WE SAY: GOD SAYS:
"It's impossible."
"What is impossible with men is possible with God." (Lk. 18:27) (See Gen 18:14)
"I'm too tired."
"Come to me…and I will give you rest." (Matt. 11:28-30) (See Jer. 6:16; Heb. 4:1)
"Nobody really loves me."
"God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son..." (Jn. 3:16)
"I can't go on."
"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." (2 Cor.12:9) (See Exo. 4:10-15; Josh. 1:9; Isa. 43:2; Jer. 1:6-9; I Cor. 10:13; Heb. 4:16
"I can't figure things out."
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight." (Pro. 3:5, 6)
"I can't do it.
"I can do everything through him who gives me strength." (Phil. 4:13)
"I'm not able."
"And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work." (2 Cor. 9:8)
"It's not worth it."
"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." (Rom. 8:28) (See 1 Pet. 1:7,8)
"I can't forgive."
"If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness…" (Psa. 130:3, 4) (See Matt. 6:14, 15; 18:23-35; Jms.. 2:13; Eph. 4:32)
"I can't manage."
"My God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus." (Phil. 4:19) (See Psa. 23; 84:11; Isa. 40:31; 2 Cor. 4:7-10; 9:8; 1 Thes. 5:24)
"I'm afraid."
"For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." (2 Tim. 1:7 NKJ) (See Lk. 1:74, 75; Act. 20:24; Rom. 8:15; 1 Jn. 4:18)
"I'm always worried and
"Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you." (I Pet. 5:7) (See I Sam.
frustrated"
"I'm not smart enough."
"…You are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God…" (1 Cor. 1:30) (See 1 Chron. 22:1, 2; Pro. 2:3-6; 8:5; Jms.1:5)
"I feel all alone."
"Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." (Heb. 13:5) (See Dt. 31:6-8)
"IN ALL THESE THINGS WE ARE MORE THAN CONQUERORS THROUGH HIM WHO LOVED US." Rom. 8:37)
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Conflict Steps, Anger, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation
Matthew 18:15, "If your brother or sister sins against you, go and show them their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over."
This one statement of Jesus is the key to resolving conflict in any human relationship. The manual for conflict resolution is right here and it's found in seven simple steps, easy enough for a child to follow. Instead of show and tell, it's go and tell. Go and tell the person who hurt you and make it right.
Sounds simple, doesn't it. The problem is we so often don't do it. We tell everybody but the person who hurt us. In fact, this one verse may be the single most violated command that Jesus ever gave. Why? Because at each point we face a crossroads. At each step there are powerful reasons to ignore Jesus and go the other way. So let's walk through the steps one at a time.
Step one is acknowledge the conflict, if there is a conflict. Jesus says if your brother or sister sins against you , but we could probably replace it with when your brother or sister sins against you because to be alive means to be in conflict. It's part of the Dance of the Porcupines. It's part of being slightly irregular, "as is" human beings. People aren't normal, but conflict is.
The first step sounds simple enough, acknowledge the conflict. But here's the first crossroad. Most of us would rather pretend that there is no conflict, that the conflict doesn't exist. Sometimes we think that lack of conflict is a sign of spiritual maturity, when really it could be a sign of denial or even apathy in a relationship. So when we're confronted we might say things like, "What's the big deal? Can't you take a joke? I was only kidding." And when we do that we can totally invalidate the person who wants to talk about the hurt.
So the place to start is to honestly admit that there is unresolved conflict that needs to be dealt with. There's been a relational meltdown that needs to be addressed. If we're going to live life in healthy community, unaddressed and unresolved conflict is not an option.
Step two is to own the responsibility of dealing with it. The word Jesus uses is you not the other person. He calls on every one of us to own the job of conflict resolution, which often brings us to another crossroads.
We don't want to do it. Instead, we want the person who hurt us to make the first move. "It's not fair that I should have to take the first step, I didn't hurt them. They hurt me."
In Matthew 18 the issue is going to the person who has hurt us, but in Matthew 5 Jesus says we need to go to a person if we realize we have hurt them. Matthew 5:23-24, "Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift."
You see, either way the first move is always ours. In fact, Jesus says it's more important to make a relationship right than it is to go to church. It's the most spiritual thing we can do. There is no hidden Bible verse that says wait for them to come to us. Jesus puts the burden on us in both cases. If we've done something wrong, take the first step. If the other person has done something wrong, we still take the first step.
Why? Because porcupines are stubborn, prickly little creatures. Because there's a surplus of stone throwers and a deficit of peacemakers in this world. And because people who value community are people who own the responsibility to deal with relational breakdown.
The third step is go. Don't avoid, but approach the person with whom you have an issue. This is a huge step in the process and right here the battle is often won or lost. At this crossroads we wrestle with thoughts like, "Just forget it, it's not that big of a deal." "I don't want to make them feel bad." "What they did really shouldn't of hurt me anyway." "Who am I to confront them?" "It could cost the relationship." "What if they come at me with all I've done to hurt them?" "What difference will it make anyway?" The evil one loves to use these thoughts and ideas to sabotage community.
But Jesus says, go. Don't wait. We can't wait until we've rehearsed our speech perfectly. We may stutter and stammer all over the place. It's not important that we do it flawlessly. It's just important that we do it. Avoiding issues of hurt kills community and causes resentment to fester inside of us.
Some of us grew up in homes where anger was never acknowledged. The only way we dealt with anger was to "stuff" it. That was the case in my home. And when you grow up in a family like that you can think, "I should never experience anger. Anger means I'm a terrible person. Anger is bad."
But that's a lie. God gave us with the capacity to get angry. God gets angry from time to time. Psalm 30:5 says, For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime.
Anger is like a smoke detector. It's good to have one on every floor of your house. When it beeps, it tells you that something's wrong. It's good to have smoke detectors. They can save your life. But it's not good to live with a smoke detector that's always beeping.
Anger is our God given smoke detector to warn us that something is wrong and needs to be fixed. Anger is meant to motivate us to do something. And this is what we're to do. Go to the person who has made us angry.
Now it may be wise to cool down first. Proverbs 14:17 says, People with a hot temper do foolish things. Wiser people remain calm. (GNB) You may need to buy some time just to allow the rpm's to slow down. That's okay. You may even want to do a self-check and ask yourself, "Why am I so angry? And what is it that I want that I'm not getting?"
Anger experts tell us that anger is not a primary emotion. Remember when you were in elementary school and learned about the three primary colors: red, blue and yellow. All the other colors are made from a mixture of those three. Well in that same way, anger is not a primary emotion. It is a mixture of emotions, such as hurt, frustration, or fear. Those are often the feelings that are underneath the anger. We get angry after we first get hurt by someone or after we first get frustrated trying to accomplish a task or first feel afraid of someone or something.
But once we've cooled down and thought things through we need to "go." The apostle Paul wrote these words to a community that was facing conflict. Ephesians 4:26, In your anger do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry. We need to address it as quickly as possible.
