A Different Perspective Official Podcast

You know, it can sometimes be easier to believe in eternal life, than the fact that God wants to give us a rich, abundant life here and now.  What do you think?
It's great to be with you again this week and we continue on with a series that I've called, "Discover Your Destiny". Can I ask you something? Are you really living life to the full? I mean really. So many people are struggling to discover their destiny and okay, maybe life's chugging along okay but we all have a sense that, well somehow I have a destiny, a life I'm supposed to live, a "me" I'm meant to be.
Now I don't apologise for the fact that over the last couple of weeks we've been unpacking that from A Different Perspective, from God's perspective. I just passionately believe that He so wants each one of us to discover when we have a relationship with Him, a real relationship you know, that all of a sudden we can be the "me" we were meant to be. To, in a sense, die to the old me and rise as a new one.
Now I love how Jesus tackled that when his good friend Lazarus upped and died on him. It's a powerful story the story of Lazarus. It's about a real man who died and whom Jesus bought back to life again. Now there's something in that story, I always like to look at what Jesus did and say, "What does it tell me about Him? What does it tell me about God? What does it tell me about God's attitude?" And it does tell us what he means for us here and now today.
For me the story of Lazarus has had a powerful impact on my life, day to day. Now there are two parts to the story, we'll look at the first half today and the next one tomorrow on the program. So let's have a bit of a read, if you have a Bible you can grab it. John, chapter 11 is where you'll find this story:
Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Now this Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who previously poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair. So the sister sent word to Jesus, "Lord, the one you love, Lazarus, is sick."
When he heard this Jesus said, "The sickness won't end in death. No, it's for Gods glory so that Gods Son might be glorified through it." Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick he stayed where he was for two more days then he said to his disciples, "Well okay, let's get up and go to Judea."
"But Jesus," they said, "A short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you and yet you're going back." And Jesus answered, "Aren't there twelve hours of daylight in a day? A man who walks by day won't stumble for he sees the worlds light; it's when he walks by night that he stumbles for he has no light."
After he said this he went on to tell them, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep but I'm going there to wake him up again." Now his disciples replied, "Lord, if he sleeps he'll get better." Jesus had been speaking of his death but the disciples thought he meant that Lazarus was just asleep. So then he told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead and for your sake I'm glad I wasn't there so that you may believe but let us go to him."
An interesting story, Lazarus a good mate of Jesus is dying. Jesus could have prevented it, he could have gone there and healed Lazarus, I mean that's why they sent for him, everyone had seen Jesus do this healing stuff but he didn't go because God was going to use this to make a point, a point I think at a couple of levels. The first level is purely to attest to who Jesus is, the power of Jesus because as we'll see tomorrow, ultimately Jesus brings Lazarus back to life again but I think there's a second point, a deeper point, a point that speaks to you and me, here and now. That God is in the business of bringing the dead back to life.
The last couple of weeks we've dealt with an issue that, well so many of us don't really want to deal with head on – sin. I mean in our society sin is a four-letter word. The stuff in our lives we know is wrong that robs us of life itself. When I look back on my life as a wealthy, apparently successful businessman, on the outside people envied me, I seemed to have it all together, I seemed to have it all but on the inside I was dying, I was dead and empty and hollow just like a shell, truly. I described myself as a dead man walking.
You know something, doesn't matter how much we deny it or try and put a respectable face to it or sell it as a feature of our freedom to do whatever we want. Sin does that to all of us, it makes us dead inside and that's how God sees us, that's how we are until we encounter this Jesus. At this point someone might be saying, 'come on Berni, what an old-fashioned point of view.' If you're in that camp I encourage you to do something, take a look, a good hard look at the way that you're living your life and ask yourself, am I being the me I was meant to be?
God lets us go through this death that sin is, God lets us be that 'dead man walking' for a reason. It's the same as with Lazarus, Jesus waited for him to die before bringing him back to life again. God wanted to make a point that he is in the new life business and it's a miracle and he needed to make the point because sometimes we just don't get it, I didn't and nor did Lazarus' sisters. Let's take a look:
On his arrival Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Bethany was only two miles from Jerusalem and many Jews came to Mary and Martha to comfort them. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming she went out to meet him and Mary stayed at home. "Lord", Martha said to him, "If you'd been here, if you'd only been here earlier Lazarus wouldn't have died". And Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again". And Martha answered, "I know he will rise again in the resurrection on that last day". Jesus said to her, "I'm the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will live even though he dies and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this? And she said, "Yes Lord. I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God who has come into the world."
