A Different Perspective Official Podcast

There's nothing worse than having people gossip about you, stab you behind your back. Well, actually there's one thing worse. It's when we gossip about others, when we're the ones stabbing someone else in the back. Yep –actually … that's worse.
One of my favourite TV shows of all time is "Yes Prime Minister" – a very, very funny British comedy show about the behind the scenes, wheeling and dealing that goes on in politics. One of the characters is the very smart and conniving senior civil servant Sir Humphrey Appleby.
In one episode called, "A Conflict of Interest". The Prime Minister wants to appoint a new governor of the Bank of England to clean up the financial scandals happening in the financial sector. He settles on a man with a great reputation for honesty and integrity, someone who is fearless in tackling corruption.
The junior and inexperienced civil servant Bernard arrives at the Cabinet office and relays the PM's message. He tells Sir Humphrey that the PM is keen to appoint this man Jameson to the Governorship. Sir Humphrey says his appointment would be appalling and it's his firm intention to change the Prime Minister's mind.
He gives young Bernard a quick lesson in how to achieve this. Express full support for the candidate, Jameson, pointing out all his qualities but over-praising him to the point that the PM will also be concerned since he could undermine his own perceived qualities. As Sir Humphrey points out "it's necessary to get behind someone before you can stab them in the back".
That's a great line isn't it? You have to get behind someone before you can stab them in the back. And as things turn out it's something that Sir Humphrey does extremely successfully.
It's great to laugh at that idea in a sitcom but have you ever been stabbed in the back? Have you ever had someone praise you and then go behind your back to undermine you? It's not very nice is it? In fact, it can be devastating. When you know that people are whispering and muttering about you behind your back it's a terrible thing and you see it all the time especially where those people have something to gain.
In my twenty or so years as a consultant, working in hundreds of different organisations, I can't tell you the number of times I've seen this ruthless back-room knifing of people in the back so that the person who is doing the back-stabbing can get his or her way or climb up another rung of the corporate ladder.
Over this week, we've been chatting about how you and I can be a blessing rather than a burden to people, an asset rather than a liability, a part of the solution rather than part of the problem. I have to tell you being the honest broker behind someone else's back, dealing honestly and openly defending people is one way.
I was once on a committee as the treasurer. My predecessor had handed me a terrible budget and so there wasn't enough income to run the operations of this organisation. After a lot of hard work on the budget and the finances in reducing costs I had to recommend to the annual general meeting of the members a very substantial increase in their annual levy fee.
The following year I stepped off the committee and some of the new people on it apparently wanted to blame me for the problem and run me down behind my back. But there was one woman Sasha who took them to task, confronted them about the unwarranted criticism, set the record straight, told them that I was in fact the guy who had sorted out the problem and not created it. It took quite a bit of courage for her to do that but she did it.
So have a think about this, how do you think I feel now towards Sasha? It's obvious isn't it? As far as I'm concerned she is very much a blessing and not a burden. She has my trust and if she asked me for something, if she asked me to do something I'd do it for her if it were at all possible.
There's a Proverb in the Old Testament of the Bible that goes like this, Proverbs chapter 19, verse 1:
Better is a poor person who walks with integrity than one who is crooked in speech and a fool.
The Bible talks a lot about human plots and contentious tongues too, Psalm 31 verse 20. It's horrible when people are like that, isn't it?
So here's how you can be an incredible blessing to someone. Be like Sasha. When people are gossiping or running down a person when they're not there, firstly don't be one to throw fuel on the fire, don't nod passively and contribute to the gossip but to the contrary pull people up. Hang on a minute, that's not quite fair, not sure whether we have all the circumstances straight here, did you know what actually happened?
Sometimes people pull someone down simply because of that person's natural weaknesses or limitations. Hey, we all have those right? Sometimes they criticise someone by twisting the facts and sometimes they make fun of someone or find fault with them when that persons going through a really difficult personal trouble.
None of those things are right; none of them are fair. If someone has wronged you then the way to deal with it is face-to-face, one on one, not by gossiping behind people's backs. Defending someone when they're not there to defend themselves is a huge blessing. Eventually the person you defended, it's going to get back to them somehow and when it does their trust in you, their admiration for you will grow immeasurably as mine did for Sasha.
And those people whom you held to account for their gossip, hey they may not like it, in fact they may well start to gossip behind your back but in their heart of hearts they'll have a new found respect for you, they'll know that you are someone of integrity, someone with courage and someone not to be messed with.
