As the Senior Pastor of Promiseland Church, Robin Steele is no stranger to teaching important lessons. In his book, How to be Made Whole, Steele walks readers through a journey from brokenness to wholeness, sharing the true story of his daughter who was born with a severe brain disorder and how God has made her whole.
With recent appearances on both the Why Me Project podcast and Faith Strong Today’s live streaming program Good Company, Pastor Steele opened his heart even more and offered further insight into the blessings he’s experienced firsthand.
There is so much to glean from these interviews that make each worth listening to in full, but there were four main takeaways that stood out to us.
So here’s what Robin Steele taught us about faith, wholeness, struggle, and intrinsic value.
The Relationship Between Faith and Struggle
With the news that their first-born child would be born disabled, the path that God laid out for Robin Steele and his wife was challenging, emotional and at times terrifying. But, it also brought them peace.
In Steele’s own words, “it was that journey of just brutal impossibility that really helped shaped our faith to what it is today. Personal, authentic faith.” He continues that, “this impossibility of my daughter really shifted my perspective on who I was in god.” It also led to a lot of personal growth, and the book that continues to inspire all those that read it.
The Iceberg
After his daughter Kennady was born, the struggle to care for her gifted Pastor Steele with a clarity that he never truly imagined possible. He saw what was truly important, and why most people’s personal development journeys are often misguided.
In How to Be Made Whole, Steele uses the imagery of an iceberg to illustrate the human condition. “The iceberg has 10% above the surface and 90% below the surface. It’s a picture of us,” he says.
This newfound clarity revealed that the stuff that we typically focus all of our energy on changing, (money, vanity, accomplishment) is nothing more than window dressing, the visible 10%. In order to truly transform our souls, we must instead focus on the 90% that’s below the surface. We must look directly at our pain, our struggle for meaning, our connection with other people and our relationship with God, instead.
The True Source of Value
In a truly profound moment, Steele explained the dramatic moment when he heard a resident doctor describe his daughter’s future as one without meaning or value. At the time, Steele was enraged. He wanted to scream, he wanted to yell, and he wanted to get violent.
Over time though, he came to realize how ignorant that statement was, and how much freedom accepting the truth could bring him and his family.
After much prayer and meditation, they came to understand that, “if God says that [my daughter] is meaningful than He says I am meaningful before I do anything. Before I do anything, or I make money or whatever. It really gives us perspective of God. He declares our meaning and significance and value, not humans.”
Accepting God’s love awards us a freedom to love and accept ourselves. And that is wholeness.
The Four Steps to Wholeness
Pastor Steele says that the path to wholeness is as simple as adhering to the following four steps:
- Talk to God
- Listen to God
- Embrace community
- Take life one day at a time.
By opening yourself up to God’s daily messages through prayer, surrounding yourself with a supportive community and allowing yourself to live one day at a time, you can achieve wholeness.
It’s a process, but it’s one in which you are supported by your family, your friends, God and your community.
To learn more about Pastor Robin Steele, be sure to dive into his appearances on Good Company and Why Me Project.