Step number four is to go to the person. The crossroads here to gossip and go to a third party and tell them the hurt and anger we feel, before we go to the person themselves. Why? Because it's easier and frankly more fun to go to someone else and tear the other person apart. But when we do that we can just make things worse.
That doesn't mean we should never talk about our anger. We all need a sounding board that can help us plan to resolve the conflict. But if we're going to a third person, it should be with the goal of then moving towards the person who hurt us for reconciliation.
Step five is use sensitivity, go in private. One on one. Just between the two of you, Jesus says. The crossroads here is the temptation to go and let them have it. Make 'em pay. Hurt them back. Embarrass them in front of an audience. But Jesus says, "No." Instead, approach them the same way you would want to be approached. Sensitivity is one of the most important parts of healthy anger management.
We don't go to blow off steam or get it off our chest or let it fly. According to Ortberg, research done on anger management over several decades has failed to find a single study that demonstrates that catharsis, or letting your anger fly, is an effective way to manage anger. Instead, it just creates more anger inside us and in the person that we rage all over. The simplest guideline here is the golden rule: approach others the way that you would want them to approach you.
Step number six is to communicate directly, discuss the problem. Jesus says, Show them their fault. The temptation here is to beat around the bush and not be totally honest. Some of us around here talk about saying the last 10%. Often, after going through all the hard work of setting up a difficult conversation, we get afraid and we shrink back from saying the hardest but most important truth. We fail to say the very thing that caused us to meet in the first place, the last 10%. We get vague and fuzzy just when we need to be crystal clear.
Saying the last 10% sounds like this. "You weren't really listening to me which made me feel like I don't matter to you. That causes me to pull away in our relationship and I don't want that. I want us to connect more closely. That's why I was hurt." It's not easy to say that. But that's what Jesus means by showing them their fault.
And finally, step number seven is the goal of conflict resolution and that is reconciliation. If they listen to you, you have won them over. The goal is not to even the score or to make the other person pay or feel bad, it's to be reconciled to each other. Restoring the relationship is the goal of conflict resolution. Getting back into community is the aim. If it's not, all of the hard work is for nothing.
So those are the seven simple steps of conflict resolution according to Jesus. That's what keeps a community healthy. But sometimes even conflict resolution doesn't work. Sometimes we need a miracle. And God created one. It's called forgiveness. And we'll look at that next time.
There's a story told of Leonardo da Vinci, the brilliant artist, who was working on his famous painting "The Last Supper" when he got angry with a certain man. In fact, at one point he was so angry that he lost his temper and lashed out at the person with some very bitter words. Later on when he returned to the canvas to continue painting he tried to work on the face of Jesus. But he was so upset that he just couldn't pull it together to do that. So finally he put down his brush and went out to find the man he had blasted and asked his forgiveness. He reconciled the relationship. The man forgave him and da Vinci was able to go back to his studio and finish painting the face of Jesus.
The Last Supper is a painting of the Lord's Table, the table that we're about to enjoy together. Does it bring to mind a relationship that needs to be reconciled? If it does, then you need to make it right quickly. It's hard to spend time with Jesus and stay angry very long. He's always nudging us towards reconciliation.
there are two ways to live with hurt: the way of vengeance and the way of forgiveness. The first way leads to death, and the second to life.
Three Things that Forgiveness is Not ...
Forgiveness is not the same thing as excusing.
If a little kid is staring at the cereal in the grocery store and runs into you, you don't need to forgive him ... you simply excuse him. He's a little kid. He's enamored by the cereal boxes. It's excusable behavior.
But when there is no good rationale to explain why someone did something to hurt you ... that is when forgiveness is required.
Forgiveness is not forgetting.
We've all heard the saying forgive and forget. That might be possible when someone cuts you off in traffic. But it is impossible to forget when someone has deeply or repeatedly hurt us.
Forgiving is precisely what is required when we cannot forget.
Forgiving is not the same thing as reconciling.
I have a good friend who has always struggled with his father. I always just assumed it was because his father abandoned him and his mother and brothers and sisters ... leaving them in a very difficult situation to fend for themselves.
It wasn't until recent years that he confided in me that for years his father had physically abused him repeatedly in a tortuous, intimidating way. Nobody else in the family knew anything about it and if they did, they never did anything about it.
My friend is an adult now and still tormented by his feelings of hatred toward his father. One day we were talking about how difficult it is for him to get on with his life and I made the radical suggestion that he forgive his father.
I'll never forget the look of anguish that came over him as he shook his head from side to side and said over and over, "no, no, no!"
My friend thought that I was saying he needed to reconcile with his father. To run back to him and spend time with the man that struck terror into his heart. That is not forgiveness. Forgiveness only requires one human being. (forgiveness waits for reconciliation in my opinion. Waits for the other party to be ready) Reconciliation requires two willing parties both broken and sincerely sorry. So what does forgiveness involve?
What forgiveness is ...
Forgiveness begins when we give up the right to get even.
This is where you need to think about your personal situation. Who is it that you want to pay? Who is it that you want to punish? Who is it that you think about and dream of all the ways their life could be as miserable as they have made yours?
My friend is tormented day and night by thoughts of his father. Somehow, he wants him to pay. I was not asking my friend to excuse his father. I was not asking my friend to forget all the horrible things his father had done to him. I was not asking him to reconcile with his father and put himself in a position where his father might try to hurt him again.
I was asking him to stop trying to get even. Vengeance by its nature is insatiable. I was inviting him to be free ...
Forgiveness involves a new way of seeing and feeling.
When we have been hurt by another person we tend to stop seeing them as a person and rather only see the hurt.
When we forgive we begin to look past the hurt and focus on the humanity of the one who hurt us. We recognize that they do not live a perfect life ... they didn't have perfect parents ... they are lonely or hurting or weak just like me. But they are also created in the image of a God who loves them.
Forgiveness progresses when you find yourself wishing the other person well.
No longer do you fantasize about the pain that you would wish upon their life. You begin to hope for good things for them. You desire the peace of God in their troubled life.
Forgiveness is the very heart beat of God. It is His invention and the only hope for His romance with the human race. When we choose to forgive, we open the door to the miraculous. God is just waiting for us to express our faith and attempt the unimaginable.
God commands us to forgive because He knows that no human beings are more miserable than the unforgiving.
This one statement of Jesus is the key to resolving conflict in any human relationship. The manual for conflict resolution is right here and it's found in seven simple steps, easy enough for a child to follow. Instead of show and tell, it's go and tell. Go and tell the person who hurt you and make it right.
Sounds simple, doesn't it. The problem is we so often don't do it. We tell everybody but the person who hurt us. In fact, this one verse may be the single most violated command that Jesus ever gave. Why? Because at each point we face a crossroads. At each step there are powerful reasons to ignore Jesus and go the other way. So let's walk through the steps one at a time.
Step one is acknowledge the conflict, if there is a conflict. Jesus says if your brother or sister sins against you , but we could probably replace it with when your brother or sister sins against you because to be alive means to be in conflict. It's part of the Dance of the Porcupines. It's part of being slightly irregular, "as is" human beings. People aren't normal, but conflict is.
