How God Changes Your Life In Small Steps Of Obedience

Perfection might be the standard, but it’s a terrible strategy for growth. We’re tired of watching people burn out trying to look flawless, then giving up the moment they miss a day, mess up in their marriage, or fall off a health goal. So we say it clearly: Jesus is the target, but faithful growth is the expectation, and that difference takes the pressure off while still calling us forward. 

We talk about why God consistently uses ordinary people and why real transformation usually shows up through movement and obedience, not hype or a single dramatic moment. We walk through a simple practice you can use right now: name your target, then ask what you’re doing today to move toward it. Along the way, we unpack the “pixels” idea of progress, how thousands of small choices build a new story, and why consistency matters more than intensity for Christian habits like prayer, Bible reading, forgiveness, and serving. 

We also get practical about community and growth: learn from mentors, stop comparing your beginning to someone else’s middle, and don’t be afraid to prune good things that don’t fit your current season. Whether you’re aiming for deeper discipleship, stronger leadership, a healthier lifestyle, or a renewed marriage, the path is the same: one faithful step, repeated. Subscribe for more Kingdom Chaos, share this with a friend who needs a reset, and leave a review so more people can find hope in the mess.

What’s in this episode

• Why "Progress Over Perfection" has become the defining message of Kingdom Chaos.
• The difference between pursuing perfection and expecting perfection.
• What the Apostle Paul teaches about continually pressing forward.
• Why God transforms ordinary people through ordinary acts of obedience.
• Biblical examples of Noah, Abraham, Peter, and the disciples taking the next step.
• How comparison keeps us from moving toward God's purpose.
• Why waiting for perfect circumstances often delays spiritual growth.
• Practical encouragement to identify your next step of obedience today.

Key Scriptures

“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”Philippians 3:12–14

“being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”Philippians 1:6

“Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.”James 1:22

“Noah did everything just as God commanded him.”Genesis 6:22

“By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.”Hebrews 11:8

“Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.”Matthew 14:29

Reflection questions

1. What area of your life have you been waiting to change before taking action?
2. Are you discouraged because you're comparing your progress to someone else's?
3. What target has God placed on your heart right now?
4. What is the next small step of obedience God may be asking you to take?
5. Are you trusting God to transform you, or are you trying to change yourself through willpower alone?
6. Where have you been waiting for the whole plan instead of simply taking the next step?

Key Takeaway

God doesn't usually reveal the entire journey. He invites us to trust Him with the next step. Transformation happens through thousands of small acts of faithful obedience—not one giant leap. Stop waiting until you feel ready, and start walking where God has already called you.

Quote from the episode

"Our responsibility is obedience. His responsibility is transformation."

Music by AlexGrohl from Pixabay

Transcript

Welcome To Kingdom Chaos

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome to Kingdom Chaos, a podcast for anyone trying to live a purpose and faith-filled life in a loud and messy world. Jesus said his kingdom in none of this world, yet here we are navigating real life and real struggles. I'm not a guru, just someone learning that God's grace meets us even in the chaos. This is Kingdom Chaos where faith meets real life and purpose is still found in the mess. Hey everybody, welcome back to Kingdom Chaos.