At the end of the day people like a person who plays with a straight bat, someone whom they can depend on, someone who's honest and direct and open even if they disagree with you. Again, there's another Old Testament Proverb that says this, Proverbs chapter 16 verse 13:
Righteous lips are a delight of a king and he loves the person who speaks what is right.
So I want to encourage you – when you have the opportunity to defend somebody's reputation when they're not there to defend themselves – I want to encourage you when you have the opportunity to speak straight up and down, to hold people to account for their gossip. I want to encourage you when you have the opportunity to bring the facts to the table, to be the person that does that.
It's a thing of great leadership, it's a thing of great value and if we want to be somebody who is a blessing rather than a burden, an asset rather than a liability, a part of the solution rather than part of the problem this is one of the ways that we can do that. Let me tell you, God takes this stuff really seriously too, just quietly. Commandment number nine in the Ten Commandments says:
You shall not bear false witness against a neighbour.
What we say about each other matters to God. Again in James chapter 4:
Do not speak evil against one another. The one who speaks it against a brother or judges his brothers, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law you're not a doer of the law but a judge. There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbour?
God has a different way that He wants us to behave, not by stabbing each other in the back but by lifting one another up.
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and slander be put away from you along with all the malice. Be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. (Ephesians chapter 4, verses 31 and 32)
I can tell you I look out for this sort of integrity and goodness in people. Gossip is a terrible thing. Demeaning people is a terrible thing and one way that you and I can shine the light of God into some dark places and bless people is not to participate in gossip and instead do what God's calling us to do, to be kind and tender hearted and here's the crunch for me, to forgive people just the way that God's forgiven us.
Jesus paid a price, a huge price, so that you and I could be forgiven. What an awesome thing it is to bring that forgiveness and goodness into the world through our behaviour.
Want to be a blessing rather than a burden? Here's one way.

When someone else makes a mistake, when they fall short of expectations, our natural reaction is to criticise them, or perhaps punish them. Ostracise them. But consider this – what if our first reaction was to compensate for them – to make up for their shortcomings with our natural gifts and abilities? How different would this world be, if we all did that?
People's mistakes can be so annoying especially, let me say, when they make the same mistake over and over and over again which of course we all do. Now you might protest and say, "I don't make the same mistake over and over again." And my response to you would be "sure you do, we all do." Here's why ...
There are some things that you're naturally good at and some things that you're not and there are some things that the next guy is naturally good at and some things that he isn't. So there you are the two of you good at different things and bad at different things.
So you see the mistakes that he makes at the things you're good at, and you say to yourself, 'how can that guy keep on making the same mistake, it's so obvious?' And right while you're thinking that he's thinking exactly the same about you.
My friend Keith is a great encourager, the sort of person you really enjoy spending an hour or two with over lunch. You come away feeling so much better about yourself. He recently sent me a document we'd both been working on; it was an 18-page contract that I'd developed meticulously with some lawyers.
While I was away on holidays he needed to make a few changes but did he turn on the Word Processor's change-control feature so that I could see the changes he'd made? Nooo. Now I was about to get annoyed and then I remembered, hang on, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is Keith, we're talking about Keith here. He's a great encourager but when it comes to technology and admin and all that stuff he's a dead loss. It's the way he is and he's never going to be any different.
Now I can't do what he does and he can't do what I do and that's the way, folks, it was always meant to be. And so I'm at that point confronted with exactly the same question that I hit you with at the top of the program, am I going to criticise him or am I going to help him? Which will it be?
See this is a question that confronts each one of us at least several times a day. Think of the people you've been annoyed with over the last twenty-four hours, what was the source of the annoyance? How did you respond? Did you criticise them or did you help them?
The series of message we're in right at the moment is called "Are You a Blessing or a Burden?" inspired by a great quote from Dr Tayo Adeyemi in the UK. He said:
You are either a blessing or a burden, an asset or a liability, a problem solver or a problem. It's your choice.
And so we're on a bit of a journey to discover some practical rubber hits the road kind of things that you and I can do to be more of a blessing than a burden; to be more of part of the solution rather than being part of the problem. And this is really a practical thing we can do.
When someone makes a mistake, we can stuff our pride back into our pocket and choose to help them instead of criticising them. And when you think about it as much as it maybe a counter-intuitive thing to do it actually makes an enormous amount of sense both for them and for us.