The first step sounds simple enough, acknowledge the conflict. But here's the first crossroad. Most of us would rather pretend that there is no conflict, that the conflict doesn't exist. Sometimes we think that lack of conflict is a sign of spiritual maturity, when really it could be a sign of denial or even apathy in a relationship. So when we're confronted we might say things like, "What's the big deal? Can't you take a joke? I was only kidding." And when we do that we can totally invalidate the person who wants to talk about the hurt.
So the place to start is to honestly admit that there is unresolved conflict that needs to be dealt with. There's been a relational meltdown that needs to be addressed. If we're going to live life in healthy community, unaddressed and unresolved conflict is not an option.
Step two is to own the responsibility of dealing with it. The word Jesus uses is you not the other person. He calls on every one of us to own the job of conflict resolution, which often brings us to another crossroads.
We don't want to do it. Instead, we want the person who hurt us to make the first move. "It's not fair that I should have to take the first step, I didn't hurt them. They hurt me."
In Matthew 18 the issue is going to the person who has hurt us, but in Matthew 5 Jesus says we need to go to a person if we realize we have hurt them. Matthew 5:23-24, "Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift."
You see, either way the first move is always ours. In fact, Jesus says it's more important to make a relationship right than it is to go to church. It's the most spiritual thing we can do. There is no hidden Bible verse that says wait for them to come to us. Jesus puts the burden on us in both cases. If we've done something wrong, take the first step. If the other person has done something wrong, we still take the first step.
Why? Because porcupines are stubborn, prickly little creatures. Because there's a surplus of stone throwers and a deficit of peacemakers in this world. And because people who value community are people who own the responsibility to deal with relational breakdown.
The third step is go. Don't avoid, but approach the person with whom you have an issue. This is a huge step in the process and right here the battle is often won or lost. At this crossroads we wrestle with thoughts like, "Just forget it, it's not that big of a deal." "I don't want to make them feel bad." "What they did really shouldn't of hurt me anyway." "Who am I to confront them?" "It could cost the relationship." "What if they come at me with all I've done to hurt them?" "What difference will it make anyway?" The evil one loves to use these thoughts and ideas to sabotage community.
But Jesus says, go. Don't wait. We can't wait until we've rehearsed our speech perfectly. We may stutter and stammer all over the place. It's not important that we do it flawlessly. It's just important that we do it. Avoiding issues of hurt kills community and causes resentment to fester inside of us.
Some of us grew up in homes where anger was never acknowledged. The only way we dealt with anger was to "stuff" it. That was the case in my home. And when you grow up in a family like that you can think, "I should never experience anger. Anger means I'm a terrible person. Anger is bad."
But that's a lie. God gave us with the capacity to get angry. God gets angry from time to time. Psalm 30:5 says, For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime.
Anger is like a smoke detector. It's good to have one on every floor of your house. When it beeps, it tells you that something's wrong. It's good to have smoke detectors. They can save your life. But it's not good to live with a smoke detector that's always beeping.
Anger is our God given smoke detector to warn us that something is wrong and needs to be fixed. Anger is meant to motivate us to do something. And this is what we're to do. Go to the person who has made us angry.
Now it may be wise to cool down first. Proverbs 14:17 says, People with a hot temper do foolish things. Wiser people remain calm. (GNB) You may need to buy some time just to allow the rpm's to slow down. That's okay. You may even want to do a self-check and ask yourself, "Why am I so angry? And what is it that I want that I'm not getting?"
Anger experts tell us that anger is not a primary emotion. Remember when you were in elementary school and learned about the three primary colors: red, blue and yellow. All the other colors are made from a mixture of those three. Well in that same way, anger is not a primary emotion. It is a mixture of emotions, such as hurt, frustration, or fear. Those are often the feelings that are underneath the anger. We get angry after we first get hurt by someone or after we first get frustrated trying to accomplish a task or first feel afraid of someone or something.
But once we've cooled down and thought things through we need to "go." The apostle Paul wrote these words to a community that was facing conflict. Ephesians 4:26, In your anger do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry. We need to address it as quickly as possible.
Step number four is to go to the person. The crossroads here to gossip and go to a third party and tell them the hurt and anger we feel, before we go to the person themselves. Why? Because it's easier and frankly more fun to go to someone else and tear the other person apart. But when we do that we can just make things worse.
That doesn't mean we should never talk about our anger. We all need a sounding board that can help us plan to resolve the conflict. But if we're going to a third person, it should be with the goal of then moving towards the person who hurt us for reconciliation.
Step five is use sensitivity, go in private. One on one. Just between the two of you, Jesus says. The crossroads here is the temptation to go and let them have it. Make 'em pay. Hurt them back. Embarrass them in front of an audience. But Jesus says, "No." Instead, approach them the same way you would want to be approached. Sensitivity is one of the most important parts of healthy anger management.
We don't go to blow off steam or get it off our chest or let it fly. According to Ortberg, research done on anger management over several decades has failed to find a single study that demonstrates that catharsis, or letting your anger fly, is an effective way to manage anger. Instead, it just creates more anger inside us and in the person that we rage all over. The simplest guideline here is the golden rule: approach others the way that you would want them to approach you.
Step number six is to communicate directly, discuss the problem. Jesus says, Show them their fault. The temptation here is to beat around the bush and not be totally honest. Some of us around here talk about saying the last 10%. Often, after going through all the hard work of setting up a difficult conversation, we get afraid and we shrink back from saying the hardest but most important truth. We fail to say the very thing that caused us to meet in the first place, the last 10%. We get vague and fuzzy just when we need to be crystal clear.
Saying the last 10% sounds like this. "You weren't really listening to me which made me feel like I don't matter to you. That causes me to pull away in our relationship and I don't want that. I want us to connect more closely. That's why I was hurt." It's not easy to say that. But that's what Jesus means by showing them their fault.
And finally, step number seven is the goal of conflict resolution and that is reconciliation. If they listen to you, you have won them over. The goal is not to even the score or to make the other person pay or feel bad, it's to be reconciled to each other. Restoring the relationship is the goal of conflict resolution. Getting back into community is the aim. If it's not, all of the hard work is for nothing.
So those are the seven simple steps of conflict resolution according to Jesus. That's what keeps a community healthy. But sometimes even conflict resolution doesn't work. Sometimes we need a miracle. And God created one. It's called forgiveness. And we'll look at that next time.
There's a story told of Leonardo da Vinci, the brilliant artist, who was working on his famous painting "The Last Supper" when he got angry with a certain man. In fact, at one point he was so angry that he lost his temper and lashed out at the person with some very bitter words. Later on when he returned to the canvas to continue painting he tried to work on the face of Jesus. But he was so upset that he just couldn't pull it together to do that. So finally he put down his brush and went out to find the man he had blasted and asked his forgiveness. He reconciled the relationship. The man forgave him and da Vinci was able to go back to his studio and finish painting the face of Jesus.