And after she had said this she went back and called her sister Mary. "The teacher Jesus is here". She said, "He's asking for you". When Mary heard this she quickly got up and went out to him. Now Jesus had not yet entered their village but was still in the place out where Martha and he had met. When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house comforting her noticed how quickly she got up and went out they followed her thinking that she was going to the tomb to mourn there for Lazarus.
When Mary reached Jesus and saw him she fell at his feet and said, "Lord, if only you had been here my brother wouldn't have died." And when Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come along, also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and troubled. "Where have you laid him?" "Come and see Lord." And Jesus wept. Then the Jews said, "See Jesus loved Lazarus." But some of them said, "Couldn't he who opened the eyes of the blind have come and kept this man from dying."
Nobody was expecting Jesus to come along and raise Lazarus from the dead, they were all regretting the fact that Jesus didn't get there earlier to heal him. They'd seen Jesus do healing stuff; they'd never seen Jesus bring a man back to life. The sisters knew Jesus, they'd seen the miracles, they couldn't imagine how here and now, Jesus could bring their brother back to life and isn't that sometimes the way with us.
We look at our lives and we see how dead things are inside and we look at God and say, "God, why didn't you show up earlier? Why did you let me marry this person? Why did you let this happen to my child? Why couldn't you have been there and stopped it from happening? And we can't imagine how God could breathe new life into that situation.
We can believe he could have done something back there, we can believe that one day we will rise again and have eternal life but it can be so hard to believe that Jesus could come and bring a new life today. Let me ask you, what do you believe?

I passionately believe that God has the most amazing plan for your life and mine.  In His heart He conceived us and with His hands – He made us who we are. And He wants us to be the person He made us to be.
Over these last couple of weeks on the program we've just been spending some time discovering your destiny. Survey after survey tells us that 75% of people don't enjoy their work. I wonder how many of those are trying to do a job they just weren't cut out to do, it's just not them.
And yet it's not hard to see how different we each are.  Some people are great working with children for instance. Me? That would drive me crazy – all that noise and running around.  No.  Not me.  Other people are great with their hands – they seem to be able to turn all these pieces of wood into a house somehow – I wouldn't know where to begin.
Some people are great at sports and athletics – hmmm I love to stay fit, but I can't throw and catch and kick all that well. It's as plain as the nose on your face and mine that people are all made to be different. And what is such a tragedy – we've talked a little bit about this already so far this week – is people trying to do things that they're just not cut out to do.
A child at school who is great at creative writing – but terrible at mathematics.  So – what do we do? We make them work harder at their mathematics, instead of encouraging them to go with the creative writing thing that we're good at. Of course, we all have to do a few things that we're not good at from time to time, but if we end up majoring in those things, it's a disaster.  When I left school I was accepted into a medicine degree – I would have made a terrible doctor, and a law degree – and same with being a lawyer because the law is all about detail and I'm not into detail.
So – pardon me for saying so, but blind Freddie can see that we have all been made differently.  I'm a fairly unemotional person – it's not that I don't care about people. I do, deeply, I'm just not an emotional person.  I'm not into hugs and kisses from people the way others are.  I don't tend to feel other people's pain, instead I want to do things that help them not feel the pain.  That's how I'm wired.  And it took me a long time – a very long time – to get comfortable inside my skin, to get comfortable with who I am, and stop trying to be like other people are.
I think it was Oscar Wilde who said – Be yourself, Everybody else is already taken.  Pretty good thought that.
Okay baby is born right, what does it grow up to be? It grows into who it already is, let me explain. A little baby gets born, it can't even go to the toilet on its own, it can't feed itself, it can't protect itself – in fact it can't do anything pretty much except eat, sleep, scream and dirty it's nappy. So …is it any less a human being than you and me? Well, no of course not, this little bubs is just in an early stage of life and just like we all did, it goes through all stages. It begins to recognise and smile at its parents and the psyche develops and it grows an awareness and it crawls and walks and it becomes a toddler and it goes to school and becomes a teenager and then an adult, it's a natural progression.
What is it that influences who that little baby becomes when it grows up? Well two things, firstly its natural disposition, its abilities, who God made that child to be and secondly, the things that happen along the way. Now some of those things along the way are positive, some of those things like the good parents who love you and good teachers at school. Those things develop the child's natural abilities, but some of the things that happen rob the person, rob the child, give it a wrong impression of itself.