I'm going to read you a short passage from the Old Testament, a Book written about three thousand years ago called the Book of Ecclesiastes. It's purported to have been written by one of the wisest men who's ever lived, King Solomon of Israel. Its Ecclesiastes chapter 4, verses 9 to 12:
Two people are better than one because they have a good reward for their toil. If they fall one will lift the other up but woe to the one who is alone and falls and doesn't have another to help. Again if two lie down together they keep warm but how can one keep warm alone? And though one might prevail against another, two withstand one, actually a three fold cord is not quickly broken.
I was sharing this with a bunch of people once and I did it visually. I had two people hold a single piece of rope tight and then I cut it in the middle, well of course at that point the rope failed. Then we took two ropes and wound them around each other and around and around and around, then I got the people to hold them again tight and I cut one rope on the right and I cut the other rope in the middle and I cut the first rope on the left.
See the ropes pretty much hung together because what happened was that the second rope compensated for the first in the places where it was cut and it had failed and vice versa. Then we took three ropes and plaited them together as a woman would plait her hair.
I got the people to hold this thing tight, I cut each of the three ropes in two different places and you know what, you could pull as hard as you like and the ropes didn't fail. I could actually sit on them and they wouldn't come apart. That's the picture here.
You and I have the capacity to compensate for the failures and the weaknesses of others and because we're all different, we're all strong in different places, we're all weak in different places, when we're bound together in a relationship as a team we can compensate for one another in those different places just as the ropes did.
I cleaned up the mess with the contract that Keith couldn't, and you know what, he goes out and encourages members of our team in a way I couldn't do. And you know something, that's how it's meant to be, it's exactly how it's meant to work.
The beauty of that, the reason that it makes so much sense is that together in a mutually supportive relationship in a team of two or three or four or even ten people we can achieve so much more. Now some teams don't achieve anything because they're always fighting and criticising.
If we want to be a blessing rather than a burden, an asset rather than a liability, a part of the solution rather than the problem there are two parts to this. The first is bringing all our skills and abilities to the table with energy and gusto and dedication and hard work. That's the first part.
The second part is having the wisdom and the humility to use those skills, to use those abilities, to compensate for the weaknesses of others. If we each have that level of wisdom and maturity then our team, our relationship, I'll tell you, it's going to be completely unstoppable. A team with people in it who are prepared to compensate for one another is going to achieve some amazing things.
Now serving one another takes humility, a much under rated attribute these days is humility. It's about laying aside what we think we're entitled to and pitching in and serving anyway. Humility is serving people even when in our superior judgement they don't deserve it. Humility is rising above the petty bickering and the point scoring and the recognition and the reward seeking and just getting on to achieve the aim.
Humility is shutting our mouths when we feel like complaining, when others around us are behaving like two-year olds and by the goodness of our example, by our faithfulness, by our quiet assurance, showing people the way forward. That's humility. Takes a strong and mature and a wise person to live out that sort of humility.
The best leaders are the humble ones, 1 Peter chapter 5, verse 5:
All of you must clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another for God opposes the proud but he gives grace to the humble.
Hey that's powerful stuff. We often think when we read stuff like that in God's Word, hey I know someone that that's meant for. You know who it's meant for? It's meant for you and me today. It's meant for us to take to heart. Listen, God opposes the proud. Is it really the way to go, to live our lives in a way that God is always going to oppose us with all His might and all His power?
And yet He gives grace to the humble. Humble yourself therefore under the mighty hand of God. That's how we become more of a blessing than a burden, more of an asset than a liability and more of a solution than part of the problem. That's exactly how we do this stuff.

We all have people in our lives who annoy us, drive us crazy and sometimes hurt us. You can picture them right now. So today, tomorrow – what are you going to do to bless those people in your life? Bless them?! You'd have to be crazy right?
Let's face it, we don't jump out of bed in the morning with the purpose of blessing the most annoying and irritating and hurtful person in our lives do we? I mean have you ever woken up with that intention in your heart? No, I didn't think so, most people haven't and the fact that blessing the most irritating person in our lives isn't first and foremost on our minds tells us something about ourselves.
What it tells us is that we're far more concerned about ourselves than other people. Now you might think that's a bit unfair, I mean after all this person drives you crazy. Most days it seems they don't have a single redeeming feature. Why on earth would you want to bless them? Why on earth would you want to do something good and kind and loving for them, they drive you around the bend?