The Last Supper is a painting of the Lord's Table, the table that we're about to enjoy together. Does it bring to mind a relationship that needs to be reconciled? If it does, then you need to make it right quickly. It's hard to spend time with Jesus and stay angry very long. He's always nudging us towards reconciliation.
there are two ways to live with hurt: the way of vengeance and the way of forgiveness. The first way leads to death, and the second to life.
Three Things that Forgiveness is Not ...
Forgiveness is not the same thing as excusing.
If a little kid is staring at the cereal in the grocery store and runs into you, you don't need to forgive him ... you simply excuse him. He's a little kid. He's enamored by the cereal boxes. It's excusable behavior.
But when there is no good rationale to explain why someone did something to hurt you ... that is when forgiveness is required.
Forgiveness is not forgetting.
We've all heard the saying forgive and forget. That might be possible when someone cuts you off in traffic. But it is impossible to forget when someone has deeply or repeatedly hurt us.
Forgiving is precisely what is required when we cannot forget.
Forgiving is not the same thing as reconciling.
I have a good friend who has always struggled with his father. I always just assumed it was because his father abandoned him and his mother and brothers and sisters ... leaving them in a very difficult situation to fend for themselves.
It wasn't until recent years that he confided in me that for years his father had physically abused him repeatedly in a tortuous, intimidating way. Nobody else in the family knew anything about it and if they did, they never did anything about it.
My friend is an adult now and still tormented by his feelings of hatred toward his father. One day we were talking about how difficult it is for him to get on with his life and I made the radical suggestion that he forgive his father.
I'll never forget the look of anguish that came over him as he shook his head from side to side and said over and over, "no, no, no!"
My friend thought that I was saying he needed to reconcile with his father. To run back to him and spend time with the man that struck terror into his heart. That is not forgiveness. Forgiveness only requires one human being. (forgiveness waits for reconciliation in my opinion. Waits for the other party to be ready) Reconciliation requires two willing parties both broken and sincerely sorry. So what does forgiveness involve?
What forgiveness is ...
Forgiveness begins when we give up the right to get even.
This is where you need to think about your personal situation. Who is it that you want to pay? Who is it that you want to punish? Who is it that you think about and dream of all the ways their life could be as miserable as they have made yours?
My friend is tormented day and night by thoughts of his father. Somehow, he wants him to pay. I was not asking my friend to excuse his father. I was not asking my friend to forget all the horrible things his father had done to him. I was not asking him to reconcile with his father and put himself in a position where his father might try to hurt him again.
I was asking him to stop trying to get even. Vengeance by its nature is insatiable. I was inviting him to be free ...
Forgiveness involves a new way of seeing and feeling.
When we have been hurt by another person we tend to stop seeing them as a person and rather only see the hurt.
When we forgive we begin to look past the hurt and focus on the humanity of the one who hurt us. We recognize that they do not live a perfect life ... they didn't have perfect parents ... they are lonely or hurting or weak just like me. But they are also created in the image of a God who loves them.
Forgiveness progresses when you find yourself wishing the other person well.
No longer do you fantasize about the pain that you would wish upon their life. You begin to hope for good things for them. You desire the peace of God in their troubled life.
Forgiveness is the very heart beat of God. It is His invention and the only hope for His romance with the human race. When we choose to forgive, we open the door to the miraculous. God is just waiting for us to express our faith and attempt the unimaginable.
God commands us to forgive because He knows that no human beings are more miserable than the unforgiving.
community level one and taking off mask
The apostle Paul says that in true community love is to be genuine. In the book of Acts we read that in the very first church people "met together with glad and sincere hearts." They were authentic. They were real. They learned to stop pretending to be something they were not.
Ortberg refers to a brilliant essay that C. S. Lewis once wrote called "The Inner Ring." In it Lewis says that in every society, every school, every church, every workplace, there are little groups of people who are on the "inside." And you can tell because they use nicknames and have inside jokes and get invited to certain events. And then there are those who are on the outside, those who don't get chosen at recess or invited to the dance or who get voted off the island. And all of us have the desire to be on the inside and the fear of being left on the outside.
The existence of these rings, Lewis says, isn't necessarily bad. We're all limited and can only maintain so many relationships. But the desire to gain status by being part of a high-status Inner Ring is a deeply dangerous one. It can lead us to constantly compare ourselves with others, to feel anguish when we're left out, and deeper anguish when someone close to us gets ushered in. It can make us compromise and do things that make us look good to those who are deeper in and higher up.
But the Inner Ring turns out to be like an onion. Once we make it to a certain circle, we discover there is another circle, and another one after that. And beside no inner circle can give us the worth that we want so badly to find, because inside each circle we discover that we're still the same person.
Jesus' disciples wrestled with this desire to be on the inside. Two of them, James and John, actually approached Jesus and asked if they could be in the Inner Ring when they got to heaven. They even had their mom lobbying for them. And when the other ten heard about it they flipped out, because if that happened that would mean, that even though they were apostles too, they wouldn't be on the inside. And Jesus just shook his head and wondered when these guys would finally get it that God's desire is to invite everyone into the Inner Ring. His church is not to be a community of exclusion, but a community of embrace.
One of the most penetrating stories about who's in and who's out is told by Matthew. If you have a Bible turn to Matthew 15:21-28. Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession." 23 Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, "Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us." 24 He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel." 25 The woman came and knelt before him. "Lord, help me!" she said. 26 He replied, "It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs." 27 "Yes, Lord," she said, "but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." 28 Then Jesus answered, "Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted." And her daughter was healed from that very hour.
So let's get real practical now and look at three stages of authenticity that will lead us into deeper levels of community in any relationship.
The first stage is guarded communication. Authenticity doesn't mean we tell everybody, everything about us. That would be unwise and unbiblical. There is a place for guarded communication. We need to be discerning in what we share with whom.
Proverbs 20:19 says, A gossip betrays a confidence; so avoid anyone who talks too much.
Don't be too quick to share something personal with somebody you don't know or somebody you can't trust. You can get hurt real bad. Most of us have had that experience and it's painful. I've been on both ends of that equation. I've had confidences betrayed and I've betrayed a few myself, which caused great pain. And when that happens it can shut us down for years in our attempts to build deeper community with people. And we can get real cynical and say things like, "There you go! What did I tell you? You can't trust anybody." When the truth is, "You can't trust everybody. But you can trust somebody."
So there's a place for polite, surface conversation. We all need that and that is a level of community, but it's not the deepest level. We were meant to go deeper.
The apostle Paul has a wonderful line in his second letter to the Corinthians when he writes in 2 Corinthians 3:18, And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
His point is that it's possible for people to live in community with "unveiled faces." We would say without wearing masks. He uses the line in retelling the story of Moses whose face glowed after he met with God on Mount Sinai. And everyone who saw him went, "Wow! What a man of God! He is so special!"
But one morning when Moses looked in the mirror to brush his teeth, he noticed his face wasn't glowing as much. He was losing his radiance and it scared him to death to think that people would see his fading glory and think less of him so he put a veil over his face. He hid his face because he wanted people to think he was more spiritual than he really was. Until his wife finally said, "Moses, take that ridiculous thing off you're not fooling anybody!" What a relief that must have been!
