May I ask you to look at your hand for a moment? Look at the back, then the palm. Reacquaint yourself with your fingers. Run a thumb over your knuckles.
What if someone were to film a documentary on your hands? What if a producer were to tell your story based on the life of your hands? What would we see? As with all of us, the film would begin with an infant’s fist, then a closeup of a tiny hand wrapped around mommy’s finger. Then what? Holding on to a chair as you learned to walk? Handling a spoon as you learned to eat?
We aren’t too long into the feature before we see your hand being affectionate, stroking daddy’s face or petting a puppy. Nor is it too long before we see your hand acting aggressively: pushing big brother or yanking back a toy. All of us learned early that the hand is suited for more than survival—it’s a tool of emotional expression. The same hand can help or hurt, extend or clench, lift someone up or shove someone down.
Were you to show the documentary to your friends, you’d be proud of certain moments: your hand extending with a gift, placing a ring on another’s finger, doctoring a wound, preparing a meal, or folding in prayer. And then there are other scenes. Shots of accusing fingers, abusive fists. Hands taking more often than giving, demanding instead of offering, wounding rather than loving. Oh, the power of our hands. Leave them unmanaged and they become weapons: clawing for power, strangling for survival, seducing for pleasure. But manage them and our hands become instruments of grace—not just tools in the hands of God, but God’s very hands. Surrender them and these five-fingered appendages become the hands of heaven.
That’s what Jesus did. Our Savior completely surrendered his hands to God. The documentary of his hands has no scenes of greedy grabbing or unfounded finger pointing. It does, however, have one scene after another of people longing for his compassionate touch: parents carrying their children, the poor bringing their fears, the sinful shouldering their sorrow. And each who came was touched. And each one touched was changed. But none was touched or changed more than the unnamed leper of Matthew 8.
When Jesus came down from the hill, great crowds followed him. Then a man with a skin disease came to Jesus. The man bowed down before him and said, “Lord, you can heal me if you will.”
Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man and said, “I will. Be healed!” And immediately the man was healed from his disease. Then Jesus said to him, “Don’t tell anyone about this. But go and show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded for people who are made well. This will show the people what I have done.” (vv. 1–4)
Mark and Luke chose to tell this same story. But with apologies to all three writers, I must say none tell enough. Oh, we know the man’s disease and his decision, but as to the rest? We are left with questions. The authors offer no name, no history, no description.
The Ultimate Outcast
Sometimes my curiosity gets the best of me, and I wonder out loud. That’s what I’m about to do here—wonder out loud about the man who felt Jesus’ compassionate touch. He makes one appearance, has one request, and receives one touch. But that one touch changed his life forever. And I wonder if his story went something like this:
For five years no one touched me. No one. Not one person. Not my wife. Not my child. Not my friends. No one touched me. They saw me. They spoke to me. I sensed love in their voices. I saw concern in their eyes. But I didn’t feel their touch. There was no touch. Not once. No one touched me.
What is common to you, I coveted. Handshakes. Warm embraces. A tap on the shoulder to get my attention. A kiss on the lips to steal a heart. Such moments were taken from my world. No one touched me. No one bumped into me. What I would have given to be bumped into, to be caught in a crowd, for my shoulder to brush against another’s. But for five years it has not happened. How could it? I was not allowed on the streets. Even the rabbis kept their distance from me. I was not permitted in my synagogue. Not even welcome in my own house.
I was untouchable. I was a leper. And no one touched me. Until today.
I wonder about this man because in New Testament times leprosy was the most dreaded disease. The condition rendered the body a mass of ulcers and decay. Fingers would curl and gnarl. Blotches of skin would discolor and stink. Certain types of leprosy would numb nerve endings, leading to a loss of fingers, toes, even a whole foot or hand. Leprosy was death by inches.
The social consequences were as severe as the physical. Considered contagious, the leper was quarantined, banished to a leper colony.
In Scripture the leper is symbolic of the ultimate outcast: infected by a condition he did not seek, rejected by those he knew, avoided by people he did not know, condemned to a future he could not bear. And in the memory of each outcast must have been the day he was forced to face the truth: life would never be the same.
One year during harvest my grip on the scythe seemed weak. The tips of my fingers numbed. First one finger then another. Within a short time I could grip the tool but scarcely feel it. By the end of the season, I felt nothing at all. The hand grasping the handle might as well have belonged to someone else—the feeling was gone. I said nothing to my wife, but I know she suspected something. How could she not? I carried my hand against my body like a wounded bird.
One afternoon I plunged my hands into a basin of water intending to wash my face. The water reddened. My finger was bleeding, bleeding freely. I didn’t even know I was wounded. How did I cut myself? On a knife? Did my hand slide across the sharp edge of metal? It must have, but I didn’t feel anything.
“It’s on your clothes, too,” my wife said softly. She was behind me. Before looking at her, I looked down at the crimson spots on my robe. For the longest time I stood over the basin, staring at my hand. Somehow I knew my life was being forever altered.
“Shall I go with you to tell the priest?” she asked.
“No,” I sighed, “I’ll go alone.”
I turned and looked into her moist eyes. Standing next to her was our three-year-old daughter. Squatting, I gazed into her face and stroked her cheek, saying nothing. What could I say? I stood and looked again at my wife. She touched my shoulder, and with my good hand, I touched hers. It would be our final touch.
Five years have passed, and no one has touched me since, until today.
The priest didn’t touch me. He looked at my hand, now wrapped in a rag. He looked at my face, now shadowed in sorrow. I’ve never faulted him for what he said. He was only doing as he was instructed. He covered his mouth and extended his hand, palm forward. “You are unclean,” he told me. With one pronouncement I lost my family, my farm, my future, my friends.
My wife met me at the city gates with a sack of clothing and bread and coins. She didn’t speak. By now friends had gathered. What I saw in their eyes was a precursor to what I’ve seen in every eye since: fearful pity. As I stepped out, they stepped back. Their horror of my disease was greater than their concern for my heart—so they, and everyone else I have seen since, stepped back.
The banishing of a leper seems harsh, unnecessary. The Ancient East hasn’t been the only culture to isolate their wounded, however. We may not build colonies or cover our mouths in their presence, but we certainly build walls and duck our eyes. And a person needn’t have leprosy to feel quarantined.
One of my sadder memories involves my fourth-grade friend Jerry. He and a half-dozen of us were an ever-present, inseparable fixture on the playground. One day I called his house to see if we could play. The phone was answered by a cursing, drunken voice telling me Jerry could not come over that day or any day. I told my friends what had happened. One of them explained that Jerry’s father was an alcoholic. I don’t know if I knew what the word meant, but I learned quickly. Jerry, the second baseman; Jerry, the kid with the red bike; Jerry, my friend on the corner was now “Jerry, the son of a drunk.” Kids can be hard, and for some reason we were hard on Jerry. He was infected. Like the leper, he suffered from a condition he didn’t create. Like the leper, he was put outside the village.
The divorced know this feeling. So do the handicapped. The unemployed have felt it, as have the less educated. Some shun unmarried moms. We keep our distance from the depressed and avoid the terminally ill. We have neighborhoods for immigrants, convalescent homes for the elderly, schools for the simple, centers for the addicted, and prisons for the criminals.
The rest simply try to get away from it all. Only God knows how many Jerrys are in voluntary exile—individuals living quiet, lonely lives infected by their fear of rejection and their memories of the last time they tried. They choose not to be touched at all rather than risk being hurt again.
Oh, how I repulsed those who saw me. Five years of leprosy had left my hands gnarled. Tips of my fingers were missing as were portions of an ear and my nose. At the sight of me, fathers grabbed their children. Mothers covered their faces. Children pointed and stared.
The rags on my body couldn’t hide my sores. Nor could the wrap on my face hide the rage in my eyes. I didn’t even try to hide it. How many nights did I shake my crippled fist at the silent sky? “What did I do to deserve this?” But never a reply.
Some think I sinned. Some think my parents sinned. I don’t know. All I know is that I grew so tired of it all: sleeping in the colony, smelling the stench. I grew so tired of the damnable bell I was required to wear around my neck to warn people of my presence. As if I needed it. One glance and the announcements began, “Unclean! Unclean! Unclean!”
Several weeks ago I dared walk the road to my village. I had no intent of entering. Heaven knows I only wanted to look again upon my fields. Gaze again upon my home. And see, perchance, the face of my wife. I did not see her. But I saw some children playing in a pasture. I hid behind a tree and watched them scamper and run. Their faces were so joyful and their laughter so contagious that for a moment, for just a moment, I was no longer a leper. I was a farmer. I was a father. I was a man.
Infused with their happiness, I stepped out from behind the tree, straightened my back, breathed deeply … and they saw me. Before I could retreat, they saw me. And they screamed. And they scattered. One lingered, though, behind the others. One paused and looked in my direction. I don’t know, and I can’t say for sure, but I think, I really think, she was my daughter. And I don’t know, I really can’t say for sure. But I think she was looking for her father.
That look is what made me take the step I took today. Of course it was reckless. Of course it was risky. But what did I have to lose? He calls himself God’s Son. Either he will hear my complaint and kill me or accept my demands and heal me. Those were my thoughts. I came to him as a defiant man. Moved not by faith but by a desperate anger. God had wrought this calamity on my body, and he would either fix it or end it.
But then I saw him, and when I saw him, I was changed. You must remember, I’m a farmer, not a poet, so I cannot find the words to describe what I saw. All I can say is that the Judean mornings are sometimes so fresh and the sunrises so glorious that to look at them is to forget the heat of the day before and the hurt of times past. When I looked at his face, I saw a Judean morning.
Before he spoke, I knew he cared. Somehow I knew he hated this disease as much as, no—more—than I hate it. My rage became trust, and my anger became hope.
From behind a rock, I watched him descend a hill. Throngs of people followed him. I waited until he was only paces from me, then I stepped out.
“Master!”
He stopped and looked in my direction as did dozens of others. A flood of fear swept across the crowd. Arms flew in front of faces. Children ducked behind parents. “Unclean!” someone shouted. Again, I don’t blame them. I was a huddled mass of death. But I scarcely heard them. I scarcely saw them. Their panic I’d seen a thousand times. His compassion, however, I’d never beheld. Everyone stepped back except him. He stepped toward me. Toward me.
Five years ago my wife had stepped toward me. She was the last to do so. Now he did. I did not move. I just spoke. “Lord, you can heal me if you will.” Had he healed me with a word, I would have been thrilled. Had he cured me with a prayer, I would have rejoiced. But he wasn’t satisfied with speaking to me. He drew near me. He touched me. Five years ago my wife had touched me. No one had touched me since. Until today.
“I will.” His words were as tender as his touch. “Be healed!”
Energy flooded my body like water through a furrowed field. In an instant, in a moment, I felt warmth where there had been numbness. I felt strength where there had been atrophy. My back straightened, and my head lifted. Where I had been eye level with his belt, I now stood eye level with his face. His smiling face.
He cupped his hands on my cheeks and drew me so near I could feel the warmth of his breath and see the wetness in his eyes. “Don’t tell anyone about this. But go and show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded for people who are made well. This will show the people what I have done.”
And so that is where I am going. I will show myself to my priest and embrace him. I will show myself to my wife, and I will embrace her. I will pick up my daughter, and I will embrace her. And I will never forget the one who dared to touch me. He could have healed me with a word. But he wanted to do more than heal me. He wanted to honor me, to validate me, to christen me. Imagine that … unworthy of the touch of a man, yet worthy of the touch of God.
The Power of The Godly Touch
The touch did not heal the disease, you know. Matthew is careful to mention that it was the pronouncement and not the touch of Christ that cured the condition. “Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man and said, ‘I will. Be healed!’ And immediately the man was healed from his disease” (Matt. 8:3).
The infection was banished by a word from Jesus.
The loneliness, however, was treated by a touch from Jesus.
Oh, the power of a godly touch. Haven’t you known it? The doctor who treated you, or the teacher who dried your tears? Was there a hand holding yours at a funeral? Another on your shoulder during a trial? A handshake of welcome at a new job? A pastoral prayer for healing? Haven’t we known the power of a godly touch?
Can’t we offer the same?
Many of you already do. Some of you have the master touch of the Physician himself. You use your hands to pray over the sick and minister to the weak. If you aren’t touching them personally, your hands are writing letters, dialing phones, baking pies. You have learned the power of a touch.
But others of us tend to forget. Our hearts are good; it’s just that our memories are bad. We forget how significant one touch can be. We fear saying the wrong thing or using the wrong tone or acting the wrong way. So rather than do it incorrectly, we do nothing at all.
Aren’t we glad Jesus didn’t make the same mistake? If your fear of doing the wrong thing prevents you from doing anything, keep in mind the perspective of the lepers of the world. They aren’t picky. They aren’t finicky. They’re just lonely. They are yearning for a godly touch.
Jesus touched the untouchables of the world. Will you do the same?
Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.
james 1:22–24 niv
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Friday, December 08, 2006
Today’s Commitment Gives Me Tenacity
He may have been the most naturally gifted baseball player of all time. In the June 18, 1956. edition of Sports Illustrated, writer Robert W. Creamer called him the “new Ruth.” When he began his baseball career, he was probably the fastest man in the game. He was clocked making it to first base in 2.9 seconds on a left-handed drag bunt. And he could run the bases in an incredible 13 seconds.
But his speed was nothing compared to the power of his hitting. People speculate that he got his strength from working as a “screen ape” during the summers at the lead mine near Commerce, Oklahoma. The job was to smash large rocks with a sledgehammer. Working with a partner, one man would smash rocks until he couldn’t hold the sledgehammer any longer, then the other would take a turn. It’s said that there were home run hitters, and then there was this man—in a league of his own. The Guinness Book of World Records credits him with the longest home run ever measured, at 643 feet. Many believe he hit the longest ball in baseball history in a 1951 exhibition game at USC (656 feet). And he could smack the ball out of the park with equal ease from either side of the plate.
Born to Play Baseball
The player I’m describing is, of course, Mickey Mantle of the New York Yankees. Growing up in Ohio, I was a Cincinnati Reds fan, but I saw and heard a lot about Mantle—especially in 1961 when the Reds finally made it to the World Series but lost to the Yankees four games to one.
Mantle’s prowess on the baseball field was legendary. He seemed to be born for baseball. His father, a former semipro ballplayer, and his grandfather began teaching him to hit when he was four years old. They would pitch balls to him after work every day. And since his father was right-handed and his grandfather a lefty, the boy learned to hit from both sides of the plate.
By age sixteen, Mantle was playing semipro ball. In 1948, a scout for the Yankees, Torn Greenwade, went to Oklahoma to see Mantle’s teammate, third baseman Billy Johnson, play. Mantle hit two long home runs that day—one right-handed, one left-handed. Greenwade said Mantle was the best prospect he’d ever seen and was ready to sign him on the spot—until he discovered that he was only sixteen and still in high school. Greenwade promised to come back when the kid graduated. And he did: Mantle signed with the Yankees on graduation day in 1949.
What a Record!
That summer, Mickey Mantle played class D ball in the Yankees organization. The next year, he was sent to play for the class C team in Joplin, Missouri. In 1951, he was invited to the Yankees’ spring training camp, and he was so good that he jumped straight from class C to the Yankees—the first time that had ever happened in the organization’s history. He was nineteen. He went to the World Series that rookie year and came home with a championship. During his career, his team won the American League pennant and went on to the World Series twelve times, winning it seven times.
Mantle had an incredible career before he retired in 1969. He played in more games as a Yankee than any other player (2,401), including Lou Gehrig. He was picked as the American League MVP three times (1956, 1957, 1962). And in 1956, he won what’s called baseball’s triple crown: He finished the season with the league’s best batting average (.353), most home runs (52), and most runs batted in (130). And, remarkably, more than thirty years later he still holds the World Series records for home runs (18), runs scored (42), runs batted in (40), and bases on ball (43).
Despite a one-of-a-kind career, experts believe he never reached his potential. Most people blame it on injuries. Mantle suffered some horrible ones, often to his knees, throughout his career, and he continually played in pain. Before each game he had to carefully wrap each knee in bandages. Sportswriter Lewis Early wrote, “One of the questions baseball scholars ponder is the great ‘What if?’ What would Mickey have accomplished if he had been healthy during his career?” It’s true he suffered injuries that would, as one writer said, “keep a clerk in bed.” But that wasn’t the root of the problem. What most people didn’t know was that Mantle was a raging alcoholic.
Another Kind of Record
The people close to Mantle knew about his problem, but the public didn’t until he told his story in Sports Illustrated in 1994, a few months after he had gone to the Betty Ford Clinic to become sober. Mantle had begun drinking during his second season with the Yankees after his father died of Hodgkin’s disease at age thirty-nine. As he was setting records on the baseball field, he seemed to he trying to set records for drinking with his buddies. He said that early in his career he would quit drinking during spring training, get into shape, and then begin drinking again once the season started. And he never even thought about baseball during the off-season.
After Mantle retired, his drinking became worse. He often started drinking early in the day and continued until he was incoherent in the evenings. Somehow, he managed to keep his professional commitments. Mantle said,
I always took pride in my dependability when I was doing public relations work, endorsements and personal appearances. I always wanted to do my best. It was when I had no commitments, nothing to do or nowhere to be that I lapsed into those long drinking sessions.