Let's just analyse that response for a moment because it's pretty common. In fact, it's our natural response to recoil from people who annoy us. So let's think it through, let's put the emotion aside for a moment and just apply simple forensic logic.
If we choose to bless or not bless a person based on their impact on us, then quite clearly we are more concerned about how their actions affect us than we are about how we could help them. In other words, what we're doing is putting ourselves first and them last.
It maybe that we're doing it to protect ourselves, maybe that we're doing it out of our notions of what they deserve and what they don't deserve, it maybe that we're doing it because of an emotional response of anger or resentment or hurt or fear. Whatever the reason the choice to withhold blessing from a person who annoys us or hurts us is based on us and not them.
See we tend to judge people by how they look, how they speak, how they smell frankly, what their society status is, what they earn, where they live, what they drive, how they speak, how they act. We judge people based on our prejudices and their outward appearance and when you put it that way it's a bit scary.
I'm trying to imagine here for a moment if my parents had judged me that way back when I was growing up and being a difficult teenager. I mean looking back on it with the wisdom that comes with years, man I must have been a difficult teenager.
I was tough and strong and smart and quick and very self-centred and to be sure my mother and father did get rather annoyed and angry with me from time to time. Fair enough you'd have to say, it's par for the course and sometimes to teach me a lesson they withdrew their blessing, that's the way it ought to be. But overall they didn't stop blessing me, they didn't stop loving me, they didn't stop wanting the best for me.
Anyone who's a parent knows what I'm talking about as does anyone who has the maturity to look back on their childhood and see how much their parents sacrificed for them. If we know this as parents, hey, why don't we know it as wives and husbands? Why don't we know it as brothers and sisters? Why don't we know it as work colleagues and friends?
I'll tell you why, because somehow along the way we've been programmed to look after numero uno, ourselves, me, you. Come on its true isn't it? Now let's get back to our natural response in dealing with those difficult people in our lives and let me ask you, how well is it working?
When you look at the conflict in your life, the conflict in families, neighbourhoods, suburbs, villages, towns, cities, between countries even. When we look at the almost fifty wars raging across the planet today, when we look at how the poor and the marginalised are faring, how well is our current approach actually working? You'd have to conclude by any measure not very well at all.
I wonder if there's a different way, a different plan, some totally different rationale that we can apply in order to be a blessing rather than a burden, a problem solver rather than part of the problem. Try this on for size:
You've heard it said, said Jesus, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth but I tell you don't resist the evil doer. If anyone strikes you on the right cheek turn the other also and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give them your cloak as well and if anyone forces you to go one mile go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.
I'm not a great student of history but there are a couple of men whose lives exemplify this very thing that Jesus was talking about.
One of them is Mahatma Ghandi, famous of course for leading the movement that resulted in the end of the British Colonial rule of India, the independence of the country, which went on to spawn the largest democracy on the planet. Ghandi was the son of a highly placed government official yet he turned his back on all that privilege to lead a movement of non-violent disobedience. No one can argue that Ghandi isn't one of the greatest national leaders in all of human history. Look at his life and you'll see exactly what Jesus was talking about.
The other one is Nelson Mandela, a man who was the leader of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. He spent twenty-seven years in prison and when he was finally released and he became the president of the country, instead of leading a violent purge of retribution against his former jailers and oppressors, he presided over a period of healing and reconciliation. Yeah sure, South Africa has a way to go but if anyone can be said to have turned the other cheek it would have to be Nelson Mandela.
Neither of these men were particularly followers of Jesus and what He taught, that's not my point, my point is that they're lives are a testament to the truth of what Jesus said about turning the other cheek and going the extra mile. See at the end of the day love, service, sacrifice, these are the things that change the difficult people around us. They're the only things that can change the difficult people around us.
The thing that I've noticed about turning the other cheek is that it hurts. Jesus wasn't just talking figuratively there; He was talking about practical real things that happen. Man if someone hit me in the cheek I'd want to punch their lights out not turn the other one. If someone sued me for my coat, the last thing I'd want to do is offer them my cloak as well.
So why is Jesus telling us this stuff? Why is He coming up with this totally counter intuitive, totally against the grain approach to dealing with people who drive us round the twist? Here's why, because it's the only way you'll ever change them.