But we can do the same thing that Moses did. We can keep a veil over our face, or a mask, to hide who we really are. Some of us hide behind clichés. We're always "Top draw. Doing great. Never had a bad day." Some of us hide behind humor to deflect conversations that get too personal. Some hide behind their shyness or their busyness or their spirituality. You can impress people from behind the veil, but you can't make friends that way. The truth is we're drawn to people who live with unveiled faces.
If you want to be in a relationship where people share deeply with you, then you need to take the next step towards authenticity, which is appropriate self-disclosure. Someone has said, "Disclosure begets disclosure." It has enormous power.
The apostle Paul puts it this way in Ephesians 4:25, Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body.
How often I've seen this in small groups over the years. The group starts out with everyone being polite and having guarded conversations. But after a while there's this unspoken yearning to go deeper. And if the group doesn't people start to get bored with it and look for other things to do. Until someone has the courage to take the risk and share a struggle that they're having at work or at school or in their parenting or with their health or in their marriage and all of sudden the group dives into a deeper level of community. And often that's all it takes, one courageous person to lead them there, one person to risk being real.
Again, we're talking about appropriate self-disclosure. What may be appropriate to share one on one, may not be appropriate to share in a group or in a mixed setting of men and women. Nevertheless, this is the level where we take risks with those we trust and show our "as is" tag by revealing areas of failure or embarrassment or vulnerability, things that don't make us look good or that we're not particularly proud of. It's communication that goes beyond cliches and opens up the heart. It's the uncomfortable part of becoming real.
Jesus was the only person who ever walked this planet who was completely transparent. He never learned to hide. He let his friends see him in his unveiled moments of joy and sadness, anger and fatigue. At one point, shortly before he died, he said his friends, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Please pray for me (Mark 14:34)."
Every one of us carries hurts and scars and wounds. And our tendency since the garden is to hide as if our life depended on it. But that's exactly what we can't do. God wants us to come out from behind the bushes with him and with at least one other person. Our life depends on getting found. There's no healing in hiding only bondage.
That's even true at the physical level. Studies show that there is a real connection between self-disclosure and physical health. James knew that 2,000 years ago when he wrote in James 5:16, Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
Which brings us to the third stage of authenticity that leads to the deepest level of community. And that is confession. Now there's an overlap between self-disclosure and confession. Self-disclosure can include confession, but it also includes sharing things that have happened to us, hurts and violations that were out of our control. Confession, on the other hand, is a moral term, and involves naming specific things that we've done that need repentance and reconciliation.
Guarded communication is telling people that you're fine when inside you're really scared to death because you just lost your job. Self-disclosure is telling people that you're scared to death about the future because you just lost your job. Confession is telling someone that you're scared to death about the future because you just lost your job and the reason you lost your job is that you were caught stealing from the company.
Confessing our sins to another human being is powerful and crucial to our own healing and sense of forgiveness. When people begin to open up at this level, then God can produce the kind of deep community that he intends for us to enjoy.
Sin thrives on secrecy. And the longer we keep our sin hidden in the shadows of secrecy, the greater its grip will be on our lives. But when we bring it out of the shadows and into the light it quickly loses its power. And we bring it into the light when we confess it to at least one other trusted person. Confessing our sin to one another is the only way we can be delivered from the power of an addiction.
Alcoholics Anonymous has known this for years. The Fifth Step of the Twelve Steps of AA is to admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. It's to come out of the shadows and into the light.
Proverbs 28:13 says, He who covers up his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy. Confession is a powerful thing because it puts us in a place where God can transform our lives.
Believe me, I know the fear that comes with confession. Someone has said confession may be good for the soul, but bad for the reputation. That's why we need to find someone we can trust whether it be a professional counselor or a trustworthy friend.
Never forget that Valley View first of all a community of sinners before we're a community of saints. No one needs to feel alone around here in their brokenness. All of us struggle. Some may hide it better than others, some may struggle in different areas than we do, but we all do battle every single day. We all carry a mat.
So today's love lesson is that community starts with being real. "Becoming Real," said the wise old skin horse, "is a process. It takes time. It doesn't come all at once. It will be uncomfortable. But once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who just don't understand."
Ortberg refers to a brilliant essay that C. S. Lewis once wrote called "The Inner Ring." In it Lewis says that in every society, every school, every church, every workplace, there are little groups of people who are on the "inside." And you can tell because they use nicknames and have inside jokes and get invited to certain events. And then there are those who are on the outside, those who don't get chosen at recess or invited to the dance or who get voted off the island. And all of us have the desire to be on the inside and the fear of being left on the outside.
The existence of these rings, Lewis says, isn't necessarily bad. We're all limited and can only maintain so many relationships. But the desire to gain status by being part of a high-status Inner Ring is a deeply dangerous one. It can lead us to constantly compare ourselves with others, to feel anguish when we're left out, and deeper anguish when someone close to us gets ushered in. It can make us compromise and do things that make us look good to those who are deeper in and higher up.
But the Inner Ring turns out to be like an onion. Once we make it to a certain circle, we discover there is another circle, and another one after that. And beside no inner circle can give us the worth that we want so badly to find, because inside each circle we discover that we're still the same person.
Jesus' disciples wrestled with this desire to be on the inside. Two of them, James and John, actually approached Jesus and asked if they could be in the Inner Ring when they got to heaven. They even had their mom lobbying for them. And when the other ten heard about it they flipped out, because if that happened that would mean, that even though they were apostles too, they wouldn't be on the inside. And Jesus just shook his head and wondered when these guys would finally get it that God's desire is to invite everyone into the Inner Ring. His church is not to be a community of exclusion, but a community of embrace.
One of the most penetrating stories about who's in and who's out is told by Matthew. If you have a Bible turn to Matthew 15:21-28. Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession." 23 Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, "Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us." 24 He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel." 25 The woman came and knelt before him. "Lord, help me!" she said. 26 He replied, "It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs." 27 "Yes, Lord," she said, "but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." 28 Then Jesus answered, "Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted." And her daughter was healed from that very hour.
So let's get real practical now and look at three stages of authenticity that will lead us into deeper levels of community in any relationship.
The first stage is guarded communication. Authenticity doesn't mean we tell everybody, everything about us. That would be unwise and unbiblical. There is a place for guarded communication. We need to be discerning in what we share with whom.
Proverbs 20:19 says, A gossip betrays a confidence; so avoid anyone who talks too much.
Don't be too quick to share something personal with somebody you don't know or somebody you can't trust. You can get hurt real bad. Most of us have had that experience and it's painful. I've been on both ends of that equation. I've had confidences betrayed and I've betrayed a few myself, which caused great pain. And when that happens it can shut us down for years in our attempts to build deeper community with people. And we can get real cynical and say things like, "There you go! What did I tell you? You can't trust anybody." When the truth is, "You can't trust everybody. But you can trust somebody."
So there's a place for polite, surface conversation. We all need that and that is a level of community, but it's not the deepest level. We were meant to go deeper.
