A Different Perspective Official Podcast

Okay – so the going gets tough. The storm hits. Now What.  Let's meet a woman who's been there, done that – and see what we can learn from her.  This woman's name? Hannah.
We're going to meet someone today who was dealt a cruel blow in her life. She was a beautiful young woman called Hannah who, to the taunts of those around her, remained childless for many years. And yet in the midst of this most painful storm of her life she discovered a peace, a peace that surpassed all understanding. It doesn't matter who we are or where we're at in life, storms are going to come along and hit us when we least expect them. We can't change that but what we do in the middle of that storm, well it makes such a huge difference.
And that's why I'd love to have the opportunity to spend just the next few minutes sharing in Hannah's journey 'cause I have this hunch that there are just a few of us that need that encouragement today. Is that a reasonable thing to do? Maybe there's no storm in your life at the moment, maybe there's clear blue sky, well that's fabulous but what we discover together in these next few moments might just be something that you can tuck away in your heart and pull out the next time those storm clouds start brewing.
If you've got a Bible grab it because we're going to have a bit of a look at the book of 1 Samuel, the first few chapters, over these coming days and weeks. We're going to discover a truth that we kind of know, that we should know and yet it kind of gets lost in the world that we live in. It's a 'me' centred world, we keep on going to God and asking for these things for me, me, me.
You know, I sometimes think that we're trying to turn Him into a performing poodle. "You know, God do tricks on my command, when I say 'now, jump', when I say 'now', deliver this". You think there's a risk to that? I think there is, in a very "me" centred world. It may seem harsh but you turn God the wrong way round and you get 'dog', right? Am I expecting God to dance to my tune or am I dancing to His tune? Good question, it's what we're going to explore in this story and it begins with a storm.
A woman called Hannah, it turns out she's going through some really rough times but she, she has the Creator/creature relationship the right way up. This is what the story says in the book of 1 Samuel:
There was a certain man from Ramathaim, a Zuphite from the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Elkanah the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph who's an Ephramite. He had two wives; one was called Hannah, the other one Peninnah and Peninnah had children but Hannah didn't. Year after year this man went up from his town to worship and sacrifice to the Lord Almighty at Shiloh, where Hophni and Phinehas, the two sons of Eli, were the priests of the Lord.
Whenever the day came for Elkannah to go and sacrifice he would give portions of the meat to his wife Peninnah and to all her sons and daughters but to Hannah, he gave a double portion because he loved her and the Lord had closed her womb and because the Lord had closed her womb, her rival kept provoking her to irritate her. This went on year after year, whenever Hannah went up to the house of the Lord, her rival provoked her until she wept and would not eat. Elkanah her husband would say to her, "Hannah, why are you weeping? Why don't you eat? Why are you downhearted? Don't I mean more to you than ten sons?"
Pretty rough wasn't it? It's a real storm, anybody who's been through that pain of not being able to have children. Imagine somebody else who has kids, your husbands other wife, taunting you like that, absolutely brutal and Hannah has lots of choices. She could have lashed out, she could have been angry, she could have withdrawn, she could have given up and her husbands pretty useless, typical bloke. He says:
Hannah, why are you crying? Why don't you eat? Why are you downhearted? Don't I mean more to you than ten sons?
Like, well you've got me, everything is okay. Hannah is going through the incredible pain of not being able to have children. She's one of two wives, something you saw in early civilisation even in the Bible. Really pleased that's something that's gone away. Can you imagine the rivalry and this ongoing white hot skewer in that relationship?
So what does Hannah do? As I said, she had a whole bunch of choices; to retaliate, to act up badly, to give up, to curl up in the corner and give up on life and die. To spend a life complaining, let the bitterness consume her, what does she do in her perfect storm? Here's the story:
Once they'd finished eating and drinking at Shiloh, Hannah stood up. Now Eli the priest was sitting on a chair by the doorpost of the Lords temple. In the bitterness of her soul Hannah wept much and prayed to the Lord." (Look at it, a sad picture) "And she made a vow saying, "O Lord Almighty, if you would only look upon your servants misery and remember me and do not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the Lord for all the days of his life and no razor will ever be used on his head."