When we respond to someone with love, practical love, when they know that they don't deserve it; when we do it to them again and again and again, love them when they don't deserve it, it's going to have an impact on them. Eventually they're going to ask the question, hang on why is this person treating me the way I don't deserve? How can they have that sort of strength?
And the answer we're able to share with them is this, well … have a listen to that Jesus guy and it's hard some days but actually it makes sense. Love is the only thing that will change the world and when we love people who don't deserve it you know what we're telling them? We're saying, "you are more important to me than how you behave. You are more important to me than the hurt you've caused me."
Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think there is any more powerful way of reaching a person, of communicating with them than with practical love which they simply don't deserve. That sort of love has a way of getting through even the hardest heart; it's about mercy and grace.
When you think about it mercy is withholding from a person the punishment they deserve and grace is giving them love that they don't deserve. It turns out this stuff really works.

Let's face it – we've been programmed to believe that happiness is something we get when good things come our way. When the blessing flows into us. Hmm. Problem is that it's just not true. The joy and contentment we've been looking for only happen, when the blessing flows outwards, from us to others.
I've told this story I think once before on the program a few years ago so if you've heard it well tough. Isn't it funny how with your favourite song you're happy to hear it again and again on the radio but you hear some guy speaking instead of singing and they tell the same story, one you heard like six years ago or something and you go, "ah I've heard him tell that one before." So … humour me, here is the story.
It's about the first time I used satellite navigation in a car. I'd flown from Sydney to London and we had an unscheduled four-hour delay at our stopover in Singapore, some weak excuse about the plane being broken or something like that.
So instead of landing in London in the afternoon in the daylight it was like pitch black and raining by the time I picked my hire car up at Heathrow airport. Now fortunately for a few extra pounds I could hire a Sat Nav unit for the car because I was driving up to the Midlands which, given the traffic and the weather, was like, I don't know, a three-and-a-half-hour drive.
I had absolutely no idea on how to get there but the friendly woman at the hire car place punched my destination address into the Sat Nav unit and told me how to use it and off I went. Now the British are pretty clever at this, they have rather long postcodes to define not only the town but actually the street and the street number.
So all she had to do was punch this code, this number into the Sat Nav, I forget how many digits it was, and hey presto I was on my way. Great stuff. But about an hour and a half into the trip I started to get really worried, it's the first time I've driven in England and compared to Australia they have lots and lots of freeways. In Australia there's like one road between Sydney and Melbourne and we don't have too many of those major cities either.
In the UK there are a lot of cities, there are a lot of roads, there are a lot of intersections on the freeways. I mean what if she punched one or even two wrong numbers into that clever little Sat Nav unit. That's what I was worrying about. I mean it's a really clever little thing, it tells you where to turn, when left, when right, third exit from the roundabout, all good stuff but this clever efficient little unit could well be taking me to a completely different part of the country if she punched the wrong numbers in.
I remember when the thought hit me; it was kind of a panic attack. I'm in this foreign land, I don't know where I'm going, what if she's got me heading in the wrong direction? I didn't know any of the cities or place names on the signs, so I simply had no idea whether I was in the right place or not.
So I pulled over, I stopped, I checked and fortunately she had in fact punched in the right numbers and I was going in the right direction and eventually some time around midnight I got there. Fantastic.
But when you think about it we make choices in life, we head in the direction that we head in in life based rather a lot on the way in which we've been programmed to function. Our parents, our teachers, our experiences, our selfishness, capitalism, desires, all those things somehow little by little end up putting us on a certain road heading in a certain direction.
And when we come to intersections and roundabouts and forks in the road of life, we choose based on what? Well it turns out we're a little bit like that clever little Sat Nav unit in my car. We choose based on how we've been programmed over the course of our lives.
So what if you're heading in the wrong direction? Have you ever thought about that? Well there's a very obvious consequence if you are, if you're heading in the wrong direction in life you aren't going to arrive at the place you're wanting to, that you were hoping to, that you were expecting to.
This week on the program we're asking the question of each one of us, am I a blessing or am I a burden? Am I an asset or am I a liability? Am I a problem solver or am I the problem? And a lot of it has to do with the direction we're headed in. Not just a slight shift for most of us but a profound shift, a radical shift, a 180-degree change in direction is required.
Whatever you may think of Him this man Jesus, a couple of thousand years ago, said some really profound things. One of them was this, He said:
It is more blessed to give than to receive.