The apostle Paul has a wonderful line in his second letter to the Corinthians when he writes in 2 Corinthians 3:18, And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
His point is that it's possible for people to live in community with "unveiled faces." We would say without wearing masks. He uses the line in retelling the story of Moses whose face glowed after he met with God on Mount Sinai. And everyone who saw him went, "Wow! What a man of God! He is so special!"
But one morning when Moses looked in the mirror to brush his teeth, he noticed his face wasn't glowing as much. He was losing his radiance and it scared him to death to think that people would see his fading glory and think less of him so he put a veil over his face. He hid his face because he wanted people to think he was more spiritual than he really was. Until his wife finally said, "Moses, take that ridiculous thing off you're not fooling anybody!" What a relief that must have been!
But we can do the same thing that Moses did. We can keep a veil over our face, or a mask, to hide who we really are. Some of us hide behind clichés. We're always "Top draw. Doing great. Never had a bad day." Some of us hide behind humor to deflect conversations that get too personal. Some hide behind their shyness or their busyness or their spirituality. You can impress people from behind the veil, but you can't make friends that way. The truth is we're drawn to people who live with unveiled faces.
If you want to be in a relationship where people share deeply with you, then you need to take the next step towards authenticity, which is appropriate self-disclosure. Someone has said, "Disclosure begets disclosure." It has enormous power.
The apostle Paul puts it this way in Ephesians 4:25, Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body.
How often I've seen this in small groups over the years. The group starts out with everyone being polite and having guarded conversations. But after a while there's this unspoken yearning to go deeper. And if the group doesn't people start to get bored with it and look for other things to do. Until someone has the courage to take the risk and share a struggle that they're having at work or at school or in their parenting or with their health or in their marriage and all of sudden the group dives into a deeper level of community. And often that's all it takes, one courageous person to lead them there, one person to risk being real.
Again, we're talking about appropriate self-disclosure. What may be appropriate to share one on one, may not be appropriate to share in a group or in a mixed setting of men and women. Nevertheless, this is the level where we take risks with those we trust and show our "as is" tag by revealing areas of failure or embarrassment or vulnerability, things that don't make us look good or that we're not particularly proud of. It's communication that goes beyond cliches and opens up the heart. It's the uncomfortable part of becoming real.
Jesus was the only person who ever walked this planet who was completely transparent. He never learned to hide. He let his friends see him in his unveiled moments of joy and sadness, anger and fatigue. At one point, shortly before he died, he said his friends, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Please pray for me (Mark 14:34)."
Every one of us carries hurts and scars and wounds. And our tendency since the garden is to hide as if our life depended on it. But that's exactly what we can't do. God wants us to come out from behind the bushes with him and with at least one other person. Our life depends on getting found. There's no healing in hiding only bondage.
That's even true at the physical level. Studies show that there is a real connection between self-disclosure and physical health. James knew that 2,000 years ago when he wrote in James 5:16, Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
Which brings us to the third stage of authenticity that leads to the deepest level of community. And that is confession. Now there's an overlap between self-disclosure and confession. Self-disclosure can include confession, but it also includes sharing things that have happened to us, hurts and violations that were out of our control. Confession, on the other hand, is a moral term, and involves naming specific things that we've done that need repentance and reconciliation.
Guarded communication is telling people that you're fine when inside you're really scared to death because you just lost your job. Self-disclosure is telling people that you're scared to death about the future because you just lost your job. Confession is telling someone that you're scared to death about the future because you just lost your job and the reason you lost your job is that you were caught stealing from the company.
Confessing our sins to another human being is powerful and crucial to our own healing and sense of forgiveness. When people begin to open up at this level, then God can produce the kind of deep community that he intends for us to enjoy.
Sin thrives on secrecy. And the longer we keep our sin hidden in the shadows of secrecy, the greater its grip will be on our lives. But when we bring it out of the shadows and into the light it quickly loses its power. And we bring it into the light when we confess it to at least one other trusted person. Confessing our sin to one another is the only way we can be delivered from the power of an addiction.
Alcoholics Anonymous has known this for years. The Fifth Step of the Twelve Steps of AA is to admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. It's to come out of the shadows and into the light.
Proverbs 28:13 says, He who covers up his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy. Confession is a powerful thing because it puts us in a place where God can transform our lives.
Believe me, I know the fear that comes with confession. Someone has said confession may be good for the soul, but bad for the reputation. That's why we need to find someone we can trust whether it be a professional counselor or a trustworthy friend.
Never forget that Valley View first of all a community of sinners before we're a community of saints. No one needs to feel alone around here in their brokenness. All of us struggle. Some may hide it better than others, some may struggle in different areas than we do, but we all do battle every single day. We all carry a mat.
So today's love lesson is that community starts with being real. "Becoming Real," said the wise old skin horse, "is a process. It takes time. It doesn't come all at once. It will be uncomfortable. But once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who just don't understand."
Share before winter camp- including, value in what God values
This week I received a breathtaking e-mail from a teenager who went on the recent Young Life winter weekend. And in it she describes this kind of "roof crashing community."
She writes, "When I signed up for the winter weekend there was doubt hanging over me. Unlike all the kids who knew each other from Young Life, I didn't know anyone who was going ... So I climbed onto the bus and sat uncomfortably by myself for more than half of the trip to New York. Suddenly I was beginning to think this wasn't such a good idea. You know how you talked about feeling lonely in a crowded room? Well, that's how I felt sitting in that bus packed full of people. Finally, someone came up and sat with me. I don't think he realized how good that made me feel. I could have squeezed him to death. That's how happy I was. He then introduced me to his friends who introduced me to their friends. And as the weekend progressed, I ended up meeting tons of awesome kids that I never would have met ... I can honestly say ... the weekend proved to be one of the best things that has ever happened to me. For the first time ever, I felt the presence of God and I made the decision to hand my life over to him for good ... I continue to attend Young Life and Valley View High where I have experienced a community like never before!"
Dale Galloway tells the story of a young boy named Teddy Stollard. He wasn't the kind of kid who got invited to parties. He looked bored most of the time. He only spoke when spoken to and even then in one-syllable words. He never dressed right, looked right and wore smelly clothes. He didn't do well in school. In fact, when the teacher would mark Teddy's papers she got a twisted kind of thrill marking all the wrong answers and putting a big fat "F" on top of the page. She should have known better, because his history was on record.
In first grade, Teddy had been a good boy and showed promised, but had a poor home situation. In second grade, Teddy was quiet and withdrawn. His mother was terminally ill. In third grade, Teddy was falling behind. His mother died that year and his father was uninvolved. In fourth grade, Teddy was hopelessly backward. His father had moved away and he was living with an aunt and deeply troubled.
Christmas came and all the children in Teddy's class brought gifts to school to give to the teacher. They were all nicely wrapped, some with big, bright bows, except for Teddy's package. It was in a brown paper bag and not quite held together by tape.
One by one his teacher, Miss Thompson, would open the gifts for the whole class to admire. When she opened Teddy's gift she found a rhinestone bracelet with most of the stones missing and a bottle of perfume that was almost empty. The other kids started to laugh, but Miss Thompson caught herself. Snapping on the bracelet, she said, "Isn't it lovely, class? And doesn't the perfume smell good?"