And as she kept praying to the Lord, Eli the priest observed her mouth, Hannah was praying in her heart but her lips were moving but her voice wasn't heard and Eli thought she was drunk and said to her, "How long will you keep on getting drunk? Get rid of your wine." "Not so my lord" Hannah replied, "I'm a woman who is deeply troubled. I've not been drinking wine or beer. I was pouring out my soul to the Lord. Don't take your servant for a wicked woman, I've been praying here out of my great anguish and grief." And Eli answers, "Well go in peace and may God of Israel grant you what you've asked of Him." She said, "May your servant find favour in your eyes." Then she went away, she ate something and her face was no longer downcast.
See it turns out, she does have a son, calls him Samuel, gives him over to God as soon as he was weaned and Samuel comes and serves as a priest, in this temple, under Eli, whom we discover later is a really bad dude. He's the priest, he's supposed to be the "go between" between God and His people and yet, he and his sons have no respect whatsoever for God. We'll look at them another time.
Now, notice she doesn't lash out or whine or complain, she humbles herself before God and asks her Sovereign God, pours her heart out to Him in her grief and Eli, this scoundrel, with about as much spiritual insight as my pet cat, thinks she's drunk and gives her platitudes and yet here's this simple woman, at the bottom of the heap, pouring her heart out to God and notice what it says after she does that, verse 18 chapter 1:
Then she went her way and ate something and her face was no longer downcast.
See, Hannah's feet were on solid ground. Even before her prayer is answered, this seemingly impossible prayer. You know what this tells me, she trusted God. No matter what His answer would be, she trusted her God. She let it go, she stopped worrying and God answered her prayer.
Some things sound too simple. It sounds too easy to go to God and pour your heart out and hand it over to Him. It seems that it could never possibly make a difference but pouring our hearts out to God is like a first step of putting our feet on solid ground. In fact, sometimes it's the only step we have.
Now you might say to me, "Berni no, it's too simple. In any case what difference could it make? God already knows my problem". And I'd say this to you; this is something that, over the years, I've known and so often forgotten to do. Not 'til I hit rock bottom sometimes do I remember and every time I do it you know what happens? He puts my feet on solid ground – He just does!

When you're caught in a small boat on a stormy ocean – what you discover is how much you love good old terra firma. The more firma, the les terra, right? So how do you get some solid ground beneath your feet?
I am really excited to be starting a new series this week on the program that I've called, "On Solid Ground". Now I have to tell you I am definitely a land lover, I like to have terra firma under my feet. In particular, I don't like being out on the water on the ocean, in fact, the more firmer the less terror if you get my drift. I have this basic theory that, if God had meant us to be out on the ocean he would have given us gills or at the very least, steering wheels and rudders right? And for me, there's nothing more terrifying than being out on a stormy ocean.
I'd much rather be standing on solid ground looking out at the stormy ocean than being out there on it and yet, it seems that in life we do travel through stormy oceans and we do have to live through those storms. That's one of the central dilemmas of life, surviving those storms. In fact not just surviving them but learning to ride through them with a peace and a confidence because, well they happen; it's just the way things are. What we really want is we want solid ground under our feet but it's not always possible, or is it?
That's the dilemma, dealing with the storms of life. I remember when I was a young boy; I sailed in a ship from Australia to Europe. It was a four week trip each way through the Suez Canal and it was such a long way. I was only four or five years old and along the way, I remember to this day, we had some HUGE storms and this great ocean liner rolled around like you can't believe, there were ropes in the corridors to hand on to. I've never forgotten those storms, I was so sea sick and I was very, very afraid.
Even though we were such a big ship and you'd go up on the deck and you'd look out the port hole or if you dared, go out onto the deck and these massive waves, they were like, they were like buildings, would come towards the ship and just toss it around, it was pitching around in this fearsome ocean and for me there's nothing as frightening as that angry sea and the violent storm and the ground, as it were, is moving under your feet.
Now for some people, life seems to be a constant storm, the ground underneath their feet is never solid. There's always some fear and uncertainty and they never quite figure it out and many of these people even believe in God and yet life seems to be this endless storm. Question is, how do I get some solid ground under my feet? Well that's what we're going to be exploring in this series that I've called On Solid Ground, starting right here and now.
Now today, we're just going to head out on the ocean with some fishermen and take a look at what it was like for them. These fishermen were disciples, they were followers of Jesus. Remember, they're seasoned fishermen, they'd been doing this all their lives, let's have a look at how they handled the storm. Luke chapter 8, beginning at verse 22:
One day Jesus says to His disciples, "Let's go over to the other side of the lake." So they get in the boat and set out. As they sailed Jesus falls asleep and this squall comes down on the lake so that the boat was being swamped and they were in great danger and the disciples went to Him and woke Him and said, "Master, Master, we're going to drown." He got up, He rebuked the wind and the raging waters and the storm subsided and all was calm. "Where's your faith?" He asked the disciples. In fear and amazement they asked one another "Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water and they obey Him.
