91a – Breaking Free
Think a minute…Years ago I visited someone in prison. I was deeply saddened as I watched all those people locked up, living their life inside a small room. Although many of us have never been convicted of a crime, tragically we still live our entire lives locked inside a prison. Saddest of all, we are the ones who build the walls that hold us inside. So, we’re not free to live our life to the fullest. We become our own worst enemy through our own wrong thinking about ourselves. Someone said: “When you lose your confidence, you lose the battle.”
In zoos a baby elephant is tied with a strong steel chain to a large post. At first, the young elephant pulls and tries to break free from the chain…but finally it gives up and stops trying. After that, only a thin rope is needed to tie that huge, powerful elephant down and stop it from moving anywhere. For the rest of its life that elephant believes the lie that it is too weak to break that thin little rope, so it never even tries again.
Sadly, in a similar way, if I let myself believe I cannot go any further in life, even though it’s not true, then I won’t. That is the destructive power of believing the lies of my own wrong thinking about myself. The enemy I am fighting is in my own mind.
But it can happen the opposite way too. “Nearly every man wastes part of his life trying to show abilities he does not have to get other people’s approval he cannot keep.” A popular T.V. program in the U.S. is American Idol. It lets ordinary people show their singing talent. The problem is some of them have no singing talent at all! Yet they fool themselves into believing they do! Remember: “You can’t put in what God left out.” Don’t waste your life trying to succeed at something you were not made to do.
There’s a saying: “The best psychologist is the one inside you.” But that is only true if the One living inside you is your Creator. Only He can help you know and become the person He designed and made you to be. Won’t you ask Jesus to help you break out of the prison of your wrong thinking and sinful living? If you ask Him to forgive and free you, He can help you start seeing and being all that He made you to be. Just think a minute…
91b – School Always in Session
Think a minute…These are the names of some of the most famous lawyers in U.S. history. Only one of them dropped out of law school. See if you can guess which one?
John Jay became a successful lawyer and later the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the highest judge in the land. William Wirt was barely 20-years-old when he passed his law exams in Virginia. He later became the United States Attorney General. Remember, one of these famous lawyers was a law school dropout.
Roger Taney started as a lawyer and worked his way up to become the first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, and then the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Daniel Webster became a lawyer in Boston where he built a great legal record and reputation. He then became a highly respected Senator and was later appointed Secretary of State.
Salmon Chase became well known as a defense attorney helping slaves. Later he became a U.S. Senator and then the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, actually started as a lawyer, which helped prepare him for his exceptionally wise and strong leadership that kept the States of America united through its terribly divisive and destructive Civil War. Clarence Darrow became possibly the most famous lawyer of all for his case of the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925.
Of these seven successful and famous lawyers, which one do you think was the law school dropout? It was Clarence Darrow: the one name so often associated with the practice of law. Clarence Darrow attended law school for only one year and then dropped out to study law on his own. But what is more amazing is those other six successful lawyers could not drop out because they never even attended law school! They all studied law personally on their own to pass the bar exam and become professional lawyers.
Actually, for every one of us, the school of life is always in session—whether we’re getting a formal education or not. We are designed to always keep learning our Creator’s ways of life. In fact, the word disciple means “lifelong learner” or “lifetime student” of Jesus, the Maker and Master of life. Won’t you ask Him to become the Maker and Master Teacher of your completely new life with Him today? Just think a minute…
91c – Life with People (Part 1)
Think a minute…Have you ever thought how easy life would be if you did not have to deal with people? But it would also be very empty! In spite of our problems with people, they are what make our life worth living. Think about it. With no people, we have no love—and what is life without love? It’s so true that at the end of our life, all that really matters are the people we shared it with. The sooner we learn how to live happily and successfully with people, the sooner we will have our best life possible.
But the first step in learning is to unlearn our unhealthy, bad habits and ways of relating to others. We need to open our mind and heart to new, better attitudes in getting along with people. If we ourselves are not willing to change, we cannot change our life. Fortunately, it’s never too late. I have seen people 80-years-old “turn and learn” how to better love and live with people.
One of our bad habits of dealing with people is playing the “blame game”—whether it’s a husband and wife blaming each other, children blaming their parents, a brother blaming a sister, or when we blame other races and ethnic groups for our problems. Adolf Hitler blamed the Jews for Germany’s problems. The Roman Emperor blamed the Christians for some of his failures. But until we honestly face the facts and take responsibility for our own wrong ways of living, we cannot change our relationships and life for the better.
Another bad habit we have is judging people. We think we know what is wrong with everybody else, but we do not see what’s wrong with ourselves. We put labels on people just because they are a little different than us, so we don’t have to do any real thinking or care enough to truly get to know that person as an individual. Even though we hate it when someone labels and judges us like that.