He often did and said things he couldn’t remember the next day. Many times he was horrified when someone told him about his previous night’s behavior. Fans would ask him about his playing days and what kind of pitch he liked to hit, and he couldn’t remember.
Finally, at age sixty-two, Mantle hit rock bottom. He had made a mess of his family. His health was wrecked. And he wanted to sober up. That’s when he checked into the Betty Ford Clinic. He said that was the first time he had thought seriously about anything in his life. From the perspective of sobriety, Mantle assessed himself and his career:
My last four or five years with the Yankees, I didn’t realize I was ruining myself with all the drinking. I just thought, This is fun. . . . Today I can admit that all the drinking shortened my career. When I retired in the spring of ‘69, I was 37. Casey [Stengel, the Yankees’ manager] had said when I came up, “This guy’s going to he better than Joe DiMaggio and Babe Ruth.” It didn’t happen. I never fulfilled what my dad had wanted [to be the greatest player who ever lived], and I should have. God gave me a great body to play with, and I didn’t take care of it. And I blame a lot of it on alcohol.
Everybody tries to make the excuse that injuries shortened my career. Truth is, after I’d had a knee operation, the doctors would give me rehab work to do, but I wouldn’t do it. I’d be out drinking…. I thought, Hey, I’ll be all right. I hurt my knees again through the years, and I just thought they’d naturally come back. Everything has always come natural to me. I didn’t work hard at it.
It’s a tragedy anytime someone neglects his potential and misses many of the possibilities life has to offer. Sportswriter Tom Swift speculates that without the alcoholism, Mantle might have hit eight hundred home runs. Despite his great natural talent, Mickey Mantle never gave the commitment off the field that he displayed on it.
The Man in the Mirror
Only after giving up drinking and taking an honest look at his life did Mantle develop the kind of commitment that would have served him well during the previous decades. After being sober for three months, he said, “I’d rather put a gun to my head than have another drink.” But by the time Mantle was ready to change, it was too late. His liver was ruined from a life of alcoholism. He received a liver transplant, but doctors soon discovered that Mantle had inoperable cancer.
In the last months of his life, Mantle relied on his faith, fought the good fight, and regained some of the dignity he had lost during his drinking days. He died on June 8, 1995. On August 15, a group came together to honor Mantle. One of the eulogists was sportscaster Bob Costas. He said, “All of America watched [Mantle] in admiration. His doctors said he was, in many ways, the most remarkable patient they’d ever seen. His bravery, so stark and real, that even those used to seeing people in dire circumstances were moved by his example.” And Costas also described a cartoon that had appeared in the Dallas Morning News that day: Saint Peter is at the gates of heaven with his arm around Mickey Mantle’s shoulders, and he says, “Kid, that was the most courageous ninth inning I’ve ever seen.” During his last year of life—at age sixty-three——his commitment carried him through.
Why Commitment Matters Today
What were you born to do? What do you think your future holds? Do you believe you have a purpose or a destiny? If so, will you fulfill it? To become the person you have the potential to be, you will need great tenacity. That quality comes from commitment. Take a look at these truths concerning commitment:
COMMITMENT CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE
In Choices, Frederic F. Flach writes, “Most people can look back over the years and identify a time and place at which their lives changed significantly. Whether by accident or design, these are the moments when, because of a readiness within us and a collaboration with events occurring around us, we are forced to seriously reappraise ourselves and the conditions under which we live and to make certain choices that will affect the rest of our lives.”
Think about a time in your life when you made a real commitment to do something differently. Didn’t your life change as a result? It may not have turned out exactly as you expected, but it undoubtedly set you on a new course. If you want to change, you must embrace commitment.
COMMITMENT HELPS YOU OVERCOME MANY OF LIFE’S OBSTACLES
You’ve got problems, I’ve got problems, all God’s children have got problems. The question is, How are you going to deal with them? Clergyman and author Maltbie D. Babcock said,
One of the most common mistakes and one of the costliest, is thinking that success is due to some genius, some magic something or other which we do not possess. Success is generally due to holding on and failure to let go. You decide to learn a language, study music, take a course in reading, train yourself physically. Will it be a success or failure? It depends upon how much pluck and perseverance that word “decide” contains. The decision that nothing will overrule, the grip that nothing can detatch will bring success.
When Mickey Mantle was confronted with the problem of his father’s death, instead of making a commitment to face the loss and deal with it, he turned to alcohol. And that started him on the road to ruin.
YOUR COMMITMENT WILL BE TESTED EVERY DAY
I think many people see commitment as an event, something that is done in a moment. They say “I do” in a wedding ceremony. They shake hands to close a business deal. They buy a treadmill in order to exercise. But the commitment doesn’t end with that decision; it’s just getting started. And you better believe that any time you make a commitment to something, it will he tested. That happens in any number of ways:
• Experiencing Failure: Perhaps the greatest challenge to commitment is Failure. Olympic gold medalist Mary Lou Retton says, “Achieving that goal is a good feeling, but to get there you have to also get through the failures. You’ve got to be able to pick yourself up and continue.”
• Having to Stand Alone: When you want to accomplish something, people will try to distract you. They will challenge you. They may even try to get you to compromise your values. It may be unintentional. It may be because they’re worried that if you grow, they will feel left behind. In those moments, you need to ask yourself, “Who am I trying to please?” If you desire to please yourself by following through on your commitments to yourself, there will be times you need to stand alone.
• Facing Deep Disappointment: Let’s be honest, a lot of things can go wrong in life. How are you going to react in the face of those disappointments? Sportscaster Harry Kalas once introduced Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Garry Maddox by saving, “Garry has turned his life around. He used to he depressed and miserable. Now he’s miserable and depressed.” That’s not how you want to end up.
When things go wrong, when life gets rough, when the pain becomes great, will you he able to keep going? If you determine to make and keep proper commitments daily, you greatly improve your chances of being able to carry on. As Abraham Lincoln said, “Always bear in mind that your own resolution to success is more important than any other thing.”
Making the Decision to Make and Keep Proper Commitments Daily
I don’t think I really understood the true value of commitment until 1976. I was the senior pastor of one of the fastest-growing churches in Ohio. And the success we were seeing necessitated a $1 million expansion of our facilities. But there was a problem: I was only twenty-nine years old, and I had never led a major building program. Frankly, the task seemed impossible. But at the same time, the future of the church absolutely depended on its success. That’s when I made a life decision concerning commitment: If something is worth doing, I will commit myself to carrying it through. I decided that come what may, I would lead my congregation through the building program.
Little did I realize how much that commitment would be tested. Each time we made a decision, more problems arose. Here are just a few:
1. To accommodate the growth, I needed to improve my staff. That meant terminating some people who were very popular.
2. More than 200 people in the church (nearly 15 percent) left the church because they did not agree with the vision.
3. Our bank agreed to lend us the money only if we first raised $300,000 from among the congregation, but I had never led a large financial campaign, and the most I had ever raised for a project was $25,000.
4. The church board’s decision not to give the bid for the build-mug contract to a member of our congregation who owned a construction company caused him to leave the church, and he had been the church’s most generous giver.
5. Our architect was careless with disbursements to contractors, which made the project cost over $125,000 more than it should have.
You’ve heard the old saving that motion causes friction? During the entire process, there was enough friction to cause a five-alarm fire. I felt like I was in the hot seat every day. If I hadn’t made the commitment early in the process, I never would have made it through.
If you desire to have greater tenacity to accomplish the things you desire, then make the decision to embrace commitment wholeheartedly in your life. Begin by doing the following:
COUNT THE COST
After the Nazis drove the British army from the European continent at Dunkirk and obtained France’s surrender in June of 1940, the Germans were certain that victory in Europe was at hand and that Great Britain would seek a peace agreement. France also believed that was true. French General Maxime Wevgand told Charles de Gaulle, who was a colonel at the time, “When I’ve been beaten here, England won’t wait a week before negotiating with the Reich.”
But the Germans and the French underestimated the commitment of Winston Churchill, who had become England’s prime minister in May, and of the British people. Churchill knew what was at stake in the conflict, as evidenced by his remarks at the time:
What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life…. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free…. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age. . . . Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour.”
The war that England fought was long and bloody. They suffered terrible bombing from the Nazis, and for a long time they stood alone. But they stood. Their commitment was unwavering. And because they stood, the Allies won the war. I believe their resolve was strong not only because they knew what was at stake, but they also had a sense of what price they were being asked to pay. It can be very difficult to stand by a commitment naively made. The commitment becomes much stronger when you have already counted the cost.
DETERMINE TO PAY THE PRICE
Once you count the cost, then you have to decide whether you are really willing to do what it takes to follow through. U.S. Senator Sam Nunn said, “You have to pay the price. You will find that everything in life exacts a price, and you will have to decide whether the price is worth the prize.”
When I went off to college, I was determined to stay committed and focused on preparing for the ministry. But I knew there would be a price. Many of my college friends got married while still in school, and some even had children; Margaret and I waited, despite our shared desire to begin our married life. It was a difficult journey. And to this day, I don’t recommend engagements as long as ours. But our commitment paid off. A few weeks after we graduated, we got married. And we waited several years before having children. As a result, I was prepared when I entered the ministry, and I could focus on establishing my career during those important early years.
ALWAYS STRIVE FOR EXCELLENCE
Howard W. Newton said, “People forget how fast you did a job — but they remember how well you did it.” Few things fire up a person’s commitment like dedication to excellence. The desire for excellence carried Michelangelo through to the completion of his work on the Sistine chapel. Excellence drove Edison to keep trying until he figured out how to make a light bulb that worked. Excellence drives the companies Jim Collins wrote about in Built to Last and Good to Great.
Anyone who desires to achieve and become successful must he like a fine craftsman: committed to excellence. A great craftsman wants you to inspect his work, to look closely at its finest details. In contrast, sloppy people hide their work. And if anyone finds fault with it, shoddy workers find fault with their tools. Which are you most like? Excellence means doing your very best in everything, in every way. That kind of commitment will take you where halfhearted people will never go.
Managing the Discipline of Commitment
After I made the decision to commit myself to the building program at my church, I knew that I would need to find a way to keep myself on track. So I determined to live out this discipline: Every day I will renew my commitment and think about the benefits that come from it. To do that, I carried a laminated card with me every day for eighteen months. Here’s what was written on it:
The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issue from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would come his way. —William H. Murray
I read that card every day as we were going through the project. On especially difficult days when I felt like throwing in the towel, I read it two or three times. It helped me to star focused and feel encouraged. I thought, If I stay committed and do all I can, and then I ask God to make up the difference, we can achieve this. And we did!
When you accomplish something that you once believed was impossible, it makes you a new person. It changes the way you see yourself and the world. My thinking went to a new level, and the vision for my leadership expanded. I never would have gotten there without commitment. My personal commitment—and that of many others—was the key to our success.
As you strive to keep your commitments daily, keep the following in mind:
EXPECT COMMITMENT TO BE A STRUGCLE
When our children were young and living at home, Margaret and I decided one summer we wanted to take them on a vacation that focused on how the United States was built as a nation. We started out in New York City. We went to Ellis Island, the longtime gateway into the country, and got a feel for the millions of immigrants who came to America with the dream of building a better life. We visited Philadelphia. We saw the room where our country became a nation with the signing of the Declaration of Independence. We viewed the Liberty Bell. And we visited the graves of the brave men who signed the Declaration of Independence.
After that, we traveled south to Williamsburg, Virginia, the home of Patrick Henry, who declared, “Give me liberty or give me death!” And we ended the trip in Washington, D.C. As we looked up at the towering Washington Monument, we were reminded of the United States’ struggle to become a nation. As we gazed at the huge statue of Lincoln at his memorial, we recalled the struggle we have endured to remain a nation.
Everywhere we went, we were confronted with the commitment of the men and women who founded and preserved our country. We learned about the risks they took, the battles they fought, the sacrifices they made. The greatest honors were reserved for those who endured the greatest struggles. The stakes were high, but so were the rewards. We still enjoy the freedom they won for us.
That trip taught a great lesson to our family. Anything worth having is going to be a struggle. Commitment doesn’t come easy, but when you’re fighting for something you believe in, the struggle is worth it.
DON’T RELY ON TALENT ALONE
When you read about someone like Mickey Mantle, you realize that too much talent can actually work against someone. If Mantle’s commitment to taking care of himself, working during the off— season, and improving his game had matched his natural talent, the results would have been radically different.
If you want to reach your potential, you need to add a strong work ethic to your talent. Poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow shared much insight when he wrote:
The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.
If you want something out of your day, you must put something in it. Your talent is what God put in before you were born. Your skills are what you put in yesterday. Commitment is what you must put in today in order to make today your masterpiece and make tomorrow a success.
FOCUS ON CHOICES, NOT CONDITIONS
In general, people approach daily commitment in one of two ways. They focus on the external or the internal. Those who focus on the external expect conditions to determine whether they keep their commitments. Because conditions are so transitory, their commitment level changes like the wind.
In contrast, people who base their actions on the internal usually focus on their choices. Each choice is a crossroad, one that will either confirm or compromise their commitments.
When you come to a crossroad, you can recognize it because…
• A personal decision is required.
• The decision will cost you something.
• Others will likely be influenced by it.
Your choices are the only thing you truly control. You cannot control your circumstances, nor can you control others. By focusing on your choices, and then making them with integrity, you control your commitment. And that is what often separates success from failure.
BE SINGLE-MINDED
Nothing stokes commitment like single-minded effort that results in achievement. A great example of that truth can be found in the story of English minister William Carey. Although he had only an elementary education, by the time Carey was in his teens, he could read the Bible in six languages. Because of his talent for languages, when he was in his early thirties he was chosen to be a missionary to India. Six years later in 1799, he founded the Serampore mission. A few years after that, he became professor of Oriental languages at Fort William College in Calcutta. He also used his talent with languages in becoming a publisher. His press at Serampore printed Bibles in forty languages and dialects for more than three hundred million people.
To what did Carey attribute his success? How was he able to accomplish what he did? He said it was because he was a “plodder.” Describing himself, Carey said, “Anything beyond this will be too much. I can plod. That is my only genius. I can persevere in any definite pursuit. To this I owe everything.”
DO WHAT’S RIGHT EVEN WHEN YOU DON’T FEEL LIKE IT
Thomas A. Buckner said, “To bring one’s self to a frame of mind and to the proper energy to accomplish things that require plain hard work continuously is the one big battle that everyone has. When this battle is won for all time, then everything is easy.” One of the things I admire about great athletes is their understanding of this truth. That’s one of the reasons I enjoy watching the Olympics. When the Olympic athletes come into the stadium during the opening ceremonies and prepare to participate in the games, one of the things they do is recite the following:
I have prepared.
I have followed the rules.
I will not quit.
Anyone who can say that with integrity can be proud of himself or herself, no matter what happens afterward. As Arthur Gordon, author of A Touch of Wonder, said, “Nothing is easier than saving words. Nothing is harder than living them, day after day. What you promise today must be renewed and redecided tomorrow and each day that stretches out before you.”
If you do what you should only when you really feel like it, you won’t keep your commitments consistently. My friend Ken Blanchard says, “When you’re interested in something, you do it only when it’s convenient. When you’re committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results.” If you refuse to give in to excuses, no matter how good they may sound or how good they will make you feel in the moment , you have the potential to go far.
Reflecting on Commitment
I believe my commitment continues to be a key to life. That’s true in my marriage, my career, my spiritual life—there’s not an area it doesn’t touch. Twenty-eight years after settling the commitment issue in my life, I look back and realize the importance of that decision:
In my 20s . . . My commitment made up for my inexperience.
In my 30s . . . My commitment motivated many to follow my leadership.
In my 40s . . . My commitment kept me going during my most difficult leadership years.
In my 50s . . . My commitment has pushed me out of my comfort zone and into my productivity zone.
When you have commitment, there’s almost nothing you can’t do.
Horrible Circumstances
Recently I read a story that exemplifies commitment. In 1999, the New York Times began awarding college scholarships in a program open to New York high school seniors. The stated goal was “to support the aspirations of students who hope to build on their achievements in college and to make significant contributions to society.” The administrators of the program wanted especially to help students who had succeeded despite the odds. Their materials said, “Candidates must have demonstrated academic achievement, community service and a commitment to learning especially in the face of financial and other obstacles.”
When the names and stories of the first recipients were announced, there were many great success stories. But one in particular stood out: the story of Liz Murray. To say that she had demonstrated commitment in the face of obstacles would be putting it mildly.
Liz grew up in the Bronx, a notoriously rough part of New York City, the child of two parents who were alcoholics and IV drug users. She says her parents always loved her, but they neglected her because of their preoccupation with drugs. Once she woke up to find they had sold her sister’s winter coat to get money for a fix. So to keep herself and her sister fed, she worked from the time she was nine years old. She offered to pump gas at self-service gas stations and bagged groceries at stores for tips.
It wasn’t until Liz was in junior high school that she realized most kids didn’t have parents who shot up cocaine in the living room. That was around the same time her mother’s AIDS, which had been diagnosed a few years earlier, became acute. Liz wasn’t going to school much by then. A lot of her time she tried to take care of her mother, who was also schizophrenic. A lot of her time she spent on the street and with friends. When Liz was fifteen, her mother died. And Liz became homeless.