Now these fishermen, they were afraid because they knew the terrible consequences of the storm swamping their boat. Now it may sound a bit silly but, well they wouldn't have had to worry about they consequences if they were fish, if they'd had gills and fins because it's not dangerous for a fish to fall into the ocean or in this case, the lake. The people, they're fishermen, well it's a whole different story, we fall into a stormy sea and we end up drowning and that's what their fear was all about, that's why they panicked. And when we're in the middle of a storm, that's what our fear is all about. It's the fear of being swamped, it's the fear of losing our grip, it's the fear of drowning.
I never cease to be amazed in life, the different circumstances this world, this life on this planet seems to be able to conjure up and hurl at me in the form of a storm. The tensions, the oppositions, the challenges and sometimes they come so rapidly, one after the other that no matter how strong or resilient we are, it feels like we're being swamped.
And here's the bottom line for you and me, just as with those fishermen, we're made to live on solid ground, not in the ocean. We're not made to live out on that stormy ocean in fear of drowning 24x7, even though that's sometimes where we find ourselves at in life. We're not made to be swamped by the ocean, we're made for terra firma, we're made to be on solid ground, would you agree?
Whether you're a fisherman or a land lover like me, whether you're a thrill seeker or someone who prefers a quieter life, none of us is made for the constant battering by storms out there on angry oceans and yet sometimes we can't avoid them. Sometimes, like those fishermen, we just have to be out there on that sea and the storm hits and there ain't a thing that we can do about it.
At the end of the day we're land lovers, the lot of us but we need to know how to ride that storm. I've seen people where storms seem to go on half a lifetime, others have precious few but as resilient as a character I am, I have had to learn how to ride a storm with confidence, are you with me, otherwise you end up drowning? Read that passage again:
One day Jesus says to His disciples, "Let's go over to the other side of the lake." So they get in the boat, they sail, He falls asleep, a squall comes down and hits them so that the boat is being swamped and they're in danger and the disciples went and woke Him and said, "Master, Master, we're going to drown." He gets up, He rebukes the wind, the raging waters, the storm subsides, all is calm and He goes, "Well, where's your faith?" In fear and amazement they ask one another, "Who is this? How can He command even the winds and the water and they obey Him?"
See, to them it was startling and surprising. It's not a myth, this is historical fact. It's easy to write this off as some fable but it's never meant to be that. With all my heart I believe it's an historical record and these fishermen go, "This is amazing". It's something completely new; they'd never seen it before. Now they learned some things about God that day, in fact they learned 3 things.
They discovered that God was in the boat with them. That He had both the will and the means of doing the impossible, of calming the storm and saving them from it. And thirdly almost the most incongruous thing of all, they discovered that safely riding out the storm was a matter of faith.
This week and next week on the program, we're going to meet some people who learned that in their lives. See, you just can't memorise those three dot points and go, "I'm ready, bring on the storms, I can do this" because you don't learn this sipping pina colada's by the pool. You don't learn this by memorising three dot points.
You have to learn this only one way; the hard way. By getting in the boat and being hit by the storm and exercising your faith. So that's why, over these next couple of weeks on the program, we're going to learn what this means in our lives. It's riveting stuff so make sure you join me each and every day.

Each of us has a destiny out there somewhere. But some people are too afraid to follow it because they compare themselves with other beautiful, talented people and come to the conclusion that they could never be as successful as them. Those people have, what I call, Ugly Duckling Syndrome.
Well here we are at the end of the week again and in fact at the end of a series of twenty programs over the last four weeks that together have made up the series that I've called Discover Your Destiny. I hope you've been able to join me on that journey over these last few weeks but if you missed any of the programs you can listen to them again online at our website www.christianityworks.com.
Now one of the reasons, one of the many reasons that people don't step out into their destiny, that yearning, that dream, that thing deep down that they know that they were made to be and to do, is that they compare themselves to other people.
Well we all do that, we all look at these talented and gifted people around us and somehow we convince ourselves that we could never be as good as them, we can never do what they can do, we can never live out our dream, our destiny. You know what I call that, I call it ugly duckling syndrome.