Remember, “The soft skills are the hard skills.” Precisely cutting and polishing diamonds takes far greater skill than smashing rocks with a hammer. It takes a bigger heart and better mind to truly understand and love people as they really are. It takes more wisdom, strength, and social skill to see both the good and the bad qualities of people, yet accept them and love them in such a way that they want to change and improve. After all, that is what we need them to do with us.
Won’t you ask Jesus to start changing you? He wants to help you grow a bigger, more compassionate heart toward other people? He will also both broaden and deepen your mind to start understanding and wisely loving each person, just as He loves you. Just think a minute…
91d – Life with People (Part 2)
Think a minute…A popular song said: “People who need people are the luckiest people in the world.”But to learn how to live happily and successfully with people, we must first unlearn our unhealthy, bad ways of relating to others.
Sometimes we run away rather than work through our disagreements and differences. Like a child who gets angry and says: “I’m going home! I’m not going to be your friend anymore!” We feel wronged and hurt, so we quit our job, end a friendship, even get a divorce. We take the easy way and just move on rather than grow up. But if you keep moving on from one relationship to another, you will never have the success and satisfaction of close, lasting relationships.
Many couples could learn to live happily together if they did not resort to a revenge or payback mentality. But lashing out and hurting the other person just makes things worse and is the most damaging way to deal with our differences. This especially includes the lasting pain and problems through which we put our kids. We would have much happier lives if instead we simply admitted our faults and changed what we need to in our marriage, parenting, and other relationships.
The first ingredient of successful relationships is communication. With no communication, you have no relationship. At the end of our life, some of our biggest regrets will be all the things we did not say to the ones we love. We so often misunderstand and misread people. That is why we need to kindly tell each other how we truly feel and not pretend everything is fine. The sooner we open up and honestly talk about our real feelings, the sooner we will be happier and healthier.
A second ingredient we need for strong, happy relationships is acceptance. Can you honestly say to people: “I accept you just as you are. You can make your own choices and mistakes, say what you really feel, and I will never reject you. I will always accept you even if I do not approve of the wrong things you do or say.”Do you have that kind of honest, unconditional love for others?
Finally, the third ingredient we need for successful, mature relationships is forgiveness. Since we’re human, we all hurt each other and need forgiveness many times. Yet we often fail to truly forgive others when they hurt us. That is why we desperately need the only One Who can. It’s only with Jesus’ kind of real love and power that we can forgive daily like that. Won’t you ask Him to forgive you for all of your wrongs and hurts you have caused other people? Ask Him to take charge of your heart every day—so you can begin to communicate, accept, and forgive others just as He has you. Just think a minute…
91e – The Long and Winding Road
Think a minute…After my teenage son learned to drive, he still did not learn how to get where he was going. It took him some time to find the quickest, shortest route to where he wanted to go. He often ended up turning a 15-minute drive into a 45-minute journey. Taking the long way home cost him a lot of wasted time and money for fuel. Yet often in life we take the long and winding road to get where we want to be. Life is short, yet we take so long to learn how to live it well. “Experience may be a good teacher, but it charges us a high price for the lessons we learn.”
Each day we face possibilities to make wrong turns, or to simply go around in circles with our daily routine, never actually moving forward and making progress. “We live and learn, but some of us just live.” We die sometimes having never learned to really live the right, satisfying way. We take many twists and turns trying to find our way through this life of good and bad, right and wrong. We face a lot of choices, including false starts, detours, and dead ends.
Remember, “No one ever got lost on a straight road.” It’s actually quite easy to find the right road in life. For one thing, “If the truth is standing in your way, you know you’re headed in the wrong direction.”It’s like going the wrong way on a one-way street: the person who turns around the soonest is the smartest and safest. There is nothing smart about being too stubborn and proud to admit we’ve made a wrong choice and move.
It makes no sense to ask 2 plus 2 to equal 5. Just like it makes no sense to ask God to change the facts of right and wrong so I can live my own way. And what if God said it was OK for me to do the wrong thing I want to do? Then how would I feel if God let someone else do that wrong thing to me or to someone in my family? He shows us His right ways for our happiness and safety. Jesus declared that He is the only way to true life. Follow Him and He will lead you where you want to go. He knows this land called life. He made it. Trust Him.
Won’t you ask Jesus to forgive you for living your own way? Then ask Him to take charge of your heart and daily way of living, so you can stop taking wrong turns and dead-end streets. He is the only One Who can lead you off the long and winding road to the straight and only way home—where your satisfying, everlasting life is waiting for you. Just think a minute…