The First Great Commitment
Ironically, that experience had a positive impact on her. When she saw her mother buried in a pauper’s grave, Liz had a realization. And that brought her to a decision. She says, “I connected the lifestyles that I had witnessed every day with how my mother ended up. And if there was anything that I could do about it, that would not happen to me. So I wanted to get back into school. But, mind you, I was homeless.” Her circumstances were dire, but she committed herself to the task.
First, she found a summer job. (Her employer and coworkers never knew she was homeless.) Her pay was based entirely on commission—and she excelled. That helped her scrape together enough money to survive. Then she got herself accepted at Humanities Preparatory Academy, a public high school in Manhattan. To make up for lost time, she did four years of course work in two years by taking ten classes at a time. By day, she went to school; by night, she studied in stairwells and often rode subway trains until morning.
She set her sights high. She had visited Harvard on a school trip. She decided to apply there and to apply for the New York Times scholarship. Since her mother’s death, she had gained tenacity and focus: “Her death showed me how short life is,” says Liz. “Something I remind myself of dozens of times a day. Thinking of this, it’s easy to prioritize in any difficult situation. It’s always the people I care about that matter and also working to bring out all the potential inside of me is a way of loving the people close to me the best I can.”
Her determination was tested daily in school and out. The interviews for Harvard and the scholarship fell on the same day. On that day she also had an appointment at the welfare office to keep her meager benefits coming. As she waited in line, she saw her opportunity to get to the interviews ticking away. In frustration, she asked if she could be bumped to the front of the line because of her interview with Harvard. She was told, “Right, and the lady in front of you has an interview with Yale. Sit down.” She walked away from her benefits and chose to go to the interviews.
Harvard Bound
In the end, she made her interviews—and her grades. She was awarded a yearly $12,000 scholarship, and she was accepted at Harvard. Randy Kennedy of the New York Times observed, “It is no small feat to earn a 95 average at the Humanities Preparatory Academy in Greenwich Village and to graduate at the top of a class of 158. It is almost unheard of to pull it off in two years.”
Murray has since transferred to Columbia. She says it’s a better fit for her and she can be closer to her father. Her story has been picked up by news programs, Lifetime made it into a movie, and she’s currently writing it in book format. She inspires everyone she meets. Her father, who is HIV positive and currently living drug-free, says that she is his hero. But Murray takes it all in stride. She simply sees it as part of her journey. She hopes someday to become a documentary filmmaker.
When asked about her philosophy, Murray summed it up this way: “There’s always a way through things if you work hard enough and look close. It all depends on our level of determination.” Hard work and determination. That sounds like a good description of commitment.
But his speed was nothing compared to the power of his hitting. People speculate that he got his strength from working as a “screen ape” during the summers at the lead mine near Commerce, Oklahoma. The job was to smash large rocks with a sledgehammer. Working with a partner, one man would smash rocks until he couldn’t hold the sledgehammer any longer, then the other would take a turn. It’s said that there were home run hitters, and then there was this man—in a league of his own. The Guinness Book of World Records credits him with the longest home run ever measured, at 643 feet. Many believe he hit the longest ball in baseball history in a 1951 exhibition game at USC (656 feet). And he could smack the ball out of the park with equal ease from either side of the plate.
Born to Play Baseball
The player I’m describing is, of course, Mickey Mantle of the New York Yankees. Growing up in Ohio, I was a Cincinnati Reds fan, but I saw and heard a lot about Mantle—especially in 1961 when the Reds finally made it to the World Series but lost to the Yankees four games to one.
Mantle’s prowess on the baseball field was legendary. He seemed to be born for baseball. His father, a former semipro ballplayer, and his grandfather began teaching him to hit when he was four years old. They would pitch balls to him after work every day. And since his father was right-handed and his grandfather a lefty, the boy learned to hit from both sides of the plate.
By age sixteen, Mantle was playing semipro ball. In 1948, a scout for the Yankees, Torn Greenwade, went to Oklahoma to see Mantle’s teammate, third baseman Billy Johnson, play. Mantle hit two long home runs that day—one right-handed, one left-handed. Greenwade said Mantle was the best prospect he’d ever seen and was ready to sign him on the spot—until he discovered that he was only sixteen and still in high school. Greenwade promised to come back when the kid graduated. And he did: Mantle signed with the Yankees on graduation day in 1949.
What a Record!
That summer, Mickey Mantle played class D ball in the Yankees organization. The next year, he was sent to play for the class C team in Joplin, Missouri. In 1951, he was invited to the Yankees’ spring training camp, and he was so good that he jumped straight from class C to the Yankees—the first time that had ever happened in the organization’s history. He was nineteen. He went to the World Series that rookie year and came home with a championship. During his career, his team won the American League pennant and went on to the World Series twelve times, winning it seven times.
Mantle had an incredible career before he retired in 1969. He played in more games as a Yankee than any other player (2,401), including Lou Gehrig. He was picked as the American League MVP three times (1956, 1957, 1962). And in 1956, he won what’s called baseball’s triple crown: He finished the season with the league’s best batting average (.353), most home runs (52), and most runs batted in (130). And, remarkably, more than thirty years later he still holds the World Series records for home runs (18), runs scored (42), runs batted in (40), and bases on ball (43).
Despite a one-of-a-kind career, experts believe he never reached his potential. Most people blame it on injuries. Mantle suffered some horrible ones, often to his knees, throughout his career, and he continually played in pain. Before each game he had to carefully wrap each knee in bandages. Sportswriter Lewis Early wrote, “One of the questions baseball scholars ponder is the great ‘What if?’ What would Mickey have accomplished if he had been healthy during his career?” It’s true he suffered injuries that would, as one writer said, “keep a clerk in bed.” But that wasn’t the root of the problem. What most people didn’t know was that Mantle was a raging alcoholic.
Another Kind of Record
The people close to Mantle knew about his problem, but the public didn’t until he told his story in Sports Illustrated in 1994, a few months after he had gone to the Betty Ford Clinic to become sober. Mantle had begun drinking during his second season with the Yankees after his father died of Hodgkin’s disease at age thirty-nine. As he was setting records on the baseball field, he seemed to he trying to set records for drinking with his buddies. He said that early in his career he would quit drinking during spring training, get into shape, and then begin drinking again once the season started. And he never even thought about baseball during the off-season.
After Mantle retired, his drinking became worse. He often started drinking early in the day and continued until he was incoherent in the evenings. Somehow, he managed to keep his professional commitments. Mantle said,
I always took pride in my dependability when I was doing public relations work, endorsements and personal appearances. I always wanted to do my best. It was when I had no commitments, nothing to do or nowhere to be that I lapsed into those long drinking sessions.
He often did and said things he couldn’t remember the next day. Many times he was horrified when someone told him about his previous night’s behavior. Fans would ask him about his playing days and what kind of pitch he liked to hit, and he couldn’t remember.
Finally, at age sixty-two, Mantle hit rock bottom. He had made a mess of his family. His health was wrecked. And he wanted to sober up. That’s when he checked into the Betty Ford Clinic. He said that was the first time he had thought seriously about anything in his life. From the perspective of sobriety, Mantle assessed himself and his career:
My last four or five years with the Yankees, I didn’t realize I was ruining myself with all the drinking. I just thought, This is fun. . . . Today I can admit that all the drinking shortened my career. When I retired in the spring of ‘69, I was 37. Casey [Stengel, the Yankees’ manager] had said when I came up, “This guy’s going to he better than Joe DiMaggio and Babe Ruth.” It didn’t happen. I never fulfilled what my dad had wanted [to be the greatest player who ever lived], and I should have. God gave me a great body to play with, and I didn’t take care of it. And I blame a lot of it on alcohol.
Everybody tries to make the excuse that injuries shortened my career. Truth is, after I’d had a knee operation, the doctors would give me rehab work to do, but I wouldn’t do it. I’d be out drinking…. I thought, Hey, I’ll be all right. I hurt my knees again through the years, and I just thought they’d naturally come back. Everything has always come natural to me. I didn’t work hard at it.
It’s a tragedy anytime someone neglects his potential and misses many of the possibilities life has to offer. Sportswriter Tom Swift speculates that without the alcoholism, Mantle might have hit eight hundred home runs. Despite his great natural talent, Mickey Mantle never gave the commitment off the field that he displayed on it.
The Man in the Mirror
Only after giving up drinking and taking an honest look at his life did Mantle develop the kind of commitment that would have served him well during the previous decades. After being sober for three months, he said, “I’d rather put a gun to my head than have another drink.” But by the time Mantle was ready to change, it was too late. His liver was ruined from a life of alcoholism. He received a liver transplant, but doctors soon discovered that Mantle had inoperable cancer.
In the last months of his life, Mantle relied on his faith, fought the good fight, and regained some of the dignity he had lost during his drinking days. He died on June 8, 1995. On August 15, a group came together to honor Mantle. One of the eulogists was sportscaster Bob Costas. He said, “All of America watched [Mantle] in admiration. His doctors said he was, in many ways, the most remarkable patient they’d ever seen. His bravery, so stark and real, that even those used to seeing people in dire circumstances were moved by his example.” And Costas also described a cartoon that had appeared in the Dallas Morning News that day: Saint Peter is at the gates of heaven with his arm around Mickey Mantle’s shoulders, and he says, “Kid, that was the most courageous ninth inning I’ve ever seen.” During his last year of life—at age sixty-three——his commitment carried him through.
Why Commitment Matters Today
What were you born to do? What do you think your future holds? Do you believe you have a purpose or a destiny? If so, will you fulfill it? To become the person you have the potential to be, you will need great tenacity. That quality comes from commitment. Take a look at these truths concerning commitment:
COMMITMENT CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE
In Choices, Frederic F. Flach writes, “Most people can look back over the years and identify a time and place at which their lives changed significantly. Whether by accident or design, these are the moments when, because of a readiness within us and a collaboration with events occurring around us, we are forced to seriously reappraise ourselves and the conditions under which we live and to make certain choices that will affect the rest of our lives.”
Think about a time in your life when you made a real commitment to do something differently. Didn’t your life change as a result? It may not have turned out exactly as you expected, but it undoubtedly set you on a new course. If you want to change, you must embrace commitment.
COMMITMENT HELPS YOU OVERCOME MANY OF LIFE’S OBSTACLES
You’ve got problems, I’ve got problems, all God’s children have got problems. The question is, How are you going to deal with them? Clergyman and author Maltbie D. Babcock said,
One of the most common mistakes and one of the costliest, is thinking that success is due to some genius, some magic something or other which we do not possess. Success is generally due to holding on and failure to let go. You decide to learn a language, study music, take a course in reading, train yourself physically. Will it be a success or failure? It depends upon how much pluck and perseverance that word “decide” contains. The decision that nothing will overrule, the grip that nothing can detatch will bring success.
When Mickey Mantle was confronted with the problem of his father’s death, instead of making a commitment to face the loss and deal with it, he turned to alcohol. And that started him on the road to ruin.
YOUR COMMITMENT WILL BE TESTED EVERY DAY
I think many people see commitment as an event, something that is done in a moment. They say “I do” in a wedding ceremony. They shake hands to close a business deal. They buy a treadmill in order to exercise. But the commitment doesn’t end with that decision; it’s just getting started. And you better believe that any time you make a commitment to something, it will he tested. That happens in any number of ways:
• Experiencing Failure: Perhaps the greatest challenge to commitment is Failure. Olympic gold medalist Mary Lou Retton says, “Achieving that goal is a good feeling, but to get there you have to also get through the failures. You’ve got to be able to pick yourself up and continue.”
• Having to Stand Alone: When you want to accomplish something, people will try to distract you. They will challenge you. They may even try to get you to compromise your values. It may be unintentional. It may be because they’re worried that if you grow, they will feel left behind. In those moments, you need to ask yourself, “Who am I trying to please?” If you desire to please yourself by following through on your commitments to yourself, there will be times you need to stand alone.
• Facing Deep Disappointment: Let’s be honest, a lot of things can go wrong in life. How are you going to react in the face of those disappointments? Sportscaster Harry Kalas once introduced Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Garry Maddox by saving, “Garry has turned his life around. He used to he depressed and miserable. Now he’s miserable and depressed.” That’s not how you want to end up.
When things go wrong, when life gets rough, when the pain becomes great, will you he able to keep going? If you determine to make and keep proper commitments daily, you greatly improve your chances of being able to carry on. As Abraham Lincoln said, “Always bear in mind that your own resolution to success is more important than any other thing.”
Making the Decision to Make and Keep Proper Commitments Daily
I don’t think I really understood the true value of commitment until 1976. I was the senior pastor of one of the fastest-growing churches in Ohio. And the success we were seeing necessitated a $1 million expansion of our facilities. But there was a problem: I was only twenty-nine years old, and I had never led a major building program. Frankly, the task seemed impossible. But at the same time, the future of the church absolutely depended on its success. That’s when I made a life decision concerning commitment: If something is worth doing, I will commit myself to carrying it through. I decided that come what may, I would lead my congregation through the building program.
Little did I realize how much that commitment would be tested. Each time we made a decision, more problems arose. Here are just a few:
1. To accommodate the growth, I needed to improve my staff. That meant terminating some people who were very popular.
2. More than 200 people in the church (nearly 15 percent) left the church because they did not agree with the vision.
3. Our bank agreed to lend us the money only if we first raised $300,000 from among the congregation, but I had never led a large financial campaign, and the most I had ever raised for a project was $25,000.
4. The church board’s decision not to give the bid for the build-mug contract to a member of our congregation who owned a construction company caused him to leave the church, and he had been the church’s most generous giver.
5. Our architect was careless with disbursements to contractors, which made the project cost over $125,000 more than it should have.
You’ve heard the old saving that motion causes friction? During the entire process, there was enough friction to cause a five-alarm fire. I felt like I was in the hot seat every day. If I hadn’t made the commitment early in the process, I never would have made it through.
If you desire to have greater tenacity to accomplish the things you desire, then make the decision to embrace commitment wholeheartedly in your life. Begin by doing the following:
COUNT THE COST
After the Nazis drove the British army from the European continent at Dunkirk and obtained France’s surrender in June of 1940, the Germans were certain that victory in Europe was at hand and that Great Britain would seek a peace agreement. France also believed that was true. French General Maxime Wevgand told Charles de Gaulle, who was a colonel at the time, “When I’ve been beaten here, England won’t wait a week before negotiating with the Reich.”
But the Germans and the French underestimated the commitment of Winston Churchill, who had become England’s prime minister in May, and of the British people. Churchill knew what was at stake in the conflict, as evidenced by his remarks at the time:
What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life…. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free…. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age. . . . Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour.”
The war that England fought was long and bloody. They suffered terrible bombing from the Nazis, and for a long time they stood alone. But they stood. Their commitment was unwavering. And because they stood, the Allies won the war. I believe their resolve was strong not only because they knew what was at stake, but they also had a sense of what price they were being asked to pay. It can be very difficult to stand by a commitment naively made. The commitment becomes much stronger when you have already counted the cost.
DETERMINE TO PAY THE PRICE
Once you count the cost, then you have to decide whether you are really willing to do what it takes to follow through. U.S. Senator Sam Nunn said, “You have to pay the price. You will find that everything in life exacts a price, and you will have to decide whether the price is worth the prize.”
When I went off to college, I was determined to stay committed and focused on preparing for the ministry. But I knew there would be a price. Many of my college friends got married while still in school, and some even had children; Margaret and I waited, despite our shared desire to begin our married life. It was a difficult journey. And to this day, I don’t recommend engagements as long as ours. But our commitment paid off. A few weeks after we graduated, we got married. And we waited several years before having children. As a result, I was prepared when I entered the ministry, and I could focus on establishing my career during those important early years.
ALWAYS STRIVE FOR EXCELLENCE
Howard W. Newton said, “People forget how fast you did a job — but they remember how well you did it.” Few things fire up a person’s commitment like dedication to excellence. The desire for excellence carried Michelangelo through to the completion of his work on the Sistine chapel. Excellence drove Edison to keep trying until he figured out how to make a light bulb that worked. Excellence drives the companies Jim Collins wrote about in Built to Last and Good to Great.
Anyone who desires to achieve and become successful must he like a fine craftsman: committed to excellence. A great craftsman wants you to inspect his work, to look closely at its finest details. In contrast, sloppy people hide their work. And if anyone finds fault with it, shoddy workers find fault with their tools. Which are you most like? Excellence means doing your very best in everything, in every way. That kind of commitment will take you where halfhearted people will never go.
Managing the Discipline of Commitment
After I made the decision to commit myself to the building program at my church, I knew that I would need to find a way to keep myself on track. So I determined to live out this discipline: Every day I will renew my commitment and think about the benefits that come from it. To do that, I carried a laminated card with me every day for eighteen months. Here’s what was written on it:
The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issue from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would come his way. —William H. Murray
I read that card every day as we were going through the project. On especially difficult days when I felt like throwing in the towel, I read it two or three times. It helped me to star focused and feel encouraged. I thought, If I stay committed and do all I can, and then I ask God to make up the difference, we can achieve this. And we did!
When you accomplish something that you once believed was impossible, it makes you a new person. It changes the way you see yourself and the world. My thinking went to a new level, and the vision for my leadership expanded. I never would have gotten there without commitment. My personal commitment—and that of many others—was the key to our success.