Hans Christian Anderson's powerful story 'The Ugly Duckling' is a literary classic. Not so much because of the way it was written, my hunch is that the piece loses some of its poetry and its lilt at having been translated into English. No the power of 'The Ugly Duckling', the thing that made it a classic is in the way that it resonates deeply with our souls.
A swan's egg by some strange set of circumstances finds itself in a ducks nest in the farmyard and so a swan is born into a family of ducks. No one really cares why or even realises that it's happened, everyone just assumed that he's meant to be a duck and all of his little life people reject him because for a duckling he is one ugly bird.
Everyone misunderstands him, everyone rejects him and it hurts, he's all alone but amidst the bleakness and the hopelessness of this world there is one thing, just one thing that makes his little spirit soar. Have a listen.
One evening just as the sun set amid radiant clouds there came a large flock of beautiful birds out of the bushes. The duckling had never seen any like them before. They were swans and they curved their graceful necks while their soft plumage shone with dazzling whiteness.
They uttered a singular cry as they spread their glorious wings and flew away from those cold regions to warmer countries across the sea. As they mounted higher and higher into the air the ugly duckling felt quite a strange sensation as he watched them. He whirled himself in the water like a wheel, he stretched out his neck towards them and uttered a cry so strange that it frightened him.
Could he ever forget those beautiful happy birds? And when at last they were out of his sight he dived under the water and rose again almost beside himself with excitement. He knew not the names of these birds nor where they had flown but he felt towards them as he never felt for any other bird in the world.
He wasn't envious of these beautiful creatures but wished to be as lovely as they were. Poor ugly creature, how gladly he would have lived even with the ducks had they only given him some encouragement.
At the moment he didn't yet know who he was, he just knew who he wanted to be but because he didn't know who he was, who God had made him to be he simply didn't have a license to go and be who he'd been made to be. And even when he finally encounters those birds again he thinks he's going to die, surely that can be the only outcome."
I will fly with those royal birds', he exclaimed, 'and they will kill me because I am so ugly and dare to approach them. But it does not matter, better to be killed by them than pecked by the ducks, beaten by the hens, pushed around by the maid who feeds the poultry or starved with hunger in the winter.
Then he flew to the water and swam towards the beautiful swans. The moment they espied the stranger they rushed to meet him with outstretched wings. 'Kill me' said the poor bird and he bent his head down to the surface of the water and awaited death.
But then something happened that changed everything in an instant.
What did he see in the clear stream below? His own image. No longer a dark grey bird, ugly and disagreeable to look at but a graceful and beautiful swan. To be born in a duck's nest in a farmyard is of no consequence to a bird if it is hatched from a swan's egg.
It's not until we really know who we are that we discover how inconsequential the distorted image that the worlds misunderstanding reflects back at us, in fact is. My friend as I meet people around the world and I've met so many, more and more as the years go by I'm so deeply impressed by the amazing abilities and talents, ideas, creativity, perspectives, motivations that are buried inside each person, each and every person who I meet.
As I have the opportunity these days to listen to what they say, read their blogs and tweets, I'm constantly amazed at the brilliance and creativity that people are capable of. That's not just other people, it's each one of us, it's you, it's me, each in our own uniquely different ways we have this capacity, this capability, this potential to do the most amazing things and to be the most amazing people.
I don't mean that we're all going to be super stars. I don't mean that we're all going to be on the world's stage or in the lime light. No, no. True greatness often lives in people whose names we'll never know, whose deeds most of us will never see but whose lives touched the hearts of others and leave a legacy of love and of service that will change another person's life forever.
Please don't fall for The Ugly Duckling thing. You are such a person, you have a future, you have a destiny, it's waiting to be lived and if you only look at yourself you'll discover abilities and talents and creativities and beauties that you never imagined possible. Just think of that little ugly duckling, he thought he was so ugly and finally when he looked in the mirror what he saw was a graceful beautiful swan.
And it's precisely this thing that God wants you to know when you set out on your journey of destiny. For as the Apostle Paul writes in the Book of Ephesians chapter 2, verse 10.
You are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do the good works which he prepared beforehand for you to walk into.
See He's already prepared the way. The good works already waiting for you on the road up ahead and He's created you as His piece of workmanship perfectly suited to the destiny to which you're called. It's about discovering that we are indeed Gods workmanship you and I.
