A Different Perspective Official Podcast

So many people aren't happy with who they are.  But – well, what if God is?  What if God looks at you and is the most delighted Dad in the universe?  And what if we saw ourselves the way He does?
As I look around at people, big, small, black, white, young, old … what I see is an awful lot of people who aren't happy with their lot in life. And as you talk to them, what it often comes down to is not that they're not happy with their lot and the things that are going on –although that's sometimes part of it – but something much deeper going on. Because more often than not, they're not happy with who they are.
Yesterday on the program we chatted about the fact, that often, that's because we feel we don't measure up to what the world expects of us but today, I'd like to go even deeper than that again. Let me ask you, forgetting everything that goes on around you, when you're alone in a quiet room, completely alone, do you like who you are? Are you excited about who you are… your potential? Do you enjoy your own company? Or are you one of these people who can't stand to see themselves in a photograph or in a mirror?
Every now and then I think to myself, "it's time to get right in your face about something", and today's one of those days. I mean, I don't mean to shove anything down your throat, that's never my intention but I don't know, I just feel that today it's time to really challenge you about how you see yourself. I'm someone who for many, many years, in fact the first 36 years of my life, appeared to be so confident on the outside. I have to tell you, everyone who ever met me thought to themselves, 'this guy is so confident'. But on the inside, which after all is where we live and where we feel and where we laugh and where we cry, I wasn't happy with who I was. People would never have guessed it, because in my confidence I used to roll over the top of them. I'm not talking about the things that we do but who we actually are. As a woman by the name of Joyce Meyer says, "It's not our do that I'm talking about but our who." I didn't like my "who", I didn't like myself and you know the more I tried to pump myself up in my own eyes and in the eyes of others, somehow the lower I sank in my own estimation.
Don't get me wrong, I mean I'm blessed, I have a good IQ, I love communicating, I'm good at that … but, I don't know, I just never liked myself and do you know when that changed? For me, it was the day, the very day that I gave myself over, my whole life, every hope and every dream, everything to Jesus Christ. From that moment onward on a bright sunny day on the 15th of October, 1995, under a gum tree outside a Church in my home town, age 36, I knew I was okay. Like I said – I'm not here to shove anything down your throat – I'm just telling you how it was for me.
I've thought a lot about this and I thought why did it happen like that? It's one of those things that changed in an instant for me, why? This is such a deep thing. My own self-image had been plaguing me for years and years.  How could it change in an instant? So far as I can see, there's only one answer because on that day I felt accepted and I felt loved in a whole new way, at a whole different level.
Different people believe different things. That's the way the world is. So – whatever you believe – let me ask you this? Does your belief system, does your faith – whatever that is – make you feel loved and accepted? Does it bring healing to that deep, nagging suspicion that you're not good enough? Does it bring you into a place where you are truly happy and content with who you are?
I never used to be able to look at myself in a photo without cringing.  I recently had a photo shoot, something I have to do from time to time, to get some images to use on websites and in the back of my books, that sort of thing. And when the photos came back, I looked at them and I was really happy with what I saw. I'm never going to win a beauty competition, you understand.
No modelling agency is ever going to call me to become a male model – that's because I'm just a pretty ordinary looking kind of man. But as I looked at those photos, I smiled, because I realised that I now like myself. Sometimes I make mistakes – I don't like that. So I get up and learn, and work on my weaknesses. But fundamentally, these days, I'm really happy with who I am … and indeed with who I'm not.
I didn't become Mr Perfect overnight and all my faults and all my failures and all my weaknesses didn't disappear in an instant, it's not how it works. It's a process, you know I was this tough, hard-nosed, brutal businessman and when you're that it takes time to develop compassion and to learn to forgive and to understand other people, that didn't happen overnight but the thing that happened for me though, I knew God accepted me just as I was and that even though I could see all the things I'd done wrong, that I was completely forgiven. He came to me and said, "Now, that you have a new beginning let me help you to change."
That's the thing, I thought if God sees me that way maybe it's time for me to see me that way and still today there are some things that I'm really good at and others that I'm just not and I may never be. Some of the things that come naturally to you, I'll never be able to do it's unconditional love that brought me to a point with all my heart, I'm delighted to be who I am. I often say to my wife, Jacqui, "I'm so glad I'm me, I never want to be anyone else." That is a gift from God because I never liked me before.