You see bad things will always happen to good people, they do, they always have and they always will. But if we know who we are and if we let God into our lives to be with us, to develop us, to care for us, to nurture us, those bad things instead of robbing us end up enhancing our characters. The negatives get turned into a positive. The problem is so many people never get with God's plan for who they are.
For years I tried to be all things to all people, I set myself up to be this and set myself up to be that because I thought it would make me look important and good. But it wasn't until I got with God's plan and started seeing myself the way he sees me that I really started being the me I was meant to be. God made me to be doing what I'm doing right now spending this time with you. I'm never as happy and as fulfilled as when I'm sitting here with you.
A friend of mine, a Pastor, once said to me, "You know Berni, you should be more pastoral than that." In other words, you should be around lots more people and you should do this and you should do that and you should be this. And I love people but think about it, much of what I do is I prepare these programs alone and then I come into a studio basically alone.
Okay millions of people are listening around the world but they're not in this room with me right now. If God made me to be someone who needed to be around a lot of people, don't you think I'd get awfully lonely doing what I do? He didn't so I don't.
Who are you? Who did God make you to be? Maybe you're just one of those people who loves entertaining and having a house full of people over all the time. That's a gift, go and be that person, go and grow into that, go and love it and enjoy it and be the person who God meant you to be. Maybe, maybe you're a quiet, backroom kind of person who does things, book keeping or cleaning or cooking and you know, when you're doing those things you feel so fulfilled, can I tell you something?
Go for it, if that's what God made you to be, don't compare with other people, grow in that, develop that, be delighted with who God made you. When we compare ourselves with others, we aspire to be someone who we aren't, who we were never made to be and come on – that's just plain crazy. I'm excited about who God's made me to be – and I focus on the things I'm really good at, try to grow in areas where I'm still a bit immature … and leave the stuff I'm not good at to other people – people who actually love doing those things because they're good at them.  It's not really that complicated, is it?
Eph 2:10 For we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do the good things that God prepared beforehand for us to walk into.
That's exactly what God's Word says – do the things that God prepared for you – not the things that other people want you to do.
God knows who we are, he made us and he made us to be the me we were meant to be. Right now in this instant, His heart and His eyes are on you and me and He knows who He made us to be and He is delighting in us. Wake up! It is time to stop trying to be someone else, it is time to stop trying to squeeze into the world's mould, into a shape that doesn't fit, into something that ultimately becomes a distressing straight jacket. He wants each one of us to be the person He meant us to be.
I am so excited because God has a plan, he has a plan for me, he has a plan for you. And we only discover who we're meant to be - it only happens when we get right up close to him, when we have a relationship with him through Jesus Christ. Jesus said, "I am the vine and you are the branches. Apart from me you can do nothing." And you know? You're going to grow different fruit to me 'cause that's how Jesus made us. And if you want to grow the fruit that you were meant to grow in your life, you need to get right up close with Him. His word and His Spirit in a rich and dynamic relationship that's so wondrous and so huge and so safe and secure and at the same time exciting, then and only then can we be the me we were meant to be.
I'd like to encourage you just right now, look at your life, are you being the me God made you to be? Because if you're not he wants to change that for you today. God wants you to get close to him so that you can live out the life he planned for you.

So many people compare themselves with others and come to the conclusion – Well, I'm not much good for anything.  But each one of us has a gift.  An ability.  Something that's just ….well, us!
Now I don't know if you've ever lived in a house where someone's learning the violin but those first few years were diabolical – the screeching and the out of tune, and its all so loud. It was just awful. Now Corrie became a great pianist and violinist but the first few years were ugly let me tell you. And of course my clarinet playing was just fabulous right from the beginning!!
The point is though when we first try something often we're not good at it. We have to persist for a while to discover whether it's our gig or not. But I wonder if that isn't why so many people are wandering around the world with this notion that they're not good at anything.
I think we all have a sense of wanting to fulfil our destiny, doing the things we're meant to do, achieving the things we're meant to achieve and being the person we're meant to be. But the more I talk to people the more I discover how many aren't happy with who they are. These two weeks, ten programs are not some kind of systematic ten steps to happiness thing, just some stories and some anecdotes and things to stimulate our thinking, get us with Gods' plan for who he made us to be.
I spent a good many years of my life comparing myself with other people, here's how it goes. You look at all the people you know and you pick all their good points up, 'he's athletic and good looking, and she's really intelligent, and he's caring, and she's so perceptive about people, boy he's got such great hand-eye co-ordination, that couple over there everyone seems to like them. He is such a good cook, she has her house so tidy, they have such well behaved kids.'