It's about discovering who we are and what our purpose is so that we can go and walk into the good works that God prepared beforehand for us to walk into with a certainty and a quiet confidence in the knowledge that we're a perfect fit, that we're the right one for the job no matter how daunting that job may appear.
Father God
We've heard your Good News; we know we've made many mistakes. We stepped out of your plan, we went our own way, each one of us in our own way knows it didn't quite work and so we want to come back and we want to discover the me You always meant us to be.
Father
Thank you for Jesus. We just want to accept Him. I believe that He died for me and that He rose again. I believe that I'm forgiven because of Him and that I have eternal life because of Jesus and Father right this day, lock, stock and barrel, with everything that I am, with every hope and every dream, everything I have I step back into your plan. I give everything that I am and everything that I have to you for you to do with as you please.
Father God
Thank you that you have a plan, thank you that I can come back because of Jesus and thank you Father that in that plan I'll get to know you and as I get to know you more and more and more I'll discover the person you always meant me to be.
Father
We just pray all of this in the name of Jesus Christ.
Amen.

Becoming the "me" we were meant to be is – well – a life long journey. And sometimes, it's not until we stop to look back, that we can really see God's hand in all of that.
If I want to ask you, what's your destiny, what were you put on this earth to achieve to do, what impact are you meant to make on this planet of over seven billion people, what's the point of your life and is it heading in the right direction? I wonder how you'd answer those questions.
I ask those questions of people rather a lot and can I tell you the number of people who have a clear sense of their destiny and purpose and direction, well it's less than 5%, maybe one in twenty maybe. Now I'm not saying that we should each have our lives completely mapped out. Things happen along the way, there are twists and turns in life that are totally unexpected. The little things can change the whole course of a life.
I remember a long time ago now I was really sick one day with a high temperature. I was scheduled to speak at a function the following day but I was so sick. I should have rung up and cancelled. The next day came and I was still so sick and yet deep inside me I felt I should go. I did and that was the day I met my wife Jacqui. It turns out that that was the only day I would have ever have met her in the place. Going and speaking on that day despite my sickness completely changed my life. I wouldn't be married to her today had I stayed at home.
Just the other weekend a good friend of mine Paul, a magistrate, was swimming in the surf. It was a normal day, I'd chatted with him by sms an hour or two before to invite him over for dinner that night. A wave picked him up crashed him on his head in the sand, paralysed him and they found him floating face down in the water.
They only just got him in the nick of time. He survived, all's well, he can walk and everything but I'm sure that one experience has changed his perspective on a few things in life.
So we know things like that can happen. We can't map out our whole lives in the minutest detail and say, "yep that's what it's going to be", and yet deep down we need to have a sense of destiny. Another way of putting it would be a sense of the direction our life is meant to be headed and that destiny is invariably tied up with two things, our dreams and our abilities and skills.
If you're one of the majority – one of those people who hasn't yet cottoned on to the direction in which your life was always meant to be headed – then this is for you. Can you remember the dreams you used to have for your life when you were young? Can you? There are going to be some dreams that, well they were never going to fly.
If you're short and slightly dumpy and you were dreaming of becoming a famous basketball player, well that one was obviously never going to happen but so often there's a dream in people's hearts that's been there all along.
Here's a conversation that I've had so many times with people about this question of destiny. We get to talking about the direction which their life is heading and the person says to me something like this, "but you know I'm sure there's meant to be, I don't know, something else. Something that, I don't know, I'm meant to be doing but I don't know what it is."
Does that sound vaguely familiar? So I then ask them, 'well if you had no constraints, if money wasn't an issue, if you could be anything or do anything that you wanted what would that be?' And the answer invariably comes back along these lines. "Oh, oh, anything I want? Well you know, I've always dreamed of ... " And then they tell me the answer, they tell me about their destiny, it's already there, it's woven somehow into the fabric of their DNA.
Now of course there's a risk that this is a short dumpy basket-baller kind of dream and so then I follow up with my second question. What are the things you really enjoy doing? What are the things you're really good at?' Most people can tell you that and what I've found is that in more than 90% of cases their dream and their natural skills and giftings are an almost perfect fit.
You know something we've just discovered their destiny, we've just discovered what they're meant to be doing with their lives and the tragedy, I mean the absolute tragedy is that deep down they probably already knew that. So what held them back? The constraints we all put on our lives.
