Why Running Health Checks Is Critical To Your Life And Leadership
Most leaders understand the importance of evaluating what matters. We review budgets, attendance, programs, giving, ministry effectiveness, and organizational health. Yet one of the most important areas of our lives often goes unchecked—the condition of our own heart.
As pastors and ministry leaders, we understand the immense pressure placed on modern families, marriages, and individuals, especially within the church. Before entering full-time ministry, I spent years working in corporate America in various management roles, serving as a contract and billing representative.
In that environment, the golden rule of business success was simple: a company needs revenue. Revenue comes from paid invoices. Paid invoices come from healthy accounts. Healthy accounts produce accurate invoices. Accurate invoices are more likely to be paid. The secret was not simply generating more business—it was ensuring that the accounts remained healthy.
To accomplish this, we performed routine maintenance evaluations called Health Checks. We regularly reviewed accounts to verify billing accuracy, correct administrative errors, and ensure we were delivering exactly what had been promised to the customer. These health checks prevented costly mistakes and helped maintain consistent operations.
Years later, during an extended season of prayer, I was asking God how to better support the hurting individuals and couples entrusted to my care. During that time, the Lord brought those corporate health checks back to my mind.
He impressed upon me a simple but profound truth: just as organizations routinely evaluate the health of their accounts, God desires for His people to routinely evaluate the health of their hearts.
He wants us to allow Him to conduct intentional and rhythmic examinations of our relationship with Him and our relationships with others.
Why?
Because everything we do and say is shaped by our relationship with Him and the condition of our heart.
True relational health begins when we stop pointing fingers and start looking honestly in the mirror. Instead of focusing on the failures of spouses, parents, friends, family members, or even those we lead, we allow God to expose our own sin, blind spots, and brokenness.
As a biblical caregiver and counselor, I believe God has uniquely tasked me with helping individuals, couples, pastors, missionaries, and ministry leaders develop this difficult but necessary discipline.
When we become aware of our own fallibility and actively invite God into the hidden places of our hearts, we begin a journey toward healing, harmony, and spiritual maturity. As leaders, we must first learn to invite the Lord to "check us out" before asking others to do the same.
This approach shifts our focus away from merely applying human strategies and toward participating with God in a process of spiritual formation.
Paul writes: "Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong. Do everything in love." (1 Corinthians 16:13–14). Not some things, he meant “everything”!
I looked up the word “everything” and found the Greek word is “panta”—meaning all, every, whole, or entire. There are no exceptions - We cannot dodge this one. The only way to live out this invitation is to remain watchful and alert. Alert to what? Our tendency and disposition to wander and drift. Our tendency to slowly trust ourselves more than we trust God.
John 13:3 says: “Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under His power, and that He had come from God and was returning to God."
The same word appears there—panta. The Father had placed all things under Christ's authority.
That includes our leadership. Our ministry. Our marriage. Our fears. Our wounds. Our future.
Everything belongs to Him.
A Simple Spiritual Health Check
Here are five areas I encourage people to prayerfully examine. Ask God to search your heart in these areas. Then invite two or three people are in your circle or environment to help you check on yourself - do a Health Check.
Suffering - How do I respond when I experience disappointment, hardship, correction, or personal failure?
Transparency - How willing am I to allow trusted people into the darker or more hidden places of my heart?
Approachability - When others fail me, do I respond with grace and peace? Are people comfortable approaching me with difficult conversations? Do I reflect the posture of Christ, whose yoke is easy and burden is light?
Presence - Have I been simply going through the motions spiritually, relationally, or vocationally? If so, how often?
Confession - When was the last time I specifically confessed sin—not merely mistakes or shortcomings—but genuine acts of sin before God and trusted believers?
My Own Health Check
This method is not just a theoretical counseling tool or a 5-step process; it is the exact framework God demands of us. It is a similar framework He revealed to me to rescue me from my own mess, suffering, and the paralyzing fear of losing it all. Early in my own marriage, it easily appeared that the biggest acts of sin were being committed against me, and I spent a long time feeling deeply hurt and in shock.
A shift that was significant
Everything changed when I stopped trying to fix the issues alone and instead invited God to fight with me for our future. In His incredible love, the Lord didn’t expose my wife’s flaws—He showed me my own sin. I finally saw myself as a sinner in dire need of a Savior, realizing that I was actually the biggest sinner in relation to God, to others, and even to those who had hurt me. I started to understand that without this I really was unable to embrace the position of sonship. Hence the importance of why our loving Father God has us check our own heart and settle it through His word and Spirit.
The heart was addressed
Admitting this truth ignited a profound sadness and compassion within me for people in my past and present who have hurt me, giving my character a stronger foundation to truly change. This was of extreme significance to my freedom! Instead of choosing to stay hurt, I began to offer my “wounds”/afflictions up to God in prayer and started genuinely hurting for others rather than hurting because of them. The Lord resurrected my heart, led me to true confession and repentance, and used humility to bring a powerful revelation of His grace into my life.
Today, I am still happily married to Jesus and doing what I love, purely because I learned how to stop defending myself (not perfect at it) and start walking in step with God. Running the Health Check helped me experience the still waters Psalm 23 references.
A Moment of Reflection
As you consider your own leadership in your home, ministry, or workplace, ask yourself:
Have I conducted a personal health check recently?
Which of the five areas above needs God's attention most right now?
What role of leadership would benefit most from a healthier version of me?
Who are three trusted people I can invite to honestly speak into my life?
What might God be trying to reveal that I have been unwilling to examine?
A Final Encouragement
As you shepherd your family, serve your congregation, and care for those entrusted to you this week, I encourage you to model a posture of humility.
Before we teach these principles, we must practice them. Before we ask others to examine their hearts, we must be willing to allow God to examine ours.
One of the greatest gifts God gave me was not the ability to see where others had failed me—it was the willingness to see my own need for Him. That revelation changed my marriage, my relationships, my leadership, and ultimately my walk with Christ.
The invitation of a health check is not condemnation; it is an invitation into greater awareness, deeper dependence, and closer intimacy with God. It is an opportunity to step out from behind our defenses, stop managing appearances, and allow the Lord to show us what is really happening beneath the surface.
When we regularly invite God to check the condition of our hearts, we position ourselves to grow in humility, strengthen our relationships, and lead from a place of authenticity rather than performance.
So before you evaluate your ministry, your team, your marriage, or those you serve:
Take a moment to evaluate your own heart.
Ask God to reveal what needs attention.
Invite a few people to speak honestly into your life.
Then respond with humility, confession, and obedience.
You may discover, as I did, that some of the greatest work God wants to do through your leadership begins with the work He desires to do within you.
May the God of Peace be with you.
— Dane Hall
Preserved International | Therismos Gospel Project