Why Progress Beats Perfection

SPEAKER_00 0:40

My name is Troy, and I wanted to follow up on something that has become the defining message of this ministry. Our very first episode, Progress Over Perfection, has become the most downloaded episode that we've posted so far. I don't think that's by accident. I believe it's because for many of us, we're trying to live up to this impossible standard and we're exhausted by it. We would compare ourselves to everyone else and we feel like we're consistently falling short and eventually begin to wonder if it'll ever be enough. And that's not the life that Jesus calls us to. When Amy and I started Kingdom Chaos, we wanted to create a place that people didn't have to pretend like they were perfect or pretend like everything was okay. We wanted to create a place where there were real people with real struggles, bringing them to a real God who has real grace. That's what the gospel is all about. And God has never been searching for people that had it all together. He's always been calling ordinary people willing to trust him one step at a time. You know, I read a book by John MacArthur years ago called 12 Ordinary Men. I love the title. It's a good book. If you ever get a chance, go pick it up and read it. But the title just says it all 12 ordinary men. It's the disciples. We we put the disciples on this spiritual, powerful pedestal, like they're beyond human, but they were human. They were ordinary people. Not only that, if you really look into it, Jesus picked some outcasts. Now I want to be clear: perfection is still the target. Jesus is our example. He is the only one that lived on this earth that was perfect, and he's the one we want to live up to. And every Christian should desire to become more and more and more like him every single day. But there's a difference between a target and expectation. The target is perfection because Jesus was perfect. The expectation is faithful growth, and they're not the same thing. Even Paul, the apostle, knew this. He wrote in Philippians 3, not that I have already obtained all this, or I have already arrived at my goal, but I press on. Think about this. This is Paul who wrote most of the New Testament. And he's writing right now that I have not arrived. He wasn't discouraged in this imperfection. He simply kept pressing forward. That's the Christian life. Not arriving or pretending or performing, but pressing on. And I think that's where we get stuck. We believe that we can't do everything perfect, so why even try? We miss a few days reading the Bible and we quit altogether. We mess up in our marriage and we're like, oh, nothing's gonna change. We fail on our health goals, we throw the whole plan away, we make one mistake, and we think that defines our life. But that's not how God works. Philippians 1 6 says, He who began a good work in me will carry me on to completion in the fate of Jesus Christ. Listen to this. It says, He who began a good work in me, God began the new work in me, and he will carry it on into completion until the day of Christ Jesus. God is the one doing the work and he is the one completing it. He is the one that will carry it on. Our responsibility is obedience. His responsibility is transformation. That takes all the pressure off of us. We don't have to manufacture change. We simply have to say, we're going to keep trusting you. Every act of obedience becomes another opportunity for God to shape us into who he created us for. So let me ask you a question here. This is

Name Your Target Then Move

SPEAKER_00 4:06

important. You need to find out what your target is. What are you aiming for right now? Maybe it's to be a better husband or a better wife, maybe it's to heal your marriage, maybe it's a financial goal, get out of debt, maybe it's to become healthier, maybe it's to grow closer to Christ than you ever have before. Maybe you're looking for some kind of a career goal. Whatever that target is, grab it, see it, visualize it. Then ask a second question. What are you doing right now, today, to move toward it? Not next month, not when life slows down, not when you get everything together, not when once this happens, I'll start that. I'm talking about today. What are you doing today to move yourself closer to hitting that target? One of the things I see over and over again is people praying to God to change their life, to change their circumstances, but refuse to take the next step that God has already placed in front of them. Throughout Scripture, God almost always works through movement. Noah had to start moving. He had to start building an ark. There was no flood, no rain. God told him something he had to get up and start building. Abraham, get up and go. God told him, leave your home. Abraham had no idea where he was going. God knew, but Abraham didn't. But he got up, took steps of obedience, one step at a time, started moving. Peter had to step out of the boat when nobody else would. The disciples had to leave their nets and follow Jesus, not knowing what was going on or knowing what the entire plan was. They simply obeyed and took the next step. What is God telling you to do? What is he put in front of you? What are you not doing? Why is there a barrier in your life? Why aren't you taking the next step? Take the next step. Just one, one small step at a time. That's what Amy and I are doing right now in Kingdom Chaos. You're on this next step journey with us right now, in the middle of it. And sometimes we're just waiting on God, but God is waiting on us because He's already laid it out, He's already put in front of you that one step, but we want to see the whole picture. One of the biggest mistakes that we make is we try to look at the entire mountain instead of taking that one step that's in front of us. We see someone with a great marriage or a thriving business, incredible faith, or a healthy lifestyle. We assume they woke up that way. We see where they are today, but we never see their quiet obedience and how they got there. We celebrate the destination, but God works his greatest miracles in the journey.

