The Top 10 Things I learned In My First 30 Years Of Life: #5 - 1
5. Build bridges; don’t burn them
This is the one where I ask myself, “Am I even qualified to share this?” So, if you would like, you can put an asterisk next to this one as a “do what he says, not as he does!” I have improved over the years, but I can hold grudges against others with the best of them. It’s easy to show love to others when we get along, but showing kindness in the face of offense is a whole different battleground. Relationships are tricky things, and you won’t always get it right, but do your best and trust God for the rest.
One of my friends and mentors shared with me once three things that are a must for a healthy marriage, but I find them healthy for any relationship with people.
-Forgive quickly – It’s not about learning to care less; it's about learning what to care less about. People, at the end of the day, are far, far more valuable than anything on earth. Show them grace and patience just like Jesus shows you grace and patience every day
-Ask forgiveness quickly – Dude. This is the hard one. This takes so much humility and Christlikeness. When you offend or hurt someone, it’s easy to know it. My advice is to deal with it quickly. Humble yourself in both the eyes of man and of God. Don’t let the sun go down on anger, and don’t let your pride destroy a relationship. Lots of times, we like to ask forgiveness from others, hoping or expecting them to do the same. That is not love, that is manipulation and selfishness. Ingredients that are sure to destroy any relationship you care about. Don’t wait, don’t settle, go to them right now.
-Encourage often – To some, this comes naturally, and to others, not so much. But guess what? It is commanded in Scripture. So, if you aren’t good at it, then get busy getting good at it. Open communication is the key to any successful relationship. Build others up. Don’t wait until their dead to tell them how you feel about them while they are living. Be sweet. Be kind. Be honest in a gentle way. People should know exactly how you feel about them, good or bad, and in a way that is 100% truthful and 100% gracious. John Wooden was, I believe, the greatest coach of all time for the UCLA men’s basketball team. He would always say, “Consider the rights of others before your own feelings and the feelings of others before your own rights.”
Life is hard and will be hard for all of us. We will all have extremely bad days. Instead of reacting in anger and hate towards your fellow man, dare to remember that God sent Jesus to build a bridge between God and man when man deserved nothing but hell. What genuine, sincere, and undeserved love. If we are going to leave an impact and legacy in our lives, we must get in the habit of building bridges, not burning them.
4. Keep your eyes up and your head down
Proverbs 16:32 says, “Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.”
My best friends would tell you that I might have more passion than most people they have met in life. I feel deeply about many things, and that becomes evident the more you get to know me. Passion sounds fine and dandy until it doesn’t. Passion becomes a huge problem when we are led in life by it. Our emotions control us to the point where we do and say things that should never have been said or done.
One of my favorite movies is Braveheart. It is not ironic that I, being a passionate man, love a movie with a man who has an incredible passion for what he believes in. At the beginning of the movie, William Wallace loses the only family he has ever known. His brother and his father have been killed by the English tyrants. Williams's uncle comes to help bury his father and give a home to young William. During the night, after his father and brother have been buried, William has a sword in his hand. His uncle takes it from him and says, “First, learn to use this (pointing to his head), and then I’ll teach you to use this (holding up the sword).”
In other words, young William might have had all of the purest motives in the world to stand up and fight against evil and wrong, but to do so at that time in his life would have been foolish. He wouldn’t have lasted very long. There were lessons he needed to learn before he would be ready to fight. The uncle wanted to teach his nephew that passion is a gift, but only when it is controlled by what we know is true. It is best used as a compliment not the leader.
Proverbs 19:2 says, “Desire without knowledge is not good, and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way.”
Keeping your eyes up and your head down may seem contradictory. Like, I’m supposed to stay alert while minding my own business? Exactly. It is all about balance in life. Knowing when to wait and when to act. When to listen and when to speak. Learning to control your passion by pacing yourself. It is self-control. Having the ability and power to say no to yourself, to your flesh and impulsive desires. But also know when to say yes, which usually comes after we learn how to say no.
An experienced marathon runner does not let the excitement and giddy energy of the race before him control how fast he should start. Rather, he understands and knows that regardless of the energy and passion, he must pace himself so that he is sure not to burn out too quickly. When he reaches the 20th mile, it is then that the passion can be most helpful and perfectly timed. Now he is tired and beaten down, thinking he has nothing left. Now, he must dig into his heart and fight like there is no tomorrow. He now knows that the appropriate time has come to engage fully in his passion.
Passion. Strong emotion. Deep desire. Those are gifts. But they make a horrible engine and an incredible caboose. Don’t let it lead you, let it help you at just the right time.
3. Life change happens through relationships
I would say I am old and experienced enough to make some observations about what I have seen in life about change. I am not saying it’s impossible, but I would argue that way too many people believe that life change happens through mountaintop experiences. We go to camps, conferences, and other massive venues so we can “feel” closer to God and enjoy all of the emotional highs that come with it.
But the problem is that those emotional highs might serve us well on Saturday night, but have you ever noticed how it fails you on Sunday morning? I have seen young people on Saturday night, singing with their hands raised as high as they could go, and that is great, but on Sunday morning, they decided to sleep in instead of going early to church to set up chairs. They decided to watch football instead of going to youth groups. Now, this is not a guilt trip, and we serve a gracious God Who, thankfully, doesn’t keep score. But my point is that we tend as people to worship God on top of the mountains but seem to lose our way in the valleys.