Do you remember my first question? If you had no constraints, if money wasn't an issue, if you could be anything or do anything that you wanted what would that be? See that question removes the constraints. Then all of a sudden people can look at things the way they're meant to look at them, through the eyes of freedom.
For almost twenty years I was a high priced IT consultant but there came a time of dissatisfaction, time where I really came to the conclusion that I wasn't fulfilling my destiny through making lots of money. Over a few years the opportunity emerged to do what I'm doing now, produce these radio programs and use one of the few natural talents and gifts that I've been given, to be a communicator, to bring hope and change and transformation to people's lives through these radio messages.
But that meant taking a risk. It meant confounding people's expectations of me. It meant leaving a big salary behind and going and working in a small, at the time, ailing not for profit organisation. It's a decision that both Jacqui, my wife, and I took together and those constraints and expectations and the money thing and the risk thing, all of those, I have to tell you, were difficult issues to navigate, it wasn't an easy decision to make.
It was at the time, for me, a huge leap of faith. You know I look back on it now and this is what I know, it's always like that when we have to make a decision as to whether or not we're going to go out there and fulfil our destiny because destiny requires courage, the two seem inextricably linked when we step on the destiny journey.
There's always a risk of failure and yet there's nothing as fulfilling and energising as living out your destiny. These last years doing what I'm doing now there have been some real challenges and real tough times but I tell you I wouldn't swap them for anything and in pursuing this destiny here's what I know.
The only person who can make it happen in our lives is Jesus. Now some may scoff at that, come on Berni, people have achieved great things without Jesus. Yeah okay, there's plenty of evidence of genius and achievement out there in the world, people are capable of some amazing things but here's what I'm absolutely certain of, here's what I know beyond any shadow of doubt.
Jesus, the Son of God, when He laid His glory aside, when He became one of us, He came into this world with a destiny. His destiny was two fold, it was to reveal God to us, to speak of God in a personal language of a man in a way that we could understand and secondly it was to die on that cross and rise again to give you and me the free gift of eternal life.
And without that Jesus who fulfilled His destiny for you and me, you and I well may well be able to achieve some amazing things but we will never achieve anything of eternal value or significance.
Because of my gift of communication I can hold people's attention. I can make them think, laugh and even cry but without Jesus, without His story, without His grace I have nothing of eternal value to impart because He's the one that saves, He's the one that transforms, He's the one that brings new life and my destiny lies in Him to be who He made me to be, to do the things He made me to do so that His purposes will be achieved.
And my friend your destiny, your true destiny lies in Jesus too. He has plans and purposes for your life that He came up with even before you were born and when we give our lives to Him, completely, wholly, fully, without constraint, without limit, without reservation, then we discover our destiny.
Let me tell you, it's a perfect fit your destiny with who He made you to be. How do I know that? Psalm 139. Go and read it – His Word, His truth, your destiny.

It turns out that our priorities have an enormous impact on how we feel about our lives.  So if we want to live an abundant, satisfying life we need to get our priorities sorted out; we need to put first things first. So – what should come first?
Most people these days live hectic lives, just making it through. I mean, for some people listening to this program it's a touch and go thing everyday just to find enough food. Others they're drowning in emails and more things on their list of things to do than they can possibly get done. Others are sinking in a sea of loneliness.
Whatever it is, whoever we are, wherever you're at in your life we can find so many things, really important things to clutter up our daily to do list. Personally my list of things to do is as long as my arm and then some. There are the personal things I have to do, things to do with writing and recording and producing this radio program, there's an organisation to run, people to meet, this project, that project, a new idea over here and a new idea over there.
And then I receive a few hundred emails pretty much every day, some of them are junk but many of them are people asking me to do this or get involved in that or can you answer this question for me please or can you help me with my new project, can you please write an endorsement for the book that I'm writing? Welcome to my world. Now don't get me wrong I'm not complaining and none of those things are terribly bad at all but the point is that with so many more things to do than I can possibly fit into my day, my week or even my year, my process for deciding what I do is absolutely critical.
One of the big mistakes I used to make was to answer my emails first thing each morning. I receive emails 24x7 from around the world so I used to sit down in the morning which given I'm a morning person is my most lucid and productive time and start answering emails. After a while I realised I wasn't getting anything else done because by putting emails first I was putting other people's priorities first, I was in fact dancing to their tune instead of sorting out for myself what was most important from my agenda, the things I needed to do first.