At the end of the class, Teddy stayed after and said, "I'm glad you liked my gifts, Miss Thompson. All day long you smelled like my mother. And her bracelet looks nice on you, too."
After he left, his teacher put her head down on the desk and cried. She asked God to forgive her and prayed that God would help her to see what he sees when he looks at a motherless boy. The next day, when the children came back to school, Miss Thompson was a new teacher. She tutored the children who needed extra help, Teddy most of all. And by the end of the year he had caught up with most of his classmates and was even ahead of some. After that, she didn't hear from Teddy for quite a while until one day she received a note.
Dear Miss Thompson, I wanted you to be the first to know I am graduating from high school, and I am second in my class. Love, Teddy Stollard
Four years later came another note. Dear Miss Thompson, I wanted you to be the first to know I am graduating from college first in my class. The university has not been easy, but I liked it. Love, Teddy Stollard
Four years later, another note came. Dear Miss Thompson, I wanted you to be the first to know that as of today I am Theodore J. Stollard, M.D. How about that? I want you to come sit where my mother would have sat, because you're the nearest thing to family that I've had. Love, Teddy Stollard
The ability to assign worth and value is one of the rarest and greatest gifts in the world. May God help all of us to value what God values and to understand how much we've all been forgiven.
She writes, "When I signed up for the winter weekend there was doubt hanging over me. Unlike all the kids who knew each other from Young Life, I didn't know anyone who was going ... So I climbed onto the bus and sat uncomfortably by myself for more than half of the trip to New York. Suddenly I was beginning to think this wasn't such a good idea. You know how you talked about feeling lonely in a crowded room? Well, that's how I felt sitting in that bus packed full of people. Finally, someone came up and sat with me. I don't think he realized how good that made me feel. I could have squeezed him to death. That's how happy I was. He then introduced me to his friends who introduced me to their friends. And as the weekend progressed, I ended up meeting tons of awesome kids that I never would have met ... I can honestly say ... the weekend proved to be one of the best things that has ever happened to me. For the first time ever, I felt the presence of God and I made the decision to hand my life over to him for good ... I continue to attend Young Life and Valley View High where I have experienced a community like never before!"
Dale Galloway tells the story of a young boy named Teddy Stollard. He wasn't the kind of kid who got invited to parties. He looked bored most of the time. He only spoke when spoken to and even then in one-syllable words. He never dressed right, looked right and wore smelly clothes. He didn't do well in school. In fact, when the teacher would mark Teddy's papers she got a twisted kind of thrill marking all the wrong answers and putting a big fat "F" on top of the page. She should have known better, because his history was on record.
In first grade, Teddy had been a good boy and showed promised, but had a poor home situation. In second grade, Teddy was quiet and withdrawn. His mother was terminally ill. In third grade, Teddy was falling behind. His mother died that year and his father was uninvolved. In fourth grade, Teddy was hopelessly backward. His father had moved away and he was living with an aunt and deeply troubled.
Christmas came and all the children in Teddy's class brought gifts to school to give to the teacher. They were all nicely wrapped, some with big, bright bows, except for Teddy's package. It was in a brown paper bag and not quite held together by tape.
One by one his teacher, Miss Thompson, would open the gifts for the whole class to admire. When she opened Teddy's gift she found a rhinestone bracelet with most of the stones missing and a bottle of perfume that was almost empty. The other kids started to laugh, but Miss Thompson caught herself. Snapping on the bracelet, she said, "Isn't it lovely, class? And doesn't the perfume smell good?"
At the end of the class, Teddy stayed after and said, "I'm glad you liked my gifts, Miss Thompson. All day long you smelled like my mother. And her bracelet looks nice on you, too."
After he left, his teacher put her head down on the desk and cried. She asked God to forgive her and prayed that God would help her to see what he sees when he looks at a motherless boy. The next day, when the children came back to school, Miss Thompson was a new teacher. She tutored the children who needed extra help, Teddy most of all. And by the end of the year he had caught up with most of his classmates and was even ahead of some. After that, she didn't hear from Teddy for quite a while until one day she received a note.
Dear Miss Thompson, I wanted you to be the first to know I am graduating from high school, and I am second in my class. Love, Teddy Stollard
Four years later came another note. Dear Miss Thompson, I wanted you to be the first to know I am graduating from college first in my class. The university has not been easy, but I liked it. Love, Teddy Stollard
Four years later, another note came. Dear Miss Thompson, I wanted you to be the first to know that as of today I am Theodore J. Stollard, M.D. How about that? I want you to come sit where my mother would have sat, because you're the nearest thing to family that I've had. Love, Teddy Stollard
The ability to assign worth and value is one of the rarest and greatest gifts in the world. May God help all of us to value what God values and to understand how much we've all been forgiven.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Your Life Purpose/ Mission Statement and Values
Your Life Purpose and Core Values
I believe that we were all sent here for a reason and that we all have significance in the world. I genuinely feel that we are all blessed with unique gifts. The expression of our gifts contributes to a cause greater than ourselves.
What am I chasing after? Why am I chasing it? What is my purpose? Why was I put here?
Begin by listing all the things that are most important to you. Write down all the things you want to do. Create a personal mission statement. Decide that whatever venture you commit to must align with your personal mission, values and goals. For every new opportunity that comes along, ask yourself how it aligns with your mission, values, and goals. If the venture does not align with where you want to be, then do not pursue it.
“Writing or reviewing a mission statement changes you because it forces you to think through your priorities deeply, carefully, and to align your behavior with your beliefs”
Goals
1) Come up with your own personal mission/ life purpose statement
2) Create a list of your top 5 to 10 core values
Try one of these visualization exercises, writing down your findings when you are done.
Vividly picture the day of your funeral. Take a minute to visualize the details. Who is there? There are people giving speeches and talks about you and your life. What do they say? What do you hope they say? How do you want to be remembered? What do you want your eulogy to consist of? What would your lifetime achievements be? What would matter the most at the end of your life? Is it what you are doing right now?
Or
You are now 90 years old, sitting on a rocking chair outside your porch; you can feel the spring breeze gently brushing against your face. You are blissful and happy, and are pleased with the wonderful life you’ve been blessed with. Looking back at your life and all that you’ve achieved and acquired, all the relationships you’ve developed; what matters to you most? List them out.
Or
I would go beyond this and say, "you are living in the afterlife and are looking back on your life with Jesus by your side, what would you like your life to look like? What would Jesus like your life to look like? Why? What were the most significant things about who you were? What were the most significant things that you did? What were your most significant relationships?"
The answers to the questions are indicators of our key values and our life mission.
Creating a Life Purpose Statement (God made me in this way- created)/ Personal Mission Statement (I’m going to be who God made me to be- for good works)
Stephen Covey’s Mission Statement Builder is a good resource for getting started on our mission statement and values.
Or Steve Pavlina’s method on “How to discover your life purpose in about 20 minutes” is another simple way to get in touch with your own calling.
