re running late. The car ahead of you is traveling well below the speed limit. As you approach the intersection, the light turns yellow. The car ahead slows to a stop, and you’re convinced you could have made it through if they’d been going just a little faster. By the time the light turns green, your jaw is tight, and you’ve muttered something under your breath you would never say to anyone’s face. Nothing about this is unusual. You’ve been here before.
Recognize: Notice What Is Happening
Recognition is noticing, a little sooner than you used to. You may notice your grip tightening on the wheel, or your tone sharpening before you have decided to be sharp. By then the old response is already underway, and noticing it does not stop it. What noticing does is give you something to bring to God, instead of something that simply happens to you.
David prayed that way:
“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.”
Psalm 139:23–24, NLT
He did not examine himself alone. He asked God to search him and to show him what was there. Recognizing and examining can be prayed in the same way.
Examine: Ask What Is Driving It
Once you have noticed the impatience, you can ask what is underneath it. What am I believing right now? Perhaps that being late will cost you something you cannot afford. Perhaps that other people’s slowness is a kind of disrespect. Perhaps, if you are honest, that your time matters more than theirs.
Then ask what Scripture says to that. It has a good deal to say about patience, which Paul lists among the fruit the Spirit produces (Galatians 5:22), and about anger and how quickly it speaks. Examining is not meant to become endless self-analysis. It is meant to make the truth specific enough to answer the moment you are in.
Respond: Act on What God Has Shown You
A response is often small: letting the car ahead set the pace, praying instead of muttering, apologizing to whoever heard what you said, leaving earlier tomorrow. Sometimes the response comes after the moment rather than in it, when you see later what happened and take it to God. That still counts.
This is where truth becomes personal. The question moves from “I know what Scripture says” to “How will I respond to what God has shown me here?” In an ordinary day, that is part of what putting on the new nature looks like.
Reinforce: Meet It Again
Tomorrow you may be late again, or someone ahead of you will be slow. The old response may return, because it is familiar. Reinforcing means meeting that moment again instead of being surprised by it: recognizing a little sooner, returning to the same truth, responding again.
One good response does not settle a pattern. But whenever it does return, you have another opportunity to put renewal into practice, and you are building on every time you have practiced before. Over time, and as God continues His work in you, a different response can become familiar too.
The Four Parts Work Together
Put simply, the four parts are easy to remember. Recognize what is happening. Examine it in light of Scripture. Respond to what God has shown you. Reinforce that response by returning to it when the moment comes again.
They are not a formula that produces transformation. They describe how a believer takes part in what God is doing.
Knowing the four words is the easy part. Real life does not arrive as a worksheet. It arrives in traffic and conversations, in disappointments, decisions and temptations, often before you have had a chance to think. That is why the value of a process lies in practicing it where life is actually happening, not only in understanding it.
Renewal Is Personal and Relational
Renewal asks for your own participation, but God has never meant His people to practice it on their own. Scripture tells us:
“Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together… but encourage one another…”
Hebrews 10:24–25, NLT
Jesus made disciples in relationship. The Twelve heard Him teach, asked questions, watched truth lived in real situations, received correction, practiced what they were learning and kept growing in His company. The rest of the New Testament carries that relational life forward as believers teach, encourage, serve, forgive, pray for and build one another up.
Other believers can help you recognize what you have not yet seen, examine it more honestly and keep going when old patterns return. Community gives you a place to speak honestly, hear another perspective and be encouraged by people who are engaging the same truth.
Why Structure Can Help
The four parts are yours to practice anywhere, starting today. The structure within Renewing Your Mind gives you regular opportunities to put them into practice: time to reflect, questions that help you examine what is happening, biblical teaching that brings you back to the truth, and conversation with others who are learning to apply it. It also gives you a reason to come back to what you are learning before the next busy week buries it.
Structure does not transform us. God does. Structure simply gives that practice a regular place to happen.
The Principles Are the Same. The Environment Can Look Different.
The next question is whether you are ready to engage these principles within a more structured environment.
Renewing Your Mind offers that structure for churches and for individual believers.
For Churches & Leaders
Milestones
Milestones provides a structured 10-week discipleship environment for churches and small groups.
It brings biblical teaching, personal reflection and facilitated group discussion together as participants learn to engage these principles within the relational life of the church.
For Individuals
The same Process can be engaged through two guided environments.
The difference is primarily how you engage, and the level of direct personal attention you receive along the way.
DeepDive
DeepDive provides a guided 11-week environment for individuals who want to engage these principles alongside an intentionally small group personally led by Daniel Lafleur, author of Renewing Your Mind.
Biblical teaching, reflection, discussion and personal application come together within a relational environment designed for continued engagement.
DeepDive 1-on-1
DeepDive 1-on-1 provides an 11-week private environment for individuals who prefer to engage the same core Process directly with Daniel.
The one-on-one format allows each live session to remain centered on the participant’s own questions, application and engagement with the material.
Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.