The Power Of Small Decisions

SPEAKER_00 6:25

Think of it like this: you see a television screen, you see this beautiful motion picture going on, but that picture is made up of millions of tiny pixels. Every one of them is insignificant, but when you put them together, they make this beautiful picture. One pixel is just a colored dot, but you put them together and then make this complex motion picture. Our lives work the same way. Your future is not built in one giant decision. It's built on thousands of small ones, one prayer, one chapter of scripture, one difficult conversation, one act of forgiveness, one workout, one day choosing obedience over comfort. Those little decisions eventually become the story of our life, and he's writing it through you. People ask me all the time how I've grown spiritually or how I changed my health over the last several months, and honestly, the answer is the same for both. Small habits. Action steps taken. Nothing will happen without action steps. Repeated consistency. I didn't wake up one morning with stronger faith. I didn't wake up one morning 30 pounds lighter. Change happened slowly. I kept reading God's word. I kept praying. I kept learning from people who were much further down the road than I was. I kept making one better decision after another. Not perfectly, consistently. That's progress. Another lesson I've learned is that if you want to become different, spend time with people who have already been living the kind of life you hope to live. If you want a stronger marriage, find people who love Jesus well. Buy them a coffee, ask them questions, learn from them, listen to their story, learn about them. If you want to grow spiritually, surround yourself with people who challenge you to know Christ more deeply. If you want to become a better leader, learn from leaders who lead with humility and integrity. You become like the people you surround yourself with, you become like the people you consistently learn from. You're not trying to become those people, you're trying to pick up pointers, you're trying to pick up these positive, consistent habits that you can implement in your own life. You learn how they got to where they are. You learn how they started and the changes that they made, those daily habits that they put into their life. Don't compare your beginning to their middle. Social media only shows us higher light reels. It it doesn't show us the years of struggles or those prayers no one heard or the failures nobody saw or sacrifices. Every mature leader you admire has a story filled with setbacks, repentance, growth, and grace. One of the questions I get asked most often is, How did you grow in your faith and how did you change so much over the last several years? Well, first and foremost, it's God. I have to give him all the glory and praise. He changed me. But he has put things in front of me to take actionable steps to grow. And I still had to make the choice to either move forward or slide back. You know, I've got a pastor that I'm close to, Pastor Dustin, and he always says this. He says, It's not that hard. But you know what? You need to take one step. It might not be hard, but you have to take the step. I didn't wake up one morning suddenly a different person. I didn't have one life-changing moment where everything fell into place. Even when I made the decision to follow Christ, that my life didn't change overnight. It was one step at a time.

One Step At A Time Faith

SPEAKER_00 9:49

I got baptized. I became a member of the church. I joined a life group. I started to serve. I started hosting a life group. I became a leader in the church. I quit my job and started going to school one class at a time. I eventually got my degree. I got hired at the church. It was one step at a time. But over time, they built up and added up to what I am today. It happened one small step at a time. When I look back over the years, I do not see perfection. I see progress. It started with building a consistent habit of spending time with God by reading the Bible, praying. Have I missed days? Sure, I have. Absolutely, I've missed days. But remember, it's not about perfection. It's about getting back up. We're talking about consistency. Get back up and continue to move forward. As that habit became part of my life, I began to add other things. I started memorizing scripture. I wanted God's word on my heart. I didn't want it just to be a page in the Bible. I learned how to slow down and meditate on the things that I was reading instead of rushing through and just checking a box. I began to listen to solid Bible teachers and following pastors who changed me and wanted and forced me to uh challenge to think deeper about scripture. I started reading books that stretched my understanding of scripture. I had to rearrange my life to make time for this. I had to figure out what the priorities were in my life. God was a priority in my life, so I had to rearrange my life. I had to rearrange my time. Time management came important to me. Right now I'm reading N.T. Wright's biography over the Apostle Paul because I want to understand not just what Paul wrote, but the life God used to shape him. The same thing has happened in leadership. I want to become a better leader. I want to lead people with intentionality and purpose. And I want to learn from people that are much further down the road than I am, like Craig Groschel, Pastor Craig. I listen to his leadership podcast, but because every time I do, I walk away with something else that helps me lead people better. One area I realize I need to continue to grow in is connecting with people. I want not just to have conversations with people, but I want people to feel seen and heard and loved. So right now I'm reading a book by John Maxwell. It's called Everyone Communicates, Few Connect. I actually alternate between the books, the uh Paul book and the John Maxwell book, because they're both growing me in different ways in my life. And growth doesn't stop because I have reached some destination. Growth continues because I haven't reached that destination. I've also learned that sometimes progress isn't about adding something new. Sometimes it's about, you know, adjusting things, making adjustments where you need to, or even pruning things away. There might be something good in your life, but that's not what God called you to in this season. So you need to prune it out. You know, for years I lifted heavier weights five to seven times a week. That was the season of life I was in, but life changed, priorities changed. As I've grown older, I've realized that my relationship with God has become, you know, everything. So that becomes first. And so my quiet time became first, my workouts became shorter, they're more intentional, and I've included a variety of different workouts because my body isn't the same as it was when I was 20 years old. That's not giving less effort, that's growing wiser. My body has changed, so I have to change with it.