Just a few small words but in them is the power to make that 180-degree shift and it's not an easy one to make. We all know that turning a big ship around from steaming ahead north full throttle to heading south isn't something you do in a few hundred yards or metres. If a big ship is powering ahead north it can take miles for it to slow down and turn around and head south.
Our lives are like that because the idea that all the blessings should flow into us and then we'll be happy, it's so seductive, it's so powerful. We are heading in that direction full steam. It's been programmed into us much like that little address code was plugged into the Sat Nav.
The problem with this direction, the idea that blessing flows inwards is that it doesn't get us to where we want to be. We get to the destination and the sense of happiness and contentment and fulfilment that we were expecting by making ourselves the centre of the universe, they're just not there.
Now I know that because I spent a lot of my life heading in that direction and chances are you know it too because you've tried it and it hasn't worked. We want it to work, I mean we really, really do want it to work but wanting isn't enough because it is a fundamental law of the universe that when we spend all our effort, time and money and talents trying to make ourselves happy, we'll never be happy. Listen again to the profound shift of direction in what Jesus said.
It is more blessed to give than to receive.
In other words when we change the direction of the flow of blessing from inward to outward that's when we experience the happiness, the contentment that we've been looking for.
Any parent who has struggled and sacrificed to bring up children can tell you that because there's nothing more satisfying, I mean nothing than when we're able to use who we are and what we have to leave a lasting mark of love and encouragement and achievement and blessing on the heart of another.
Hey, blessing's awesome. If it flows out of us, we are indeed a blessing. If we want it to always flow into us, then I have to tell you we're going to be a burden. Can I tell you the Bible is replete with Scriptures that speak about this very thing, yet scores of people are being robbed of the sheer delight and the joy that comes when we bless others because someone's punched the wrong destination into us? 1 Peter chapter 4, verse 10:
As each has received a gift use it to serve one another as good stewards of Gods very grace.
Galatians chapter 5, verses 13 to 14:
For you are called to freedom brothers only don't use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in this, 'you shall love your neighbour as yourself.
John chapter 13, verses 12 to 14:
When he'd washed their feet and put his outer garments back on he said to them, 'don't you understand what I've done, you call me teacher and Lord and you're right because I am. If I then your Lord and teacher have washed your feet you also should wash one another's feet.
Hey, that's just a few of those Scriptures, there are lots more and not because God wants to make us slaves but because He knows how we function, that's how He made us and He wants us to be free and freedom is this, it's when we're using who we are and what we have to love others by serving them and it's then that we discover that as all this blessing flows downward from God and outward through us to others, our hearts light up with this joy that all along we've been looking for.
Jesus was right; it really is more blessed to give than to receive. Now how come I didn't think of that?

There seem to be basically two types of people in this world – those who are a blessing and those who are a burden; those who are an asset and those who are a liability. Which one are you?
One of the things I love doing is tweeting. Some people don't even know what twitter is. That's okay, I was there once. Some can't understand the fascination but I love it, here's why. Twitter helps me to stay in touch with people who matter to me, people I respect and admire. People who live in the next suburb or clear across the other side of the world.
What's happening in their lives, a funny experience, some great insight and even some great quotes. It's quick, it's easy and when I stop for a quick break and get a cup of tea in the middle of a busy day I pull out my phone or my iPad and just quickly check to see what's come through on twitter and since each tweet is limited to a hundred a forty characters it's nice and quick.
The other day on twitter I picked up this quote from Dr Tayo Adeyemi in the UK. Now I'm not sure if I've pronounced his surname correctly there. Anyhow this quote really caught my eye. This is what he said:
You are either a blessing or a burden, as asset or a liability, a problem solver or a problem, it's your choice.
Short, quick, profound and it got me to thinking. I started going through all the people that I know, people I've worked with, friends and colleagues and you know something, it was really easy to categorise them either on the one side of the ledger or on the other.
Let's stick with that accounting metaphor for a moment, are they an asset or a liability? Hmm, it's a sobering thought and I'm imagining that if you went through the same exercise you'd be able to put all the people you know either on the one side of that ledger or on the other.
Of course nobody is a complete liability nor is anyone so perfect that they're a complete asset. We all contribute to some extent and we all drain to some extent as well. That's because, of course, none of us is perfect and then we're all good at different things.