As you strive to keep your commitments daily, keep the following in mind:
EXPECT COMMITMENT TO BE A STRUGCLE
When our children were young and living at home, Margaret and I decided one summer we wanted to take them on a vacation that focused on how the United States was built as a nation. We started out in New York City. We went to Ellis Island, the longtime gateway into the country, and got a feel for the millions of immigrants who came to America with the dream of building a better life. We visited Philadelphia. We saw the room where our country became a nation with the signing of the Declaration of Independence. We viewed the Liberty Bell. And we visited the graves of the brave men who signed the Declaration of Independence.
After that, we traveled south to Williamsburg, Virginia, the home of Patrick Henry, who declared, “Give me liberty or give me death!” And we ended the trip in Washington, D.C. As we looked up at the towering Washington Monument, we were reminded of the United States’ struggle to become a nation. As we gazed at the huge statue of Lincoln at his memorial, we recalled the struggle we have endured to remain a nation.
Everywhere we went, we were confronted with the commitment of the men and women who founded and preserved our country. We learned about the risks they took, the battles they fought, the sacrifices they made. The greatest honors were reserved for those who endured the greatest struggles. The stakes were high, but so were the rewards. We still enjoy the freedom they won for us.
That trip taught a great lesson to our family. Anything worth having is going to be a struggle. Commitment doesn’t come easy, but when you’re fighting for something you believe in, the struggle is worth it.
DON’T RELY ON TALENT ALONE
When you read about someone like Mickey Mantle, you realize that too much talent can actually work against someone. If Mantle’s commitment to taking care of himself, working during the off— season, and improving his game had matched his natural talent, the results would have been radically different.
If you want to reach your potential, you need to add a strong work ethic to your talent. Poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow shared much insight when he wrote:
The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.
If you want something out of your day, you must put something in it. Your talent is what God put in before you were born. Your skills are what you put in yesterday. Commitment is what you must put in today in order to make today your masterpiece and make tomorrow a success.
FOCUS ON CHOICES, NOT CONDITIONS
In general, people approach daily commitment in one of two ways. They focus on the external or the internal. Those who focus on the external expect conditions to determine whether they keep their commitments. Because conditions are so transitory, their commitment level changes like the wind.
In contrast, people who base their actions on the internal usually focus on their choices. Each choice is a crossroad, one that will either confirm or compromise their commitments.
When you come to a crossroad, you can recognize it because…
• A personal decision is required.
• The decision will cost you something.
• Others will likely be influenced by it.
Your choices are the only thing you truly control. You cannot control your circumstances, nor can you control others. By focusing on your choices, and then making them with integrity, you control your commitment. And that is what often separates success from failure.
BE SINGLE-MINDED
Nothing stokes commitment like single-minded effort that results in achievement. A great example of that truth can be found in the story of English minister William Carey. Although he had only an elementary education, by the time Carey was in his teens, he could read the Bible in six languages. Because of his talent for languages, when he was in his early thirties he was chosen to be a missionary to India. Six years later in 1799, he founded the Serampore mission. A few years after that, he became professor of Oriental languages at Fort William College in Calcutta. He also used his talent with languages in becoming a publisher. His press at Serampore printed Bibles in forty languages and dialects for more than three hundred million people.
To what did Carey attribute his success? How was he able to accomplish what he did? He said it was because he was a “plodder.” Describing himself, Carey said, “Anything beyond this will be too much. I can plod. That is my only genius. I can persevere in any definite pursuit. To this I owe everything.”
DO WHAT’S RIGHT EVEN WHEN YOU DON’T FEEL LIKE IT
Thomas A. Buckner said, “To bring one’s self to a frame of mind and to the proper energy to accomplish things that require plain hard work continuously is the one big battle that everyone has. When this battle is won for all time, then everything is easy.” One of the things I admire about great athletes is their understanding of this truth. That’s one of the reasons I enjoy watching the Olympics. When the Olympic athletes come into the stadium during the opening ceremonies and prepare to participate in the games, one of the things they do is recite the following:
I have prepared.
I have followed the rules.
I will not quit.
Anyone who can say that with integrity can be proud of himself or herself, no matter what happens afterward. As Arthur Gordon, author of A Touch of Wonder, said, “Nothing is easier than saving words. Nothing is harder than living them, day after day. What you promise today must be renewed and redecided tomorrow and each day that stretches out before you.”
If you do what you should only when you really feel like it, you won’t keep your commitments consistently. My friend Ken Blanchard says, “When you’re interested in something, you do it only when it’s convenient. When you’re committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results.” If you refuse to give in to excuses, no matter how good they may sound or how good they will make you feel in the moment , you have the potential to go far.
Reflecting on Commitment
I believe my commitment continues to be a key to life. That’s true in my marriage, my career, my spiritual life—there’s not an area it doesn’t touch. Twenty-eight years after settling the commitment issue in my life, I look back and realize the importance of that decision:
In my 20s . . . My commitment made up for my inexperience.
In my 30s . . . My commitment motivated many to follow my leadership.
In my 40s . . . My commitment kept me going during my most difficult leadership years.
In my 50s . . . My commitment has pushed me out of my comfort zone and into my productivity zone.
When you have commitment, there’s almost nothing you can’t do.
Horrible Circumstances
Recently I read a story that exemplifies commitment. In 1999, the New York Times began awarding college scholarships in a program open to New York high school seniors. The stated goal was “to support the aspirations of students who hope to build on their achievements in college and to make significant contributions to society.” The administrators of the program wanted especially to help students who had succeeded despite the odds. Their materials said, “Candidates must have demonstrated academic achievement, community service and a commitment to learning especially in the face of financial and other obstacles.”
When the names and stories of the first recipients were announced, there were many great success stories. But one in particular stood out: the story of Liz Murray. To say that she had demonstrated commitment in the face of obstacles would be putting it mildly.
Liz grew up in the Bronx, a notoriously rough part of New York City, the child of two parents who were alcoholics and IV drug users. She says her parents always loved her, but they neglected her because of their preoccupation with drugs. Once she woke up to find they had sold her sister’s winter coat to get money for a fix. So to keep herself and her sister fed, she worked from the time she was nine years old. She offered to pump gas at self-service gas stations and bagged groceries at stores for tips.
It wasn’t until Liz was in junior high school that she realized most kids didn’t have parents who shot up cocaine in the living room. That was around the same time her mother’s AIDS, which had been diagnosed a few years earlier, became acute. Liz wasn’t going to school much by then. A lot of her time she tried to take care of her mother, who was also schizophrenic. A lot of her time she spent on the street and with friends. When Liz was fifteen, her mother died. And Liz became homeless.
The First Great Commitment
Ironically, that experience had a positive impact on her. When she saw her mother buried in a pauper’s grave, Liz had a realization. And that brought her to a decision. She says, “I connected the lifestyles that I had witnessed every day with how my mother ended up. And if there was anything that I could do about it, that would not happen to me. So I wanted to get back into school. But, mind you, I was homeless.” Her circumstances were dire, but she committed herself to the task.
First, she found a summer job. (Her employer and coworkers never knew she was homeless.) Her pay was based entirely on commission—and she excelled. That helped her scrape together enough money to survive. Then she got herself accepted at Humanities Preparatory Academy, a public high school in Manhattan. To make up for lost time, she did four years of course work in two years by taking ten classes at a time. By day, she went to school; by night, she studied in stairwells and often rode subway trains until morning.
She set her sights high. She had visited Harvard on a school trip. She decided to apply there and to apply for the New York Times scholarship. Since her mother’s death, she had gained tenacity and focus: “Her death showed me how short life is,” says Liz. “Something I remind myself of dozens of times a day. Thinking of this, it’s easy to prioritize in any difficult situation. It’s always the people I care about that matter and also working to bring out all the potential inside of me is a way of loving the people close to me the best I can.”
Her determination was tested daily in school and out. The interviews for Harvard and the scholarship fell on the same day. On that day she also had an appointment at the welfare office to keep her meager benefits coming. As she waited in line, she saw her opportunity to get to the interviews ticking away. In frustration, she asked if she could be bumped to the front of the line because of her interview with Harvard. She was told, “Right, and the lady in front of you has an interview with Yale. Sit down.” She walked away from her benefits and chose to go to the interviews.
Harvard Bound
In the end, she made her interviews—and her grades. She was awarded a yearly $12,000 scholarship, and she was accepted at Harvard. Randy Kennedy of the New York Times observed, “It is no small feat to earn a 95 average at the Humanities Preparatory Academy in Greenwich Village and to graduate at the top of a class of 158. It is almost unheard of to pull it off in two years.”
Murray has since transferred to Columbia. She says it’s a better fit for her and she can be closer to her father. Her story has been picked up by news programs, Lifetime made it into a movie, and she’s currently writing it in book format. She inspires everyone she meets. Her father, who is HIV positive and currently living drug-free, says that she is his hero. But Murray takes it all in stride. She simply sees it as part of her journey. She hopes someday to become a documentary filmmaker.
When asked about her philosophy, Murray summed it up this way: “There’s always a way through things if you work hard enough and look close. It all depends on our level of determination.” Hard work and determination. That sounds like a good description of commitment.
Monday, November 13, 2006
Loving the People You Are Stuck With
A Forgiving Heart
My first pet came in the form of a childhood Christmas Eve gift. Somewhere I have a snapshot of a brown-and-white Chinese pug, small enough to fit in my father’s hand, cute enough to steal my eight-year-old heart. We named her Liz.
I carried her all day. Her floppy ears fascinated me, and her flat nose intrigued me. I even took her to bed. So what if she smelled like a dog? I thought the odor was cute. So what if she whined and whimpered? I thought the noise was cute. So what if she did her business on my pillow? Can’t say I thought that was cute, but I didn’t mind.
Mom and Dad had made it clear in our prenuptial agreement that I was to be Liz’s caretaker, and I was happy to oblige. I cleaned her little eating dish and opened her can of puppy food. The minute she lapped up some water, I replenished it. I kept her hair combed and her tail wagging.
Within a few days, however, my feelings changed a bit. Liz was still my dog, and I was still her friend, but I grew weary with her barking, and she seemed hungry an awful lot. More than once my folks had to remind me, “Take care of her. She is your dog.”
I didn’t like hearing those words—your dog. I wouldn’t have minded the phrase “your dog to play with” or “your dog when you want her” or even “your dog when she is behaving.” But those weren’t my parents’ words. They said, “Liz is your dog.” Period. In sickness and in health. For richer, for poorer. In dryness and in wetness.
That’s when it occurred to me. I am stuck with Liz. The courtship was over, and the honeymoon had ended. We were mutually leashed. Liz went from an option to an obligation, from a pet to a chore, from someone to play with to someone to care for.
Perhaps you can relate. Chances are you know the claustrophobia that comes with commitment. Only instead of being reminded, “She is your dog,” you’re told, “He is your husband.” Or, “She is your wife.” Or, “He is your child, parent, employee or boss or roommate” or any other relationship that requires loyalty for survival.
Such permanence can lead to panic—at least it did in me. I had to answer some tough questions. Can I tolerate the same flat-nosed, hairy, hungry face every morning? (You wives know the feeling?) Am I going to be barked at until the day I die? (Any kids connecting here?) Will she ever learn to clean up her own mess? (Did I hear an “amen” from some parents?)
Stuckititis
Such are the questions we ask when we feel stuck with someone. There is a word for this condition. Upon consulting the one-word medical dictionary (which I wrote the day before I crafted this chapter), I discovered that this condition is a common malady known as stuckititis. (Stuck meaning “trapped.” Ititis being the six letters you tag on to any word you want to sound impressive. Read it out loud: stuckititis.) Max’s Manual of Medical Terms has this to say about the condition:
Attacks of stuckititis are limited to people who breathe and typically occur somewhere between birth and death. Stuckititis manifests itself in irritability, short fuses, and a mountain range of molehills. The common symptom of stuckititis victims is the repetition of questions beginning with who, what, and why. Who is this person? What was I thinking? Why didn’t I listen to my mother?
This prestigious manual identifies three ways to cope with stuckititis: flee, fight, or forgive. Some opt to flee: to get out of the relationship and start again elsewhere, though they are often surprised when the condition surfaces on the other side of the fence as well. Others fight. Houses become combat zones, and offices become boxing rings, and tension becomes a way of life. A few, however, discover another treatment: forgiveness. My manual has no model for how forgiveness occurs, but the Bible does.
Jesus himself knew the feeling of being stuck with someone. For three years he ran with the same crew. By and large, he saw the same dozen or so faces around the table, around the campfire, around the clock. They rode in the same boats and walked the same roads and visited the same houses, and I wonder, how did Jesus stay so devoted to his men? Not only did he have to put up with their visible oddities, he had to endure their invisible foibles. Think about it. He could hear their unspoken thoughts. He knew their private doubts. Not only that, he knew their future doubts. What if you knew every mistake your loved ones had ever made and every mistake they would ever make? What if you knew every thought they would have about you, every irritation, every dislike, every betrayal?
Was it hard for Jesus to love Peter, knowing Peter would someday curse him? Was it tough to trust Thomas, knowing Thomas would one day question Jesus’ resurrection? How did Jesus resist the urge to recruit a new batch of followers? John wanted to destroy one enemy. Peter sliced off the ear of another. Just days before Jesus’ death, his disciples were arguing about which of them was the best! How was he able to love people who were hard to like?
Few situations stir panic like being trapped in a relationship. It’s one thing to be stuck with a puppy but something else entirely to be stuck in a marriage. We may chuckle over goofy terms like stuckititis, but for many, this is no laughing matter. For that reason I think it wise that we begin our study of what it means to be just like Jesus by pondering his heart of forgiveness. How was Jesus able to love his disciples? The answer is found in the thirteenth chapter of John.
With Towel and Basin
Of all the times we see the bowing knees of Jesus, none is so precious as when he kneels before his disciples and washes their feet.
It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love.
The evening meal was being served, and the devil had already prompted Judas Iscariot, son of Simon, to betray Jesus. Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, … and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him. (vv. 1–5 niv)
It has been a long day. Jerusalem is packed with Passover guests, most of whom clamor for a glimpse of the Teacher. The spring sun is warm. The streets are dry. And the disciples are a long way from home. A splash of cool water would be refreshing.
The disciples enter, one by one, and take their places around the table. On the wall hangs a towel, and on the floor sits a pitcher and a basin. Any one of the disciples could volunteer for the job, but not one does.
After a few moments, Jesus stands and removes his outer garment. He wraps a servant’s girdle around his waist, takes up the basin, and kneels before one of the disciples. He unlaces a sandal and gently lifts the foot and places it in the basin, covers it with water, and begins to bathe it. One by one, one grimy foot after another, Jesus works his way down the row.
In Jesus’ day the washing of feet was a task reserved not just for servants but for the lowest of servants. Every circle has its pecking order, and the circle of household workers was no exception. The servant at the bottom of the totem pole was expected to be the one on his knees with the towel and basin.
In this case the one with the towel and basin is the king of the universe. Hands that shaped the stars now wash away filth. Fingers that formed mountains now massage toes. And the one before whom all nations will one day kneel now kneels before his disciples. Hours before his own death, Jesus’ concern is singular. He wants his disciples to know how much he loves them. More than removing dirt, Jesus is removing doubt.
Jesus knows what will happen to his hands at the crucifixion. Within twenty-four hours they will be pierced and lifeless. Of all the times we’d expect him to ask for the disciples’ attention, this would be one. But he doesn’t.
You can be sure Jesus knows the future of these feet he is washing. These twenty-four feet will not spend the next day following their master, defending his cause. These feet will dash for cover at the flash of a Roman sword. Only one pair of feet won’t abandon him in the garden. One disciple won’t desert him at Gethsemane—Judas won’t even make it that far! He will abandon Jesus that very night at the table.
I looked for a Bible translation that reads, “Jesus washed all the disciples’ feet except the feet of Judas,” but I couldn’t find one. What a passionate moment when Jesus silently lifts the feet of his betrayer and washes them in the basin! Within hours the feet of Judas, cleansed by the kindness of the one he will betray, will stand in Caiaphas’s court.
Behold the gift Jesus gives his followers! He knows what these men are about to do. He knows they are about to perform the vilest act of their lives. By morning they will bury their heads in shame and look down at their feet in disgust. And when they do, he wants them to remember how his knees knelt before them and he washed their feet. He wants them to realize those feet are still clean. “You don’t understand now what I am doing, but you will understand later” (John 13:7).
Remarkable. He forgave their sin before they even committed it. He offered mercy before they even sought it.
From the Basin of His Grace
Oh, I could never do that, you object. The hurt is so deep. The wounds are so numerous. Just seeing the person causes me to cringe. Perhaps that is your problem. Perhaps you are seeing the wrong person or at least too much of the wrong person. Remember, the secret of being just like Jesus is “fixing our eyes” on him. Try shifting your glance away from the one who hurt you and setting your eyes on the one who has saved you.
Note the promise of John, “But if we live in the light, as God is in the light, we can share fellowship with each other. Then the blood of Jesus, God’s Son, cleanses us from every sin” (1 John 1:7).
Aside from geography and chronology, our story is the same as the disciples’. We weren’t in Jerusalem, and we weren’t alive that night. But what Jesus did for them he has done for us. He has cleansed us. He has cleansed our hearts from sin.
Even more, he is still cleansing us! John tells us, “We are being cleansed from every sin by the blood of Jesus.” In other words, we are always being cleansed. The cleansing is not a promise for the future but a reality in the present. Let a speck of dust fall on the soul of a saint, and it is washed away. Let a spot of filth land on the heart of God’s child, and the filth is wiped away. Jesus still cleans his disciples’ feet. Jesus still washes away stains. Jesus still purifies his people.