Let me get in your face and ask you a question, is it time for you to ask yourself do I see myself the way God does? Do I love me in the right way, not proud and arrogant but in a humble delight in who he made me to be? Because how can you and I possibly ever be the me we were meant to be and live the life we were created to live, if we don't like who we are.
When we compare ourselves to other people and think – Wow, I wish I was like him, or I wish I was like her … we're completely missing the point. Completely. I will never be a basketball player, because I'm too short. I will never be a surgeon, because I don't have the skill in my hands. I will never be a pop star, because I can't sing. But what I can be, is the best me that I can possibly be.
And you know something – that's just fine with me.
And the reason it's fine with me is that I was handcrafted by God and the love that He's shown me is the unconditional love of Jesus … Jesus His one and only Son, who died so that I might be forgiven.
We can't truly be happy with who we are, until we know beyond any shadow of doubt that Jesus died to pay for all our shortcomings and failings and because the price is fully paid, we can now stand before God completely forgiven, completely whole, completely loved. And if you've ever stood in that place – with your faith in Jesus … Jesus alone – you will know that the acceptance of God is what makes you whole. The love and acceptance of God – is what sets us free to see ourselves through His eyes.
Lord God, you created our innermost being, you knit us together in our mother's womb, we praise you 'cause we are fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are so wonderful. We weren't hidden from you when we were made in that secret place, when we were woven together in the depths of the earth; your eyes saw our unformed substance. All the days ordained for us, they were already written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious are your thoughts O God, how vast is the sum of them.
Father, we just want to pray right now and say that we need to know how much you love us. We want to see ourselves through your eyes because as we put our faith in Jesus Christ dear God we believe that he died to pay for our sin on that cross and that he rose again and so we put our faith in him and we know that we are whole and clean and pure and perfect in your sight 'cause that's what Jesus purchased for us on the cross. Father, we pray that you would make each one of us so delighted with who we are because that's what you chose us to be and Lord, we know we're making mistakes and we know that we need your help in those mistakes but right now Father God, by the gift of the cross, would make us just so delighted with who you have made us to be. In Jesus' name.  Amen

Everyone and everything seems to want to tell us who we should be and how we should live.  It's like the world is trying to squeeze us into its mould.  The problem is – we don't fit.
It never ceases to amaze me how the rest of the world wants to kind of squeeze us into its own mould. It tells us that we'll only be happy if we buy this particular product. We're only really right if we agree with the things that other people think. We're only really valuable if we're wealthy and attractive. We've only really succeeded if we have all those things that everybody else wants, but never really makes them happy.
Have you ever tried to put on someone else's prescription glasses? It just doesn't work does it? In fact it can end up making you feel sick and dizzy, because those glasses weren't made for you, they were made for someone else and that someone else is different to you. And have you ever tried on someone else's clothes? You know someone else who is obviously quite a different shape to you. Well they're not going to fit too well are they? Have you ever tried to do someone else's job, I mean, someone who has quite different skills to you? Well we're not going to be able to do too well at that are we? So why is it that the world wants to keep squeezing us into its mold, remaking us in its image instead of letting us, encouraging us to be who we are? Blind Freddy can see it just ain't going to work.
Last week and this week on the program we're chatting about "Discovering Your Destiny". And it's pretty obvious that you and I are not going to fulfil our destinies, if we keep trying to dance to someone else's tune. Pretty obvious isn't it? So why is it that so many of us care so much about what other people think? Why is it that so many of us keep wanting to please others to the point where their expectations rob us of our identity and our destiny?
When I was growing up, I always felt so different. I was never any good at sport, running and jumping and ball co-ordination, it's just not me and yet I grew up in Australia which is a sports mad society where we idolise and worship our sports superstars. The teachers and the other kids made me feel like a complete failure. On top of that I have a very high IQ; I mean I'm academically very strong. Other kids may not have been, so they'd ridiculed me for being a geek. I was a veracious learner, I love learning. Imagine how the other kids reacted to that, particularly since I was no good at sport. Instead I was a musician, give me a piano and I can make it sing, I love playing but you couldn't get any farther away from sport so that made things even worse.
Now I can see what was going on – the world was trying to squeeze me into its mould, instead of encouraging me to be who I was meant to be. So I grew up with this really uncomfortable feeling that I just didn't fit, I was different and you know we all like to fit in, we all like to be liked especially when we're young.