Most of life will not be a mountain top experience. Most of life will be a day-to-day grind. Wake up and do the same thing over again and again and again. If we as people rely on those few and far between mountaintops to help change our lives, we will be sorely disappointed and utterly exhausted. Jesus did not show up to earth for a day and have a massive conference. No, He came to earth, and He walked with people. He shared His life with them. He asked questions and dug into the issues of their lives and hearts. He cared about them. He laughed with them. Processed things about their days with them. What happened as a result? 2000 years later, we are still talking about Him! There is nothing wrong with camps and conferences; they are indeed a special gift and a memorable time. But I believe that life change happens through relationships. Intentionally investing in the lives of people around you. By asking them questions and good questions at that. If you don’t know how to ask good questions, then go to the library and get books that are full of them. Become a master at digging into people’s hearts. Go out of your way to do life with them. Invite them to your Super Bowl party. Play basketball with them. Learn their favorite movie and watch it with them. Pray for their greatest needs in life.
When this is practiced consistently over time, people will not be exhausted; they will be changed…forever. Life change happens through relationships. Listen. Learn. Love. Lead.
2. Keep your heart on your sleeve
Steve Irwin said once, “Crocodiles are easy. They try to kill and eat you. People are harder. Sometimes, they pretend to be your friend first."
A friend told me a story once about a father and his son. The dad was always very cold and closed off. He rarely smiled, rarely shared his feelings, and never went out of his way to listen or bless the life of another. In reaction, his son vowed to be different than that. He decided he was going to be warm and open towards people. Always smiling and creating conversation. Asking about how your day was or being honest when others asked him the same thing. He was always willing to help a neighbor and make a friend.
If you know anything about loving others, it is risky. Dangerous at times. You will most definitely get hurt or be hurt by others who betray you, gossip about you, or say things that just aren’t true. This happened to the father’s son multiple times, and when it did happen, it hurt deeply each time. Finally, the father remarked, “If you keep putting your heart on your sleeve, it will keep getting broken!” To which the son replied, “dad, I wear my heart on my sleeve so others can touch it.”
C.S. Lewis says that “love is vulnerable.” It wears its heart on its sleeve so the people around you can feel it, see it, touch it, and bless it. If you don’t want to love others, then hide it, as Lewis puts “deep inside the casket of your own selfishness.” But if you want to experience some of the greatest fulfillment in life, I urge you to continually give your heart to others. Inspire them, love them. To conclude this point, allow me to share one of my favorite poems by Mother Teresa, who knew a thing or two about loving others.
“People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and sincere, people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.
What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.
Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.
In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.”
Keep your heart on your sleeve so other people can touch it. You will get hurt, but if you did it for the right reasons, nothing can ever stop you.
1. In Christ alone
Guess what? I didn’t put this one as my number one because my mother and father would have been disappointed with me if I didn’t. I didn’t make it my greatest lesson because I thought it would be a nice way to honor people who invested in me the last 30 years of my life. I put it as number one because it is truly in my heart of hearts what I believe, what I own as the truth.
Many of you might be fooling the people around you. You can act one way in public and another way in private. You can sing about Jesus on Sundays and act like you’ve never known Him on Mondays. Honestly, if you are living that form of behavior, I would say that it is extremely cowardly and incredibly dangerous. Not only are you forming your life to please the people around you, but your very soul could be in danger of hell, and you don’t even know it.
John Piper, one of my favorite writers and speakers, was quoted as saying,
“Those who are careless about their sin because they are ‘saved by grace’ probably aren’t saved. There may be a season of backsliding, but a person who uses grace as a license has not been born from above.”
My challenge to you, the reader, would be this: take ownership of what you believe and hold to it. It would be better if you denied the gospel and called Jesus a fake than to continue pretending that you know Him and giving followers of Christ a hypocritical name. I would never hold that against you. I would respect you for your integrity and honesty. I would show nothing but kindness and love towards you. But living a double life to make the people around you happy is not living; it's bowing down to the opinions and acceptance of people. A prison in and of itself.
To those who have claimed Christ, this life is a fight, and the Bible tells us we will endure persecution and hardship.
Matthew 10:22 says, “and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.”
II Timothy 3:12 says, “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted…”
It is not for the faint of heart. Yes, it is hard and always seems unfair, but your life is a “vapor” (James 4:14), and we will not be here much longer. Press on! Take ownership of what you believe. Serve the Lord on the good days and bad. And know this, that eternity with Jesus Christ awaits us and if “God is for us, who can be against us?”
The last and greatest lesson I have learned in my first 30 years of life is this…Jesus Christ is “the way, the truth, and the life…” He is the only thing that can truly fill and satisfy my heart. He is the only one Who can bring true joy and satisfaction. I believe that with all my heart; therefore since that is what I believe, I must act upon which I stand…in Christ alone!
P.s. I thought I was going to be stranded in the airport and all alone but God answered prayers...and some how, some way...I made it home safely...
press on, brothers and sisters...we have not arrived at our real HOME yet!