Our Savior kneels down and gazes upon the darkest acts of our lives. But rather than recoil in horror, he reaches out in kindness and says, “I can clean that if you want.” And from the basin of his grace, he scoops a palm full of mercy and washes away our sin.
But that’s not all he does. Because he lives in us, you and I can do the same. Because he has forgiven us, we can forgive others. Because he has a forgiving heart, we can have a forgiving heart. We can have a heart like his.
“If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash each other’s feet. I did this as an example so that you should do as I have done for you” (John 13:14–15).
Jesus washes our feet for two reasons. The first is to give us mercy; the second is to give us a message, and that message is simply this: Jesus offers unconditional grace; we are to offer unconditional grace. The mercy of Christ preceded our mistakes; our mercy must precede the mistakes of others. Those in the circle of Christ had no doubt of his love; those in our circles should have no doubts about ours.
What does it mean to have a heart like his? It means to kneel as Jesus knelt, touching the grimy parts of the people we are stuck with and washing away their unkindnesses with kindness. Or as Paul wrote, “Be kind and loving to each other, and forgive each other just as God forgave you in Christ” (Eph. 4:32).
“But, Max,” you are saying, “I’ve done nothing wrong. I’m not the one who cheated. I’m not the one who lied. I’m not the guilty party here.” Perhaps you aren’t. But neither was Jesus. Of all the men in that room, only one was worthy of having his feet washed. And he was the one who washed the feet. The one worthy of being served, served others. The genius of Jesus’ example is that the burden of bridge-building falls on the strong one, not on the weak one. The one who is innocent is the one who makes the gesture.
And you know what happens? More often than not, if the one in the right volunteers to wash the feet of the one in the wrong, both parties get on their knees. Don’t we all think we are right? Hence we wash each other’s feet.
Please understand. Relationships don’t thrive because the guilty are punished but because the innocent are merciful.
The Power of Forgiveness
Recently I shared a meal with some friends. A husband and wife wanted to tell me about a storm they were weathering. Through a series of events, she learned of an act of infidelity that had occurred over a decade ago. He had made the mistake of thinking it’d be better not to tell her, so he didn’t. But she found out. And as you can imagine, she was deeply hurt.
Through the advice of a counselor, the couple dropped everything and went away for several days. A decision had to be made. Would they flee, fight, or forgive? So they prayed. They talked. They walked. They reflected. In this case the wife was clearly in the right. She could have left. Women have done so for lesser reasons. Or she could have stayed and made his life a living hell. Other women have done that. But she chose a different response.
On the tenth night of their trip, my friend found a card on his pillow. On the card was a printed verse: “I’d rather do nothing with you than something without you.” Beneath the verse she had written these words:
I forgive you. I love you. Let’s move on.
The card might as well have been a basin. And the pen might as well have been a pitcher of water, for out of it poured pure mercy, and with it she washed her husband’s feet.
Certain conflicts can be resolved only with a basin of water. Are any relationships in your world thirsty for mercy? Are there any sitting around your table who need to be assured of your grace? Jesus made sure his disciples had no reason to doubt his love. Why don’t you do the same?
Since you have been chosen by God who has given you this new kind of life, and because of his deep love and concern for you, you should practice tenderhearted mercy and kindness to others.
colossians 3:12 tlb
Frogs
This was an email that was sent to me. I've corrected it for grammar and spelling as best as I can, but I'm really tired so I might've missed a few.
Once upon a time there was a bunch of tiny frogs who arranged a running competition. The goal was to reach the top of a very high tower.
A big crowd had gathered around the tower to see the race and cheer on the contestants. The race began.
Honestly, no one in the crowd really believed that the tiny frogs would reach the top of the tower. You heard statements such as: "Oh, WAY too difficult!!" "They will NEVER make it to the top." or: "Not a chance that they will succeed. The tower is too high!"
The tiny frogs began collapsing one by one. Those in a fresh tempo were climbing higher and higher! But the crowd continued to yell, "It is too difficult!!! No one will make it!" More tiny frogs got tired and gave up.
But ONE continued higher and higher and higher! This one wouldn't give up! At the end everyone else had given up climbing the tower, except for the one tiny frog who, after a big effort, was the only one who reached the top!
THEN all of the other tiny frogs naturally wanted to know how this one frog managed to do it? A contestant asked the tiny frog how he had found the strength to succeed and reach the goal? The frog didn't flinch. It turned out that the winner was DEAF!
The wisdom of this story is: Never listen to other people's tendencies to be negative or pessimistic, because they take your most wonderful dreams and wishes away from you -- the ones you have in your heart! Always think of the power words have. Because everything you hear and read will affect your actions! Therefore: ALWAYS be....POSITIVE! And above all: Be DEAF when people tell YOU that you cannot fulfill your dreams! Always think: God and I can do this!
Two Wolves
Not exactly a Christian story, but a universal truth nonetheless.
One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a Battle that goes on inside people. He said, "My son, The battle is between two 'wolves' inside us all.
One is EVIL. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret,Greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment Inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego.
The other is GOOD. It is joy, peace, love, Serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, Empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."
The grandson thought about it for a minute And then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf wins?"
The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."
One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a Battle that goes on inside people. He said, "My son, The battle is between two 'wolves' inside us all.
One is EVIL. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret,Greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment Inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego.
The other is GOOD. It is joy, peace, love, Serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, Empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."
The grandson thought about it for a minute And then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf wins?"
The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Friends to Die For
The greatest sweetener of human life is friendship. To raise this to the highest pitch of enjoyment is a secret which but few discover.
-Joseph Addison
I never would have imagined that a thirty-year friendship could begin in a church nursery between two toddlers. But it did. I was crawling in and out of Mrs. Kolskey’s lap and playing around her feet when a mysterious new girl appeared in the doorway. From old photos I know that her hair was pulled back into two ponytails falling in ringlets to her shoulders. But in that first encounter, all I noticed was her luminous pair of magenta Mary Janes—the perfect shoes—exactly like mine. My shoes, you must understand, were an all-time favorite birthday present.
So here we were, two girls in deep pink shoes squealing in delight at our commonality. I had found a kindred spirit. Laura was indeed to become the best friend of my childhood, my bunk partner at summer camp, my college roommate, and the maid-of-honor at my wedding. Today, though she lives in Chicago and I’m in Seattle, not a week goes by without a conversation, and not a significant life experience without her support. Laura is truly a friend to die for.
I couldn’t have known at age five, of course, how precious this kind of friendship is and how rarely I would find it in my life. But most people do, in fact, find a kindred spirit or two. In fact, only seven percent of people say they don’t have someone in their circle of friends who, at any given time, they can rely on as a best friend.’
Actually, what most people call their “circle of friends” more closely resembles a triangle. Many people have contact with between 500 and 2,500 acquaintances each year, representing the base of the triangle. Then there are the 20 to 100 “core friends” in the middle. These we know by first name, and we see them somewhat regularly. At the top of the triangle are one to seven intimate friends. These people are closely involved in our lives, and their names are likely engraved on our hearts.
This chapter stands as a tribute to friendship and is dedicated to helping you raise your current relationships to their highest pitch of enjoyment and to building a firm foundation for prospective friends in your future. If a friendship is not built on healthy principles, after all, it will not weather the inevitable storms of life—the times you really need a friend. We begin, then, with laying out just what friends are for and how we can cultivate the kinds of friendships that matter most. Next, we explore the ins and outs of how good friendships are made, and then we point to a half dozen qualities you’ll need to consider if your friendships are to survive and thrive.
WHAT FRIENDS ARE FOR
Short of torture, society’s worst punishment is solitary confinement. In the biblical creation story the Creator, having formed the first person, immediately declared our social character: “It is not good that man should be alone.” Most of us, most of the time, would rather be with anyone than be alone. And when we compare being with anyone to being with a good friend, there is no comparison. The reasons are endless. Seventeenth-century philosopher Francis Bacon noted two tremendously positive effects of friendship: “It redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in half.” How true. Friends make the ordinary—running errands or eating lunch, for example—extraordinarily fun. And good friends ease our pain and lighten our heavy load. Bacon had it right, they double our joy and cut our grief. They also strengthen us, nurture us, and help us grow. And without our knowing, they can even save our lives. Literally.
There’s exciting news about having a kindred spirit these days. Not only are friends good for the soul but for the body as well.3 Friends help us ward off depression, boost our immune system, lower our cholesterol, increase the odds of surviving with coronary disease, and keep stress hormones in check. A half-dozen top medical studies now bear this out. Their findings didn’t seem to be influenced by other conditions or habits such as obesity, smoking, drinking, or exercise. The thing that mattered most was friends. What’s more, research is showing that you can extend your life expectancy by having the right kinds of friends.
Which brings us to a central issue. What are the “right kinds” of friends? What makes a friend “good”? We all know fair-weather friends are no good. These are the people who walk with us in the sunshine, but they are gone when darkness falls. “Wealth brings many friends,” noted one wise observer of life, “but a poor man’s friends desert him.” Overly engaged and emotionally needy friends who don’t know the meaning of reciprocity are also a downer. They take and take while we give and give, but we never see a return on our investment. On the other end of the friendship continuum is the know-it-all friend who mothers and smothers with unwanted advice but never asks for our input. In short, friends cannot be your family, they can’t be your project, they can’t be your psychiatrist. But they can be your friends, which is plenty.
Aristotle distinguished three types of friendship: “friendship based on utility,” such as eager, upbeat people in business cultivating each other to improve their bottom line; “friendship based on pleasure,” like young people interested in partying; and “perfect friendship.” The first two categories Aristotle calls “qualified and superficial” because they are founded on flimsy circumstances. The last —which is based on admiration for another’s good character—is much more fulfilling, but also rare. After all, good friends “are few.”
The few good friends we enjoy generally come in one of two forms, both desirable and equally delightful. They are friends of the road and friends of the heart.
Friends of the Road
Dale was crazy. That’s why I liked him. He could always, I mean always make me laugh. Whether we were hanging out at the mall, playing pick-up basketball in a park, sitting in Sunday school, or giving serious speeches in Mr. Olson’s civics class, a mere glance from Dale could slay me. On more than one occasion I was sent out of the room because I couldn’t regain my composure. Dale and I had more in common than hij inks and humor, however. We had countless conversations at all hours of the day and night about everything from pop music to current events to the meaning of life. We also had soul-searching talks about our fears, our futures, our relationships. This was no lightweight relationship. We saw each other through the Sturm und Drang of adolescence. Like two war veterans, we helped each other survive. At journey’s end, however, the friendship faded. I haven’t seen Dale, my highschool confidant, since the day we graduated.
How does a once-bosom buddy wind up a distant memory? And is a friendship that fades away necessarily a bad thing? I don’t think so. There is a line in James Michener’s novel, Centennial, that speaks to how even good friendships can be fleeting: “He wished he could ride forever with these men ... hut it could not be. Trails end, and companies of men fall apart.”
Some friendships are meant to be transitory. Like cowboys who ride herd together for miles, sharing both dusty perils and round-the-campfire coffee, we all have friendships that come to their natural end. Not because of discontent or lack of interest. Simply because the road has run out. We’ve hit the end of the trail together and it’s time to move on to other things, other companies of men.
Understand, these are not failed friendships. Not at all. They are friendships of the road, equally intense, equally necessary, equally worth cultivating and treasuring as the
long-lasting versions. We couldn’t survive without them. They get us through a particular stretch of road, and for that we can be grateful. Sure, I regret not staying in touch with Dale (photos of him still crack me up) and other friends who have shared a portion of my path. I even fantasize about reviving or repairing some bygone relationships. But with most long-lost friends I know I’d have little in common now. Our bond lies in the past, irretrievable except for the memories.
The friends we meet along life’s road make the journey joyful. And they are just as fulfilling as friendships of the heart. Well, almost.
Friends of the Heart
Greg. Jim. Monty. Kevin. Mark. Rich. These names sketch out my life, some since childhood. Together, they could tell you more about me than both my brothers. They are my best friends. They are the pals who know my mood swings and my family history. They’ve watched me soar and seen me fail. Unlike friends of the road, these guys have stayed with me beyond trail’s end. No matter how many months or miles intervene, the friendships endure. Our cumulative years of shared biography preserve our connection, propelling us together on the same path. After years of tireless talks we now speak in shorthand.
None of these friends lives near me now, but we rendezvous at weddings and while passing through each other’s towns on business. We plan reunions on occasion, and a few of us have recently shared vacations. Sporadic phone calls, as well as e-mail and a few cards or letters here and there, bridge the connection between tong lapses. We don’t keep up on daily details, but these friends know my headlines and I know theirs. We count on each other and we share an irresistible impulse to keep going, together.
There’s nothing like a friend of the heart, long-lasting pals who know us sometimes better than we know ourselves. They bring such comfort to our lives. It’s nearly inexpressible. Dinah Mutock, however, describes it pretty well: “Oh the comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are—chaff and grain together—certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.
Of course, we don’t usually determine that a specific relationship will outlast the road. Some do, some don’t. That’s all, right? Not hardly. In ancient times, friends vowed to be friends forever, no matter what. Maybe you remember the biblical story of Jonathan and David and how they took an oath to be friends forever. “Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him.” From then on, when times turned treacherous and their relationship was tested in blood, they banked on one another.
Maybe it would help contemporary friendships stay together if we swore an oath at the beginning, but that’s not how most of us become friends. We are more likely to stumble into it by accident. We meet, look each other over, discover that we talk the same language, that we have common interests, and then ... fate takes over? Not if we genuinely care about the relationship. If we care, we commit. We don’t arrange a ceremony or make solemn vows. Most likely, the commitment gradually grows. We commit ourselves to each other, sometimes without even knowing it, in snippets over the long haul, until we find ourselves as committed friends. Looking back, we see we’ve made a thousand commitments, little ones, again and again, as we had occasion to make them. We never spoke a vow. We just grew into our commitment without thinking much about it. That’s the story of friendships of the heart.
With most friendships, new concerns and new faces gradually crowd out the old as we start a new journey. But not with committed friends. They don’t flicker and fade; they keep the light on. They are there for the duration and are as elemental to our being as blood to our heart.
Are friendships of the heart more important than our fleeting friends of the road? Not really. We need both. What matters is how a relationship sustains you right now. An achieved friendship—of any brand or bond—is among the best experiences life has to offer.
HOW WE FIND TRUE FRIENDS
Friendship is a long conversation. Indeed, the ability to generate good talk by the hour is the most promising indication, during the uncertain early stages, that a possible friendship will take hold.
The pressure to achieve “quality” communication, however, sometimes induces a sort of inauthentic epiphany for overeager friends-to-be (not unlike what sometimes happens with an eager-to-please patient in the last ten minutes of a psychotherapy session). In the first few conversations there may be an exaggeration of agreement, for example, as both parties attempt to connect (“You like sardines on your pizza?! Me too!”). And if authenticity does not enter in soon, the two parties form an uneasy kind of pseudo-friendship that creates more pretense than pleasure. Fortunately, even eager friends do not need to be caught and snagged by this subtle snare. With the proper techniques, they can break free of the pseudo-friendship and achieve true companionship.
The first important technique is to master the art of good talk. This requires just two simple tools. The first is a listening ear. Some people are especially skilled at opening others up. They readily elicit intimacy because they listen well. The late psychologist Carl Rogers called such people “growth-promoting” listeners: His years of research revealed that good listeners genuinely convey interest in understanding the other person, they accept the person’s feelings without interruption, and they empathize by trying to see the world from that person’s perspective. These are the skills ofa good listener: genuineness, acceptance, and empathy.
Just the other night, a woman charmed me (Leslie) at a dinner party when she wanted to know all about my work at Seattle Pacific University. At first I thought she was simply offering the standard issue question, “So, what do you do?” required upon first meetings. But she wasn’t. With her follow-up comments and questions, it became apparent that she wasn’t interested in uneasy small talk, she was interested in me (“Sounds like you really enjoy working with students. How’d you catch a vision for that?”). She genuinely wanted to enter my world and understand my feelings; first-rate listeners have a way of doing that. I could have talked to her all night. In fact, I did.
The second tool for creating friendly conversation is self-disclosure. Weighed and measured in appropriate amounts, self-disclosure is the primary ingredient for potential friendship. In fact, no decent friendship can be made without it. Here’s how self-disclosure works. You spill something a hit private and chances are something intimate will get spilled hack on you. Vulnerability begets vulnerability. Social scientists call it the “disclosure reciprocity effect.”’ Whatever you call it, however, beware: It’s risky. If I reveal a part of me, my excitement, my insecurity, whatever, I open myself up to potential rejection. You may not accept what I disclose. You may belittle it or brush it off. If you do) nothing less than reciprocate my vulnerability, I feel slighted. But if you do share my secret, if you identify with me, we’ve struck the cord of friendship and are no longer alone.
C. S. Lewis wrote about the process of self-disclosure and friendship in his classic hook The Four Loves: “The typical _expression of opening Friendship would be something like, ‘What? You too? I thought I was the only one’—it is then that Friendship is born.”