That's my story and I'm sure you have your own story and my hunch is, to a greater or lesser degree, we all have this sense that somehow we don't quite fit and when we don't fit, the world tells us, 'you're no good, you don't measure up. There must be something wrong with you,' and we carry around this burden. Some people carry it round all their lives.
Low self-esteem is going around in plague proportions and this is what it's all about, "I don't fit". Have you ever asked yourself, what exactly you don't fit into?' Here it is – you don't fit into someone else's mould, into what other people say or think you should be, what perhaps you think you should be when you look at all those beautiful people whose whole persona seems to scream out at you, "you should be like me."
I don't know what it is but we all want people to be like us, to have the same outlook, to agree with us, to behave in the same way. Wouldn't life be a whole lot easier if we were all the same? You are it would – but imagine how boring this world would be if everyone was like me, or everyone was like you.. The Apostle Paul knew that a couple of thousand years ago. Here's what he writes in the book of Romans Chapter 12 in the New Testament:
Look, don't go conforming to the pattern of this world. In other words don't let the world squeeze you into it's mould but instead be transformed by the renewing of your mind, then you'll be able to know what God's will is and agree with him, his good and pleasing and perfect will. People often want us to say and be and think and behave and live according to some set of standards or rules that they've come up with. Expectations that people have dreamt up and Paul says, 'NO, don't go there, don't let the world stuff you into its mould because you are never going to fit – do you get it?"
Last week and I'll just like to read a small part of it again, we looked at Psalm 139. It says this:
God you created my innermost being; you kind of knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are so wonderful. I wasn't hidden from you when I was made in that secret place; when I was woven together in the depths of the earth; your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before even one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts O God. How vast is the sum of them.
You and I weren't made to be stuffed into someone else's mould, particularly not the world's mould, particularly not some of the bizarre, horrible things the world comes up with, this whole 'do whatever you like and it doesn't matter. You and I were made in a certain way, we're unique, we're different – that's how it was always meant to be.
And so I want to encourage you not to be afraid of being you – did you know that you're the best you that there is on this planet. No one else can be you. Enjoy who you are, do the things that you're good at – and when the world tells you you don't quite fit in – it's time to smile to yourself inwardly and whisper … that's because I'm me. I'm being the me I was always meant to be. I'm living the life I was made to live.
Pretty good thing that because who you are is God's choice and that's a wonderful thing. It's His sovereign choice that he made you who you are and you know how silly it is for you and me to look at each other and compare ourselves. For me to look at a man who wrote to me from Tauranga in New Zealand – he makes furniture in his shed when I can't even nail two pieces of wood together straight – and say, "I am worthless because I can't make furniture." Well he probably can't do what I do either. I'd love to be able to make furniture but you know something, I just can't.
We need to come to a point in our lives where we stop pleasing other people, I don't mean be belligerent, I don't mean be a deliberate misfit … but stop dancing to other people's tunes, to stop thinking that meeting their expectations is the most important thing. Stop living to please other people. You know it's okay for that man to love building furniture in his back shed, it's okay for you to love doing the things you do because you can and you enjoy them, it's okay for us to want to follow in Jesus' footsteps rather than being squeezed into the world's mould I'm talking about a quiet contentment that says, "you know something, I know who God made me to be and I'm comfortable with that."
Are you trying to please the world? Are you trying to please a whole bunch of other people? Are you trying to live up to some image that someone else has created for you? Or do you want to please God? Do you want to have a life of pleasing Him?
IF you let the world stuff you into the mold they made for you – know this – it's never going to feel comfortable because you're never going to be able to fit in it.

Truth: We can't change the past. We may well want to, but we can't and yet, it's amazing how many people are gripped by the hurts and failures from their past.  Jesus came to set us free – maybe it's time for you to break with the power of the past.
The bad things that happened to us in the past have an incredible ability to destroy our lives.  As I just said – it's a two-part destruction, because those past ruin our today's and rob us of our tomorrows. So we can't enjoy today … and we can't look forward to tomorrow. Do you see the tragedy of that?
And the past is a funny thing, because it's actually gone. We can never turn back time. We can never change what's been done. We can never unsay something that we regret having said, or undo something we regret having done … so in one sense we have no control over the past. But here's the scary thing - the things of the past end up controlling so many people. Stand back from that, think about that for a moment, and it just doesn't make any sense that something that's gone, something that can't be redone or undone, should have such a devastating effect.