"If you want to discover your true purpose in life, you must first empty your mind of all the false purposes you’ve been taught including the idea that you may have no purpose at all.
So how to discover your purpose in life? While there are many ways to do this, some of them fairly involved, here is one of the simplest that anyone can do. The more open you are to this process, and the more you expect it to work, the faster it will work for you. But not being open to it or having doubts about it or thinking it’s an entirely idiotic and meaningless waste of time won’t prevent it from working as long as you stick with it — again, it will just take longer to converge.
Here’s what to do:
1. Take out a blank sheet of paper or open up a word processor where you can type (I prefer the latter because it’s faster).
2. Write at the top, “What is my true purpose in life?”
3. Write an answer (any answer) that pops into your head. It doesn’t have to be a complete sentence. A short phrase is fine.
4. Repeat step 3 until you write the answer that makes resonates deeply with you (or even makes you cry). This is your life purpose statement.
Core Values
What core values are:
· An enduring belief, an [often] unwritten assumption and a preferred choice
“a set of general guiding principles; not to be confused with specific cultural or operational practices; [and] not to be compromised for financial gain or short-term expediency.”
· They are non-negotiable, the essence of a person’s identity
· Values help to shape our decision making process and ultimately our actions.
If I have core values…how do I discover them?
Clarifying Your Core Values
Answering the following questions will help to identify implicit values and move you towards formulating an explicit values statement…
1. What activities do you consider of greatest worth?
2. When your mind is in neutral, what do you usually think about?
3. When you lead, what needs to take place for you to be satisfied?
4. The qualities of character you most admire and desire for God to shape into your life are...
5. The actions or qualities in others that really frustrate or annoy you – even if you don’t know why are...
6. What causes do you strongly believe in? Connect with?
7. If you could get a message across to a large group of people. Who would those people be? What would your message be?
Dark-Side Values
Do we have values God may need to reform; values that do not reflect the lifestyle of Christ? Just by living in the world we pick up worldly values. As we grow in our love for God and for His Word, we are challenged to recognize and let God heal our corrupt or unhealthy values.
What are some of my “dark-side orientations” that compel me to wrongly value or over-value certain things?(e.g. of corrupt values: I value keeping up appearances; I value being right; I value always winning; I value over-indulging myself through eating, TV, alcohol…)
Choose to ask for and seriously consider feedback from others who know us or who have observed us over time;
Choose to appropriately self-disclose our issues within proper safe relationships (and get prayer);
Choose to trust GOD for help!!!
I believe that we were all sent here for a reason and that we all have significance in the world. I genuinely feel that we are all blessed with unique gifts. The expression of our gifts contributes to a cause greater than ourselves.
What am I chasing after? Why am I chasing it? What is my purpose? Why was I put here?
Begin by listing all the things that are most important to you. Write down all the things you want to do. Create a personal mission statement. Decide that whatever venture you commit to must align with your personal mission, values and goals. For every new opportunity that comes along, ask yourself how it aligns with your mission, values, and goals. If the venture does not align with where you want to be, then do not pursue it.
“Writing or reviewing a mission statement changes you because it forces you to think through your priorities deeply, carefully, and to align your behavior with your beliefs”
Goals
1) Come up with your own personal mission/ life purpose statement
2) Create a list of your top 5 to 10 core values
Try one of these visualization exercises, writing down your findings when you are done.
Vividly picture the day of your funeral. Take a minute to visualize the details. Who is there? There are people giving speeches and talks about you and your life. What do they say? What do you hope they say? How do you want to be remembered? What do you want your eulogy to consist of? What would your lifetime achievements be? What would matter the most at the end of your life? Is it what you are doing right now?
Or
You are now 90 years old, sitting on a rocking chair outside your porch; you can feel the spring breeze gently brushing against your face. You are blissful and happy, and are pleased with the wonderful life you’ve been blessed with. Looking back at your life and all that you’ve achieved and acquired, all the relationships you’ve developed; what matters to you most? List them out.
Or
I would go beyond this and say, "you are living in the afterlife and are looking back on your life with Jesus by your side, what would you like your life to look like? What would Jesus like your life to look like? Why? What were the most significant things about who you were? What were the most significant things that you did? What were your most significant relationships?"
The answers to the questions are indicators of our key values and our life mission.
Creating a Life Purpose Statement (God made me in this way- created)/ Personal Mission Statement (I’m going to be who God made me to be- for good works)
Stephen Covey’s Mission Statement Builder is a good resource for getting started on our mission statement and values.
Or Steve Pavlina’s method on “How to discover your life purpose in about 20 minutes” is another simple way to get in touch with your own calling.
"If you want to discover your true purpose in life, you must first empty your mind of all the false purposes you’ve been taught including the idea that you may have no purpose at all.
So how to discover your purpose in life? While there are many ways to do this, some of them fairly involved, here is one of the simplest that anyone can do. The more open you are to this process, and the more you expect it to work, the faster it will work for you. But not being open to it or having doubts about it or thinking it’s an entirely idiotic and meaningless waste of time won’t prevent it from working as long as you stick with it — again, it will just take longer to converge.
Here’s what to do:
1. Take out a blank sheet of paper or open up a word processor where you can type (I prefer the latter because it’s faster).
2. Write at the top, “What is my true purpose in life?”
3. Write an answer (any answer) that pops into your head. It doesn’t have to be a complete sentence. A short phrase is fine.
4. Repeat step 3 until you write the answer that makes resonates deeply with you (or even makes you cry). This is your life purpose statement.
Core Values
What core values are:
· An enduring belief, an [often] unwritten assumption and a preferred choice
“a set of general guiding principles; not to be confused with specific cultural or operational practices; [and] not to be compromised for financial gain or short-term expediency.”
· They are non-negotiable, the essence of a person’s identity
· Values help to shape our decision making process and ultimately our actions.
If I have core values…how do I discover them?
Clarifying Your Core Values
Answering the following questions will help to identify implicit values and move you towards formulating an explicit values statement…
1. What activities do you consider of greatest worth?
2. When your mind is in neutral, what do you usually think about?
3. When you lead, what needs to take place for you to be satisfied?
4. The qualities of character you most admire and desire for God to shape into your life are...
5. The actions or qualities in others that really frustrate or annoy you – even if you don’t know why are...
6. What causes do you strongly believe in? Connect with?
7. If you could get a message across to a large group of people. Who would those people be? What would your message be?
Dark-Side Values
Do we have values God may need to reform; values that do not reflect the lifestyle of Christ? Just by living in the world we pick up worldly values. As we grow in our love for God and for His Word, we are challenged to recognize and let God heal our corrupt or unhealthy values.
What are some of my “dark-side orientations” that compel me to wrongly value or over-value certain things?(e.g. of corrupt values: I value keeping up appearances; I value being right; I value always winning; I value over-indulging myself through eating, TV, alcohol…)
Choose to ask for and seriously consider feedback from others who know us or who have observed us over time;
Choose to appropriately self-disclose our issues within proper safe relationships (and get prayer);
Choose to trust GOD for help!!!
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