Knowing when and how to talk about yourself is as important a skill as listening. No one really gets close to the kind of person who’s so careful about her image she never reveals anything intimate. You’ve got to) open up, but not too wide. In other words, if you reveal too much you’ll overwhelm the other person. Nobody appreciates a babbler mouth who unloads unedited memories that could interest only a mother. And one more caution about self-disclosing: don’t replace it with gossip and think you’ll accomplish the same thing. Everyone warms to the person who) tells tales on him or herself. But there’s nothing more repellent than the person who’s constantly telling you some horrible secret about someone else.
HOW WE KEEP TRUE FRIENDS
It’s one thing to start a friendship, it’s quite another to maintain it, to stay on what Lewis called “the same secret path.” Even strong friendships require watering or they shrivel up and blow away. That’s why George Bernard Shaw touched an exposed nerve in both of us when we read the words he scribbled to his friend Archibald Henderson: “I have neglected you shockingly of late. This is because I have had to neglect everything that could be neglected without immediate ruin, and partly because you have passed into the circle of intimate friends whose feelings one never dreams of considering.”
It’s so easy to take good friends for granted. And in a sense, we should. Like a comfortable pair of gloves, old friends wear well. But friendships that suffer from busyness and over familiarity can’t afford to) be neglected too long. They need renewal. And to suggest that there are techniques for maintaining authentic relationships would be to devalue the dignity friendship deserves. Such a meaningful relationship cannot be reduced to “easy steps.” Research has revealed, however, the qualities that keep true friendship alive and well. So we offer a list of the most important qualities for your contemplation. Like Shaw, you may neglect your intimate friends from time to time, but if you fail to cultivate these qualities—loyalty, forgiveness, honesty, and dedication—you can’t expect to keep true friends.
Loyalty
The quality that tops the list in survey after survey of what people appreciate most about their friends is loyalty. It seems nothing, but nothing, matters more than being true. Good friends keep their promises. They don’t tell your secrets to other people. And they don’t desert you, even when you are in trouble.
Harry Truman’s secretary of state, Dean Acheson, caused quite a stir when he visited his friend Alger Hiss in prison. Hiss was a convicted traitor, and it was bad politics to have any association with him. But when prudent politicians condemned Acheson publicly, Acheson simply said, “A friend does not forsake a friend just because he is in jail.” That’s loyalty.
The famous maxim that “a friend in need is a friend indeed” is not the entire story of loyalty, however, A friend in triumph may be even harder to find. Isn’t it easier to be a savior than a cheerleader for our friends? It takes twenty-four-karat loyalty for a friend to soar alongside us when we are flying high rather than to bring us down to earth. Loyal friends not only lend a hand when you’re in need; they applaud your successes and cheer you on without envy when you prosper.
Forgiveness
As important as loyalty is, our friendships don’t always have it. Enter forgiveness. Every friend you’ll ever have will eventually disappoint you. Count on it. That doesn’t mean that every offense of a friend requires forgiveness; some slights need only be overlooked and forgotten. Winston Churchill’s mother, Jennie, understood this when she said, “Treat your friends as you do your pictures, and place them in their best light.”
Too many good relationships fade because some slight—real or imagined—cancels it out. Some people pout, brood, or blow tip if their friend is not speedy enough in returning a phone call or if they are not included in a social event. They set such high standards for the relationship that they’re constantly being disappointed. They can’t let little things go; every minor lapse becomes a betrayal.
Real betrayal, the kind that leaves you hanging out to dry, is another matter altogether, and we’ll get to that in the next chapter. At issue here is the idea of overlooking and, yes, sometimes forgiving the occasional pain that comes with friendship.
By the way, forgiveness is a two-way street. Unless you are a saint, you are bound to offend—intentionally or unintentionally—every friend deeply at least once in the course of time, and if the relationship survives it will be because your friend forgives. The friends we keep the longest are the friends who forgave us the most. And the essence of true friendship is knowing what to overlook.
Honesty
“Les, you can be so focused on achieving a goal,” a friend of mine recently told me, “that you sometimes lose sight of other people’s opinions and feelings in the process.” Ouch. That stung. But Steve was right. We were having lunch at our favorite coffee shop when he lowered the boom. Actually, Steve was looking out for my best interest. He cares about me and didn’t want me to get into a sticky situation with the members of a committee I was chairing. And it’s a good thing. His honesty saved my neck.
True friends are like that. Honesty is a prerequisite to their relationship. “Genuine friendship cannot exist where one of the parties is unwilling to hear the truth,” says Cicero, “and the other is equally indisposed to speak it.” Does this require brutal honesty? Not exactly. It requires honesty that is carefully dealt in the context of respect. In the absence of respect, you see, honesty is a lethal weapon. Perhaps that’s what caused Cicero to add, “Remove respect from friendship and you have taken away the most splendid ornament it possesses.
Honesty is not only expressed in words; it means being authentic. I have known people who become fast friends because they have so much in common. Their work, their wardrobes, their tastes, their background are all in sync. They become like twins who can finish each other’s thoughts, not to mention sentences. But the relationship is not real. One or both of them is so eager to have a kindred spirit that they become someone they aren’t just to get along. And the relationship becomes what Emerson called “a mush of concession.”
True friends aren’t afraid to be honest and they aren’t afraid to be themselves. True friends follow Emerson’s advice: “Better be a nettle in the side of your friend than his echo.” Translation: If you are afraid of making enemies, you’ll never have true friends.
Dedication
It was 12:30 in the morning. We had just returned to our room after speaking to a group of students at a retreat center in the backwoods of Kentucky. A loud knocking broke the silence.
“Who could that he?” I wondered.
Leslie opened the door. “Monty Lobb!” she exclaimed. We couldn’t believe it. Our good college buddy living in Cincinnati had driven four hours—one way—and tracked us down without directions or an address.
“I knew I could find you,” he said with a big hear hug. “I heard you were near Wilmore, and I just had to see you.” He brought a boxed chocolate cake and a couple of plastic forks he’d picked up on his long drive. So we ate cake while we talked and laughed for about an hour and a half, Monty then had to leave. He was teaching Sunday school chit morning at his church hack in Cincinnati—another four hours on the road.
Few acts of friendship have spoken more loudly about personal dedication to us than what Monty did for our relationship. The bottom line? He made time. No, he sacrificed time to be with us. That’s the meaning dedication. It refers to the ability of two people to influence each other’s plans, thoughts, actions, and emotions.
Think about it. Back when you were a kid, the hours spent with friends were too numerous to count. Contemporary life, with its tight schedules and crowded appointment books, however, has forced most friendships into something requiring a good deal of intentionality and pursuit just to keep them going. Postcollege friendships require setting aside an evening during which to squeeze in all your news and advice, confession and opinion. This intimate compress of information occurs only through dedication.
Of course, dedication becomes most salient in times of crisis. When a friend’s emotional bottoming out, for example, means canceling a date to provide a shoulder of support. That’s what friends are for, So don’t complain about having fair-weather friends if you are unwilling to be inconvenienced.
Personal sacrifice. Selfless devotion. Commitment. These are the noble qualities dedication requires.
-Joseph Addison
I never would have imagined that a thirty-year friendship could begin in a church nursery between two toddlers. But it did. I was crawling in and out of Mrs. Kolskey’s lap and playing around her feet when a mysterious new girl appeared in the doorway. From old photos I know that her hair was pulled back into two ponytails falling in ringlets to her shoulders. But in that first encounter, all I noticed was her luminous pair of magenta Mary Janes—the perfect shoes—exactly like mine. My shoes, you must understand, were an all-time favorite birthday present.
So here we were, two girls in deep pink shoes squealing in delight at our commonality. I had found a kindred spirit. Laura was indeed to become the best friend of my childhood, my bunk partner at summer camp, my college roommate, and the maid-of-honor at my wedding. Today, though she lives in Chicago and I’m in Seattle, not a week goes by without a conversation, and not a significant life experience without her support. Laura is truly a friend to die for.
I couldn’t have known at age five, of course, how precious this kind of friendship is and how rarely I would find it in my life. But most people do, in fact, find a kindred spirit or two. In fact, only seven percent of people say they don’t have someone in their circle of friends who, at any given time, they can rely on as a best friend.’
Actually, what most people call their “circle of friends” more closely resembles a triangle. Many people have contact with between 500 and 2,500 acquaintances each year, representing the base of the triangle. Then there are the 20 to 100 “core friends” in the middle. These we know by first name, and we see them somewhat regularly. At the top of the triangle are one to seven intimate friends. These people are closely involved in our lives, and their names are likely engraved on our hearts.
This chapter stands as a tribute to friendship and is dedicated to helping you raise your current relationships to their highest pitch of enjoyment and to building a firm foundation for prospective friends in your future. If a friendship is not built on healthy principles, after all, it will not weather the inevitable storms of life—the times you really need a friend. We begin, then, with laying out just what friends are for and how we can cultivate the kinds of friendships that matter most. Next, we explore the ins and outs of how good friendships are made, and then we point to a half dozen qualities you’ll need to consider if your friendships are to survive and thrive.
WHAT FRIENDS ARE FOR
Short of torture, society’s worst punishment is solitary confinement. In the biblical creation story the Creator, having formed the first person, immediately declared our social character: “It is not good that man should be alone.” Most of us, most of the time, would rather be with anyone than be alone. And when we compare being with anyone to being with a good friend, there is no comparison. The reasons are endless. Seventeenth-century philosopher Francis Bacon noted two tremendously positive effects of friendship: “It redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in half.” How true. Friends make the ordinary—running errands or eating lunch, for example—extraordinarily fun. And good friends ease our pain and lighten our heavy load. Bacon had it right, they double our joy and cut our grief. They also strengthen us, nurture us, and help us grow. And without our knowing, they can even save our lives. Literally.
There’s exciting news about having a kindred spirit these days. Not only are friends good for the soul but for the body as well.3 Friends help us ward off depression, boost our immune system, lower our cholesterol, increase the odds of surviving with coronary disease, and keep stress hormones in check. A half-dozen top medical studies now bear this out. Their findings didn’t seem to be influenced by other conditions or habits such as obesity, smoking, drinking, or exercise. The thing that mattered most was friends. What’s more, research is showing that you can extend your life expectancy by having the right kinds of friends.
Which brings us to a central issue. What are the “right kinds” of friends? What makes a friend “good”? We all know fair-weather friends are no good. These are the people who walk with us in the sunshine, but they are gone when darkness falls. “Wealth brings many friends,” noted one wise observer of life, “but a poor man’s friends desert him.” Overly engaged and emotionally needy friends who don’t know the meaning of reciprocity are also a downer. They take and take while we give and give, but we never see a return on our investment. On the other end of the friendship continuum is the know-it-all friend who mothers and smothers with unwanted advice but never asks for our input. In short, friends cannot be your family, they can’t be your project, they can’t be your psychiatrist. But they can be your friends, which is plenty.
Aristotle distinguished three types of friendship: “friendship based on utility,” such as eager, upbeat people in business cultivating each other to improve their bottom line; “friendship based on pleasure,” like young people interested in partying; and “perfect friendship.” The first two categories Aristotle calls “qualified and superficial” because they are founded on flimsy circumstances. The last —which is based on admiration for another’s good character—is much more fulfilling, but also rare. After all, good friends “are few.”
The few good friends we enjoy generally come in one of two forms, both desirable and equally delightful. They are friends of the road and friends of the heart.
Friends of the Road
Dale was crazy. That’s why I liked him. He could always, I mean always make me laugh. Whether we were hanging out at the mall, playing pick-up basketball in a park, sitting in Sunday school, or giving serious speeches in Mr. Olson’s civics class, a mere glance from Dale could slay me. On more than one occasion I was sent out of the room because I couldn’t regain my composure. Dale and I had more in common than hij inks and humor, however. We had countless conversations at all hours of the day and night about everything from pop music to current events to the meaning of life. We also had soul-searching talks about our fears, our futures, our relationships. This was no lightweight relationship. We saw each other through the Sturm und Drang of adolescence. Like two war veterans, we helped each other survive. At journey’s end, however, the friendship faded. I haven’t seen Dale, my highschool confidant, since the day we graduated.
How does a once-bosom buddy wind up a distant memory? And is a friendship that fades away necessarily a bad thing? I don’t think so. There is a line in James Michener’s novel, Centennial, that speaks to how even good friendships can be fleeting: “He wished he could ride forever with these men ... hut it could not be. Trails end, and companies of men fall apart.”
Some friendships are meant to be transitory. Like cowboys who ride herd together for miles, sharing both dusty perils and round-the-campfire coffee, we all have friendships that come to their natural end. Not because of discontent or lack of interest. Simply because the road has run out. We’ve hit the end of the trail together and it’s time to move on to other things, other companies of men.
Understand, these are not failed friendships. Not at all. They are friendships of the road, equally intense, equally necessary, equally worth cultivating and treasuring as the
long-lasting versions. We couldn’t survive without them. They get us through a particular stretch of road, and for that we can be grateful. Sure, I regret not staying in touch with Dale (photos of him still crack me up) and other friends who have shared a portion of my path. I even fantasize about reviving or repairing some bygone relationships. But with most long-lost friends I know I’d have little in common now. Our bond lies in the past, irretrievable except for the memories.
The friends we meet along life’s road make the journey joyful. And they are just as fulfilling as friendships of the heart. Well, almost.
Friends of the Heart
Greg. Jim. Monty. Kevin. Mark. Rich. These names sketch out my life, some since childhood. Together, they could tell you more about me than both my brothers. They are my best friends. They are the pals who know my mood swings and my family history. They’ve watched me soar and seen me fail. Unlike friends of the road, these guys have stayed with me beyond trail’s end. No matter how many months or miles intervene, the friendships endure. Our cumulative years of shared biography preserve our connection, propelling us together on the same path. After years of tireless talks we now speak in shorthand.
None of these friends lives near me now, but we rendezvous at weddings and while passing through each other’s towns on business. We plan reunions on occasion, and a few of us have recently shared vacations. Sporadic phone calls, as well as e-mail and a few cards or letters here and there, bridge the connection between tong lapses. We don’t keep up on daily details, but these friends know my headlines and I know theirs. We count on each other and we share an irresistible impulse to keep going, together.
There’s nothing like a friend of the heart, long-lasting pals who know us sometimes better than we know ourselves. They bring such comfort to our lives. It’s nearly inexpressible. Dinah Mutock, however, describes it pretty well: “Oh the comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are—chaff and grain together—certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.
Of course, we don’t usually determine that a specific relationship will outlast the road. Some do, some don’t. That’s all, right? Not hardly. In ancient times, friends vowed to be friends forever, no matter what. Maybe you remember the biblical story of Jonathan and David and how they took an oath to be friends forever. “Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him.” From then on, when times turned treacherous and their relationship was tested in blood, they banked on one another.
Maybe it would help contemporary friendships stay together if we swore an oath at the beginning, but that’s not how most of us become friends. We are more likely to stumble into it by accident. We meet, look each other over, discover that we talk the same language, that we have common interests, and then ... fate takes over? Not if we genuinely care about the relationship. If we care, we commit. We don’t arrange a ceremony or make solemn vows. Most likely, the commitment gradually grows. We commit ourselves to each other, sometimes without even knowing it, in snippets over the long haul, until we find ourselves as committed friends. Looking back, we see we’ve made a thousand commitments, little ones, again and again, as we had occasion to make them. We never spoke a vow. We just grew into our commitment without thinking much about it. That’s the story of friendships of the heart.
With most friendships, new concerns and new faces gradually crowd out the old as we start a new journey. But not with committed friends. They don’t flicker and fade; they keep the light on. They are there for the duration and are as elemental to our being as blood to our heart.
Are friendships of the heart more important than our fleeting friends of the road? Not really. We need both. What matters is how a relationship sustains you right now. An achieved friendship—of any brand or bond—is among the best experiences life has to offer.
HOW WE FIND TRUE FRIENDS
Friendship is a long conversation. Indeed, the ability to generate good talk by the hour is the most promising indication, during the uncertain early stages, that a possible friendship will take hold.
The pressure to achieve “quality” communication, however, sometimes induces a sort of inauthentic epiphany for overeager friends-to-be (not unlike what sometimes happens with an eager-to-please patient in the last ten minutes of a psychotherapy session). In the first few conversations there may be an exaggeration of agreement, for example, as both parties attempt to connect (“You like sardines on your pizza?! Me too!”). And if authenticity does not enter in soon, the two parties form an uneasy kind of pseudo-friendship that creates more pretense than pleasure. Fortunately, even eager friends do not need to be caught and snagged by this subtle snare. With the proper techniques, they can break free of the pseudo-friendship and achieve true companionship.
The first important technique is to master the art of good talk. This requires just two simple tools. The first is a listening ear. Some people are especially skilled at opening others up. They readily elicit intimacy because they listen well. The late psychologist Carl Rogers called such people “growth-promoting” listeners: His years of research revealed that good listeners genuinely convey interest in understanding the other person, they accept the person’s feelings without interruption, and they empathize by trying to see the world from that person’s perspective. These are the skills ofa good listener: genuineness, acceptance, and empathy.
Just the other night, a woman charmed me (Leslie) at a dinner party when she wanted to know all about my work at Seattle Pacific University. At first I thought she was simply offering the standard issue question, “So, what do you do?” required upon first meetings. But she wasn’t. With her follow-up comments and questions, it became apparent that she wasn’t interested in uneasy small talk, she was interested in me (“Sounds like you really enjoy working with students. How’d you catch a vision for that?”). She genuinely wanted to enter my world and understand my feelings; first-rate listeners have a way of doing that. I could have talked to her all night. In fact, I did.