But you see it over and over again in peoples' lives.  The mistakes our parents made can end up being imprinted on our characters. The abuse that some people have suffered, the rejection, the hurts, the ridicule … all those things can limit us by stunting our growth. And try we will, too often we just can't shake them off and so  … they end up ruining our today's and robbing us of our tomorrows.
Fortunately though, God has a plan, God wants us to be the person he meant us to be and HE wants us to live the lives that He always planned for us to live.
We're talking this week on the program about Discovering Your Destiny. Hmm – it's easy to react by saying … "Well, yeah but what does that mean? I look at my life and any notion that there might be a God out there who wants to bless me and set me free and give me a great life – no, that's crazy!  That's just no possible."
I've often shared my own stories on the program because I'm not speaking here out of some dry text book, I'm speaking out of a transformed life. I am being the me I was meant to be. I am living the life I was always meant to be living.  But you know, it wasn't always like that.
Anyway, today I'd like to share someone else's story, a woman who was caught in adultery with a man, a man who wasn't her husband - at a time when that sort of thing carried some incredibly severe penalties in 1st century Israel. We fine her story in John's Gospel, Chapter 8 if you'd like to have a read later. Here's what it says:
Jesus went up to the Mount of Olives. At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts; where all the people gathered around him and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the Law and the Pharisees brought up a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. The Law of Moses commands us to stone such a woman to death, now what do you say?" They were using this question as a trap in order to have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus; Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her."
Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away, one at a time, the older ones first until only Jesus was left with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and said, "Woman, where are they? Has no one stayed to condemn you?" "No one sir." She answered, "Then neither do I condemn you." Jesus declared, "Go now and leave your life of sin."
This is one of the most powerful stories in the New Testament for me because Jesus is literally putting himself between this woman and the angry mob. They were doing this to trap Jesus because Roman law and Jewish law were in conflict. Jewish law said you should stone a woman to death. Roman law said you can only kill someone if the Roman Governor said you could. So whichever way Jesus answered, they thought they had him. If he answered, "Don't stone her," he was disobeying Moses' Law, the Jewish law and if he said, "Do stone her," then he was disobeying Roman law.
Let's put ourselves for a moment in the woman's shoes. Adultery is a bit of an old-fashioned word these days; people seem to do as they please. Affairs are common, almost acceptable, but they still tear marriages apart, they still tear people's lives apart, they still cause untold pain.
So here's this woman, caught in the deed, but where's the man? Who knows? She was just the one who the religious leaders were trying to trap and accuse Jesus. And there must have been incredibly deep shame because this was in the first century, this was in a society where you got stoned to death for doing something like this. She knew she'd done wrong; so here she was in front of an angry mob, with something from her past that was certainly ruining her today and could well have robbed her of all her tomorrows. Stonings have a way of doing that I guess.
But the bit ... the bit that I want you to notice here is Jesus' reaction. He makes the point that we all have things in the past like that – every person in that crowd had them, and each one of us today still have them. That immediately took away their right to accuse her – one by one the angry mob disperses until it's just the woman … and Jesus. And then he sets about giving her back her life. It's as though with one fell swoop He saves her, He forgives her and He gives her not only her today back, but her whole future back.
Friend we all … all of us … have things in our past that could take away our happiness for today and our hope for tomorrow, but the past is the past. It's gone. And whatever hurts you're carrying around with you – are as painful to you as the stones in the hands of the angry mob would have been to that woman.
It's time to let them go. It's time to lay them down. It's time to live for today and look forward to tomorrow.
This seems like an absolutely impossible situation – this terrible position that this woman found herself in – through her own actions on this occasion. It would have seemed completely impossible to her, but right in the middle of her impossible, is God's very own "everything is possible" – His name is Jesus.  Jesus is setting her free to go and be the person she was meant to be, and live out the life she was meant to live.
In our lives sometimes, the things of the past seem absolutely impossible to resolve. And people will come and condemn us and criticise us and the devil will come sit on our shoulders and condemn us and say, "See, you're not good enough to be a Christian, you're not good enough to believe in Jesus, you're not good enough for this, that and the other."
We know the failures of our past and somehow they can grip us like an angry mob and we can think of God as a god of judgement and He is. But Jesus ended up going to the cross for her and for you and for me and he stands up and says, "You know something, I want to set you free from your past so that you can go on and be the person I meant you to be." 2 Cor 5:17 says this:
If anyone is in Christ Jesus they are a new creation. Old things have passed away and behold all things are new.