You see what's going on here, we construct some super human unreality which is a composite of the very best points of everyone we know and then when we don't live up to that, all of a sudden, 'Ah, I'm a failure'. Never mind that everybody we know is good a some things and not at others, never mind that each one of those people has weaknesses as well as strengths. We tend to construct an unrealistic image of who we should be and then we spend a lifetime, fuelled by the advertising industry - with all these images of success - we spend a lifetime trying to live up to something that no-one can ever be or live.
I wonder if we did a stock take of our strengths and weaknesses maybe sit down with a few people who really know us well whether we would look at that and go, "That's not a bad plus and minus ledger, you know, okay there are some things here I'm not very good at but actually there's one or two things here, oh, that's really my gig, that's my shtick, that's what I do."
I mean my strengths are, I have a high IQ it's just the way God made me, I'm a communicator and a story teller and I tend to handle conflict pretty well. I mean I spent 20 years as an objective advisor, as a consultant. I tend to be outcome focused so I deliver things on time. So I've got some things on the positive side of my ledger but I've got weaknesses too like I'm not good at a whole bunch of administrative detail. I'm not as perceptive about other people as I could be, and in my rush to deliver an outcome I can have a tendency to roll over the top of people. I'm not someone to have lots and lots of people around me all the time; I tend to feel crowded.
You see the picture? We're a bundle, a composite of assets and not liabilities, but things we may not be so good at. The thing that I've discovered is I need to play to my strengths and team up with people whose strengths plug the gaps of my weaknesses and vice versa. Not everyone else has my strengths, that's why I'm useful in a team. The Apostle Paul in Romans, chapter 12 wrote this he said:
"By the grace given to me let me say this to you, don't think of yourself more highly than you should but instead look at yourself with sober judgement in accordance with the measure of faith that God's given you. Just as each one of us has a body with many members these members don't all have the same function and so in Jesus, we who are many form one body, each member belongs to the other.
We have different gifts according to the grace given to us, if your gift is in prophesying, then do that in proportion with the faith that God has given you. If it's in serving then for goodness sake go and serve. If your gift is teaching go and teach. If your gift is encouragement go and encourage people, if it's contributing to the needs of others giving well for goodness sake give generously and if it's leadership then lead diligently and if it's showing mercy then go and do it cheerfully."
Isn't that beautiful? I love this passage and I come back to it often because what it says here in God's word, this is God talking to us, that's what I believe. It says 'look you can go and think of yourselves either too highly or too lowly'. There is nothing worse than when you see someone who aspires to doing something or being something and you look at them and think, 'it's just not them'.
If you could see me I'm 5 foot 9.5 right, 174 cm if you think in metric. I may want to be a basketball player, I don't, but if I did I could never be a basketball player, you know why? I'm too short and it doesn't matter how much I hope I could be a great basketball player, when you're up against 6.5 to 7 foot basketball players you're just not going to cut the mustard.
It is so sad to see people to aspire to something they just can't do. And one of the things I see a lot in what I do is a whole bunch of people aspire to be preachers because somehow they think, 'ooh, that's a really good up front thing to do.' Well actually it's a pretty hard gig and you should only do it if that's your calling and your gifting. Paul's saying here, "The body has many members; each one belongs to all the others."
When we get comfortable with our strengths and our weaknesses, with who we are, it is such an exciting thing because you know what? We're not threatened anymore, we're not touchy anymore, we can relax. We can enjoy the things that we're good at and let other people do the things we're not good at.
Now there are always going to be some things in our lives we have to do that we don't enjoy doing. For me in the ministry of Christianityworks there's the overall management, the finances and the administration and all those things that have to happen in order for these programs to come to you. Are those administrative things my first love? No, but I need to do them and one day we'll have someone else to run those for us, "But Berni what I really enjoy being is a mum. Just seeing my kids grow up, that's all." As though that's not one of the most important things on the planet, "Well Berni, you know I'm only an accountant." WHAT! That's fabulous, I could never be an accountant. We need accountants.
When we pick something up, a violin even and put it into God's hands, when we're being the me we're meant to be it is just the most awesome thing and so many people spend their lives doing jobs, aspiring to things that they just aren't. I'm not saying set low standards, I'm not saying don't aim high, I'm someone who always aims high, always think big but you know I don't think big about being a basketball player. What I think big about is doing the things that God made me to do and when we persist and get good at them, it's so wonderful to be the 'me' we were meant to be. Not someone else's 'me' but my 'me' and your 'me'.
©

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.