The second tool for creating friendly conversation is self-disclosure. Weighed and measured in appropriate amounts, self-disclosure is the primary ingredient for potential friendship. In fact, no decent friendship can be made without it. Here’s how self-disclosure works. You spill something a hit private and chances are something intimate will get spilled hack on you. Vulnerability begets vulnerability. Social scientists call it the “disclosure reciprocity effect.”’ Whatever you call it, however, beware: It’s risky. If I reveal a part of me, my excitement, my insecurity, whatever, I open myself up to potential rejection. You may not accept what I disclose. You may belittle it or brush it off. If you do) nothing less than reciprocate my vulnerability, I feel slighted. But if you do share my secret, if you identify with me, we’ve struck the cord of friendship and are no longer alone.
C. S. Lewis wrote about the process of self-disclosure and friendship in his classic hook The Four Loves: “The typical _expression of opening Friendship would be something like, ‘What? You too? I thought I was the only one’—it is then that Friendship is born.”
Knowing when and how to talk about yourself is as important a skill as listening. No one really gets close to the kind of person who’s so careful about her image she never reveals anything intimate. You’ve got to) open up, but not too wide. In other words, if you reveal too much you’ll overwhelm the other person. Nobody appreciates a babbler mouth who unloads unedited memories that could interest only a mother. And one more caution about self-disclosing: don’t replace it with gossip and think you’ll accomplish the same thing. Everyone warms to the person who) tells tales on him or herself. But there’s nothing more repellent than the person who’s constantly telling you some horrible secret about someone else.
HOW WE KEEP TRUE FRIENDS
It’s one thing to start a friendship, it’s quite another to maintain it, to stay on what Lewis called “the same secret path.” Even strong friendships require watering or they shrivel up and blow away. That’s why George Bernard Shaw touched an exposed nerve in both of us when we read the words he scribbled to his friend Archibald Henderson: “I have neglected you shockingly of late. This is because I have had to neglect everything that could be neglected without immediate ruin, and partly because you have passed into the circle of intimate friends whose feelings one never dreams of considering.”
It’s so easy to take good friends for granted. And in a sense, we should. Like a comfortable pair of gloves, old friends wear well. But friendships that suffer from busyness and over familiarity can’t afford to) be neglected too long. They need renewal. And to suggest that there are techniques for maintaining authentic relationships would be to devalue the dignity friendship deserves. Such a meaningful relationship cannot be reduced to “easy steps.” Research has revealed, however, the qualities that keep true friendship alive and well. So we offer a list of the most important qualities for your contemplation. Like Shaw, you may neglect your intimate friends from time to time, but if you fail to cultivate these qualities—loyalty, forgiveness, honesty, and dedication—you can’t expect to keep true friends.
Loyalty
The quality that tops the list in survey after survey of what people appreciate most about their friends is loyalty. It seems nothing, but nothing, matters more than being true. Good friends keep their promises. They don’t tell your secrets to other people. And they don’t desert you, even when you are in trouble.
Harry Truman’s secretary of state, Dean Acheson, caused quite a stir when he visited his friend Alger Hiss in prison. Hiss was a convicted traitor, and it was bad politics to have any association with him. But when prudent politicians condemned Acheson publicly, Acheson simply said, “A friend does not forsake a friend just because he is in jail.” That’s loyalty.
The famous maxim that “a friend in need is a friend indeed” is not the entire story of loyalty, however, A friend in triumph may be even harder to find. Isn’t it easier to be a savior than a cheerleader for our friends? It takes twenty-four-karat loyalty for a friend to soar alongside us when we are flying high rather than to bring us down to earth. Loyal friends not only lend a hand when you’re in need; they applaud your successes and cheer you on without envy when you prosper.
Forgiveness
As important as loyalty is, our friendships don’t always have it. Enter forgiveness. Every friend you’ll ever have will eventually disappoint you. Count on it. That doesn’t mean that every offense of a friend requires forgiveness; some slights need only be overlooked and forgotten. Winston Churchill’s mother, Jennie, understood this when she said, “Treat your friends as you do your pictures, and place them in their best light.”
Too many good relationships fade because some slight—real or imagined—cancels it out. Some people pout, brood, or blow tip if their friend is not speedy enough in returning a phone call or if they are not included in a social event. They set such high standards for the relationship that they’re constantly being disappointed. They can’t let little things go; every minor lapse becomes a betrayal.
Real betrayal, the kind that leaves you hanging out to dry, is another matter altogether, and we’ll get to that in the next chapter. At issue here is the idea of overlooking and, yes, sometimes forgiving the occasional pain that comes with friendship.
By the way, forgiveness is a two-way street. Unless you are a saint, you are bound to offend—intentionally or unintentionally—every friend deeply at least once in the course of time, and if the relationship survives it will be because your friend forgives. The friends we keep the longest are the friends who forgave us the most. And the essence of true friendship is knowing what to overlook.
Honesty
“Les, you can be so focused on achieving a goal,” a friend of mine recently told me, “that you sometimes lose sight of other people’s opinions and feelings in the process.” Ouch. That stung. But Steve was right. We were having lunch at our favorite coffee shop when he lowered the boom. Actually, Steve was looking out for my best interest. He cares about me and didn’t want me to get into a sticky situation with the members of a committee I was chairing. And it’s a good thing. His honesty saved my neck.
True friends are like that. Honesty is a prerequisite to their relationship. “Genuine friendship cannot exist where one of the parties is unwilling to hear the truth,” says Cicero, “and the other is equally indisposed to speak it.” Does this require brutal honesty? Not exactly. It requires honesty that is carefully dealt in the context of respect. In the absence of respect, you see, honesty is a lethal weapon. Perhaps that’s what caused Cicero to add, “Remove respect from friendship and you have taken away the most splendid ornament it possesses.
Honesty is not only expressed in words; it means being authentic. I have known people who become fast friends because they have so much in common. Their work, their wardrobes, their tastes, their background are all in sync. They become like twins who can finish each other’s thoughts, not to mention sentences. But the relationship is not real. One or both of them is so eager to have a kindred spirit that they become someone they aren’t just to get along. And the relationship becomes what Emerson called “a mush of concession.”
True friends aren’t afraid to be honest and they aren’t afraid to be themselves. True friends follow Emerson’s advice: “Better be a nettle in the side of your friend than his echo.” Translation: If you are afraid of making enemies, you’ll never have true friends.
Dedication
It was 12:30 in the morning. We had just returned to our room after speaking to a group of students at a retreat center in the backwoods of Kentucky. A loud knocking broke the silence.
“Who could that he?” I wondered.
Leslie opened the door. “Monty Lobb!” she exclaimed. We couldn’t believe it. Our good college buddy living in Cincinnati had driven four hours—one way—and tracked us down without directions or an address.
“I knew I could find you,” he said with a big hear hug. “I heard you were near Wilmore, and I just had to see you.” He brought a boxed chocolate cake and a couple of plastic forks he’d picked up on his long drive. So we ate cake while we talked and laughed for about an hour and a half, Monty then had to leave. He was teaching Sunday school chit morning at his church hack in Cincinnati—another four hours on the road.
Few acts of friendship have spoken more loudly about personal dedication to us than what Monty did for our relationship. The bottom line? He made time. No, he sacrificed time to be with us. That’s the meaning dedication. It refers to the ability of two people to influence each other’s plans, thoughts, actions, and emotions.
Think about it. Back when you were a kid, the hours spent with friends were too numerous to count. Contemporary life, with its tight schedules and crowded appointment books, however, has forced most friendships into something requiring a good deal of intentionality and pursuit just to keep them going. Postcollege friendships require setting aside an evening during which to squeeze in all your news and advice, confession and opinion. This intimate compress of information occurs only through dedication.
Of course, dedication becomes most salient in times of crisis. When a friend’s emotional bottoming out, for example, means canceling a date to provide a shoulder of support. That’s what friends are for, So don’t complain about having fair-weather friends if you are unwilling to be inconvenienced.
Personal sacrifice. Selfless devotion. Commitment. These are the noble qualities dedication requires.
Friday, October 06, 2006
PUSH for Life
A man was sleeping at night in his cabin when suddenly his room filled with light, and God appeared. The Lord told the man he had work for him to do, and showed him a large rock in front of his cabin.
The Lord explained that the man was to push against the rock with all his might. So, this the man did, day after day.
For many years he toiled from sun up to sun down, his shoulders set squarely against the cold, massive surface of the unmoving rock, pushing with all of his might. Each night the man returned to his cabin sore and worn out, feeling that his whole day had been spent in vain.
Since the man was showing discouragement, the Adversary (Satan) decided to enter the picture by placing thoughts into the weary mind: "You have been pushing against that rock for a long time, and it hasn't moved."
Thus, he gave the man the impression that the task was impossible and that he was a failure.
These thoughts discouraged and disheartened the man.
Satan said, "Why kill yourself over this? Just put in your time, giving just the minimum effort; and that will be good enough."
That's what the weary man planned to do, but decided to make it a matter of prayer and to take his troubled thoughts to the Lord.
"Lord," he said, “I have laboured long and hard in your service, putting all my strength to do that which you have asked. Yet, after all this time, I have not even budged that rock by half a millimetre. What is wrong? Why am I failing?”
The Lord responded compassionately, "My friend, when I asked you to serve Me and you accepted, I told you that your task was to push against the rock with all of your strength, which you have done.”
“Never once did I mention to you that I expected you to move it. Your task was to push. And now you come to Me with your strength spent, thinking that you have failed. But, is that really so?”
“Look at yourself. Your arms are strong and muscled, your back sinewy and brown; your hands are callused from constant pressure, your legs have become massive and hard.
Through opposition you have grown much, and your abilities now surpass that which you used to have .”
“True, you haven't moved the rock. But your calling was to be obedient and to push and to exercise your faith and trust in My wisdom. That you have done. Now I, my friend, will move the rock.”
At times, when we hear a word from God, we tend to use our own intellect to decipher what He wants, when usually what God wants is just a simple obedience and faith in Him.
By all means, exercise the faith that moves mountains, but know that it is still God who moves mountains.
When everything seems to go wrong ...
just P.U.S.H.!
When the job gets you down ...
just P.U.S.H.!
When people don't react the way you think they should ...
just P.U.S.H!
When your money is "gone" and the bills are due ...
just P.U.S.H!
When people just don't understand you ....
just P.U.S.H.
P = Pray
U = Until
S = Something
H = Happens
The Lord explained that the man was to push against the rock with all his might. So, this the man did, day after day.
For many years he toiled from sun up to sun down, his shoulders set squarely against the cold, massive surface of the unmoving rock, pushing with all of his might. Each night the man returned to his cabin sore and worn out, feeling that his whole day had been spent in vain.
Since the man was showing discouragement, the Adversary (Satan) decided to enter the picture by placing thoughts into the weary mind: "You have been pushing against that rock for a long time, and it hasn't moved."
Thus, he gave the man the impression that the task was impossible and that he was a failure.
These thoughts discouraged and disheartened the man.
Satan said, "Why kill yourself over this? Just put in your time, giving just the minimum effort; and that will be good enough."
That's what the weary man planned to do, but decided to make it a matter of prayer and to take his troubled thoughts to the Lord.
"Lord," he said, “I have laboured long and hard in your service, putting all my strength to do that which you have asked. Yet, after all this time, I have not even budged that rock by half a millimetre. What is wrong? Why am I failing?”
The Lord responded compassionately, "My friend, when I asked you to serve Me and you accepted, I told you that your task was to push against the rock with all of your strength, which you have done.”
“Never once did I mention to you that I expected you to move it. Your task was to push. And now you come to Me with your strength spent, thinking that you have failed. But, is that really so?”
“Look at yourself. Your arms are strong and muscled, your back sinewy and brown; your hands are callused from constant pressure, your legs have become massive and hard.
Through opposition you have grown much, and your abilities now surpass that which you used to have .”
“True, you haven't moved the rock. But your calling was to be obedient and to push and to exercise your faith and trust in My wisdom. That you have done. Now I, my friend, will move the rock.”
At times, when we hear a word from God, we tend to use our own intellect to decipher what He wants, when usually what God wants is just a simple obedience and faith in Him.
By all means, exercise the faith that moves mountains, but know that it is still God who moves mountains.
When everything seems to go wrong ...
just P.U.S.H.!
When the job gets you down ...
just P.U.S.H.!
When people don't react the way you think they should ...
just P.U.S.H!
When your money is "gone" and the bills are due ...
just P.U.S.H!
When people just don't understand you ....
just P.U.S.H.
P = Pray
U = Until
S = Something
H = Happens
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
A Mother’s Love - A Friend’s Empathy
Theresa briones is a tender, loving mother. She also has a stout left hook that she used to punch a lady in a coin laundry. Why’d she do it?
Some kids were making fun of Theresa’s daughter, Alicia.
Alicia is bald. Her knees are arthritic. Her nose is pinched. Her hips are creaky. Her hearing is bad. She has the stamina of a seventy-year-old. And she is only ten.
“Mom,” the kids taunted, “come and look at the monster!”
Alicia weighs only twenty-two pounds and is shorter than most preschoolers. She suffers from progeria—a genetic aging disease that strikes one child in eight million. The life expectancy of progeria victims is twenty years. There are only fifteen known cases of this disease in the world.
“She is not an alien. She is not a monster,” Theresa defended. “She is just like you and me.”
Mentally, Alicia is a bubbly, fun-loving third grader. She has a long list of friends. She watches television in a toddler-sized rocking chair. She plays with Barbie dolls and teases her younger brother.
Theresa has grown accustomed to the glances and questions. She is patient with the constant curiosity. Genuine inquiries she accepts. Insensitive slanders she does not.
The mother of the finger-pointing children came to investigate. “I see ‘it,’” she told the kids.
“My child is not an ‘it,’” Theresa stated. Then she decked the woman.
Who could blame her? Such is the nature of parental love. Mothers and fathers have a God-given ability to love their children regardless of imperfections. Not because the parents are blind. Just the opposite. They see vividly.
Theresa sees Alicia’s inability as clearly as anyone. But she also sees Alicia’s value.
So does God.
God sees us with the eyes of a Father. He sees our defects, errors, and blemishes. But he also sees our value.
Two chapters ago, I closed with this question: What did Jesus know that enabled him to do what he did?
Here’s part of the answer. He knew the value of people. He knew that each human being is a treasure. And because he did, people were not a source of stress, but a source of joy.
When Jesus lands on the shore of Bethsaida, he leaves the Sea of Galilee and steps into a sea of humanity. Keep in mind, he has crossed the sea to get away from the crowds. He needs to grieve. He longs to relax with his followers. He needs anything but another crowd of thousands to teach and heal.
But his love for people overcomes his need for rest.
When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.
He had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.
He welcomed them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who needed healing.
It is doubtful that anyone in the crowd thinks to ask Jesus how he is doing. There is no indication that anyone is concerned with how Jesus is feeling. No one has come to give; all have come to take.
In our house we call 5:00 p.m. the piranha hour. That’s the time of day when everyone wants a piece of Mom. Sara, the baby, is hungry. Andrea wants Mom to read her a book. Jenna wants help with her homework. And I—the ever-loving, ever-sensitive husband—want Denalyn to drop everything and talk to me about my day.
When is your piranha hour? When do people in your world demand much and offer little?
Every boss has had a day in which the requests outnumber the results. There’s not a businessperson alive who hasn’t groaned as an armada of assignments docks at his or her desk. For the teacher, the piranha hour often begins when the first student enters and ends when the last student leaves.
Piranha hours: parents have them, bosses endure them, secretaries dread them, teachers are besieged by them, and Jesus taught us how to live through them successfully.
When hands extended and voices demanded, Jesus responded with love. He did so because the code within him disarmed the alarm. The code is worth noting: “People are precious.”
I can hear somebody raising an objection at this point. “Yes, but it was easier for Jesus. He was God. He could do more than I can. After all, he was divine.”
True, Jesus was equally God and man. But don’t be too quick to dismiss what he did. Consider his loving response from another angle.
Consider that, along with his holy strength, he also had a holy awareness. There were no secrets on the mountain that day; Jesus knew the hearts of each person. He knew why they were there and what they would do.
Matthew writes that Jesus “healed their sick.” Not some of their sick. Not the righteous among the sick. Not the deserving among the sick. But “the sick.”
Surely, among the many thousands, there were a few people unworthy of good health.
The same divinity that gave Jesus the power to heal also gave him the power to perceive. I wonder if Jesus was tempted to say to the rapist, “Heal you? After what you’ve done?” Or to the child molester, “Why should I restore your health?” Or to the bigot, “Get out of here, buddy, and take your arrogance with you.”
And he could see not only their past, he could see their future.
Undoubtedly, there were those in the multitude who would use their newfound health to hurt others. Jesus released tongues that would someday curse. He gave sight to eyes that would lust. He healed hands that would kill.
Many of those he healed would never say “thank you,” but he healed them anyway. Most would be more concerned with being healthy than being holy, but he healed them anyway. Some of those who asked for bread today would cry for his blood a few months later, but he healed them anyway.
Jesus chose to do what you and I seldom, if ever, choose to do. He chose to give gifts to people, knowing full well that those gifts could be used for evil.