On the cross of Christ the demands of God's justice were met and that's why Jesus Christ can come into your life and into my life and say, "You are set free from the power of the past." He handcrafted you and me to be a person whom he meant to be, everything we are he planned before time began and so when our past comes along to condemn us, when the chains of our past want to lock up our hearts, Jesus comes and puts himself on that cross to set you and me free from the power of the past. Do you believe in Jesus? Then you are a new creation, the old things have passed away and behold all things are new.

I remember how hard it was for me to give up smoking all those years ago.  And in the same way, giving up other bad things in our lives can be hard.  Do I or don't I? And if I do – how do I give them up?
I remember how hard it was for me to give up smoking. I was sharing with a couple of builders who were smoking outside my house the other day. I used to smoke three packets a day, that's seventy five cigarettes every day, I mean I was so super addicted I'd be sitting at my desk and light up one cigarette before I'd finished the last one.
What did it for me was when I was with someone when they died of lung cancer. I watched them breathe their last breath and when I walked out of that hospital room, just over thirty years ago now, I threw my packet of cigarettes in the bin and I haven't smoked one cigarette since that time.
But it wasn't easy. It was a day by day proposition, a craving by craving proposition. Letting go of that habit actually took years and can I tell you there are still some days today when I feel I could smoke a cigarette but I figure I can go just one more day. Giving up bad things can be really, really hard.
This week and in fact over the next few weeks we're going through a little series that I've called Discover Your Destiny. And over the week I guess we've looked at the fact that if indeed we're made in God's image and if He actually does have the most amazing plan for our lives and yet when we follow our plans instead of His plans somehow it ends up being hollow and empty.
Now I've heard people protest and say that's not the case, "I'm a happy atheist" for instance. But one by one we all eventually come to that conclusion that there's got to be something more. Am I really being the "me" I was meant to be? You know you have this sense of a destiny and somehow you're not quite living that destiny out yet.
Yesterday we chatted about how when we go our own way, when we leave the me, me, me, anything goes philosophy we end up facing a dilemma. On the one hand we generally come to the conclusion that it's not working, I did it in my life, I'm a pretty smart guy, I'm also short so there's no pride in that. I just happen to be a very intelligent person and I had everything going for me but it wasn't working on the inside and we know when it's not working.
So on the one side we want to go our own way and it's not working and on the other sometimes we believe in God, we want to have a relationship with Him, a relationship that's awesome and amazing and fulfilling and exciting and tender and wonderful but we know there are some things in life that He's going to want us to give up.
With me it was my ego. It was huge. I'd speak at conferences all around the world in the IT industry and I was, frankly, full of myself and had an ego the size of a small planet. Then I read the bit in the Bible that says:
God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.
Gulp, looks like He wants me to do something with my pride. So there was a crunch time for me there, there always is, there's always one or two things. Often that's all there is that we really need to give up and there are inevitably things that are so important to us that we want to hang on to them for dear life or for grim death because they're bad for us, they poison our lives.
When you have a strong pride addiction, a pride that dominates who you are, you can't have close relationships. Pride is always worrying about how other people see you and you never have any peace. Life's always a competition to be the best, it's one-upmanship, but I knew I had to give it up and it was just like giving up smoking. There were two parts.
The first part was that deep down decision, throwing the pack of cigarettes in the bin. You see you can't be double minded, you can't have your cake and eat it too, you can't be a smoker and a non-smoker at the same time. And the second part was actually living that out day after day.
So what is it with you? What's the sin? I hope you don't mind me using that word but it will do, we all have a sense of what it means. What's the sin that's robbing you of your identity, the sin that's robbing you of your destiny and is it really worth it?
Maybe it's anger. That's a powerful one. Some people are always angry with the world. Or maybe you're cheating on your wife or your husband. Perhaps you're being dishonest at work. Maybe you're selfish, only interested in yourself and not anyone else. Perhaps you have someone poor or needy close to you and you don't reach out to help them. Maybe you're busy playing politics, undermining people behind their back. Playing the game just so you can win instead of for the good of others.
We don't have enough time in the day to go through them all but there's always something isn't there? And here's what I believe, in fact here's what I know, because I learned it the hard way: that something is going to rob you of your destiny, the amazing future God has planned for you. That's a tragedy.