But even taking all those things into consideration on balance, weighing all their pro's and con's, some people overall are assets, others overall are liabilities. Some are a blessing, others are a burden. Some are problem solvers, and some are plain and simple the problem.
So then I began to imagine a world in which more and more of us became assets rather than liabilities. In fact call me crazy if you will, just imagine a world for a moment where everyone is an asset and no one is a liability. Just stop and think about that. Imagine how different this world would actually be.
So that's the quote in a thought process that inspired this series of messages called "Are You a Blessing or a Burden?" and that's the question isn't it? Because you and I aren't necessarily in a position to change the whole world, we can't change every one of the seven point something billion people on the planet, hey we can't even change our wives or our husbands or our children most of the time.
But there is one person we can change, ourselves – you, me. I wonder if you considered yourself for a moment, on balance, and asked, 'am I a blessing or a burden to the people around me, an asset or a liability, a problem solver or part of the problem'?
We have to be kind of careful when answering those questions because if the truth be known we're a lot more generous in judging ourselves than we are in judging other people. We're so good at rationalising our weaknesses and our failures and blind spots aren't we? We trivialise them and we sweep them under the carpet. Okay so if I asked the people close to you, family members, work colleagues, whether you are on this side of the ledger or that, how would they answer?
A couple of thousand years ago the Apostle Paul was sitting on death row in a Roman dungeon. He's writing a letter to his friends in a place called Philippi and this is one of the things he says to them, Philippians chapter 2, verses 3 and 4:
Don't do anything from selfish ambition or conceit but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each one of you look not to your own interests but to the interests of others.
It's an encouragement, an exhortation to be a blessing instead of a burden. If we're expecting everybody to do stuff for us, to look out for our interests, to meet our needs and yet we don't do the same for them because all we care about is us, not them.
You know what they call that? That's being a hypocrite. This thing call it what you will, selfishness, self-centredness, whatever there's some of that in each one of us. See how Paul starts out, he says to his friends and to you and me; do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit.
Imagine a sea, a land-locked sea like the Dead Sea for instance where all the rivers flow in but none of them flow out. It's exactly what happens with the Dead Sea. The only way water gets out is through evaporation by the heat of the sun and the reason it's called the Dead Sea is because there is so much salt in the water that not a single organism pretty much can live there.
Our selfishness is like the Dead Sea. We want everything to flow inward towards us, we want others to be a blessing to us, we want circumstances to favour us, we want the sun to shine on us, we want, we want, we want. It's all about the direction of the flow of the blessing.
Many a man's life, many a woman's life, writes a man called S D Gordon a couple of hundred years ago, is like the circumference of that Dead Sea. When everything flows inwards it's dead and by experience you and I know that's true. Hey, I'm someone who spent the first half of his life trying to live it that way and I wondered all the time why it never satisfied me, why I was never truly happy and contented.
See Paul addresses both sides of this equation in the short passage we just read. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit but instead look not to your own interests but to the interests of others. In other words, stop living your life trying to be the guy who is blessed all the time and start blessing other people. Turn the direction of the flow from inwards to outwards.
And then as evidence of the fact this radically different approach actually works, he goes on to cite the prime example, the most obvious example, in the very next breath he says and I'm reading here from a message translation, Philippians chapter 2, verses 5 to 11:
Stop thinking of yourselves the way you are, think instead the way Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but he didn't think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all, when the time came he set aside the privileges of his deity and took the status of a slave and became human.
Having become human he stayed human, it was an incredibly humbling process. He didn't claim special privileges, instead he lived a selfless obedient life and then he died a selfless obedient death and the worst kind of death at that, a crucifixion.
Because of that obedience God lifted him high and honoured him far beyond anyone or anything ever so that all created beings in heaven and on earth, even those long ago dead and buried, will bow down in worship before this Jesus Christ and call out in praise that he is the master of all to the glory and honour of God the Father.
In other words, the answer is in being a blessing instead of being a burden, an asset instead of a liability, a problem solver instead of a problem. It's about a complete fundamental, 180-degree change in direction from having blessing flowing inwards to getting the blessing to flow outwards to other people.
There's an awful lot in that so we're going to spend some more time over the course of this week on the program chatting about this very thing and in the meantime let me leave you with that quotation I gave you for you to ponder.
You are either a blessing or a burden, an asset or a liability, a problem solver or a problem, it's your choice.