There's a well know principle of framework you read in a lot of management books that sets out the difference between what's urgent and what's important and what you discover is almost nothing that's urgent is important and almost nothing that's important is urgent.
And yet most of us are reactive, we react to the urgent things or at least to the things that other people say are urgent and so we spend most of our time doing urgent things instead of important things. Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year and before you know it your life is slipping away doing a whole bunch of things which in the scheme of things may well be making you extremely busy but how important are they really?
What of lasting value do they produce? What of lasting value does your life produce? You see my point here, how are you spending your life and are the things you're spending your time on important and worthwhile? I guess I'm asking those questions for you to ask them of yourself and to answer them, come on be brutally honest.
For instance making sure I have some time for my beautiful wife Jacqui is important. Making sure I encourage her, give her a hug and a kiss, spend some unhurried time with her in the morning over breakfast is really important but it's not urgent. It's not as urgent as say an email that comes in from a radio station from somewhere around the world that says, "we weren't able to download tonight's radio program from your ftp server".
And yet what I used to do because remember mornings are my most productive time, is get up really early and spend no time with Jacqui over breakfast and just work furiously through that time and by the time she comes home from work and I come home from work in the evening we're both tired and there you go, we haven't spent any time together.
Do you see how easily this can happen in people's lives? The urgent trumps the important almost every time and before you know it your life's falling apart, things are in a mess, marriages are failing all because we allow the urgent to crowd out the important. Scary, isn't it?
So these days I make sure that almost every morning during the week I'm around to share a time with my wife for breakfast. Sometimes I'm away and sometimes I have to be on a call to Africa or somewhere else but most mornings I have breakfast with my wife. Why? Because it's important and as a result sometimes urgent things don't get done. Let me let you in on a secret, the sky has yet to fall in.
So what about you? What about your life? Are you letting the myriad of urgent things crowd out the important things, spending time with people, managing your personal finances, nurturing your children, developing relationships with your co workers. All of those things are incredibly important and in many a persons life they're being cast aside simply because people are too busy.
I don't have time to exercise. Well if you don't have time for exercise, which is important let me tell you, you'll certainly be making time for sickness which is going to become urgent and actually that's how it works. Doing the important things generally over time reduces the number of urgent things that you need to do because if the important things go undone they lead to crises and those crises increase the urgent things requiring an immediate response.
We've been talking these last few weeks about discovering your destiny. I don't know what your destiny is, I mean really I don't but this is what I do know, your destiny does not lie in the myriad of the things that other people tell you are urgent. Your destiny doesn't lie in answering hundreds of emails. Your destiny doesn't lie in reacting to other people's priorities.
Your destiny is somewhere; it's doing the really important things in your life. Building the relationships, having a great marriage, doing the important things to take a career forward that's going to impact other people's lives. My friend please don't make the mistake of letting the urgent crowd out the important because, I'll say it again, I'm absolutely certain of this, your destiny does not lie in the hundreds and thousands of urgent little tasks that other people think that you should do.
I mean if you or I went to God, this God who handcrafted us, who designed us in His heart, blue printed our DNA, if we went to Him and said, 'Lord what's the most important thing I have to do with my life?' What do you think He'd answer? What would He put at the very top of our to do list?
Well actually we already know. A clever young lawyer asked Him a very similar question. The lawyer sort of said and this is my paraphrase:
'Well Jesus you and I both know that the law that Moses handed down to us there are six hundred and thirteen commandments and prohibitions, it's kind of a lot, I mean day to day that's a lot of things to remember to do so how would you sum up this law, I mean if I'm trying to prioritise these things in my life which ones of all of those commandments are the most important ones?'
You can read his exact words in Matthews Gospel chapter 22 and in Mark chapter 12. And if I had to paraphrase Jesus reply in kind of here and now speak it would run something like this.
'Look I know you have a lot of things to do, there are lots of rules, do this, don't do that, they're all good things but you can sum up the whole law in just two commandments. To love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, all your strength. That's the most important one and the second one is just like it. To love the people around you as much as you love yourself. That's the whole law in a nutshell, that's it.
And you know something the most important thing I do almost every day, the thing I do before anything else is I spend an hour or so alone with Jesus praying, reading the Bible, asking Him questions and that's what sets the course for my whole day and day after day, month after month, year after year it actually sets the course for my whole life.
It is quite simply the single most important thing that I do and it's through that time with Him that I've discovered my destiny.