Can I ask you to think right now, what's the one thing, the one sin that's robbing you of your destiny? Just think and know it in your mind and look at it and turn it over and over, that one thing, your something. Now let me ask you two questions about it.
Firstly are you proud of it or do you hide it? The chances are you hide it. That's what we inevitably do when we know what we're doing is wrong. And secondly what benefit is it to you? That very same question that the Apostle Paul asked in the New Testament, Romans chapter 6, verse 21:
So what advantage do you actually get then from those things of which you are now ashamed? The end of those things is death.
The key to letting that one thing, your something, your sin, go is realising it's just not good for you, it's not good for those whom you love and it's robbing you of your destiny. Your destiny to be who you were always meant to be; your destiny to have a powerful positive impact in this world, to leave behind a living legacy – a legacy that outlives you by generations, a legacy of good.
Remember you can't be a smoker and a non-smoker at the same time. You can't have your cake and eat it as well. You can't hang on to sin and fulfil your destiny, you just can't.
Deciding to make the change, deciding to let go of your something – only you can decide that. I can encourage you but you have to decide. I can put things right before you but only you can decide to do something about it.
See some people want God on their own terms, well you know I'm living with my girlfriend or my boyfriend, that's the way things are and if God wants me He just has to accept that. Well you know, it doesn't work that way. We can't remake God in our image, it's exactly the opposite, God said:
Let us make man in our image, in our likeness and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and the livestock, over everything on the earth. So God created us in his image, in the image of God he created us, male and female he created us.
Letting go of sin is hard but when we live through that, every craving, every urge, every disappointment, just to try and honour God, just to be true to our identity, He blesses it because the sin thing robs us of life, life itself and when we finally put God at the top of the heap with all our hearts, with every fibre of our beings then doors open, our identity comes forward, our destiny is open to us.
When we put our trust in Jesus alone we're embarking on a journey, it's not going to be easy, a journey that's going to have trials and temptations and some days we're going to make mistakes and fail, we have to get up again and brush ourselves off and keep on going.
But you know something, when we commit to that journey with Jesus and when we understand that we have to work through the issues in our lives, failure by failure, craving by craving, temptation by temptation, day by day, week by week, month by month, all of a sudden what happens and this is what I experienced, this is what so many others have experienced.
When we go through that after months and years you look back and you think, "You know something I'm the person that God meant me to be, this is the direction I meant to be headed in, my life's going the right way, I'm doing things I'm meant to do, this is my destiny."
Are you being the person God meant you to be? Have you made Jesus Christ the Lord of your life?

Let's say that God has a plan for each one of us.  For our lives.  Now – is that a good thing or a bad thing?  Maybe He has a good plan.  But – what if we don't like that plan?  Does it become a straitjacket?
Over the years something I've thought a lot about is whether the idea of that this God I happen to believe in has a plan for my life is a good thing or a bad thing. I mean on the one hand the idea that a good God could have a good plan for my life, sounds pretty good. On the other, well what if I don't like the plan? I mean what if I want to make some changes or go my own way?
Is the whole idea of God having a plan for our lives an awesome thing or is it a crutch or worse still, is it a straight jacket? Well today on the program this is kind of what we're going to explore and take a look at it from a different perspective, maybe from God's perspective and then it's up to each one of us to make up our own mind.
Remember that old Frank Sinatra song "I Did It My Way"? There was a time in the 1970's I think that on every talent show on television some man and it was always a man would get up and sing it:
I Did It My Way
And now the end is near
and so I face the final curtain,
my friend I'll say it clear,
I'll state my case of which I'm certain.
I've lived a life that's full,
I've travelled each and every highway
and more, much more than this
I did it my way.
Ha, I don't know about your experiences in life but I've got to tell you I tried doing it my way and as we talked earlier this week on the program what I discovered was it didn't work so well. You know what; I suspect that God actually designed it to be that way.
The other day we took a look at Psalm 139 and we actually looked at the second half but I'd like to begin with the first half of that Psalm so have a listen. It says:
Lord you've searched me and you know me really well. You know when I sit down and when I stand up. You know what I'm thinking from a long way off. You see my going in and lying down, you're familiar with all my ways but even before a word is on my tongue you know it completely Lord."
You hem me in, behind me, before me. You've laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty to attain. Where can I go from your spirit, where can I flee from your presence? If I go to heaven you are there, if I make my bed in the depths you're there as well. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the farthest side of the sea even there your hand will guide me and your right hand will hold me fast."