Don’t be too quick to attribute Jesus’ compassion to his divinity. Remember both sides. For each time Jesus healed, he had to overlook the future and the past.
Something, by the way, that he still does.
Have you noticed that God doesn’t ask you to prove that you will put your salary to good use?
Have you noticed that God doesn’t turn off your oxygen supply when you misuse his gifts?
Aren’t you glad that God doesn’t give you only that which you remember to thank him for? (Has it been a while since you thanked God for your spleen? Me, too. But I still have one.)
God’s goodness is spurred by his nature, not by our worthiness.
Someone asked an associate of mine, “What biblical precedent do we have to help the poor who have no desire to become Christians?”
My friend responded with one word: “God.”
God does it daily, for millions of people.
What did Jesus know that allowed him to do what he did? What internal code kept his calm from erupting into chaos? He knew the value of people.
Interestingly, the stress seen that day is not on Jesus’ face, but on the faces of the disciples.
“Send the crowds away,” they demand. Fair request. “After all,” they are saying, “you’ve taught them. You’ve healed them. You’ve accommodated them. And now they’re getting hungry. If we don’t send them away, they’ll want you to feed them, too!”
I wish I could have seen the expression on the disciples’ faces when they heard the Master’s response. “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”
I used to think that this was a rhetorical request. I used to think that Jesus knew the disciples couldn’t feed the crowd, but that he asked them anyway. I used to think that it was a “test” to teach them to rely on God for what they couldn’t do.
I don’t see it like that anymore.
I still think it was a test—not a test to show them what they couldn’t do, but a test to demonstrate what they could do. After all, they had just gone on tour achieving the impossible.
Jesus is asking them to do it again. “You give them something to eat.”
I wish I could tell you that the disciples did it. I wish I could say that they knew God wouldn’t ask them to do something he wouldn’t empower them to do, so they fed the crowd. I wish I could tell you that the disciples miraculously fed the five thousand men plus women and children.
But I can’t … because they didn’t.
Rather than look to God, they looked in their wallets. “That would take eight months of a man’s wages! Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?”
“Y-y-y-you’ve got to be kidding.”
“He can’t be serious.”
“It’s one of Jesus’ jokes.”
“Do you know how many people are out there?”
Eyes watermelon-wide. Jaws dangling open. One ear hearing the din of the crowd, the other the command of God.
Don’t miss the contrasting views. When Jesus saw the people, he saw an opportunity to love and affirm value. When the disciples saw the people, they saw thousands of problems.
Also, don’t miss the irony. In the midst of a bakery—in the presence of the Eternal Baker—they tell the “Bread of Life” that there is no bread.
How silly we must appear to God.
Here’s where Jesus should have given up. This is the point in the pressure-packed day where Jesus should have exploded. The sorrow, the life threats, the exuberance, the crowds, the interruptions, the demands, and now this. His own disciples can’t do what he asks them. In front of five thousand men, they let him down.
“Beam me up, Father,” should have been Jesus’ next words. But they weren’t. Instead he inquires, “How many loaves do you have?”
The disciples bring him a little boy’s lunch. A lunch pail becomes a banquet, and all are fed. No word of reprimand is given. No furrowed brow of anger is seen. No “I-told-you-so” speech is delivered. The same compassion Jesus extends to the crowd is extended to his friends.
Look at this day one more time. Review what our Lord faced.
Intense sorrow—the death of a dear friend and relative.
Immediate threat—his name is on the wanted poster.
Immeasurable joy—a homecoming with his followers.
Immense crowds—a Niagara of people followed him everywhere.
Insensitive interruptions—he sought rest and got people.
Incredible demands—crowds of thousands clamored for his touch.
Inept assistance—the one and only time he asked for help, he got a dozen “you’re-pulling-my-leg” expressions.
But the calm within Christ never erupted. The alarm never sounded. What did Jesus know that enabled him to do what he did? He knew the incredible value of people. As a result:
• He didn’t stamp his feet and demand his own way.
• He didn’t tell the disciples to find another beach where there were no people.
• He didn’t ask the crowds why they hadn’t brought their own food.
• He didn’t send the apostles back into the field for more training.
• Most important, he stayed calm in the midst of chaos. He even paused, in the midst of it all, to pray a prayer of thanks.
A boy went into a pet shop, looking for a puppy. The store owner showed him a litter in a box. The boy looked at the puppies. He picked each one up, examined it, and put it back into the box.
After several minutes, he walked back to the owner and said, “I picked one out. How much will it cost?”
The man gave him the price, and the boy promised to be back in a few days with the money.
“Don’t take too long,” the owner cautioned. “Puppies like these sell quickly.”
The boy turned and smiled knowingly, “I’m not worried,” he said. “Mine will still be here.”
The boy went to work—weeding, washing windows, cleaning yards. He worked hard and saved his money. When he had enough for the puppy, he returned to the store.
He walked up to the counter and laid down a pocketful of wadded bills. The store owner sorted and counted the cash. After verifying the amount, he smiled at the boy and said, “All right, son, you can go get your puppy.”
The boy reached into the back of the box, pulled out a skinny dog with a limp leg, and started to leave.
The owner stopped him.
“Don’t take that puppy,” he objected. “He’s crippled. He can’t play. He’ll never run with you. He can’t fetch. Get one of the healthy pups.”
“No thank you, sir,” the boy replied. “This is exactly the kind of dog I’ve been looking for.”
As the boy turned to leave, the store owner started to speak but remained silent. Suddenly he understood. For extending from the bottom of the boy’s trousers was a brace—a brace for his crippled leg.
Why did the boy want the dog? Because he knew how it felt. And he knew it was very special.
What did Jesus know that enabled him to do what he did? He knew how the people felt, and he knew that they were special.
I hope you never forget that.
Jesus knows how you feel. You’re under the gun at work? Jesus knows how you feel. You’ve got more to do than is humanly possible? So did he. You’ve got children who make a “piranha hour” out of your dinner hour? Jesus knows what that’s like. People take more from you than they give? Jesus understands. Your teenagers won’t listen? Your students won’t try? Your employees give you blank stares when you assign tasks? Believe me, friend, Jesus knows how you feel.
You are precious to him. So precious that he became like you so that you would come to him.
When you struggle, he listens. When you yearn, he responds. When you question, he hears. He has been there. You’ve heard that before, but you need to hear it again.
He loves you with the love of a Theresa Briones.
He understands you with the compassion of the crippled boy.
Like Theresa, he battles with hell itself to protect you.
And, like the boy, he paid a great price to take you home.
Some kids were making fun of Theresa’s daughter, Alicia.
Alicia is bald. Her knees are arthritic. Her nose is pinched. Her hips are creaky. Her hearing is bad. She has the stamina of a seventy-year-old. And she is only ten.
“Mom,” the kids taunted, “come and look at the monster!”
Alicia weighs only twenty-two pounds and is shorter than most preschoolers. She suffers from progeria—a genetic aging disease that strikes one child in eight million. The life expectancy of progeria victims is twenty years. There are only fifteen known cases of this disease in the world.
“She is not an alien. She is not a monster,” Theresa defended. “She is just like you and me.”
Mentally, Alicia is a bubbly, fun-loving third grader. She has a long list of friends. She watches television in a toddler-sized rocking chair. She plays with Barbie dolls and teases her younger brother.
Theresa has grown accustomed to the glances and questions. She is patient with the constant curiosity. Genuine inquiries she accepts. Insensitive slanders she does not.
The mother of the finger-pointing children came to investigate. “I see ‘it,’” she told the kids.
“My child is not an ‘it,’” Theresa stated. Then she decked the woman.
Who could blame her? Such is the nature of parental love. Mothers and fathers have a God-given ability to love their children regardless of imperfections. Not because the parents are blind. Just the opposite. They see vividly.
Theresa sees Alicia’s inability as clearly as anyone. But she also sees Alicia’s value.
So does God.
God sees us with the eyes of a Father. He sees our defects, errors, and blemishes. But he also sees our value.
Two chapters ago, I closed with this question: What did Jesus know that enabled him to do what he did?
Here’s part of the answer. He knew the value of people. He knew that each human being is a treasure. And because he did, people were not a source of stress, but a source of joy.
When Jesus lands on the shore of Bethsaida, he leaves the Sea of Galilee and steps into a sea of humanity. Keep in mind, he has crossed the sea to get away from the crowds. He needs to grieve. He longs to relax with his followers. He needs anything but another crowd of thousands to teach and heal.
But his love for people overcomes his need for rest.
When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.
He had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.
He welcomed them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who needed healing.
It is doubtful that anyone in the crowd thinks to ask Jesus how he is doing. There is no indication that anyone is concerned with how Jesus is feeling. No one has come to give; all have come to take.
In our house we call 5:00 p.m. the piranha hour. That’s the time of day when everyone wants a piece of Mom. Sara, the baby, is hungry. Andrea wants Mom to read her a book. Jenna wants help with her homework. And I—the ever-loving, ever-sensitive husband—want Denalyn to drop everything and talk to me about my day.
When is your piranha hour? When do people in your world demand much and offer little?
Every boss has had a day in which the requests outnumber the results. There’s not a businessperson alive who hasn’t groaned as an armada of assignments docks at his or her desk. For the teacher, the piranha hour often begins when the first student enters and ends when the last student leaves.
Piranha hours: parents have them, bosses endure them, secretaries dread them, teachers are besieged by them, and Jesus taught us how to live through them successfully.
When hands extended and voices demanded, Jesus responded with love. He did so because the code within him disarmed the alarm. The code is worth noting: “People are precious.”
I can hear somebody raising an objection at this point. “Yes, but it was easier for Jesus. He was God. He could do more than I can. After all, he was divine.”
True, Jesus was equally God and man. But don’t be too quick to dismiss what he did. Consider his loving response from another angle.
Consider that, along with his holy strength, he also had a holy awareness. There were no secrets on the mountain that day; Jesus knew the hearts of each person. He knew why they were there and what they would do.
Matthew writes that Jesus “healed their sick.” Not some of their sick. Not the righteous among the sick. Not the deserving among the sick. But “the sick.”
Surely, among the many thousands, there were a few people unworthy of good health.
The same divinity that gave Jesus the power to heal also gave him the power to perceive. I wonder if Jesus was tempted to say to the rapist, “Heal you? After what you’ve done?” Or to the child molester, “Why should I restore your health?” Or to the bigot, “Get out of here, buddy, and take your arrogance with you.”
And he could see not only their past, he could see their future.
Undoubtedly, there were those in the multitude who would use their newfound health to hurt others. Jesus released tongues that would someday curse. He gave sight to eyes that would lust. He healed hands that would kill.
Many of those he healed would never say “thank you,” but he healed them anyway. Most would be more concerned with being healthy than being holy, but he healed them anyway. Some of those who asked for bread today would cry for his blood a few months later, but he healed them anyway.
Jesus chose to do what you and I seldom, if ever, choose to do. He chose to give gifts to people, knowing full well that those gifts could be used for evil.
Don’t be too quick to attribute Jesus’ compassion to his divinity. Remember both sides. For each time Jesus healed, he had to overlook the future and the past.
Something, by the way, that he still does.
Have you noticed that God doesn’t ask you to prove that you will put your salary to good use?
Have you noticed that God doesn’t turn off your oxygen supply when you misuse his gifts?
Aren’t you glad that God doesn’t give you only that which you remember to thank him for? (Has it been a while since you thanked God for your spleen? Me, too. But I still have one.)
God’s goodness is spurred by his nature, not by our worthiness.
Someone asked an associate of mine, “What biblical precedent do we have to help the poor who have no desire to become Christians?”
My friend responded with one word: “God.”
God does it daily, for millions of people.
What did Jesus know that allowed him to do what he did? What internal code kept his calm from erupting into chaos? He knew the value of people.
Interestingly, the stress seen that day is not on Jesus’ face, but on the faces of the disciples.
“Send the crowds away,” they demand. Fair request. “After all,” they are saying, “you’ve taught them. You’ve healed them. You’ve accommodated them. And now they’re getting hungry. If we don’t send them away, they’ll want you to feed them, too!”
I wish I could have seen the expression on the disciples’ faces when they heard the Master’s response. “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”
I used to think that this was a rhetorical request. I used to think that Jesus knew the disciples couldn’t feed the crowd, but that he asked them anyway. I used to think that it was a “test” to teach them to rely on God for what they couldn’t do.
I don’t see it like that anymore.
I still think it was a test—not a test to show them what they couldn’t do, but a test to demonstrate what they could do. After all, they had just gone on tour achieving the impossible.
Jesus is asking them to do it again. “You give them something to eat.”
I wish I could tell you that the disciples did it. I wish I could say that they knew God wouldn’t ask them to do something he wouldn’t empower them to do, so they fed the crowd. I wish I could tell you that the disciples miraculously fed the five thousand men plus women and children.
But I can’t … because they didn’t.
Rather than look to God, they looked in their wallets. “That would take eight months of a man’s wages! Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?”
“Y-y-y-you’ve got to be kidding.”
“He can’t be serious.”
“It’s one of Jesus’ jokes.”
“Do you know how many people are out there?”
Eyes watermelon-wide. Jaws dangling open. One ear hearing the din of the crowd, the other the command of God.
Don’t miss the contrasting views. When Jesus saw the people, he saw an opportunity to love and affirm value. When the disciples saw the people, they saw thousands of problems.
Also, don’t miss the irony. In the midst of a bakery—in the presence of the Eternal Baker—they tell the “Bread of Life” that there is no bread.
How silly we must appear to God.
Here’s where Jesus should have given up. This is the point in the pressure-packed day where Jesus should have exploded. The sorrow, the life threats, the exuberance, the crowds, the interruptions, the demands, and now this. His own disciples can’t do what he asks them. In front of five thousand men, they let him down.
“Beam me up, Father,” should have been Jesus’ next words. But they weren’t. Instead he inquires, “How many loaves do you have?”
The disciples bring him a little boy’s lunch. A lunch pail becomes a banquet, and all are fed. No word of reprimand is given. No furrowed brow of anger is seen. No “I-told-you-so” speech is delivered. The same compassion Jesus extends to the crowd is extended to his friends.
Look at this day one more time. Review what our Lord faced.
Intense sorrow—the death of a dear friend and relative.
Immediate threat—his name is on the wanted poster.
Immeasurable joy—a homecoming with his followers.
Immense crowds—a Niagara of people followed him everywhere.
Insensitive interruptions—he sought rest and got people.
Incredible demands—crowds of thousands clamored for his touch.
Inept assistance—the one and only time he asked for help, he got a dozen “you’re-pulling-my-leg” expressions.
But the calm within Christ never erupted. The alarm never sounded. What did Jesus know that enabled him to do what he did? He knew the incredible value of people. As a result:
• He didn’t stamp his feet and demand his own way.
• He didn’t tell the disciples to find another beach where there were no people.
• He didn’t ask the crowds why they hadn’t brought their own food.
• He didn’t send the apostles back into the field for more training.
• Most important, he stayed calm in the midst of chaos. He even paused, in the midst of it all, to pray a prayer of thanks.
A boy went into a pet shop, looking for a puppy. The store owner showed him a litter in a box. The boy looked at the puppies. He picked each one up, examined it, and put it back into the box.
After several minutes, he walked back to the owner and said, “I picked one out. How much will it cost?”
The man gave him the price, and the boy promised to be back in a few days with the money.
“Don’t take too long,” the owner cautioned. “Puppies like these sell quickly.”
The boy turned and smiled knowingly, “I’m not worried,” he said. “Mine will still be here.”
The boy went to work—weeding, washing windows, cleaning yards. He worked hard and saved his money. When he had enough for the puppy, he returned to the store.
He walked up to the counter and laid down a pocketful of wadded bills. The store owner sorted and counted the cash. After verifying the amount, he smiled at the boy and said, “All right, son, you can go get your puppy.”
The boy reached into the back of the box, pulled out a skinny dog with a limp leg, and started to leave.
The owner stopped him.
“Don’t take that puppy,” he objected. “He’s crippled. He can’t play. He’ll never run with you. He can’t fetch. Get one of the healthy pups.”
“No thank you, sir,” the boy replied. “This is exactly the kind of dog I’ve been looking for.”
As the boy turned to leave, the store owner started to speak but remained silent. Suddenly he understood. For extending from the bottom of the boy’s trousers was a brace—a brace for his crippled leg.
Why did the boy want the dog? Because he knew how it felt. And he knew it was very special.
What did Jesus know that enabled him to do what he did? He knew how the people felt, and he knew that they were special.
I hope you never forget that.
Jesus knows how you feel. You’re under the gun at work? Jesus knows how you feel. You’ve got more to do than is humanly possible? So did he. You’ve got children who make a “piranha hour” out of your dinner hour? Jesus knows what that’s like. People take more from you than they give? Jesus understands. Your teenagers won’t listen? Your students won’t try? Your employees give you blank stares when you assign tasks? Believe me, friend, Jesus knows how you feel.
You are precious to him. So precious that he became like you so that you would come to him.
When you struggle, he listens. When you yearn, he responds. When you question, he hears. He has been there. You’ve heard that before, but you need to hear it again.
He loves you with the love of a Theresa Briones.
He understands you with the compassion of the crippled boy.
Like Theresa, he battles with hell itself to protect you.
And, like the boy, he paid a great price to take you home.
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