Pruning Life And Getting Healthy

SPEAKER_00 13:12

The same thing happened in my health. A few months ago, I got some bad blood work, so I had a decision to make. I could have ignored it and hoped things would improve, but you know, rarely things change whenever you just ignore them. So I started learning. I started reading books. I started listening to doctors who focused on preventing diseases instead of simply treating symptoms with medication. Then I made a change. Today I eat a ketogenic diet low in carbs because that's what works for my body. I practice intermittent fasting. I eat within a six-hour window. I fast for 18 hours a day. I do a one 24-hour fast a week. I do two three-day fasts a quarter and one seven-day fast a quarter. None of that happened overnight. I didn't wake up one morning and suddenly live that lifestyle. Each habit was added one step at a time. Each adjustment was made because I wanted to become healthier than I was before. When I look back over the last decade, there was no giant leaps forward. I see hundreds of small decisions. One new habit, one adjustment, one conversation, one book, one prayer, one act of obedience over another. That's what progress looks like. Now, here's why I tell you all this. It's not because I want you to do exactly what I do. It's because I want you to see there's a pattern to growth that you can grow. It's available for you. Every single one of us can do it, but you have to start taking steps. And it starts with that first one. You don't have to change your entire life this week. You don't have to become that perfect husband or wife or parent or leader or Jesus follower tomorrow morning. Just ask one question. What's one thing you can add, one thing you can adjust, one thing you can remove that would help me become more like Christ today? Maybe it's reading a chapter of scripture every single day. Maybe it's setting your alarm 30 minutes early. Maybe it's finding a mentor. Maybe it's joining a life group, forgiving somebody that you're holding on to bitterness, and you've done that for years. Whatever it takes, whatever that step is, take it. Because that's how God changes us. It's not usually giant leaps. There's just thousands of faithful steps, small ones over a lifetime. Proverbs 24, 16 says this though righteousness fall seven times, they rise again. Notice that it what it talks about about righteousness, it says it isn't that they never fall, it's that they keep getting back up. Maybe today you've stumbled. Maybe you've drifted from God, maybe you missed uh your quiet time or your reading. Maybe your marriage isn't what you hoped it would have been ten years ago. Maybe you've started over more times than you care to admit or even want to count. Get back up. Not because you're strong, but because his grace is. My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. God has never been looking for perfect people, has been looking for surrendered ones. So here's my challenge for you this week.

One Simple Challenge And Prayer

SPEAKER_00 16:04

Don't try to change your life overnight. Choose one thing. Read one chapter of scripture, spend ten minutes in prayer, invite someone to a coffee, join a life group, serve your church. Take one faithful step. Don't choose all those, but choose one. Turn it into a consistent habit. Then when it becomes part of your life, pick another. Repeat that pattern. Your life will never be the same again, and you will get to where you want to be. Before you know it, you'll look back and realize that God has been changing you all along. Not through one dramatic moment, but through thousands of faithful steps of obedience. Remember, Jesus was perfect, he's the standard, he's the destination, he's the target. But until the day we stand in front of him, God isn't asking you to be flawless. He's asking you to keep following him, keep pressing on, keep trusting him, keep becoming a little more like Jesus today than you were yesterday. That's discipleship, that's the Christian life, and that's why we're here at Kingdom Chaos. We always believe in progress over perfection. God, thank you for your precious son, Jesus. Thank you for the guidance. Thank you for the leadership. Thank you for the example that was set. I pray that everyone that's listening today figures out what their target is. I pray that they start to take action steps toward that target, that they see the path that you've laid out in front of them and they start to take one step at a time. They forget the entire mountain, they forget the big picture. They just take one step, one step. Don't get overwhelmed. When they get overwhelmed, I pray they just say your name, Jesus. They just say your name and they feel the anxiety be lifted off because of you, not because of their special gifts or their abilities or that they rest on their own will or power or anything like that. But it's all about you, that they center their life around you, that they see that one step in front of them and they take action. And they continue to do that and they make it a habit. I pray that you begin a change in them that they never thought possible, but I want them to see it, God. Reveal it to them. Show it plain and clear right in front of them so they can start to take those steps. Not that they're continuing to pray that you change their circumstances, but you've already laid out a path for them, that they take that step and they take that step of faith boldly, God. I thank you so much for what you've allowed myself to do, uh, my family, the blessings you've given us, that we can be a blessing to other people. And I pray that this podcast is impacting people for change and impacting people from turning away from a life they were never intended to live and toward one that you've created purpose in their life. And they do that boldly, and they do that with all the courage that you've given them, Lord. I thank you so much for who you are. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Hey everybody, welcome back to Kingdom Chaos. My name is Troy, and I want to start this whole thing over, honestly.