If I say 'surely the darkness will hide me and the light with become night around me' even the darkness won't be dark to you. The night will shine like the day because darkness is as light to you.
That's profound. You know what David's saying here, (it's King David who wrote this Psalm) he's saying that God is on this journey with us. We can't flee, wrestle, fight and run, we can do what we like but He is on our journey with us.
One of the things I wrestled with in the early days was Christian jargon. "Sin" was one of them, "repent" was another. I must have seen an old western movie, black and white, when I was a kid – I remember some fire and brimstone preacher on one of those covered wagons standing up and yelling, "Repent!" and I thought "Oh yuck".
But as I come to grips with that concept this is what ended up meaning to me, admitting somehow that my way and my choices, as good as they seemed at the time, ended up being hollow. Admitting somehow that my way was empty.
I remember buying this really expensive, I mean really expensive huge car years ago. It had everything, it had this beautiful burgundy duco, this lustre, it had a lovely shape that used to turn heads. It had four wheel steering. You know at low speed the front and the back wheels were turning in the opposite direction and you could pivot this car like on a pinhead.
And the smell, ah the new car smell of leather, the look of the dashboard, it was awesome and you know I remember sitting inside this car which cost me a bomb and looking at it and smelling that new leather smell and somehow that thing that I wanted to be a real joy to me was empty and hollow and I had to come to grips that my way wasn't working for me.
Repenting meant admitting that. Turning and saying, "You know something God, I'm done trying my way. I want to get with your plan. I know that there are some things that I'll have to give up, I know that." But you know there are actually very few things and they're really the rubbish things, the pride, the selfishness, the back-stabbing, the greed.
It meant putting Him in the driver's seat and when I started doing that day after day you know what happened, I'll tell you just how it happened. I had this growing sense that I was becoming the me I was meant to be, that I was living the life I was made to live because my frame wasn't hidden from Him when I was made in secret, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
His eyes saw my unformed substance. All the days ordained for me were written in His book before even one of them came into being. And so now I can say, "how precious to me are your thoughts O God, how vast is the sum of them."
That turning point, coming to that decision, coming to that conclusion in life no matter where we're at, no matter what we say we believe, can be a very hard thing because it's just not a single turning point, it's then living that new decision out in life, living out the decision to have God as our Lord, as our number one, that can be hard.
But if we're going to be the person God meant us to be that's where it's at and so tomorrow on the program we'll look at what it means actually to live that out.
Some people believe in this God, others don't, that's okay, that's the way things are but we know when we're headed down the wrong path, we know when our thoughts and our emotions and our behaviours are being destructive and robbing us of the destiny that lies ahead of each one of us.
At some point, come on, at some point we need to wake up and say, enough is enough; this is not working for me anymore. It doesn't matter how hard I try, how much money I spend, how much I try and fill myself, it is not working, I can't keep living this way because if I do one day it will all be over and I'll have missed out on my destiny. So let me ask you, are you at that point in your life?
Yesterday on the program we looked at the fact that we really are made in the image of God, we're made to have a relationship with Him. I think there's something inside each one of us that God would enliven to get us to reach out to Him. It's like a marriage in a sense, I mean I was made to have a wife; I'm just not one to be on my own. I enjoy my own space sure but I'm not one to be single.
Now I'm married to Jacqui, she's the most wonderful wife and I enjoy my marriage but there's a cost to marriage. You have to lay things down; you have to be prepared to sacrifice certain things in order to have a great relationship, husband and wife. The Bible talks about becoming one flesh, that's great but the becoming bit, coming to grips in being a team rather than just someone on your own is sacrificial.
Some days, you know, it hurts but somehow even though I'm an individual there's something that makes me complete in my soul through my marriage relationship with Jacqui my wife. It's how God made me and when it comes to God I don't think I can be the me that I was meant to be or live out the destiny for my life unless in the same way I have a close and dynamic relationship with Him.
Lord knows I spent thirty-six long years trying. Money and recognition and career, had it all and I did it my way but there came a time when I had to admit that my way was empty, that I needed more, I needed Him and you know something, He knows that because He knows us.
God is the only person or thing that I've ever discovered that makes me whole. Without Him there's a massive cavernous God sized hole inside me somewhere and without Him I can't be the 'me' I was meant to be. Because I'm made in His image, I can't live out the days He planned for me because I'm certain; absolutely certain that He planned me to spend those days with Him. How about you?